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.
However, you quoted Jesus previously. How does Jesus Himself answer the question? The metaphor of "sheep" is not used by Paul, so it is not appropriate to utilize Paul to answer Jesus' metaphorical question (and none of those quotes really answer the question, anyway). What does Jesus say on the subject?
Thanks
It's an oxymoron according to some.
Are you suggesting, though, that God does not know how things will turn out?
I'm not questioning God's omniscience, only the Calvinist doctrine of predestination as it affects man's free will and responsibility for his/her decisions.
We are always and forever clean because of the gracious sacrificial blood of our Lord Jesus.
Amen.
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." -- Romans 5:8
We are born sinning and we will die sinning. But by the inward work of the Holy Spirit as He sanctifies our lives, we will sin less and less until the end when we will be judged by His righteousness and obedience, and not our own.
Sure, we all "make decisions." I just made a decision to respond to your question.
And that decision was part of God's plan for His creation as He ordained from before the foundation of the world.
God's omniscience and man having free will are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
If God has known from before the foundation of the world that you will wake up late for work tomorrow and miss the bus, is there any chance whatsoever you will wake up on time and catch that bus?
I just can’t see it, E.; under the doctrine of TULIP, God will be judging God.
"Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." -- John 8:12 "Be not afraid, only believe." -- Mark 5:36"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." -- John 5:24
You're varying from the specifics of the question. In your view, could you have decided not to? Or was your experience of making that decision an illusion?
If God has known from before the foundation of the world that you will wake up late for work tomorrow and miss the bus, is there any chance whatsoever you will wake up on time and catch that bus?
There is always a chance I will oversleep. A big chance. There's a very good chance I will oversleep tomorrow. If I decide to stay up late tonight, it's almost certain. God knows whether I will or not.
What if, just for the intellectual exercise, you sat down with scriptures and read them as though God had chosen you instead of you choosing Him?
We have a will but we surrender it to God.
I appreciate your suggestion. But it does not apply to seeing that under the doctrine of TULIP, God will be judging God.
Or if it does, I don’t see it. :)
Simple, sheep have shepherds.
I can agree with this as a shorthand way of putting it. And it doesn't mean we save ourselves by ourselves, or that we don't have choices.
That He can see every moment of all there is or has been or ever shall be doesn't mean that He chooses to look at every moment or be constantly looking at all of time simultaneously. We may be assured that He shall do a review/revue ... judgment without the facts might be seen as unjust so the actual events throughout all time are available to His use. There are scripture passages which indicate that God has looked to the end even before the beginning of a thing, such as His declaration regarding Jeremiah.
But there are passage which indicate God does not always choose to look to the end from the beginning. In fact, He has built an uncertainty principle into the spacetime portion of the universe we perceive ... which is uncertain from our perspective on time but which can be viewed and reviewed any time God so chooses. But scripture does not indicate that He is in constant review of all moments since the beginning. Our free choice may be sourced in the same concept of uncertainty which is hallmark of spacetime as we perceive it.
Yes we have choices. I can choose to sin if I so desire, God lets me if I want to. However, prayer, such as the example given us in the Lord’s Prayer, which we use as a guide, not a chant, strenghthens us to not sin, and then God’s will is done. Which is what we ask and what we know is better for us. If left to our own devices we are unruly children for the most part.
Christ will judge all things.
A man will either be judged "guilty" of his sins and therefore condemned, or he will be "acquitted" of his sins by the work of Christ on the cross as Christ takes on the punishment rightly due the sinner in order to present him blameless before God.
Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." -- Romans 3:24-26"Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
What could be clearer? Because God is all holy and "just" and hates sin, all sin must be redressed. Therefore God will declare the sins of His children as forgiven not by their own ability but by "Christ's righteousness" alone.
"For he hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" -- 2 Corinthians 5:21
Yes, "God is judging God" when He looks to His children and sees Jesus Christ. Do you suppose that is a bad thing for those who are His?
I just can't see it
Try harder. It's worth the effort. 8~)
I don’t see how you can see it. :) If, in your view:
1) All are guilty.
2) God picks some to forgive. (elect) They have no choice or free will in the matter.
3) God picks some to not forgive. (non-elect) They have no choice or free will in the matter.
How on earth, or in heaven, can group 2 or 3 be judged for being picked or not picked?
By reading scripture with a different frame of reference, you will understand some passages differently. For example, the T in TULIP, total depravity summarizes the doctrine of man being completely unable to save himself because he is spiritually dead.
The Incarnation and Atonement were necessary because man is not able in his condition to satisfy the offenses against an infinitely holy God. The only One with infinite worth to satisfy God is God himself. God judged the Godman.
There is no contradiction. As I asked last week, “Could YOU vote for baby-killer Hillary Clinton?”
You see in that question both free will and inability. I cannot vote for her, yet I can.
It is possible to have both a will free to do something and a will that won’t do something.
I agree with you, DrE, yet it seems some are granted more overcoming grace, or the progress more slowly, or something.
The Lord knows that I'm doomed if not for His grace and imputed righteousness.
II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions;[4] yet has He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.[5] III. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels[6] are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.[7] IV. These angels and men, thus predestinated, and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished.[8] V. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, has chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory,[9] out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto;[10] and all to the praise of His glorious grace.[11] VI. As God has appointed the elect unto glory, so has He, by the eternal and most free purpose of His will, foreordained all the means thereunto.[12] Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ,[13] are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified,[14] and kept by His power, through faith, unto salvation.[15] Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.[16] VII. The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extends or withholds mercy, as He pleases, for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praised of His glorious justice.[17] VIII. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care,[18] that men, attending the will of God revealed in His Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election.[19] So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God;[20] and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the Gospel.[21]
Of God's Eternal Decree
I. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass;[1] yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin,[2] nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.[3]
(The numbers refer to Scriptural references found at the site.)
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