Posted on 11/17/2017 3:03:09 PM PST by ebb tide
As an outsider, I can’t help but wonder whether the pope and the USCCB were particularly provoked by Weinandy’s suggestion that Jesus had allowed this controversy in order “to manifest just how weak is the faith of many within the Church, even among too many of her bishops.” Catholics will have to make up their own minds—but I’ll admit I have questions about the faith of Pope Francis, which seems, if not weak, at least different from that of the Catholic tradition.
Even before the release of Amoris Laetitia in March 2016, Francis had caused many to question his fidelity to that tradition. In 2014, the midterm report of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family recommended that pastors emphasize the “positive aspects” of cohabitation and civil remarriage after divorce. He said that Jesus’s multiplication of bread and fish was really a miracle of sharing, not of multiplying (2013); told a woman in an invalid marriage that she could take Holy Communion (2014); claimed that lost souls do not go to hell (2015); and said that Jesus had begged his parents for forgiveness (2015). In 2016, he said that God had been “unjust with his son,” announced his prayer intention to build a society “that places the human person at the center,” and declared that inequality is “the greatest evil that exists.” In 2017, he joked that “inside the Holy Trinity they’re all arguing behind closed doors, but on the outside they give the picture of unity.” Jesus Christ, he said, “made himself the devil.” “No war is just,” he pronounced. At the end of history, “everything will be saved. Everything.”
Weinandy and other Catholic critics have pointed to alarming statements and suggestions in Amoris Laetitia itself. The exhortation declares, “No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!” In December 2016, the Catholic philosophers John Finnis and Germain Grisez argued in their “Misuse of Amoris Laetitia” that though this statement reflects a trend among Catholic thinkers stemming from Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, it contradicts the gospels’ clear statements and the Catholic tradition’s teaching that there is “unending punishment” in hell. Finnis and Grisez charge that, according to the logic of Amoris Laetitia, some of the faithful are too weak to keep God’s commandments, and can live in grace while committing ongoing and habitual sins “in grave matter.” Like (Episcopalian) Joseph Fletcher, who taught Situation Ethics in the 1960s, the exhortation suggests that there are exceptions to every moral rule and that there is no such thing as an intrinsically evil act.
I take no pleasure in Rome’s travails. For decades, orthodox Anglicans and other Protestants seeking to resist the apostasies of liberal Christianity have looked to Rome for moral and theological support. Most of us recognized that we were really fighting the sexual revolution, which had coopted and corrupted the Episcopal Church and its parent across the pond. First it was the sanctity of life and euthanasia. Then it was homosexual practice. Now it is gay marriage and transgender ideology. During the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, we non-Catholics arguing moral theology could point to learned and compelling arguments coming out of Rome and say, in effect, “The oldest and largest part of the Body of Christ agrees with us, and it does so with remarkable sophistication.”
Those of us who continue to fight for orthodoxy, in dogmatic as well as moral theology, miss those days when there was a clear beacon shining from across the Tiber. For now, it seems, Rome itself has been infiltrated by the sexual revolution. The center is not holding.
Though we are dismayed, we must not despair. For the brave and principled stand made by Tom Weinandy reminds us that God raises up prophetic lights when dark days come to his Church.
Gerald McDermott holds the Anglican Chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School.
The fish swam must have fled into the shallows where the weeds grow...
IF you ASSUME that the Church is not protected from error by the Holy Spirit,
THEN the decisions on the canon are “the decision of men.”
AND THEN those who side with Calvin have to explain how the canon was closed, there being no record of a notarized telegram from heaven.
*I* would say, rather, that the Holy Spirit acting in the deliberations of the Church recognized the Holy Spirit's work in the canonical books. So — TO ME — Calvin indulges in false alternatives.
Again the admirable Calvin seems to me to neglect the distinction between source and conduit, or to think that once one has affirmed the source one need not mention the conduit. Clearly (though the implications may not be so clear) the inspiration of the Holy Ghost proceeds from the core (so to speak) of the Godhead. [Of course, the Jehovah's Witnesses, reading the same perspicuous Scriptures as Calvin would find the term “Godhead” blasphemous, and many other non-Trinitarians find grounds in the same books to repudiate most mainline Protestants, etc.]
But is “the pillar and foundation of truth” to be so easily and carelessly cast aside? So “the living words of God” describe the Church, after all.
...
I swam the Tiber 23 years ago come 12/26. The Catholic Church makes me crazy! (Well, okay, in my case, maybe craziER would be better.) I find a lot to love in Calvinists and even more in some Baptists. But I find nothing to make me sorry I signed on.
And when non-Catholics try to tell me what I believe and what, say, Unam Sanctam demands of me, it's not persuasive.
Indeed, the local church is to be a pillar, upholding the Word of God and to be a support under it.
While you didn't quote the whole chapter, it is worth noting that the context is choosing qualified men to serve as Elders and Deacons in Ephesus, where Timothy was in charge.
Paul says this...
"Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth."
The local church is the household of God and truly must uphold truth. It is not the truth. It upholds God's truth, when it is doing it's job.
And on top of what AMPU said, you still have no evidence that Paul is speaking of the Roman Catholics.
I would think that a ‘foundation of truth’ would be something completely in line with what the Lord has said, not one who has to resort to infallibility doctrines for their theology.
I only know of a few Catholics who have any assurance of salvation. You, me and the others addressed here. That is one of the many reasons we are ex Catholics.
I don’t know why so many millions don’t want any assurance of salvation, when it is readily open to all, but if they don’t want any assurance of salvation, that’s on them. It is up to them to seek the truth. 😀😆😄👍
It’s probably more than that bro. How many Catholics have heard the Gospel?
Not many I would suspect. I was a Catholic my whole life, but I never heard the true gospel, till I was 21. I heard small snippets at mass, here and there. I knew Jesus died for sinners, but I didn’t think it ever applied to me. I just assumed Paul, the apostles and others, must have led a good enough life to attain salvation. I knew I could NEVER lead a good life like they did. I just assumed I was on my way to Hell, which was certainly true, but later on, I had the true gospel preached to me. I thought, this was great, cuz all I ever wanted, was the truth. I finally got it. 😀😆😄👍
It's funny when such people accuse Martin Luther of doing what they take pride in saying they did!
Finally, what God has spoken in His word is truth even if NOBODY believes it. We are to believe and obey what He has said to us not quibble over what is or is not sacred Scripture. That is the height of hubris and arrogance! God dealt harshly with Israel for their treatment of His prophets and their disobedience to His word.
Additionally, Ignatius didn’t write ANY of his letters in English!
For me too. Truth mixed with falsehood. I’m grateful God opened my eyes to His Gospel of Grace.
Seems to be a common occurrence doesn't it?
Remember what I said about stalkers and those bearing false witness?
Well, I think with many false religions, there is a small amount of truth. Just enough truth to float the poison. That is what we got previously, just a little bit of truth, together with a ton of false doctrines.
Now, other cults, like Islam, don’t even have any truth in it whatsoever. It sinks to the bottom, with no semblance of truth at all, to give it even a little bit of reasonableness.
Yes....you score a 10/10 on both accounts.
Yes, Revelation writes of churches or cities ... and technically I am a member of the Church of Richmond.
So, is Christ the head of several bodies, the husband of several brides? What are the hermeneutics for knowing when Paul (or anybody) is speaking of the universal church and when he is speaking of the local one?
I do not see the words “local” or “sometimes.” That doesn't mean your suggestion is wrong. But it's not self-evident either.
Also, if the only local church is the pillar and foundation of truth, when it teaches properly, how, especially before there was a canon of Scripture, does one tell if it's teaching properly? How does one tell if it decides properly in choosing the canon?
If a local congregation chooses, as some “Orthodox” do, to stay away from Revelation or to admit the so-called apocryphal books, how does one argue for or against that?
Or if the local Church is Arian, or Docetist, Monophysite, Monothelite, icon-favoring or iconoclastic, where does one go for authority?
In a small town like Columbus Mississippi when I was there there were several local churches of different kinds. Over here abortion was said to be wrong. Over there it was said to be up to the mother.
Sure, there's the “tradition,” shown in the Didache, of ... well I guess you all would say “somebody, somewhere,” saying abortion is wrong, but the Didache is maybe 90-110 AD and not Scripture. So I suppose it's just an opinion of the local writer who may or may not be right, for his local church.
Believe me, I don't jump up and down and clap my little paddy-paws at the idea of conciliar or papal infallibility. But I see many long and cogent writings claiming to be based on SOME version of Scripture but saying contradictory things.
It doesn't seem to me to be so very clear.
It looks to me like you’re sidestepping the question, or at least my question.
How do you know that the ‘one true church’ is embodied in Roman Catholicism?
I can grok that there’s only one Bride of Christ, but I have not seen any evidence that the Bride is composed solely of the the organization calling itself Roman Catholic.
I mean, if an organization teaches things that are contradictory to the Word of God, that kind of wrecks any claims to be the foundation of truth, yes?
And so we come back around to ‘how do we know Catholic teaching is true?’ Because it really feels like a circular argument from where I’m sitting.
It’s funny when such people accuse Martin Luther of doing what they take pride in saying they did!
Seems to be a common occurrence doesn’t it?
***
And then when it’s pointed out, don’t even argue but howl that Luther is in Hell for what he did.
These conversations get diverted and distracted and split into so many different questions so quickly and end up going nowhere.
AMPU MAY be suggesting that there is no one true church at all. I wanted to look at that idea. A conversation which assumes that there is and then asks if the Roman Catholic Church is it is really logically later.
Similarly, the problem of the authority of Scripture, how it was determined to be authoritative, who made that determination, and by what authority they made it seems to me to be prior to whether the Roman Catholic Church is, ought to be, or could be the group that made the decision.
And you hint at a vast ocean teeming with other questions, like whether the Catholic Church teaches things contrary to Scripture. I don't think we could possibly catch all the fish in the sea. But if we can, we probably ought to try it one at a time, not all at once. And if we can't, maybe we'll get somewhere on catching a few if we work one at a time.
But there’s no indication in any of the NT that any of the churches mentioned either in Revelation 2-3 or by the epistles written that they were all under one centralized authority.
Your argument does not hold water.
ALL believers are members of the body of Christ regardless of how they are separated by time and space. It’s totally irrelevant that they attend different local assemblies.
It’s not the physical location of the assembly that makes His body. It’s the faith in Him and THAT is the unifying factor, not the church governance.
But Catholics have this great hope in Purgatory.
While the time spent there will NOT be fun (or so I've heard) it WILL end at some point and THEN ya get into Heaven.
So; bottom line for you fearful Catholics out there with NO assurance; you've really got it; according to Rome.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.