Posted on 04/16/2014 5:37:55 AM PDT by Salvation
Featured Term (selected at random:
ROSMINIANISM
A system of philosophy formulated by Antonio Rosmini-Serbati (1797-1855), founder of the Institute of Charity. Encouraged by Popes Pius VII, Gregory XVI, and Pius IX, he undertook a renewal of Italian philosophy, ostensibly following St. Thomas Aquinas. But the influence of Descartes, Kant, and Hegel shifted his thinking. He came to hold that the human mind is born with the idea of "being." In time it analyzes this basic idea to discover in it many other ideas, which are identical with those in the mind of God. Rosmini also taught that reason can explain the Trinity and that original sin is only a physical infection of the body. After his death forty of his propositions were condemned by Pope Leo XIII in 1887 and 1888.
All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.
“Now’s a good time.”
No, it isn’t.
Never is, it seems.
Ok thanks and you’re welcome.
It seems to me though since you dismiss both personal experience and historical claims as evidence for Rome’s authority, there is no way to answer your question.
And I say, “no way to ANSWER” it purposefully. That is, if you dismiss a person’s personal testimony and the historical/Scriptural arguments they offer, you’re never going to find an “authority” you can trust.
I guess maybe that’s your point. That there isn’t really any authority, in the form of Man, to trust. Ok. But if indeed that is your point, then I submit there’s a disconnect between your spiritual life and the life you lead on a daily basis. Because you clearly submit to authority in other areas (unless you are a complete anarchist, testing every bit of food you are given, or maybe even growing all your own food and cooking it yourself, and you have personally explored every continent on the Earth to “know for your self” that they exist). Unless you are doing all those things, and a nearly infinite amount more “for yourself”, you are submitting to an authority of some form or another. Authorities on an wide range of subjects from science to geography to the culinary arts.
So if you are submitting to an authority on those things, things far less important than your immortal soul, why would you think you can “go it alone” when it comes to your relationship with the Infinite?
I suppose you might reply to me, “You’re just not getting it, my Authority is Scripture”. And I guess that’s where we have to leave it, because I have read the Bible too, and, when I have, I have never heard it talk back to me. In a voice that can be heard. In a voice I KNOW is from God and know it’s NOT the Devil.
Maybe you find this pitiable. I don’t know. But I do know I’m a pitiable creature in the eyes of God. And I also know that my mind is no match for the Devil’s. I need help defeating his plans in my life. And it’s all too easy when it’s just me and the Bible to read and interpret it with his “spin”. It’s all too easy to be deceived.
It’s quite humbling, really, to admit that about myself. That I need another to understand the Gospel so I might be saved. This is why, though, I believe, humility is stressed so much in Christian history and Scripture. Why the “poor in spirit” (which is humility) will be richly rewarded. Because it’s a vital component of our salvation. It’s vital, because we need an authority, a human authority, to help us on our way. Our own experience testifies to this need.
God Himself took human form to address this need. To meet us where we are instead if snapping his fingers and just making this ok. This is the method he chose by the fact of the Incarnation. The Incarnation wasn’t just a miracle to awe us (although it is that too). It was also an indication, of what his method for saving humanity must be. Or else he’s just a magician, going around performing miracles to show us how great he is.
No, the Incarnation must have a deeper meaning than that. And the deeper meaning is to teach us our need for another. Our dependence on him. Our proper place in relation to him, which is in service and subjection to him. How can we learn that lesson if we say to the humans who came before us, “I don’t care what you say, I’m going to read the Bible for myself, and decide myself what it says.” That’s what it is, to read Scripture divorced from any authority and history. Why would anyone be so proud as to think the voice “guiding” them as they read Scripture “for themselves” is only God and not the Devil? Does anyone really believe it’s not possible for the Devil to so deceive? To twist Scripture on itself to make it seem like “Scripture proves Scripture”?
Sure it’s possible that one human can teach another one in error. But that’s precisely my point: how can anyone know they aren’t following their own bad teaching, inspired by the Devil, when reading Scripture “for themselves”?
For me that’s the central issue. You’ll never get away from it, if you’re honest about the notion of humility. There must be a promise outside man, to ensure proper Christian teaching. Something, Another, who says, “I will help you to not TEACH error to other human beings. I will be with you until the end of time for this reason.”
Otherwise, being poor in spirit has no meaning, no value, beyond a pious sounding ideal. An ideal we never really reach, but claim for ourselves because it makes us look good. Which would be ironic, if it weren’t so sad.
So; it is Catholicism that screwed up a YEARLY meal of remembrance into a ritual performed every time the pew warmer enters the doors of the church.
The end result is, operatively, ignorance. I don't know if Daniel really read the Bible or not; he probably does. But the end result of all these "hermeneutics" is that half the New Testament did not have to be written as it needs to be explained away and negated in order to make it fit the Protestant theological fantasies.
annalex: point to any plausible reason, from the text alone, why Jesus would cause some disciples to leave by insisting that we should eat His flesh “indeed”, and then repeated the same thing at the Last Supper, and then St. Paul taught that we must “discern” His body in the Eucharist.
Leaving the two pages of fluff and random scripture quotes, this is your substantive answer:
seen in Scripture is much figurative use of eating and drinking, including that of men being called "bread" and drink being called the blood of men, (Jn. 4:34) and words of God being "eaten."
That is nothing of the kind:
[33] The disciples therefore said one to another: Hath any man brought him to eat? [34] Jesus saith to them: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work. (John 4)Where is "figurative use" here, especially of the Eucharistic food Jesus is about to give?
the rest of Scripture no one is ever shown obtaining life in them, becoming spiritually alive, by physically eating, but by believing the gospel message.
Right, but a part of that message is John 6 and the doctrine on the Eucharist. You read "believing the gospel message" and think Protestant faith. Think whole entire Catholic faith, because nowhere did Christ said "some stuff that I told you is really a figure; please ignore it".
As for your proof text, "plausible reason" what Jesus would cause some disciples to leave by insisting that i expect should eat His flesh “indeed” is easy to see
Finally...
the Lord revealed what was meant to those who walked with Him, as is the case in Jn. 6
Certainly. At the Last Supper Jesus says "this is my body" and no one asks how could it be. When St. Paul mush later describes a Eucharist celebrated and corrects the celebration y insisting that the congregation "discerns the body", -- that is the faith of the Church at that point. Jesus did explain, and the disciples became priests and did as He commanded them to do. No Protestant memorial snack to be seen anywhere, real presence and the real body of Christ to be "discerned".
This Word was made flesh
Correct. You forgot whose side you are arguing? Adn if not, where is your plausible evidence of figurative use of "meat" and "flesh" in John 6? All you did was explain to us the Catholic teaching that the Eucharist is word made flesh and is a necessary component of living Catholic Christian faith.
As for "indeed," (alēthōs: Jn. 6:55) that simply means "of a truth,"
Yes. That is supposed to negate what Christ said?
As for 1Cor. 11:17-34 , that was already been explained, showing that nowhere does it say to discern” His body in the Eucharist, which again is more romish reading into the text, but contextually refers does not refer to the nature of the elements consumed in the Lord's supper, but to recognizing the nature of the church as the body of Christ for which He died, (Acts 20:32) by how they showed His death by that communal meal
St. Paul cites the words of Christ at the Last supper, "this is my body given up for you, eat it". While St. Paul does speak of the Church being the body of Christ figuratively in other chapters, in 1 Cor. 11:29 the body" is the same body as in Luke 22:19, -- Christ's body.
You fail again. The Corinthians indeed were not discerning the nature of the Eucharist, but that nature is that it is Christ's body and not food for the stomach, as the text of Paul's speech shows. It is also consistent with the distinctions made in John 6, where Christ explains that the Eucharist does not feed the stomach.
superficial exegesis
The Holy Scripture is not a riddle that without a Protestant pastor cannot be figured out. When it says "A is B" that it is not superficial exegesis to understand that A is indeed B, without roundabout musings how the Bible does not mean what is written in it.
Which reminds me, you did not even touch the Last Supper subject. "This is my body, which is given for you". So Christ, according to the Protestant charlatans, gave not His body but some allegory on the Cross? Or, since we are to understand that it is faith that we symbolically eat in the Eucharist, Christ's faith died on the Cross?
Very good. We know the infallibility of the Church in the practice of our faith.
Very well, although that way you are still likely to "discover" allegory simply because it becomes an easier explanation. Sort of like some see in the feeding of the thousands by five loaves a figure of human economic cooperation.
in private he is always explaining the analogies, just as happened in John 6
So you discard the plain reading of "food indeed" in favor of the imagined private explanation not recorded anywhere in the Scripture. If that is your hermeneutic, why do we need the Bible?
We see what Christ explained privately to St. Paul. He taught him to teach others to "discern the body". We also see the written text of the speech at the Last supper: "this is my body, which is given for you". No room to imagine allegories privately explained.
analogy is the default delivery mode for Jesus’ public teaching ministry
I think I responded. When He tells a parable He usually makes it clear it is a parable. There is a difference between teaching by parable and teaching by parable never explaining that it is a parable. When the parable is not delineated in the text, like with Jesus "the door", that is because it is impossible to take it otherwise: the disciples in it become "sheep", Jesus stops being a door and becomes shepherd, there are wolves involved, then He is vine and we are branches... it is impossible to take literally, it becomes a children's theater with dress-up.
With John 6 we either have a teacher who drives his disciples away for the sake of telling an offensive to them parable and still does not explain the truth after the parable failed -- or we have what the Bible says without hidden meanings.
But Peter believed, right then and there, that Jesus was Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Peter through faith, right then and there, had the vital nourishing connection to Christ that is implied in John 6:63, “My words are spirit, and they are life.” When Jesus says “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.,” that is literally fulfilled by Peter and the Apostles believing in Him, trusting in Him and His mediatorial work for their salvation, right then and there.
Yes, the Apostles believed before the institution of the Eucharist, because Jesus was present in the flesh for them. He would not be in the flesh for us if not the the Eucharist; and so Christ gave us His body in perpetuity. It is a part of the deposit of faith that the Church received.
If I don't seem to respond, please ask again. My time dedicated for this is limited and I may overlook a point, or consider it unimportant, or simply not respond because I agree with you on that point.
“Never is, it seems.”
It’s a good time when I say it’s a good time.
It is more of the same - from you, refusing to allow anything that refutes your tradition as your predetermined conclusion is that your are right because your church is right. And indeed, she said so herself.
Leaving the two pages of fluff and random scripture quotes, this is your substantive answer:
Meaning an RC being true to form.
seen in Scripture is much figurative use of eating and drinking, including that of men being called "bread" and drink being called the blood of men, (Jn. 4:34) and words of God being "eaten."
That is nothing of the kind:
Since your refuse to see what was clearly substantiated, why should i even try to do so again? It's true then. David and Israel engaged in transubstantiation, or these text have no bearing in the Lord instituting Christianized endocannibalism to gain spiritual qualities what are never received by physically eating, and kosher disciples simply go along with it. Sure. The danger of cults is that they will believer and follow men or hierarchy over Scripture.
[34] Jesus saith to them: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work. (John 4) Where is "figurative use" here, especially of the Eucharistic food Jesus is about to give?
Where is "figurative use"??? So its also true. The Lord literally consumed the will of the Father. And invoking "Eucharistic food Jesus is about to give" is a case of reading into Jn 6, which Jn. 4:34 works to interpret, as do other cases of figurative use of food and eating and drinking.
the rest of Scripture no one is ever shown obtaining life in them, becoming spiritually alive, by physically eating, but by believing the gospel message.
Right, but a part of that message is John 6 and the doctrine on the Eucharist.
Means that it MUST be teaching contrary to the rest of Scripture, while your own literal interpretation (not belief in Eucharist, no spiritual life in you) is consequently contrary even to what your modern church espouses. Many RCs are much sedevacantists in details.
You read "believing the gospel message" and think Protestant faith. Think whole entire Catholic faith, because nowhere did Christ said "some stuff that I told you is really a figure; please ignore it".
A sophist false dilemma and i think you know it. Christ being referred to a a lamb, a temple, the door, the light, provider of living water, etc. in John, all employ physically figurative language, understood spiritually, as is being the bread of life by which one gains life and lives thereby. Not be becoming Catholic cannibals.
the Lord revealed what was meant to those who walked with Him, as is the case in Jn. 6
When St. Paul mush later describes a Eucharist celebrated and corrects the celebration y insisting that the congregation "discerns the body", -- that is the faith of the Church at that point. Jesus did explain, and the disciples became priests and did as He commanded them to do.
What blatant Catholic compulsion of Scripture to conform to Rome! The "body" Paul refers to is clearly the church, as shown , while there simply is no Paul or another NT pastor even shown dispensing bread let alone turning it into human flesh, nor are they even once called "priests," and you have been shown before this is a contrivance, based upon imposed functional equivalence. But as Rome decrees Truth by fiat, so her lemmings declare they must be right. Such are in need of deprogramming.
This Word was made flesh
Correct. You forgot whose side you are arguing? Adn if not, where is your plausible evidence of figurative use of "meat" and "flesh" in John 6?
Are you now blind? That is what you asked before and i which showed you. But eyes they have, yet they see not.
As for "indeed," (alēthōs: Jn. 6:55) that simply means "of a truth,"
Yes. That is supposed to negate what Christ said?
Now you are misconstruing what i said, What is at issue is what Christ said does and the meaning alēthōs means your use of cannot be sustained.
St. Paul cites the words of Christ at the Last supper,
And that's all you need to see to dismiss what is clearly shown in context, that the " not discerning the body" referred to was the church! Even when RC commentary affirms me on this issue. It follows that the only proper way to celebrate the Eucharist is one that corresponds to Jesus’ intention, which fits with the meaning of his command to reproduce his action in the proper spirit. If the Corinthians eat and drink unworthily, i.e., without having grasped and internalized the meaning of his death for them, they will have to answer for the body and blood, i.e., will be guilty of a sin against the Lord himself .. The self-testing required for proper eating involves discerning the body (1 Cor 11:29), which, from the context, must mean understanding the sense of Jesus’ death (1 Cor 11:26), perceiving the imperative to unity that follows from the fact that Jesus gives himself to all and requires us to repeat his sacrifice in the same spirit (
The Corinthians indeed were not discerning the nature of the Eucharist, but that nature is that it is Christ's body and not food for the stomach, as the text of Paul's speech shows. It is also consistent with the distinctions made in John 6,
As the text of Paul's speech shows?! That is simply ABSURD!
The table of the Lord in 1Cor. 11:17-34 is clearly described as communal meal, in which rather than supposing the Lord's supper was not food for the stomach, some were going ahead and eating up food and thus "shame them that have not," not effectively recognizing them as part of body Christ died for and which they are sppsd to be showing but were not.
And which Paul condemns and the Lord chastises them for, and thus they are told not to come hungry so they do not come together unto condemnation. The idea that there were being censured for not realizing the nature of the elements as not being for the stomach is simply foreign to the context, and is simply an example of more mere compulsive Catholic assertions dismissing what is before them and compelling texts to conform to Rome.
The Holy Scripture is not a riddle that without a Protestant pastor cannot be figured out.
Correct, much less is Rome needed for assurance Truth, which is a fundamental fallacy you operate out of.
Which reminds me, you did not even touch the Last Supper subject. "This is my body, which is given for you".
Did not touch it? The very issue is what these words mean in the light of all Scripture, and context, which disallows physical eating giving spiritual life, much less human flesh, and thus likewise "This is my body, which is given for you" such is representative of Christ, like as water was of the blood of men, and people were bread, and the word was eaten, etc. It is clear to him that understands the abundant use of metaphors.
So Christ, according to the Protestant charlatans, gave not His body but some allegory on the Cross? Or, since we are to understand that it is faith that we symbolically eat in the Eucharist, Christ's faith died on the Cross?
This is more sophistry, using another false dilemma and more misrepresentation. Recognizing bread and wine as representing the Lord's body is just the opposite of making the latter the allegory(!), not does Jn. 6 mean faith is eaten (!), but that Christ in His totality is given for man, and He is to be internally received by faith, just as one physically consumes food, and thus live by Christ as Christ lives by the Father.. (Jn. 6:57) His "meat" being doing the Father's will.
Your argumentation remains absurd and even insolent, and is an argument against Rome in both content and spirit, and provides no warrant for more patient endurance and use of time. /p>
Who is it that fails to understand?
Jesus held no wafer in His hand...
Insolence on steroids. Which i can easily evidence beyond personal reading, having read and posted the entire OT and NT Bible online (save for revelation) , but the cultic RC mind only sees what he wants, and imagines others are ignorant since they cannot see prayer to saints in Heaven, sanctioned cannibalism, pastors titled priests, purgatory, etc . etc. I am done with your arrogance after all the time i spent on you.
I’ve been in awe of your patience.
Where did i say i dismissed both personal experience and historical claims as evidence for Rome’s authority? I stated the former has its place, which is also true of the latter. But what i dismissed was that this could be your basis for assurance as a RC, which is the case.
I guess maybe that’s your point. That there isn’t really any authority, in the form of Man, to trust. Ok. But if indeed that is your point, then I submit there’s a disconnect between your spiritual life and the life you lead on a daily basis. Because you clearly submit to authority in other areas
You are missing the point, which is not that there is no warrant for obeying authority, but that there is no warrant for Rome being perpetually assured infallible (albeit under her conditions), nor for the premise this is essential for assurance of Truth.
I have read the Bible too, and, when I have, I have never heard it talk back to me. In a voice that can be heard. In a voice I KNOW is from God and know it’s NOT the Devil.
I have, if not audibly, as when you are born again, it is the living word to you. (Heb. 4:12) But i have no heard the pope speak as God, though they presume His place on earth.
Maybe you find this pitiable. I don’t know. But I do know I’m a pitiable creature in the eyes of God. And I also know that my mind is no match for the Devil’s. I need help defeating his plans in my life.
The Lord quoted Scripture to combat the devil, not those who sat in the seat of Moses. And which the teaching office does provide help, when it presumes to be as sure as the voice of God, then you have the devil working on an institutional level.
This is what occurs in cults and in Rome, perpetuating erroneous traditions that are not the result of the weight of Scriptural warrant.
No org or person save the Lord can claim assured veracity, and while there are persons who do can cause problems, when an org does so then that is multiplied.
And rather than being needed, the church actually began in dissent from those who presumed a veracity above that which is written, even though they were the recipients of promises of preservation and God's presence, and had historical descent. Moreover, souls knew both writings and men of God were so, and that an itinerant Preacher was the Divine Son of God without an infallible magisterium.
No, the Incarnation must have a deeper meaning than that. And the deeper meaning is to teach us our need for another. Our dependence on him. Our proper place in relation to him, which is in service and subjection to him. How can we learn that lesson if we say to the humans who came before us, “I don’t care what you say, I’m going to read the Bible for myself, and decide myself what it says.” That’s what it is, to read Scripture divorced from any authority and history.
That is true and is not the issue. Reformers did not discard all else and simply read Scripture, as that is not what sola scriptura means, but it alone is the wholly inspired and infallible and supreme rule/standard for faith. Scripture is abundantly evidenced to be the transcendent standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the assured Word of God.
But they did not read it alone. From Alister McGrath's [Irish theologian, pastor, intellectual historian and Christian apologist, currently Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at Kings College London] The Genesis of Doctrine: A Study in the Foundation of Doctrinal Criticism:
Although it is often suggested that the reformers had no place for tradition in their theological deliberations, this judgment is clearly incorrect. While the notion of tradition as an extra-scriptural source of revelation is excluded, the classic concept of tradition as a particular way of reading and interpreting scripture is retained. Scripture, tradition and the kerygma are regarded as essentially coinherent, and as being transmitted, propagated and safeguarded by the community of faith. There is thus a strongly communal dimension to the magisterial reformers' understanding of the interpretation of scripture, which is to be interpreted and proclaimed within an ecclesiological matrix. It must be stressed that the suggestion that the Reformation represented the triumph of individualism and the total rejection of tradition is a deliberate fiction propagated by the image-makers of the Enlightenment. — James R. Payton, “Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings”
Which does not mean they found past sources as always faithfully passing on what is found is Scripture (nor does all church "father"s wrote all support Rome), but what is at issue is authority presuming autocratic supreme authority, which is the fall back recourse of Rome when faced with challenges that refute them, as illustrated in Cardinal Manning's classic response.
It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine.
I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves. — Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, pp. 227,28
Thus most of your post is not really addressing the real issue, but thanks for trying to articulate a good argument otherrwise.
"taking bread, he gave thanks, and brake; and gave to them, saying: This is my body" (Luke 22:19)
It is a good idea to have a passing familiarity with the Holy Scripture before troubling yourself with posting anything.
No, Jn. 4:34 is clearly figurative, but it has nothing to do with John 6 where Christ is speaking not of food He would eat, but of the food He will give and insists it is "food indeed".
Christ being referred to a a lamb, a temple, the door, the light, provider of living water, etc. in John, all employ physically figurative language, understood spiritually, as is being the bread of life
The metaphors you list are clearly that, but Christ did not attempt to dispel the concern of the Jews regarding His body in the Eucharist; If He meant it figuratively as well , He would have. You don't have a plausible explanation why.
The "body" Paul refers to is clearly the church
How is it "clearly", when Paul makes a reference at Christ's body given up for the Church in the previous verse. He did not give up the Church, he gave up His body, i.e. His life FOR the Church. You fail to read the text as it is written.
the meaning alēthōs means your use of cannot be sustained.
"αληθως" means "in truth" or "indeed" so Jesus says that His flesh is in truth food, just as the Church teaches.
clearly shown in context
Been there. Not "clearly"; the opposite is true from context, because it is Jesus' body Jesus talked about at the Last Supper.
some were going ahead and eating up food
Ignoring the explanation of Christ that the Eucharist is not to feed the stomach.
The very issue is what these words mean in the light of all Scripture
In the light of the insistence of Christ that His body is "food indeed" it means what He says without equivocations.
Your argumentation remains absurd and even insolent
I read what is written and believe it like written. You problem is with the Holy Scripture, not me.
Did I dispute that? What I said is
But the end result of all these "hermeneutics" is that half the New Testament did not have to be written as it needs to be explained away and negated in order to make it fit the Protestant theological fantasies
The very essence of Protestantism is lying about the Scripture, then feel offended when shown up.
Funny thing is it's NEVER a good time for you to back up your accusations with any examples no matter how many times you have been asked for them. Yet, you continue to complain that Catholics are constantly harangued with anti-Catholic bigotry and hatred. I've asked several times for you to give even ONE example of what you classify as bigotry and hatred of Catholics so that we could try to avoid hurting anyone's feelings in the future, and you NEVER respond. I think the best thing to do is simply ignore the "Chicken Little" persecution whines as the nonexistent sky-is-falling rhetoric it is.
Follow your own advice then. Elsie was correct, Jesus held a loaf of bread, probably a large, free-form piece of unleavened bread which he broke and passed around. No "wafer". Is there any trouble understanding his point?
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