Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
Yesterday's Reuters headline: "The Vatican on Tuesday said Christian denominations outside the Roman Catholic Church were not full churches of Jesus Christ." The actual proclamation, posted on the official Vatican Web site, says that Protestant Churches are really "ecclesial communities" rather than Churches, because they lack apostolic succession, and therefore they "have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery." Furthermore, not even the Eastern Orthodox Churches are real Churches, even though they were explicitly referred to as such in the Vatican document Unitatis Redintegratio (Decree on Ecumenism). The new document explains that they were only called Churches because "the Council wanted to adopt the traditional use of the term." This new clarification, issued officially by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but in fact strongly supported by Pope Benedict XVI, manages to insult both Protestants and the Orthodox, and it may set ecumenism back a hundred years.
The new document, officially entitled "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church," claims that the positions it takes do not reverse the intent of various Vatican II documents, especially Unitatis Redintegratio, but merely clarify them. In support of this contention, it cites other documents, all issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973), Communionis notio (1992), and Dominus Iesus (2000). The last two of these documents were issued while the current pope, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was prefect of the Congregation. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was born in 1542 with the name Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition, and for centuries it has operated as an extremely conservative force with the Roman Catholic Church, opposing innovation and modernizing tendencies, suppressing dissent, and sometimes, in its first few centuries, persecuting those who believed differently. More recently, the congregation has engaged in the suppression of some of Catholicism's most innovative and committed thinkers, such as Yves Congar, Hans Küng, Charles Curran, Matthew Fox, and Jon Sobrino and other liberation theologians. In light of the history of the Congregation of the Faith, such conservative statements as those released this week are hardly surprising, though they are quite unwelcome.
It is natural for members of various Christian Churches to believe that the institutions to which they belong are the best representatives of Christ's body on earth--otherwise, why wouldn't they join a different Church? It is disingenuous, however, for the leader of a Church that has committed itself "irrevocably" (to use Pope John Paul II's word in Ut Unum Sint [That They May Be One] 3, emphasis original) to ecumenism to claim to be interested in unity while at the same time declaring that all other Christians belong to Churches that are in some way deficient. How different was the attitude of Benedict's predecessors, who wrote, "In subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the [Roman] Catholic Church--for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame" (Unitatis Redintegratio 3). In Benedict's view, at various times in history groups of Christians wandered from the original, pure Roman Catholic Church, and any notion of Christian unity today is predicated on the idea of those groups abandoning their errors and returning to the Roman Catholic fold. The pope's problem seems to be that he is a theologian rather than a historian. Otherwise he could not possibly make such outrageous statements and think that they were compatible with the spirit of ecumenism that his immediate predecessors promoted.
One of the pope's most strident arguments against the validity of other Churches is that they can't trace their bishops' lineages back to the original apostles, as the bishops in the Roman Catholic Church can. There are three problems with this idea.
First, many Protestants deny the importance of apostolic succession as a guarantor of legitimacy. They would argue that faithfulness to the Bible and/or the teachings of Christ is a better measure of authentic Christian faith than the ability to trace one's spiritual ancestry through an ecclesiastical bureaucracy. A peripheral knowledge of the lives of some of the medieval and early modern popes (e.g., Stephen VI, Sergius III, Innocent VIII, Alexander VI) is enough to call the insistence on apostolic succession into serious question. Moreover, the Avignon Papacy and the divided lines of papal claimants in subsequent decades calls into serious question the legitimacy of the whole approach. Perhaps the strongest argument against the necessity of apostolic succession comes from the Apostle Paul, who was an acknowledged apostle despite not having been ordained by one of Jesus' original twelve disciples. In fact, Paul makes much of the fact that his authority came directly from Jesus Christ rather than from one of the apostles (Gal 1:11-12). Apostolic succession was a useful tool for combating incipient heresy and establishing the antiquity of the churches in particular locales, but merely stating that apostolic succession is a necessary prerequisite for being a true church does not make it so.
The second problem with the new document's insistence upon apostolic succession is the fact that at least three other Christian communions have apostolic succession claims that are as valid as that of the Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox Churches, which split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1054, can trace their lineages back to the same apostles that the Roman Catholic Church can, a fact acknowledged by Unitatis Redintegratio 14. The Oriental Orthodox Churches, such as the Coptic and Ethiopic Orthodox Churches, split from the Roman Catholic Church several centuries earlier, but they too can trace their episcopal lineages back to the same apostles claimed by the Roman Catholic Church as its founders. Finally, the Anglican Church, which broke away from the Roman Catholic Church during the reign of King Henry VIII, can likewise trace the lineage of every bishop back through the first archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine. In addition to these three collections of Christian Churches, the Old Catholics and some Methodists also see value in the idea of apostolic succession, and they can trace their episcopal lineages just as far back as Catholic bishops can.
The third problem with the idea of apostolic succession is that the earliest bishops in certain places are simply unknown, and the lists produced in the third and fourth centuries that purported to identify every bishop back to the founding of the church in a particular area were often historically unreliable. Who was the founding bishop of Byzantium? Who brought the gospel to Alexandria? To Edessa? To Antioch? There are lists that give names (e.g., http://www.friesian.com/popes.htm), such as the Apostles Mark (Alexandria), Andrew (Byzantium), and Thaddeus (Armenia), but the association of the apostles with the founding of these churches is legendary, not historical. The most obvious breakdown of historicity in the realm of apostolic succession involves none other than the see occupied by the pope, the bishop of Rome. It is certain that Peter did make his way to Rome before the time of Nero, where he perished, apparently in the Neronian persecution following the Great Fire of Rome, but it is equally certain that the church in Rome predates Peter, as it also predates Paul's arrival there (Paul also apparently died during the Neronian persecution). The Roman Catholic Church may legitimately claim a close association with both Peter and Paul, but it may not legitimately claim that either was the founder of the church there. The fact of the matter is that the gospel reached Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Edessa, and other early centers of Christianity in the hands of unknown, faithful Christians, not apostles, and the legitimacy of the churches established there did not suffer in the least because of it.
All the talk in the new document about apostolic succession is merely a smokescreen, however, for the main point that the Congregation of the Faith and the pope wanted to drive home: recognition of the absolute primacy of the pope. After playing with the words "subsists in" (Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church] 8) and "church" (Unitatis Redintegratio 14) in an effort to make them mean something other than what they originally meant, the document gets down to the nitty-gritty. "Since communion with the Catholic Church, the visible head of which is the Bishop of Rome and the Successor of Peter, is not some external complement to a particular Church but rather one of its internal constitutive principles, these venerable Christian communities lack something in their condition as particular churches." From an ecumenical standpoint, this position is a non-starter. Communion with Rome and acknowledging the authority of the pope as bishop of Rome is a far different matter from recognizing the pope as the "visible head" of the entire church, without peer. The pope is an intelligent man, and he knows that discussions with other Churches will make no progress on the basis of this prerequisite, so the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the pope, despite his protestations, has no interest in pursuing ecumenism. Trying to persuade other Christians to become Roman Catholics, which is evidently the pope's approach to other Churches, is not ecumenism, it's proselytism.
Fortunately, this document does not represent the viewpoint of all Catholics, either laypeople or scholars. Many ordinary Catholics would scoff at the idea that other denominations were not legitimate Churches, which just happen to have different ideas about certain topics and different ways of expressing a common Christianity. Similarly, many Catholic scholars are doing impressive work in areas such as theology, history, biblical study, and ethics, work that interacts with ideas produced by non-Catholic scholars. In the classroom and in publications, Catholics and non-Catholics learn from each other, challenge one another, and, perhaps most importantly, respect one another.
How does one define the Church? Christians have many different understandings of the term, and Catholics are divided among themselves, as are non-Catholics. The ecumenical movement is engaged in addressing this issue in thoughtful, meaningful, and respectful ways. Will the narrow-minded view expressed in "Responses" be the death-knell of the ecumenical movement? Hardly. Unity among Christians is too important an idea to be set aside. Will the document set back ecumenical efforts? Perhaps, but Christians committed to Christian unity--Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant alike--will get beyond it. The ecumenical movement is alive and well, and no intemperate pronouncement from the Congregation of the Faith, or the current pope, can restrain it for long. Even if ecumenism, at least as it involves the Roman Catholic Church's connection with other Churches, is temporarily set back a hundred years, that distance can be closed either by changes of heart or changes of leadership.
She is an interesting case. She had followers in power and then enemies, back and forth. Her writings were rejected, then restored. In her will she said she remained submissive to the Church. She taught a severe form of mysticism and her strongest admirers after her death were Protestants.
Interesting times, interesting person.
If you look objectively, you’ll find severe persecution for opposing religious views in the history of all our antecedents. Yours as well.
The reasons and lessons to be learned apply to us all. As I said before, enumerating each other’s body counts is not a fruitful exercise for either of us, nor is it conducive to a theological discussion.
IMHO of course.
that kind of seems like a guy suggesting he’s the man of a womans dreams because he showed up...
there’s a choice here...
D-fendr: "FK: You disagree with this part, right?"
Nope, I agree with Dr. E. in full, as usual. :) I am the one who has been using free will in the unusual sense, that of solely the experiential. I have been saying things like that we freely come to Christ because that is actually how we experience it at the time. In most cases it isn't until later sanctification by the Spirit that we learn that God was in full and total control all along. I certainly didn't understand that when I was saved. So, Dr. E. and I are really saying the same thing in different ways. We experience free will in choosing, and so that is what most people think. Little do most know what God is doing and has done behind the scenes.
I am sure you did, but not the way Greeks used the words. And since 1 John was written in Greek, I imagine they have some say about it.
you pick and chose what you believe out of the Bible
Why, that would make me a perfect Protestant!
Look, John was showing respect for the good news the angel brought him and the angel reminds John that he (the angel) is his syndoulos (co-servant), and as such was not worthy of such honor, but urges him to worship God instead.
We are talking a reproved Apostle who walked with Christ, and followed Him to the Cross, and to whom Christ entrusted His mother, and who has been around for a while when this book was written (c. 90-120 AD). Surely, you are not suggesting that this aged Apostle was committing an idolatrous or blasphemous act?
It is obvious that you have a far superior intellect and grasp on all things pertaining to God. Have fun in your life.
I think you are correct.. about her that is.. her bio is interesting none the less..
Ok... I'll ask you the same question then:
Are man’s will (and choices) the same as God’s will and choices in every instance? Or, another way: If man's will an illusion, are the actions (illusionary choices) of every man, therefore the actions of God in every instance?
Yes, I’d heard the name, but didn’t really read up on her until your discussion; thanks for that..
and your reply..
That's one reason why you never hear Reformers talk about being robot slaves. We're not the ones who say that, critics are. The Biblical precepts you speak of are obviously a matter of interpretation. The Bible also speaks of a supremely sovereign God. Free will, as it has been presented to me, would seem to diminish that idea.
God does not abandon us, not even when we act up and piss off all around us. We abandon God.
That's very true. God never abandons His children, and never knew those who aren't.
Men do not control their own destiny because they are men. They control their own destiny because that’s the system that was set up for us.
Although I disagree with it, I think that's the most reasonable way to frame your side, that God wanted it that way. But why an omnipotent being would ever want to relinquish His control over anything is beyond me. To allow people to "perceive" free will involves no loss of control. To actually turn things over to them would, though.
You remind me a movie "Bruce Almighty". Ever see it?
I don't mean to change the subject, but you may wish to change your tagline. There are two "I's" in irishtenor as well. Just a friendly observation. :)
Based on my delay, consider yourself rested. :)
It shouldn't surprise since we're discussing something we have direct experience with - it's in the abstractions and redefinings and speculative systems with special vocabularies that things fly off into contrariness.
Yes, I fully agree. I don't even have any problems with people wanting to use words differently, we should all just explain that first.
God is sovereign, omnipotent and omniscient and created man with free will is sufficient. [Else you're leading toward Man's will=God's will, unless you speculate more on God's methodology or derive a term of art for what precisely "thwart God's will without Man's will=God's will" means.]
After you wrote this you have recently seen me use the term "perceived free will". That is my little attempt at a "bridge". Perceived free will exists and is real for us. Nobody who asks Christ into his heart does so feeling forced or under duress, because it isn't true. What most people do not fully understand, including me at the time, is the HOW of having had come to that decision to accept Christ.
At my time, I had no real idea about the "elect" and how all that worked out. I saw the whole thing as an offer, and so I accepted in my free will. And, even though I had no clue what God had done to bring me to that point, it still "counted" just the same. My failure to understand did not negate the acceptance. So I started as a lost sinner. Then God changed my heart. Then, I heard the word (maybe again) and it made sense to me. I also felt the need for God for the first time. After some learning I came to a point where I wanted to invite God into my life. So who did this thing, who should get the credit? Was this really a joint effort, or was God just executing His plan? I think it has to be the latter because God touched me first by changing my heart.
We end up doing such things as describing moods of God, changes in God's mood, variations in his treatment of individuals, assigning specific reasons that God did this and that and such.
Well, I would think that scripture would take care of any of these dangers. The Bible as a whole does not describe God as the moody sort, etc. But we do know that He has emotions because we know that He loves.
So we can say a lot about God, but not that he thinks like we do. That he rules like we would, that he judges like we would and so on.
I completely agree, and so does scripture.
The problem I see with systematic theologies such as Calvinism is they read like they were written for the legal profession - and a noble profession it is; however, there's too much system, too much construct to fit man's mind of how all the pieces must fit - and all the pieces MUST fit. They're too humanized and speculative.
If you didn't already know, you will not be shocked to hear that Calvin indeed had a law degree, as his father was a lawyer. Hence, his long-windedness at times. :) It must be in the genes or something.
Anyway, as a lawyer-type I am drawn to a system like Calvinism because it really is internally consistent and matches the scriptures as I claim the Holy Spirit has led me to understand them. I believe that our God is a rational being and does everything He does for a rational purpose, EVEN IF it doesn't seem rational to me at the time. Reformers have no problem with the concept of the "mysteries" of God. We CAN'T explain "everything" and do not pretend that we can. We just say that for whatever reason He did such and such, it was not an irrational act without purpose.
In our system, we believe that the Bible does not give us everything there is to know, but it DOES give us everything we need to know. That still leaves open mysteries, but answers all questions that God wants us to know the answers to. "How much stuff is that?" is a good question. :) But, we take the totality of the Bible as a good indicator.
FK: That's very true.
How can that be true, FK, if you believe we do nothing outside of God's will and God will never abandon us? In your theology the only way man can abandon God is if God wants them to abandon God, which is the same as God abandoning them (it's always His will, not ours).
God never abandons His children, and never knew those who aren't.
LOL! Yet He made them? How could He have made and never known them or claimed them? They are "unknown" to an all-knowing, all-controlling God, simply because He made in order to not 'know" them! LOL!
You do realize that the only way God can claim "ignorance" (LOL!) is if there is another "god" who fathered the reprobate. One could even find biblical support for this in the NT ("your father is the devil"), a real minefield to say the least, because it suggests that some people are not God's creatures! Mercy.
It is only through free will, which the Reformed deny, that man can reject or abandon his True Father and adopt evil as his new "father." And when man does go over to the Evil one, God cannot see him or recognize him. Such a man disappears from God's creation because evil is the un-existence and is invisible and unknown to God, for God neither sees nor does nor knows evil. So, it is through free fill that we can fully understand and justify the words "your father is the devil" or "I don't know you."
But why an omnipotent being would ever want to relinquish His control over anything is beyond me
It is easy to misconstrue that God relinquished His power when He allowed to be arrested, tortured and put to death. Your mindset is the same as that of the Sanhedrin who yelled at Christ on the Cross to save Himself if He is the Son of God. That is a humanized God. Christ showed us that real God is nothing like we imagine(d) He would be.
At no time was Christ in not control of the events (remember: He has seen the "movie" before we did). But at no time did He force anyone's decision. Thus, as D-frendr says, God is God and man has free will.
I decided to do some searches, just out of curiosity and found this.
A “Byte” of Baptist History. . .
13 killed in riots over public school Bible reading
By Robert Richardson
Seven Catholics and six Protestants were killed, and 20 others were wounded, in three days of rioting in Philadelphia as mobs of Protestants and Catholics battled over whether the King James Bible or the Catholic Douay Version would be read in the public schools.
Entire blocks of Catholic homes were set afire; three Catholic churches and a Catholic convent were torched; and a large Catholic-owned marketplace was burned to the ground. The State Militia had to be called in to restore order.
An ominous storm cloud had appeared on the social horizon some three months earlier when Protestants heard about a directive of the school superintendent to temporarily suspend the daily devotional in a school near a heavily populated Catholic neighborhood. Rumors ran rampant that the School Board had caved-in to the pressure of the Catholic community, and thus had taken the first step to remove God from the public schools.
Some speculated that allowing Catholic children to bring their Douay Bibles to school was only a pretext to replacing the King James Bible (“the only true Bible”) with the Douay Bible, and soon Catholic priests would be in charge of the official school devotionals. Others imagined that this action was an attempt by Catholics to eventually take over the entire school system and have it run directly from the “Papal Throne” in Rome.
Ironically, lost in the furor was the fact that the superintendent had issued a suspension of the devotionals in order to provide a few days to work out the logistics of allowing all Catholic children to be excused from the approved Protestant devotional. Instead, they would assemble in other facilities at the school to read silently from the Douay Bible.
Philadelphia Baptists joined Protestants in the anti-Catholic rhetoric. For months leading up to the riots, The Baptist Record, a religious weekly, published many articles decrying Catholic challenges to the Protestant domination of the public schools. In addition, numerous Catholic challenges to Protestant domination of the public schools appeared in the Baptist paper blatantly and satirically attacking the papacy.
During the riots, Baptists refused to raise an official voice of protest against either Catholics or Protestants. Yet, many Baptists apparently participated in Protestant demonstrations and meetings, and most likely some Baptists joined in the riots against Catholics. After order had been restored by the State Militia, the only official statement from the Baptists was that “. . .somebody needs to be punished.”
Those punished turned out to be Catholic. The Protestant dominated justice system, with a stacked grand jury, blatantly disallowed judicial standing for Catholics to pursue reparations for the damage to their homes, churches and convent on the grounds that their political loyalty was to a foreign government— the papacy in Rome. In turn, they charged the Catholics with breaking State law by trying to remove the King James Bible from the public schools, and held “a bunch of hot-headed, Irish Catholics” responsible for the riots.
Sources
Boston, Rob, “When Christians Killed Each Other Over Religion in the Public Schools.” In Liberty: A Magazine for Religious Liberty. May/June, 1997, at www.libertymagazine. org/html.riots.html.
Torbet, Robert. A Social History of the Philadelphia Baptist Association: 1707-1940. Philadelphia: Westbrook, 1944.
Robert Richardson is professor emeritus of Mercer University and a former volunteer staff member in the University’s Center for Baptist Studies. For information on Baptist history and heritage, log on to the Mercer University Web site and click on “Center for Baptist Studies.”
I don't see how it's debatable. It is one of those ugly facts we would like to forget. However, there is no denying that the RCC consolidated it's grip on state power, in western Europe, by attempting to destroy all other Christian Churches that emerged. It was only after the Reformation and religious wars had ended that state power was not used to force Christians to comply with one Church's dictates.
Some of the Christians persecuted by the RCC were:
The Paulicians
The Albigenses
The Paterines
The Petrobrussians
The Henricians
The Arnoldists
The Hussites
The Waldenses
The Annabaptists
I know there are more Christian Churches that could be listed, but I think the point has been made. All these Christians were persecuted by the "state religion". If we look to our Saviour Jesus Christ we see he transformed the world not at the point of a sword, or hangman's noose, but with the word, love and mercy. I just don't find the Scriptural justification for one church to claim they are the only ones who can go into the Holy of Holies when God tore that curtain down from the top to the bottom.
While there is ample evidence of persecution of Christians by the RCC prior to the council of Trent. At the fourth session of Trent they said:
...It decree that no one, relying on his own skill,...presume to interpret the said Scripture...Contravener's shall be made known by their ordinaries, and be punished with the penalties by law established.
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