Who are the Catholics: The Orthodox or The Romanists, or both?

Me

[the_conscience]

I just witnessed a couple of Orthodox posters get kicked off a "Catholic Caucus" thread. I thought, despite their differences, they had a mutual understanding that each sect was considered "Catholic". Are not the Orthodox considered Catholic? Why do the Romanists get to monopolize the term "Catholic"?

I consider myself to be Catholic being a part of the universal church of Christ. Why should one sect be able to use a universal concept to identify themselves in a caucus thread while other Christian denominations need to use specific qualifiers to identify themselves in a caucus thread?

[RnMomof7]

SO, when we get to "covering" as the root concept behind what is later called "atonement" we realize that one image, one word isn't gonna get it. The thing is too big

Not to me, it is bigger than my human mind can comprehend..

[Mad Dawg]

IS that a disagreement with what I said? To me it sounds like what I’m saying.

[RnMomof7]

It means I understand the magnitude of the sacrifice of Christ and the work it accomplished..it is too large for the human mind to grasp, but one it is applied to you, you may not understand the why, but you understand the work, because it has changed you, you are a new creation... So spiritually I do appreciate the magnitude of the sacrifice, the gift and the application.. and the result.

[Alamo-Girl]

What a beautiful essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!

But with this reduction, we drain the text of Spirit. Now we are not speaking of God's Word and His Will for us any longer at all, rather which side is to prevail in an argument. Such "debates" usually only separate Christians one from another, often enough with considerable acrimony — and thus from God.

So very true! The language of the natural man is not up to the task.

Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. - I Cor 2:13-14

You have explained this very well indeed.

I don't know if I've explained this very well. It all has to do with the relations between faith and reason. Faith must come first. Then we are free to engage in the fides quaerens intellectum, a theological method associated with Anselm of Canterbury, in which confident faith seeks intellectual understanding of itself. Which is what I've basically been trying to do all my adult life.

But I have to tell you this "quest" is utterly internal, and the way must be lit by the Holy Spirit. It is utterly pointless to "argue" about it, or what it has revealed. Yet having started from the position of "confident faith," increasingly I see how completely "reasonable" it is.... From God's own revelations of Himself in Scripture, in the Creation (i.e., the natural world subject to physical laws and principles), in Christ, and in the Holy Spirit with us.

As you say, the quest is utterly internal and must be illuminated by God.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. - John 1:4-5

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. - I John 1:5

And of course, I strongly agree with you about God's revelation of Himself. The Father has revealed Himself to us in four ways: 1) the Person of Jesus Christ, 2) the Person of the Holy Spirit, 3) the Scriptures, and 4) the Creation both spiritual and physical.

As you suggest, if the agreement of others builds confidence in the speaker, then he started short of "confident faith."

May God ever bless you and your loved ones, dearest sister in Christ!

To God be the glory, not man, never man.

[betty boop]

The language of the natural man is not up to the task.

I completely agree with you, dearest sister in Christ!

(I knew you'd understand what I was trying to say!)

Thank you so very much for your kind words, and for your beautiful essay/post!

May God ever bless you and your loved ones, dearest sister in Christ!

To God be the glory, not man, never man!

[RnMomof7]

In 1933, God gave Sister Faustina a striking vision of His Mercy, Sister tells us:
"I saw a great light, with God the Father in the midst of it. Between this light and the earth I saw Jesus nailed to the Cross and in such a way that God, wanting to look upon the earth, had to look through Our Lord's wounds and I understood that God blessed the earth for the sake of Jesus."

In John 1:18, the apostle wrote: “No one has seen God at any time.

Exodus 33:20 God said to Moses: “You cannot see My face; for no man can see Me and live.”

[Running On Empty]

“My own sense is texts of the Holy Scriptures often have mulitple levels of meaning.”

I’m glad you mention this, as this is the way I was taught...”The Four Senses of Scripture”.

I was also taught that these levels are “ ‘globally’ reinforced across the entire holy work”. It wasn’t expressed in the exact terms you use, but I certainly learned it that way.

[Mad Dawg]

Okay. Then the various images help to talk a little about what is too large to grasp. None is proposed as adequate, none is proposed as a sufficient explanation. Rather they give some helps in understanding the quality of our estrangement from God AND the wonder He wrought in the Crucifixion.

I'm trying to avoid typing my world famous (yuh HUH) lecture on the 4 doctrines of the atonement,but I'll give you the bullet points:

1. "Classic or Dramatic" - Jesus kicks the devil's butt. See the end of Gibson's movie, the apocryphal (and deservedly so) "Acts of Pilate, and Aslan's crunching the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
2. Substitionary or Propitiatory. Jesus pays the price of our sins (death) but since he doesn't owe it Himself, his paying is "applied" to us. Here it is the outrage against God's justice which is propitiated by Christ's self-offering. See the White witch's claim on Edmund's life and Aslan's offering himself to pay the debt.
3. Expiatory/sacrificial. "Are you washed in the Blood of the lamb? The Blood (= the life, "For the blood is the life") of Christ is made available to us to make up our deficiency of, well, of everything we need, life itself, goodness, clean-conscience-ness. Having forsaken the innocent nudity of Eden, we must be covered in our shame. The blood of Christ is the only apt covering (hilasmos). Vivified by that blood, we can bear the presence of God since out sin and shame are covered.
4. Exemplary. In his teaching and his life, Jesus overcomes our ignorance of what it is God wants from us. e.g. He teaches that God wants not just justice but mercy, the perfection of justice. In his infancy and his crucifixion he shows that power is not the opposite of weakness but comprehends weakness and that bliss is not the opposite of sorrow but comprehends sorrow.

NONE of these vague notions is adequate to the miracle. ALL of them help us catch a glimpse.

That's how I see it.

[ArrogantBustard]

Everyone who walked and talked with Jesus between His conception and His ascension saw God.

Peter, James and John saw Jesus glorified on the Mount of Transfiguration.

At Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, the Holy Spirit appeared “in the form of a dove” and was seen by many.

At Jesus’ baptism and at the Transfiguration, the Father’s voice was heard.

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

John 14 8Philip saith to him: Lord, shew us the Father, and it is enough for us. 9Jesus saith to him: Have I been so long a time with you; and have you not known me? Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also. How sayest thou, Shew us the Father?

Now ... having disposed of your objection, let us examine the reason I posted that:

You wrote: “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”

I wrote: “Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.”

Fascinating, the similarity. Congratulations: You’re closer to being Catholic than you realize.

[Running On Empty]

This is a great post.

O the complexity of it all :-)

O the simplicity of it all
God is love and he who lives in love lives in God
God is love and he who lives in God lives in love

[ArrogantBustard]

Or maybe you do realize how close you are to being Catholic?

I can't be sure ... I'm not a mind reader. ;'}

[RnMomof7]

Dawg, what does the propitiation/atonement/the cross mean to you?? How does it apply to your life?

[Mad Dawg]

The Dawg gloss is AT LEAST 4 SENSES. I was lector (not Hannibal) last night. When I came to where Ananias calls Paul "brother," I nearly lost it.

To think that at the word of Jesus the persecuted would call the persecutor, "brother," just overwhelmed me momentarily.

[RnMomof7]

She said she saw God the Father.. No one has seen God the father but Christ

[RnMomof7]

“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, [the Father] but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, [Jesus/Yashua] has made him known. “ (John 1:17-18, NIV)
“No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. “ (John 6:46, NIV)

“This is love: not that we loved God, [the Father] but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God [the Father]; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” (1 John 4:10-13, NIV)

[The speaker is God who was born as Jesus/Yashua.] “And the LORD said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But, “he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live. “Then the LORD said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” “ (Exodus 33:19-23, NIV)

[Mad Dawg]

Wow. That’s like asking what oxygen is to me and how it applies to my life.

[ArrogantBustard]

Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also.

If you want to argue the matter with Jesus, go right ahead. I'll take His Word for it.

[Mad Dawg]

This is how what we bring to something affects what we get from it. I read the same words. I saw that she saw a light in midst of which was the Father. I didn't read that she saw the Father.

But I have to say that when I read John I insert "so far" after no one ....

[ArrogantBustard]

Please don’t add your commentary to Scripture.

[Mad Dawg]

Praise God!