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.
Then why include them in the Bible? Why is the Prodigal Son parable told by Jesus if it doesn’t mean anything.
No fluke, Kosta. You don't own the language. Orthodox Presbyterianism is Biblical Christianity which is what sets it apart from Eastern Orthodoxy.
“Life isn’t a dream or an illusion, but the talk of “free” will is a wrong perception. There is a will but it is not free.”
No? What is it then? How can will not be free? You must either have volition over your actions or you do not.
Yep. And if we relied on our own ability to recognize our sins and seek forgiveness through our own merit, we would be doomed. Instead, we know that Christ has accomplished what men cannot --
"And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible." -- Mark 10:27"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
That's what I thought you thought.
FK: "Sure, but all I have to do is say "therefore, Christ did not die for all men", which is the Reformed position."
That could be a problem, as it is contradicting Scriptures. I have posted these verses several times here. Unfortunately, I have found that Calvinists here ignore them.
I know the verses too, and we don't ignore them. And your interpretation is not unreasonable on its face. Sometimes, Calvinists do not take the plain meaning interpretation of a verse or passage. I won't deny that. However, I think that Apostolics will not take the plain meaning interpretation of other verses more often. I remain convinced that the average intelligent and disinterested party who reads the Bible cold will report a theology much closer to that of the Reformed than that of the Apostolic every time. Verse for verse, if we had a "plain meaning - off" the Reformed would always win. :)
Well, based on the "Reformed" idea that God does everything, on what basis is man judged???
God ordains everything, but He doesn't "do" everything. When I sin, I "do" it. Anyway, when believers are judged for Heaven it is on the basis of the imputed righteousness of Christ. When we are judged for reward it is on the basis of our works. Just as God has predestined our station on earth, so He has also predestined our station in Heaven. I have no idea how I will turn out in the works department, but I'm not worried about it. Just being in God's presence will be plenty enough for me. :)
We have already determined that man does NOTHING in your scheme. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but evil. NOTHING good comes from ANY of his actions. Thus, Hitler and Mother Theresa are in the same exact boat, since they were not responsible for their actions - God pulled the puppet strings on both of them...
That's not true at all. If we posit that Mother Theresa was a true believer, then she was nothing like Hitler. She was free to do good in God's eyes, and presumably did so. There's no comparison. It is true that God used them both for His purposes, but from our human POV it is perfectly fine to say that she was good and he was evil.
Huh? I am not following your logic. How is the defending of life of ANOTHER have anything to do with vicarious sacrifice of one's SELF? ESPECIALLY if this sacrifice of self is for the sake of ALL others on earth? Yep, all...
I am saying that it COULD NOT have been for the sake of ALL others if it was unnecessary. What is the value of the sacrifice if it never needed to happen? Imagine that my family is hungry and I'm determined to do something about it. One solution would be for me to get a job. Another potential solution would be for me to throw myself under a bus in hopes of collecting the insurance money. Would the bus option really be honorable for me? No, because it was an unnecessary suicide. I would not be showing love for my family at all. This is the sanctity of life angle. If life is precious to God, and Jesus did not need to die to accomplish the will of the Father, then Jesus did not love us by dying. He merely wasted God's most precious gift. If man could be saved by other means, then Jesus chose the bus option.
“God works all things to His glory, even OUR sin.”
FK, this just gets better and better. How does our sin glorify God? Doesn’t God hate the sin? Doesn’t the Reformed God hate the sinner too?
How is a hateful God glorified?
So what is being judged? If we do something, then we are to be judged. If God does everything, then God is judging Himself, not us.
How can we be judged by Christ’s works? That makes no sense logically or Biblically.
Also, what is the effect of that judgement? If I, as an elect, am judged to have failed, or not met the bar, or whatever the Reformed say that we are being judged to, what happens?
Thank you. Thus, you can lose it.
How can I lose what I don't have? Can I lose your car in a poker game? No, because I don't have the title to your car.
Paul is addressing Christians, not pagan murderers or fornicators...
He is addressing then present day Christians, and says that some of them USED TO BE pagan murderers and fornicators (in effect). No where in the passage you cited does he say or imply that those Christians were subject to losing their Godly inheritances.
But Paul doesn't say that one CANNOT POSSIBLY return to that life.
In truth, he really doesn't say either way on this here, does he? I agree with you that a main part of the message is not to go back to how they were before they were saved. But Paul does not get into the nitty gritty of what is possible here.
Having the Spirit does not make one immune to returning to that former life.
On a temporary basis I agree. But Paul does not get into the issue we are discussing now, here.
Sunday rest is not Biblical. The Holy Day is identified only as the Sabbath, or Saturday. We decreed that the Holy Day be moved to Sunday, in honour of the the Lord’s accomplishments. But it does not say explicitly in the BIble that the day be moved. The Judaizers amongst us will be happy to fill you in on the details.
Christ died on Friday, by the way.
The Bible does not say that Jesus rose in Triumph on the New Day of Rest. You are following Catholic Tradition (you’re welcome).
Worshipping Mary is indeed blasphemy. We’ve just excommunicated a bunch of nuns who worshipped Mary, just because they worshipped Mary. It was a thread right here some days ago. We Catholics agreed wholeheartedly with the decision. Surprised?
We believe in single predestination. We have never claimed otherwise. We just put it together with the Biblical verses on free will. Apostolic and Biblical both.
Calvinism claims that everything is preordained and that the elect are going to heaven and that election is a one-off event. Therefore, logically, petitioning a Reformed God is worthless except as a mechanical exercise. We Biblical Apostolics do a whole bunch of praying, because we understand the benefits, as well as the necessity of it. The errancy of Calvinism would make praying unnecessary; also the errancy of Calvinism has stopped many Calvinists from evangelizing, calling it unnecessary as well. If you wish examples, Google is your friend. If you find it unfriendly, perhaps I can find some more examples.
I wouldn’t be able to list ALL of the heresies, but a partial list would include:
Marcionism. A second-century heresy of Marcion (ff. ca. 140) and his followers, who rejected much of the New Testament, except for the Gospel of Luke and ten of the Letters of St. Paul. The Marcionists claimed to preach a purer gospel after the manner of St. Paul; for them Christianity was purely a gospel of love to the exclusion of any law.
Gnosticism. The heretical theory that salvation comes through some special kind of knowledge, usually knowledge claimed by a special elite group. Gnostic theories existed before Christianity, and the Gnostics adapted the Gospels to their own views and for their own purposes, even composing pseudogospels, embodying their particular ideas and doctrines. Gnosticism held matter to be evil and hostile to the human spirit; it also essentially denied the truths of Christian revelation. Gnosticism as an organized sect or body of beliefs has long been extinct, but Gnostic ideas persist and surface in some form in nearly every major heretical version of the Christian faith.
Montanism. A second-century heretical movement that professed belief in a new “Church of the Spirit”. The Montanists believed they enjoyed the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This claim meant that their fanatically rigorous views concerning morality superseded the authentic revelation of Christ that had been handed down in the Church. The heresy of Montanism, which claimed the great Tertullian (160-220) himself, was condemned by several Eastern synods and, finally, by Pope Zephyrinus around the year 202.
There are probably touches of a few more, but these are the main ones that I can identify. Hope it helps.
“A pagan cannot be wise to spiritual things if there is no godly fear. God chooses the foolish things of this earth to confront the wise.”
Why? And, why? Can you show me evidence?
John 17: has Jesus praying alone with his disciples for their mission to the world.
Notice too, that he prays for all those which shall believe in him through their word. He doesn’t exclude anyone in these verses. But he praying specifically for specific people in specific verses. He is not exclusionary in your quotes.
Context.
All heresy is rooted in the desires of men to formulate their own theologies and to go against the Church.
All of it, including the rehashed heresies displayed with such vividness right here.
Amen to your whole post, Dr. E. :) It really is this simple. What in the universe prevents God from getting whatever He wants? Nothing.
LOL. He doesn't???
Jesus says clearly that He doesn't pray for the world; He prays only for those whom the Father has given to Him, who are made up of all who believed in Him at that time and all who will believe in Him in the future.
When your lackluster defense is as wobbly as yours, it's probably time to rethink your position.
From the New Advent entry on what you posted I assume you are hanging your hat on who puts his hand out first in order to deny that you are Semi-Pelagian. To me that is a distinction without a difference. You must cooperate with God on your own account to get into Heaven. That is somewhere in between full Pelagianism and Augustinism. If you don't like the label that is fine with me, but the beliefs are still there.
You think you can dismiss so many verses with just one comment? I think not. Many of those quotes SPECIFICALLY say "the world". Now, if "all" means "all" in Romans 3, why are you now changing the meaning of the word? And "the world"? Well! Sounds very much like special pleading to me. Ignore the verses that refute your theology and over-emphasize the ones that COULD back up your point.
If God wanted, intended for and provided for the salvation of every man on the planet, including Judas, then all men on the planet were, are and will be saved and end up in heaven, even Judas.
Not if God ALSO wanted man to CHOOSE whether to accept the salvation offered. Now, IF man is judged, can't we then say you are incorrect, since we KNOW God will not be judged, man will. HOW is man going to be judged IF he has no innate ability to obey God?
Let's look to the big picture. First, the positive regarding Calvin and the sovereign will of God. His spiritual teachings of the transcendence of God is right in line with a number of Catholic spiritual teachings, esp. John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, and the German school of Eckhart, Tauler and Suso. People who KNOW Calvin's spirituality will agree that he was very particular of God's transcendant self and how much God is above creation. That is a positive teaching, a re-iteration of Catholic teaching. Calvin was right to stress a return to that where some local Catholic teachers and traditions had deviated from this.
HOWEVER, as in all of the Protestant positives, they went too far. In this case, Calvin stresses the sovereignty of God to such a degree that man is CRUSHED and becomes NOTHING. ANYTHING that man does somehow lowers the glory to God. This is against so many parts of Scriptures that it is not worth quoting. This over-protection of God's sovereignty to the detriment of God's activity of making man greatest among all material creation, even BECOMING one of us, is typical of Protestantism. This is what makes the Reformer a heretic. And thus, your theology today continues in this vein - stressing that man is absolutely and totally crushed and worthless, even the man who is transformed and being renewed by God Himself.
Your annihilation of the creature, especially man, goes way beyond the totality of Scriptures. As such, it is a false theology. For example, to say that man, as a recipient of God's grace, could be pleasing to God - considered blasphemy by you - is contradictory, since it is GOD who grants the grace to man to raise the man up! Why it is a relapse into idolatry to say, with Paul, that when regenerated, that we could possess any value, is beyond me.
Sorry, the Bible refutes the false idea that God is great ONLY to the degree that His creation is little, worthless and insignificant. God is sovereign ONLY if the creature is pure nothingness is absolutely ridiculous and not upheld by the Sacred Scriptures.
Oh, no doubt you'll quote me Isaiah and "all our justifications are like worthless rags". But does this prevent the Bible, with an equally strong force, to declare the GOODNESS INHERENT in EVERY creature that comes from GOD HIMSELF?! Yes, God alone is good, Jesus said - and then He said "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" - the idea, obviously, that we COULD be perfect, with God's aide!
The god of Calvinism, then, is only great to the degree that this god's creation is worthless nothingness. It almost seems like this god of yours is absolutely jealous of his own creation.
That's the big picture. Quote me all you like. As you know, I can do the same, as well, that uphold man's free will, man's ability to be righteous, man's inherent goodness. Naturally, if God desires all men to be saved, it follows that men somehow must follow through on the graces that God gives to all. Otherwise, you would have the absurd idea that God, not man, will be judged at the end of time.
Regards
Different Gospels had different initial primary audiences, and God clearly allowed individual personalities to come out through the page. The POV of the writer was preserved, but the content was under the TOTAL control of God. That is the only way we could have the cohesion that we have within all the scriptures. Random men from across time could not have independently come up with this. Do you really think that is possible?
I understand that you guys don’t have a Church, Tradition, the Magisterium or a history that goes back to Christ. You only have words in a Book. It doesn’t matter that the words have changed. It doesn’t matter that the KJV is often different from the NAB, or that the new gender-neutral Bible contradicts both.
Well, we don't have the RCC, or the tradition of men, or a hierarchy set in ivory towers. But our history certainly does go back to Christ. We follow the scriptures, not opinion polls that followed the scriptures. ...... For our authority you are right that we only have words in a Book. That must be a horrible thought to you. Man doesn't get any independent power from that. ...... I couldn't care less about some gender-neutral Bible. I'm not going to read it. But does it distress you that the KJV disagrees with the NAB in some cases? Is the NAB the definitive Bible in terms of truth? I have found that many Catholics love the NAB, but some really hate it. :)
Well, as you have said before, it is GOD who "wrote" the Bible. Thus, the "typical man" coming to the Bible and "siding" with the Reformer is pointless, even if true, since the intent and meaning of Scriptures is determined by God, who has transmitted that meaning to the Apostles and then their successors. I appreciate your candor, but WE are not expected to be Scripture scholars to figure out what God intends to say to mankind. He left us a living Church to teach it!
God ordains everything, but He doesn't "do" everything. When I sin, I "do" it.
What do you mean by "ordain"? Are you saying that God wills us to sin, or He intends for us to sin? I am not sure about what you mean.
That's not true at all. If we posit that Mother Theresa was a true believer, then she was nothing like Hitler. She was free to do good in God's eyes, and presumably did so. There's no comparison. It is true that God used them both for His purposes, but from our human POV it is perfectly fine to say that she was good and he was evil.
Ah, but God "built" them that way, so how is it Hitler's fault that he killed millions of people indirectly? He had no free will and God ordained it. Thus, God will be judged in the after life for "ordaining" a Hitler?
I am saying that it COULD NOT have been for the sake of ALL others if it was unnecessary. What is the value of the sacrifice if it never needed to happen?
As I have tried to say before, Christ died on the cross not out of necessity, but out of love. It is the ultimate expression of self-giving, which is what love is, the "dying of self for another". Remember, Jesus was not "committing suicide", because He knew and trusted that He would rise again. The Passion is not the end of the story.
Regards
You have received the first fruits of your salvation in the Spirit. Even NOW, we are being transformed, saved from the slavery of sin. That is the sign of things to come, if we persevere.
He is addressing then present day Christians, and says that some of them USED TO BE pagan murderers and fornicators (in effect). No where in the passage you cited does he say or imply that those Christians were subject to losing their Godly inheritances.
Where does Paul say that they are immune from returning to that style of life? Paul tells them that ANYONE who does that is in danger of losing their inheritance - the point is that they had received an inheritance in the first place!!! Read the verses again.
In truth, he really doesn't say either way on this here, does he?
It would be pointless to address this verse to people who were not in ANY danger of returning to that life. Peter EXPLICITLY DOES say that. And in Hebrews, "Paul" also says it, as in Galatians. Thus, the Scriptures agree that it would be safe to interpret 1 Cor 6 in the same manner. Paul addresses Christians and reminds them that they can return to their former life and lose their inheritance. Isn't that what Paul had been saying in the previous few chapters, such as in 1 Cor 3 and leading up to 1 Cor 6?
Regards
I agree that it was all about the Father's will. Why would a Father send His one and only Son to death if it wasn't necessary? For a superfluous display of "love"?
Again, you are presenting an external force that makes the Father do something against His will... What force makes it necessary that the Son must die? It is NECESSARY for the Son to obey the Father's will. It is not necessary for the Father to give His Son up to die.
What external force? I'm saying it was God's INTERNAL requirement of justice (His nature) that set the standard here. And who said it was against His will? Not me, it was totally in accordance with His will.
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