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.
It is wonderment.
Paul’s words trump Jesus’ words.
James is wrong or misguided or something. Say, I wonder if some will say that James is less important than, say Paul, or any other passages of the Bible.
Instructions from Christ to do things are changed into the identification of the elect, with the understanding that we are not to do things.
May God give me the strength, the wisdom and the perseverence in order to meet the challenges that He has given to me.
What James wrote focused upon the evidence of 'faithe' in action as necessary to the assurance of the 'faither' that the love of Christ abides in him/her. The mistake some make is to think they can do the good works and God will count it for them righteousness (one of the flaws in Mormonism doctirne). Abraham was being tested regarding the object of his 'faithe' (for Abraham's sake, not for God's sake) and he passed the test with flying colors as evidenced by the 'works' manifested in first spoken words then exercise of his faithing in God's promises.
By bringing into discussion the conflict between James's and Paul's assertions we dig deeper in the srciptures to see a more 'meaty' life in Christ. When the folks of my son's church gathered up things and trucked them down to the survivors of Katrina, they were working out of the love that the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit generates ... their works were not so God would impute righteousness to them, they did what they did because the love of Christ, Christ's love, dwells in them and flows out through them. Abraham's deeds didn't get righteousness imputed to him, his 'faithing' in God's promises did. James is slightly out of focus because he focuses upon the final deed rather than the 'faithing' which results in the deed.
By ignoring that aspect so long as the fundamentals of Salvation are assured. If this belief you pointed to aides a ‘faither’ in their walk with God, leave them be, to be transformed by the Spirit of Truth.
In light of James out-of-focus epistle, if James explained this Centurion event, he would focus upon the Centurion coming to Jesus directly, boldly, to ask on behalf of the servant. If Paul explained this event, he would focus upon the Centurion 'faithing' in Jesus's authority when he said Jesus need not come to his unworthy gentile home but just speak the word to save the servant. So, we see how both James and Paul can be correct if we but refocus our perspective to comprehend 'faithe' for 'faithe cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.'
None that I can see.
You seem to have missed my point. You are asserting that there is a conflict between James and Paul. I respectively disagree.
ec·u·me·nism (ky-m-nzm, -ky-)
n.
1. A movement promoting unity among Christian churches or denominations.
2. A movement promoting worldwide unity among religions through greater cooperation and improved understanding.
Unless ecumenism is aimed at greater understanding of and greater obedience to God, maybe we shouldn’t have it. And labelling the pursuit of holiness “tripe” hardly advances it anyway.
They are not 'Divine Presences' they are each distinct Persons, but since they partake of the same Divine Essence, they can never be any less then perfect and in full agreement.
BTW, I want to thank you for the link to Pastor John Piper’s teaching. I will get much needed hours of instruction from such fine teaching. Thank you again. I do so enjoy listening to and studying good preaching of sound doctrine.
God never allows his emotions to control His actions, the emotions are always in response to His own perfect thoughts.
Thus, each emotion is a perfect response to a perfect thought, and thus, are themselves perfect.
Sorry, if I caused you any confusion.
Yes, God created the Universe to share His own happiness with other rational creatures, such as Angels and mankind.
God did not have to create anything but the fact that He did shows that He wants to share His happiness with others who would not exist if it were not for him.
Affection is not a corollary of love. How many marriages do you know of where there is love, yet the individuals have no affection for each other?
Of course it is.
You cannot love something without being affectionate to it.
If you do not have affection towards it, you do not love it.
Example: the cops go to a domestic disturbance where the man is beating the tar out of his woman. The cops pull him and and start to stuff him in the paddy wagon. The woman takes a frying pan to the back of the cops’ heads. Affection? No. Love? Sure.
The wife still may love the husband, but the husband does not love the wife.
No man who hits his wife loves his wife and his wife is deceived if she thinks that he does.
Well, I guess I have a dog in the fight anyway, because I'm in the "without parts or passions" school of thought. I do think that there is a different notion of what passion is. (Darn, you are making me WORK here! I HATE that!) In conversation about what God is (which should be preceded and followed by acts of humility) I mean by "passion" a movement of appetite or desire or revulsion. I don't think God has desires and appetites the way we do, or finds them interfering with His will the way we do.
Well, God created creatures with free will who brought sin into the world, disobeying that will.
It is God's will that 'none perish' and all be saved (1Tim.2:4) but that will not be accomplished because God gave mankind the ability to say no to Him and suffer the just consquences for those decisions.
God's desire is to share His perfect happiness, and in the end, that will be accomplished in the New Heavens and New Earth, where sin and death are forever removed.
But it took alot from God to accomplish it, the death of Christ on the Cross.
When I had sheep, some veterinary procedures in some cases were just impossible for me because the smells revolted me so much as to make me unable to act. I'd have to pay the vet (I SWEAR - only kidding - that man can't smell ANYTHING!) to do what I could not do. This is actually kind of related to your next disagreement with moi in #6015 God does not choose to be what He is, He is what He is because He is God. Thus, God doesn't choose to be Love, God is Love. To me that's a complete non-sequitur. I don't see how it's an argument. (I'm not putting it down, I'm revealing my incompetence)
Well, God doesn't acquire or grow in love, He is love, just as He is Truth and Eternal Life.
God can never be anything less then perfectly loving, honest and can never cease to exist.
On the other hand, here's how it looks to me: I am "stuck with" who and what and how I am. I can't grow taller, add to the hairs on my head, or do a whole lot about my innate disposition toward depression and so forth. Sometimes it's okay being Mad Dawg, sometimes not, but there's not much I can do about it. Pollyanna Rivanna Luxapalila Chincoteague Dot Org(andy) the cat doesn't even think about whether she wants to be a cat. But in God nothing is an accident. Nothing "happens" to God. He is not Stuck with anything. He is what He is and He chooses to be what he is. That's not so say He chose among options. "Hmm, shall I be a loving God, or should I do the Krang from the Pit thing? What to do, what to do?" But He wills everything including Himself. He IS a God of Love and He WILLS to be a God of Love.
Let me see if I can rephrase it a different way.
God is love, and that cannot change.
But God is also happy that He is God.
So, God's will and is being are always united as one.
God would never will (want) anything that would contradict what He is, nor would He want to.
That is what made the Cross necessary.
God's Love wanted to save sinful man, but God's Justice demanded payment.
God had to meet the requirements of His own perfect essence to accomplish what Love wanted.
God can never just ignore any aspect of His Divine essence.
So John 3:16 is His working out in history, in created time, in the sphere of mobility and mutability, of what He has always willed.
Yes, it precedes time in that God always knew it would happen, but it didn't have to happen.
God didn't have to create anything at all and certainly not man with free will.
[ However, immutability does not mean immobility.]
What is motion but a change in place with respect to time? What is mutability but the ability to change? It seems to me immutability means precisely immobility. How do we hack through this?
No, to be immutable simple means that God's essence is always consistent and in harmony.
One can count on God always being absolutely fair, truthful, loving, merciful, pitiful, kind, wise, and just.
No attribute will ever be compromised to accomplish what God wants to accomplish.
God is dynamic as is evident in the fact that He is the Creator and enjoys His Creation (Gen.1:31).
HarleyD quoth Have you considered that God could have a different type of these same attributes? For example God can love us with a godly love but that would not necessarily be the same as our humanly love. And I say the difference is that our love is shot through with "appetite", with "feelings", with passions. And it feels like it "happens to us". To the extent that it is chosen, it is will born along by passion, and often, sooner or later, will must slog on when the passions either quit or actively work against will. God's love is chosen and intended and as simple as He is. As a "meta" comment: I guess that there is a scheme of discourse, or rather, many schemes, and some of the disagreement is related to the difference in schemes. HarleyD says the incarnate Jesus had hands, so we may say God has hands. I think in another scheme of discourse we would say something like an aspect of the mystery of the Incarnation is that the Divine hypostasis is united with the human hypostasis in one person - without a confusion of Substances/hypostases. That person, who was God, died. So we can say God died. But we can't say God was dead. That person, has parts, like hands. But since the two hypostases are not "confused" the Divine hypostasis does not have hands. Yet, to make it worse, the so-called Athanasian creed says FWIW that the union of two hypostases in One Christ is done by "Taking up of Manhood into God" At which point I say, "Honey, turn on the TV I want to watch Oprah, This stuff is too much for me."
The problem lies in comparing our own failures to love with God's perfect love.
Yet, when you look at the Gospel accounts of Christ you see how man and should love.
When we are filled with the Holy Spirit we do love as God loves, with Charity.
It is when we are in the flesh, with our sinful lusts, that we stop loving as God loves and revert to acting like sinners, selfish.
As the Christian grows, the world ought to see God's love growing in him, as he is conformed to the image of Christ and that light shines forth, so all the world can see that the individual is truly a Christian.
“God created the Universe to share His own happiness with other rational creatures, such as Angels and mankind.”
I don’t think that I’d say that angels and mankind are rational on the order of God. If you said that God created mankind in order to populate His universe, I’d agree with you. There are a few things that He’d have us do, such as worship and love Him.
I fully agree. In fact, the Biblical institution of slavery was not always even a bad thing. Slavery could be either "good" or "bad" depending on the circumstances.
Addiction to vice is akin to slavery to the body; to make the choice to cleave to God is obviously not true slavery. Paul is merely using a literary device to make his point.
Well, it depends on what "true slavery" is. I would agree that being a slave to righteousness is not the "Roots" kind of slavery. However, we are not our own and we were bought at a price, etc.
oh please
personal holiness and the tripe of a co-redeemer are two distinctly separate issues.
and you stand where with regards to Mary ?
Judging (!) by your FR page, it seems that we are more on the same theological wavelength vis a vis Arminianism versus Calvanism than many here.
As regards to Mary; a few excerpts from the Catechism may serve:
508 From among the descendants of Eve, God chose the Virgin Mary to be the mother of his Son. “Full of grace”, Mary is “the most excellent fruit of redemption” (SC 103): from the first instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure from all personal sin throughout her life.
509 Mary is truly “Mother of God” since she is the mother of the eternal Son of God made man, who is God himself.
510 Mary “remained a virgin in conceiving her Son, a virgin in giving birth to him, a virgin in carrying him, a virgin in nursing him at her breast, always a virgin” (St. Augustine, Serm. 186, 1: PL 38, 999): with her whole being she is “the handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38).
511 The Virgin Mary “co-operated through free faith and obedience in human salvation” (LG 56). She uttered her yes “in the name of all human nature” (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 30, 1). By her obedience she became the new Eve, mother of the living.
Yes, I do say that, but we have to be careful about what that means. For example, to me "doing God's will" means in the sense of loving obedience. So when I, as a believer, do a good deed, then I am "doing God's will". However, as a lost person I was unable to do God's will, even if it was the same "good" act, because it was not out of obedience.
Take the crucifixion. Was it God's will that Jesus be crucified? Yes. After the Jews and Romans did what they did, was God's will satisfied? Yes. Did the Jews and Romans therefore "do God's will"? No. Isn't that easy? :)
We would say that the only ones who are able to "do God's will" are those who have been regenerated by God. That is who the elect are. While the lost can certainly do things you and I would normally call "good", they are unable to "do God's will".
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