If I only had a gun right now...
Posted on 12/08/2021 2:19:08 PM PST by MurphsLaw
s it possible for a memorandum to be a masterpiece? A few paragraphs long, dashed off ex tempore, for a friend, not polished? Various columns in TCT have appreciated masterpieces – a poem, a painting, a musical work. But could a memorandum ever be accounted a “masterpiece”?
I have in mind Newman’s “Memorandum on the Immaculate Conception” – written off by the Cardinal,” his editor says, “for Mr. R. I. Wilberforce, formerly Archdeacon Wilberforce, to aid him in meeting the objections urged by some Protestant friends against the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.”
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That’s it, “written off” – a memorandum is something written off, dashed off, tossed off.
Surely a master can “dash off” a masterpiece: witness the Gettysburg Address, a Shakespeare sonnet, a Scarlatti sonata. And so we look to Newman’s “Memorandum” without worries as truly a spiritual masterpiece.
Newman begins: “It is so difficult for me to enter into the feelings of a person who understands the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and yet objects to it, that I am diffident about attempting to speak on the subject.” He adds, “I was accused of holding it, in one of the first books I wrote, twenty years ago. On the other hand, this very fact may be an argument against an objector – for why should it not have been difficult to me at that time, if there were a real difficulty in receiving it?”
Already, astonishing brilliance. He imagines someone raising difficulties, and his task would be to understand those difficulties and reply to them. But he can’t see any difficulties. Maybe he’s incompetent even to speak on the subject?
He turns this concern on its head. Many years ago, as a young Anglican minister, long before the pope’s definition, Newman had already come to hold that doctrine, naturally and easily. But he couldn’t have done if it had involved difficulties. So he has the requisite competence, which is to speak to the naturalness of the doctrine!
Here is that earlier passage, from the Parochial and Plain Sermons:
Who can estimate the holiness and perfection of her, who was chosen to be the Mother of Christ? If to him that hath, more is given, and holiness and divine favour go together (and this we are expressly told). . . .What must have been her gifts, who was chosen to be the only near earthly relative of the Son of God, the only one whom He was bound by nature to revere and look up to; the one appointed to train and educate Him, to instruct Him day by day, as He grew in wisdom and stature? This contemplation runs to a higher subject, did we dare to follow it; for what, think you, was the sanctified state of that human nature, of which God formed His sinless Son; knowing, as we do, that “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and that “none can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?”
Then come a series of devastating arguments as to why there are no difficulties in the doctrine. If there is no difficulty in saying that Eve was created without sin – if there is no risk of turning her into a deity – what is the great difficulty in saying that Mary was created without sin? If we hold that John the Baptist was cleansed of original sin in the womb, then why not Mary from an even earlier point in the womb? If there is no difficulty in saying that you and I are cleansed from original sin at some later point in our lives by baptism – if our saying so in no way detracts from the merits of the Lord – then wouldn’t Mary’s being cleansed even earlier in her life make her even more dependent on the Lord?
"We do not say that she did not owe her salvation to the death of her Son. Just the contrary, we say that she, of all mere children of Adam, is in the truest sense the fruit and the purchase of His Passion. He has done for her more than for anyone else. To others He gives grace and regeneration at a point in their earthly existence; to her, from the very beginning."
Newman then considers the antiquity of the doctrine. Why? Because “No one can add to revelation. That was given once for all; – but as time goes on, what was given once for all is understood more and more clearly.” You might wish to copy out these lines as proof of what Newman meant by “development of doctrine.” It did not allow for any new revelation. What it means, rather, is this: “The greatest Fathers and Saints in this sense have been in error, that, since the matter of which they spoke had not been sifted, and the Church had not spoken, they did not in their expressions do justice to their own real meaning.”
He focuses on the contrast between Mary and Eve in the earliest writings of the Fathers, and especially the proto-evangelion: “See the direct bearing of this upon the Immaculate Conception... There was war between the woman and the Serpent. This is most emphatically fulfilled if she had nothing to do with sin – for, so far as any one sins, he has an alliance with the Evil One.”
Newman’s masterpiece concludes: “I say it distinctly – there may be many excuses at the last day, good and bad, for not being Catholics; one I cannot conceive: ‘O Lord, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was so derogatory to Thy grace, so inconsistent with Thy Passion, so at variance with Thy word in Genesis and the Apocalypse, so unlike the teaching of Thy first Saints and Martyrs, as to give me a right to reject it at all risks, and Thy Church for teaching it. It is a doctrine as to which my private judgment is fully justified in opposing the Church’s judgment. And this is my plea for living and dying a Protestant.’”
Would you defend your own mother from lies about her?
From you snarks, I doubt it.
If I only had a gun right now...
Sorry; but if you'd paid attention during YOUR catechism classes you'd have noted your first pope, Peter I think was his name, made the claim.
2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Apparently that’s against the rules, so there ya go.
It seems like that JESUS felt the stuff written down was adequate!
Yes. Not all. Should we respond in kind to your attitude? Should you respond in kind when we have attitude?
I try not to get too snarky, because I don’t think it helps. But I’m a sinner like the rest of us, and sometime my better nature fails to prevail.
Personally, I’d prefer to focus on what we have in common against those who would like to kill us because we love Jesus. Which means praying for them, as our Lord commanded us to do.
I think we should all be praying for each other as well. Couldn’t hurt.
I don’t think Joseph made it to old.
There’s no mention of him when Jesus began His ministry. The last reference to him in Scripture was when Jesus was age 12.
The Holy Spirit.
Why do you hate Floridians?
I did.
St. John Henry Newman - the person quoted in the OP regarding the Immaculate Conception - not ironically is known as the father of the theory of the development of doctrine:
The obvious problem with Newman’s analysis and conclusion is that it flies in the face of the decrees of Trent and Vatican I, both of which decreed that the unanimous consent of the fathers does exist. But to circumvent the lack of patristic witness for the distinctive Roman Catholic dogmas, Newman set forth his theory of development, which was embraced by the Roman Catholic Church. Ironically, this is a theory which, like unanimous consent, has its roots in the teaching of Vincent of Lerins, who also promulgated a concept of development. While rejecting Vincent’s rule of universality, antiquity and consent, Rome, through Newman, once again turned to Vincent for validation of its new theory of tradition and history. But while Rome and Vincent both use the term development, they are miles apart in their understanding of the meaning of the principle because Rome’s definition of development and Vincent’s are diametrically opposed to one another. In his teaching, Vincent delineates the following parameters for true development of doctrine:
Romans 5:20 Now the law entered in, that sin might abound. And where sin abounded, grace did more abound.
So if Mary was “full of grace”……….
You cannot have grace where there is no sin.
If Mary were sinless, she could not experience either the grace of God nor the mercy of God. Both are given to undeserving sinners. If Mary never sinned, then she deserved what God gave her, which precludes grace and mercy.
We go WAY back at FR - Catholics and Protestants.
We all know and understand our 'snark'.
Each side in this, ahem, discussion hopes to sway any lurker(s) that may have foolishly wandered into our catfight.
I admit to snark; but if you notice, most all my stuff is backed up with Scripture: the writings that Rome has kept for us all.
As it says in it, add stuff or leave stuff out at your peril.
As for snark, I direct your attention to Luke 11:37-54.
That’s mighty broad.
Care to pick out something?
Doesn’t the Word of God tells us that Jesus was tempted in all ways like we are? without a body and soul inherited from Adam how could He be tempted? Well, catholiciism claims He could not be tempted, of course contradicting the very Word of God! Jesus could have inherited a flesh able to be tempted only if Mary had such a flesh.
I’ll leave broad for now.
Or maybe just say the bottom line for me is one Church, not something torn into a thousand splinters, or ill-defined as ‘all believers’, who all seem to have their own version of the Holy Spirit interpreting the scriptures in whatever way suits their fancy.
They can’t all be right, you know.
So then what?
You depend on your pope? Or your cardinals who elected your pope?
You’re going to trust THEM for interpretation of Scripture?
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