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.
Thank you.
Amen, and yes indeed. I felt I was on sure ground when I said what I said. :) And of course you are right about good fruit being predicated on true faith. It's a definitional prerequisite.
And thank you for Calvin's words on baptism. It is an excellent presentation of the majority view.
Try reading the Westminster Confession of Faith. Every single line is proofed with selected-to-support-the-Calvinist-Deformed-view Bible text.
***Relatively few of the Reformed proofs result from the Bible - it is mostly from St. Paul’s corrections of straying congregations. ***
Obviously does not consider anything the Bible except the 4 gospels.
Is this post supposed to be "quoting" me with these "***"? If not, then you are deliberately distorting what I wrote in 5715. Or did you just get "too excited" and lost track?
Just in case you can't find your way to my post, this is what I wrote in 5715:
Actually, Cleopa is saying that perhaps our time of death has nothing to do with our state of the soul. It could be no different than what we choose to have for breakfast. Perhaps to God, our time of death is irrelevant, except for those elect who have been chosen for a specific purpose (prophets, apostles, etc.).
We have examples of good people living into he ripe old age and also some very mean people too. Likewise, we see wonderful people die in their youth, and the same among those who are not.
You brought up the Mother Teresa example. Do you assume that her faith was strong and genuine BECAUSE she lived to an old age?
Of course not.
But that would appear to thwart the idea that sin causes physical death
How so? Did not Adam live to be over 900 years old? His soul died the day he ate the fruit (as the Lord said it would), but his body lived in sin for a long time, longer than any other human being I think.
I would fully agree that physical death is certainly no punishment for the elect
Then why don't they celebrate when someone dies? Why don't they lead lives that promote brevity of life on earth, or just have somebody shoot them?
But for the same reason, I can't see it as being a consequence of sin
If it was good enough for Adam, it's good enough for the Protestant "elect." You have Adam's nature, it's called mortal. We all die because Adam sinned.
Going to Heaven would be like a "promotion", so wouldn't it seem like God was "rewarding" sin?
When Christ assumed the sin of the world, He died in His human nature. In His human nature, He even felt that separation from God when we sin by saying "why have You forsaken me?"
Mortality is human nature due to sin. It's not a reward or punishment; it's a consequence.
This is difficult because the Bible is so clear over and over again about God living "IN" us. While God is of course omnipresent, maybe that presence is much more pronounced in His children that have come to faith.
Also, it's not entirely facetious to say that Jesus is here "in Spirit".
I agree. I just stumbled across these together:
Rom 8:11 : And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Gal 2:20 : I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Getting a little crowded in there, so this would support your take.
It looks like the big distinction is irrevocability.
Yes, I fully agree.
It's nice that in Works of Love, if I recall correctly, Kierkegaard says that if you ever don't love God, you never loved Him.
Oh my goodness! This is SCARY weird. The first time in my life I have ever heard of Kierkegaard was 6 hours ago (in the middle of the night) while I was preparing for a Bible study next week. My deacon and I are studying the works of Francis Schaeffer and in his treatment of the history of philosophy he speaks about Kierkegaard as someone who was very important. Unfortunately, it wasn't very complimentary. :) Here are my exact notes, paraphrasing what I took from Schaeffer:
Now, this is the first time I have even dipped into philosophy so Kierkegaard, and men like Hegel, Jaspers, Sartre, and Heidegger are all brand new to me. However, I "think" I have accurately captured Schaeffer's opinion above. I'd welcome any comment. :) (I am just amazed that I read your post 6 hours after seeing his name for the first time in my whole life, and it's totally unrelated. :)
There is, I would maintain, a dynamic aspect to life in Christ. Things change over time, maybe not today, but much later I see that the prayers of my childhood were steps on the journey that led through my... well to all the stuff I've been through since then. And the leading wasn't merely a sequence in time, but there was something LIKE (not identical to, but like) causation.
Oh, I have no doubt of it. It is a lifelong building process for sure. The magic word that pops into my head for this is sanctification.
And a great quote. Here's another.
I do believe there are several statements of Christ which you have said you don't trust as actually being said by Christ.
Isn't that true?
To Christians, Hell is not a "place" but an eternal spiritual state of separation from God. God does not exists in spiritual separation from Himself.
Sheol (Hebrew underworld) cannot be an equivalent of Christian concept of Hell because it was a "place" where the souls of the righteous as well as the unrighteous "went" after physical death (analogous to the Hades or the unseen of the ancient Greeks).
Wikipedia mentions that, consistent with the messianic movement the concept of Sheol changes from the original Judaic concept to a newly revealed one.
This "intermediate state" (incorporated by the early Church directly from messianic Judaism) is reflected in Eastern Orthodox (and Catholic) teaching that those who die are immediately judged and are waiting for the Final Judgment (reunion with new bodies) and final disposition of the resurrected to either eternal communion with, or separation from, God. But the Christian concept does not equate hell with a "place."
When I say the "state" of a soul I mean how a soul experiences God's presence. Either we are in communion with Him or we feel separated from Him. That separation is like knowing that God is next door but the doors to where He is are shut permanently. This is the Eastern Orthodox teaching and not my opinion, in case you wondered.
Catholic Catechism states:
Pope John Paul II stated "Rather than a place, Hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy."
Sheol and Hades simply meant grave, a place for the righteous and the unrighteous equally, that none could escape. It does not infer anything about the state of one's soul with respect to God. But the soul can either be in His presence or without it.
But, hey, if the Protestants believe in fairy-tale "places," that's what they believe! I can only offer what the Church always taught and not what some men invented 1,500 years later.
One thing is certain: Sheol and Hell and not one and the same concept. And your KJV makes no distinction between them. Just another proof how terribly misleading KJV is.
Neither you nor I have any way of knowing with absolute certainty that whichever verse you read in the Biblre wasn't added at a later date (as we know is the case with some verses), or that certain verses were not erased.
The fact that rabbis added vowels which can change menanings of words, and that modern versions of the Bible have commas placed where someone "believed" they should be (and in some cases these commas can change the whole meaning of the verse) is sufficient to cast doubt on the Bible as a pristine divine text.
Likewise the language itself an how it is understood or translated adds to this conclusion. St. Paul's famous verse that all men have sinned through Adam can be interpreted in two ways. The native Greek speakers interpret it one way and the non-native Greeks peakers the other way. The same thing can be said of the "virgin" vice a "young woman" in Isaiah.
The burden of proof is not in doubting but in providing facts that dispell any reasonable doubt.
Is that a yes?
Yes indeed. :)
At what point of control do we attain the robot slave condition? Splinting an arm? Hand feeding? Controlling the heartbeat? Controlling hormone and enzyme levels? Controlling the metabolism of each and every cell in the body? Controlling the splitting / creation of each cell? Where would the Reformed analogy put the control of the individual by God?
I agree with the way Irishtenor expressed it. The greatest level of freedom comes after we are saved. Only then can we choose to do good in God's eyes.
The "robot slave condition" is simply an artificial projection of man's POV upon God's. It doesn't actually happen in man's experience, so it is only abstractly true in our reality. We Reformers don't experience being robots any more than you do. AND, the ultimate truth is that God is in control of everything, using all of His ways, many of which are unfathomable to us.
To your question, I personally draw the line at whatever is part of God's plan. If it is actually part of God's plan that my heart rate for the next minute be at 76, and then drop down to 75 for the following minute, then God actively made that happen. If not, then He didn't. Many on my side would say the former, and I do not dispute them at all. On this I can only say that I am unsure whether God's plan encompasses all there is to encompass.
Therefore, in everything having to do with God's plan, He retains full control DESPITE what we experience.
And you have the kindness of a mother.
My drinking days are in the distant and dusty past of college and divorce; hemachromatosis has taken care of that. But I occasionally indulge in a Guinness.
I find it interesting that some people cannot separate beliefs from the person holding them. For instance, I work very closely with a devout LDS member. I like, respect, and trust this man. At the same time, I regard his beliefs as completely wrong and anti Christian.
In his posts, irishtenor exhibits evidence of being a righteous and good man. I regard his beliefs as completely wrong, as well.
My LDS friend and I get along well. We have not had direct debate because we are in a professional environment; if we did so out of that environment, then as far as I am concerned, our discussions would remain on a different level or plane and not reflect upon our professional relationship.
What you regard as taunting, I regard as making a valid point. So be it.
You cannot possibly be intimating that I am attacking St. Paul. I put him as the second greatest of the Apostles. I do however, go after those who would misread his works and misapply them to where they should not be applied. I suspect that attacks on St. Paul would be met with some severe spiritual judgement. I do not attack him.
We have had bad Popes - do you hear me defending them? The Church history is well documented. Do you hear me defending abuses? Popes are also not Apostles. Why would you say that I call them Apostles?
If we are talking about normal, average kids, then what are the chances that a young child will love a parent who has showed her perfect Christian love in the early years of her life? My guess would be close to or equal to 100%. To the degree humanly possible, I would call this "causing" love. God, of course, has a much greater say than a human parent in the level of love a person has for Him.
If God leaves a person alone, then the person is forever lost, unable to love God. If, however, God decides to give saving grace to a person, then that grace includes all the buttons that need to be pressed for that one individual. Saving grace is not one-size-fits-all, Rather, it is tailor made to the individual in order to ensure the result desired by God.
On the sin side, we all have our kryptonite. Some types of sin are more tempting to me than to you, and vice versa. Our personal failures will not be identical. God knows all of this. And likewise, on the good side we also have our special buttons that need to be pressed in order to come to faith. They will be different among individuals too. And God is also fully aware of all of those, so the Reformed contention is that saving grace pushes ALL of those buttons, chosen person by chosen person, thus ensuring the commitment from the individual.
If you’re ever up this way, I’ll buy you a large Guinness.
You're on! :) And, IIRC, you're only a few hours away since I'm in St. Louis.
Yes, that's right. That's why we do not say that we are "rewarded" with salvation, for any reason. Rather, we are given salvation without any merit from ourselves.
Briefly,
Kiekegaard is wrong but VERY good.
Hegel is wrong but important.
Heidegger is wrong but very very very good.
I don’t know from Jaspers.
Sartre doesn’t float my boat at all.
Yes. “Sanctification”. Yes. Eternal Justification projected onto/into time.
Perhaps this...
"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." -- Matthew 10:28
So here we have Christ telling us that hell is an objective place, not the non-objective haze of some existential nothingness, but an actual place of being.
The interesting thing about this discussion of hell and whether or not God is omnipresent is that it was MarkBsnr whom you were first "correcting" by your "hell is just an illusionary state of deprivation" argument. Here's what Mark had to say, which sounds pretty literal to me (and correct)...
"According to Scripture, if one is in hell, "he shall be tormented with fire and sulfur . . . the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, and day and night they have no rest" (Rev. 14:11). This is an "everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41). Jesus tells his listeners of Lazarus and the rich man, where the rich man dies, and is "existing in torment . . . he sees . . . calls out . . . 'I am in anguish in this blazing fire'" (Luke 16:19-31). As a further illustration, Jesus stated that hell is likened to Gehenna. This "Valley of Hinnom" was located southeast of Jerusalem, and was used as a garbage dump where trash and waste were continuously burned day and night in a large fire. Jesus informs the listeners that hell is like this, "where the maggot does not die, and fire is not put out" (Mark 9:42-48). It is the place where the wicked are sent, and from this "everlasting fire" (Matt. 18:8) will come "weeping and the gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 8:12). Lastly, Revelation 20 calls hell a "pool of fire . . . [where] they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever"—all who are not in the book of life. So, if one's name is in the book of life, one enters heaven (Rev. 21:27). If it not in the book, then a literal hell awaits."
Amen, Mark. An objective hell, not a subjective state of mind, but a torment of mind, body and soul.
Either we are in communion with Him or we feel separated from Him. That separation is like knowing that God is next door but the doors to where He is are shut permanently. This is the Eastern Orthodox teaching
Wow. So according to you and the EO, God's wrath and eternal damnation are like Robin Williams' definition of Canada -- a loft apartment above a really great party?
Thanks, but I think I prefer Mark's Scriptural definition.
Or the Westminster Shorter Catechism...
Q. 143. What is hell?
A. A place of dreadful and endless torment.
Because if hell is something so subjective and vague, then so is heaven. But thank God, He has assured us that is not the case. Heaven is real and awaits all those who love Him.
Q. 145. What is heaven?
A. A glorious and happy place, where the righteous shall be forever with the Lord.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." -- 1 Corinthians 2:9
Thus, heaven is not imaginary, but quantitatively more than our imaginings.
But I ended up by understanding something pertinent to this discussion of hell -- Christ suffered the actual torments of hell for His flock. Were those torments real, or just a "spiritual separation from God?"
Scripture shows us clearly that Christ suffered the agony of hell on the cross for us. He gave us a clear portrait of what hell is, promising that we wouldn't have to suffer like He did because He suffered for us, so that we could stand acquitted of our sins before God.
And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him." -- Matthew 27:30-31 "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." -- Hebrews 12:2"And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.
If our hell is merely a psychic malaise, then so was Christ's separation from God. But He showed us clearly that it wasn't -- it was objective and real and devastating.
Yes, because reality is God’s revelation to us (not our experiences).
most faithful will continue to fast even if it is not in the best interest of their health, treating discipline almost like Gospel.
Unfortunately, Christians forget the purpose for the discipline and make the discipline the purpose. This reminds me of my mother’s prayer of thanks before dinner. She practiced the discipline (praying) but her prayers were practically unintelligible because she rattled it off so fast from memory and it was just taken for granted that saying those words was supposed to be done. Do you know what I mean?
Just because I don't understand it, or see it, doesn't mean it is as I see it and understand it.
None of us has perfect understanding and all of us harbor error.
the Church and well-meaning Christians who offer their opinions, fail to convince me that their version of the truth is indeed the truth.
None of us has the whole truth, we all struggle.
So is Hell I would assume.. since both realities will be in another paradigm/realm/dimension.. There will be a NEW heaven(s) and a NEW earth(Rev.).. Both may not be fleshly or soulish places but spiritual.. Precisely intimated by the verse above.. for "them that love him".. them that DON'T love him may be in for a BIG surprise also..
The disappointed ones in HELL may not be what you "GET/GOT" but what you've "MISSED".. Not that you(in hell) got some kind of torture from God, BUT that you have MISSED blessings that the human mind could/can not even conceive of NOW.. I Cor 2;9... That verse implicates many possible things..
Interesting discussion.. What is Heaven and Hell.. All mostly speculation I would admit.. The metaphorical last few chapters of Revelation(New Jerusalem) peak the imagination though.. And I believe go with this verse.. I Cor 2;9.. so they had to be metaphorical to describe them..
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