I noticed that, in commenting on Jessica’s post on Saturday, my friend Dave Smith, quoting from the old penny catechism, commented that the ‘Church is one’ because it acknowledges one head – the Pope – among other reasons. I know what he means, but I also think that this Pope is about as far from a focus of unity as you could get. In yet another of his interminable monologues on a plane (can’t the man just watch the movies like ordinary people?) he seems to have said that it would be fine if folk used contraception to avoid conceiving because of the Zika virus. I write in the conditional tense because who can be sure what he means? If Dave really believes that he and his fellow Catholics are united under this Pope, or indeed under the last few, he’s ignoring the reality: under John Paul and Benedict the liberal Catholics ignored much of their social and moral teaching; now the boot is on the other foot. Any how, anyone who enters the Catholic blogosphere expecting the Church to ‘be one’ is going to be a sadder person after even half an hour there.
The RCC is not the only church which professes the Christian faith, or even the only one which can sustain a claim to have been founded by Jesus, and neither is it the only one to have been around from the beginning. With the exception of the Pope, the Orthodox Church claims all the same things, and they may both be right. They may also both be ignoring the work of the Holy Spirit in the world. The Creed is neither the product of, nor the possession of the Roman Catholic Church – indeed there was no delegate from the Rome at the 381 Constantinople Conference, and no one submitted the 325 Nicene one to Rome. I am glad the RCC exists, it gets more right than it gets wrong, but like billions of people in this world, I am not in the slightest convinced by its claims, neither do I think it has some unique access to the Holy Spirit.
I was pleased that the Pope met with the Moscow Patriarch, as I am whenever Christian leaders meet and behave like brothers. For once, Pope Frank did not shoot off at the mouth, and that can only be a good thing. But anyone who imagines that either of those churches is going to be the sole engine of some great evangelism is as barmy as anyone who imagines that my church or any other will be. Jessica is spot on in thinking that if we spend so much time on the past, we shan’t have much of a future.
A common complaint among Christians is the challenge we face in the public square. Jessica is quite right in thinking it cannot be met by insisting on old divisions, and, I fear, in thinking that too many Christians will carry on doing just that. With those, as with those Orthodox who rejected the compromises of Florence, nothing, not even the flag of Allah flying atop a symbol of Christendom, will change their mind. If they are the last Christians on earth, they will rejoice at being the pure remnant. You know, we might at least try to help the Holy Spirit out here.
All Along the Watchtower 
The one Church has many key ideas. #1 It’s the true Apostolic church that is rooted in Petrine primacy as Christ instituted him as the rock. In many ways, this has been explained as how we can know that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the truth through Apostolic tradition. However, it is a church that can claim also the origins of the Didache, Origen, the Gregories, Basel, Augustine, Jerome, Aquinas, etc. The question would remain can other protestant denominations make claims to these? The Catholic claim is that the Church’s tradition started with Peter and by Peter with Christ. Doesn’t the Lutheran tradition begin with Luther? Does the Anglican tradition begin with Henry? Calvinist with Calvin? What makes these faith’s different from Mormonism? IF the Catholic Church doesn’t have unique access to the Holy Spirit, how can I be sure that Joseph Smith wasn’t a TRUE prophet?
#2 St. Cyprian of Carthage: “[O]utside the Church there is no Holy Spirit, sound faith moreover cannot exist, not alone among heretics, but even among those who are established in schism”
Now, I’ve examined why Apostolic tradition is important. It’s the reason how we can know that the claims that Christ is God is true; however, can we know these things when we started to doubt chain links along the way to us? If Cyprian was wrong… perhaps…St. Augustine’s theology of Original Sin is completely wrong as well.
St. Cyprian wasn’t the only one within Apostolic tradition to make these claims:
Ignatius of Antioch:
” If anyone follows a maker of schism [i.e., is a schismatic], he does not inherit the kingdom of God; if anyone walks in strange doctrine [i.e., is a heretic], he has no part in the passion [of Christ].”
There’s more.
However, after Vatican II, the idea was that Protestantism was within families for generations. So the Church viewed it as wisdom to be more accepting and use the word heretic less as a means for better conversion.
On Unity, Any who profess to be under the Authority of the Church are united in common communion, whether they follow that moral authority or not is part of each one’s sinful nature. We must pray for all of our sins.
Sorry to rush the end, but I must be off to teach school!
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If the RCC claims Apostolic origin, so do we all, and it is plain that Rome held no jurisdictional primacy in the early Church; if you have evidence that the first seven ecumenical councils needed the Pope to call them and ratify them, you will electrify the world of scholarship!
St Augustine’s explanation of OS is not accepted by the Orthodox and is increasingly seen as defective even by RC theologians, so you may be on to something there.
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Ludwig Ott claimed that St. Ignatius did elevate the Roman Community in the 1st century. “The presiding community that expresses authority.”
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Now, I am just guessing here, but this Ott fellow, wouldn’t happen to have been an RCC would he?
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I’m not 100 percent sure, but full disclosure, I would imagine so.
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🙂
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Very well stated, especially this;
“The Catholic claim is that the Church’s tradition started with Peter and by Peter with Christ. Doesn’t the Lutheran tradition begin with Luther? Does the Anglican tradition begin with Henry? Calvinist with Calvin? What makes these faith’s different from Mormonism? IF the Catholic Church doesn’t have unique access to the Holy Spirit, how can I be sure that Joseph Smith wasn’t a TRUE prophet?”
Thanks.
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No, the Lutheran church started with Jesus as did the Anglican. I don’t know if you fellows quite get this. When you write like this, you are like Bosco claiming the Roman Church began with Constantine.
We do not have some strange different faith, and if you don’t know the difference between a Mormon and a Christian, you are not Steve Brown but some imposter 🙂
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I’m not entirely sure that the Copts don’t have a better claim than either Rome or the Orthodox. After all we still all recite the Athanasian Creed, written by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria.
In any case, to deny the patristic influence on Protestantism, makes just as much sense as to deny Magna Charta’s influence on American jurisprudence. All things are built on foundations that come before.
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It makes absolute sense, so long as you choose the chain analogy. The foundation sentiment, it makes no sense because of my statement that it’s a break on the linear chain of the Church’s apostolic tradition as spoken by Cyprian and Ignatius. It only doesn’t make sense depending how you frame the analogy.
By your analogy, you haven’t dismissed Joseph Smith claim as a prophet. Smith merely put the roof on Protestant walls.
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It makes equal sense for the Orthodox Church and the Anglican Church. You seem to be ignoring the Nicene definition of what being a Christian is – Smith isn’t, I am; I believe in the Trinity, he didn’t.
Which ever way you slice and dice this, RCC claims to exclusivity rest on a set of self-defined descriptors accepted by RCCs alone.
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I’m not ignoring anything; however, I’m rooting out the quantifications on what constitutes as “true” to everyone. I can assume what everyone believes.
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I take my stand on the Nicene Creed. It says nowt about the Pope, Rome having jurisdiction over all, Mary being mediatrix of graces, all or some or none. It seem plain men with self interest in Rome and Alexandria and elsewhere have made claims which put them in the driving seat – I see no signs any of that power-play was inspired by any spirit other than that of pride and aggrandisement – as evidenced by the forceful methods used to advance their cases.
In none of that do I see the humility and self-sacrificial love of Christ, who said nothing about needing grand palaces, fine robes and the rest. It seems obvious that sinful men have used the faith for their own ends in terms of power and wealth – now it is no longer the route to those things, many men have found other routes.
We could now move beyond these awful worldly men.
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Following on from Geoffrey’s comment about what the Nicene-Constantinople creed does and doesn’t say, it also says nothing about the Filioque – at least, the version produced by the people who were actually at Nicea and Constantinople doesn’t.
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Indeed – yet another additional barnacle added by Rome which then throws a hissy fit and insists everyone accepts its view of it will excommunicate you. I am always quietly amused to hear RCs say they have added nothing – no one has added more.
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You make me smile with your answer to Mark Armitage. It is always the way that it is the RCC that threw a hissy fit. It takes two sides to form a split. It was obviously of enough importance to the Orthodox that they were willing to separate Christianity over and they would not budge. So why do you lay it at the feet of Rome every time? I see a prejudice here that is always the same.
Maybe, just maybe, both sides thought that getting the theology right was important if we were to go forward and develop theology further on the foundings that were being laid down by these early theologians.
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“It takes two sides to form a split”. But it was the popes who were unilaterally introducing novelties, and the Greeks who were resisting the novelties. The split wasn’t cause by two sides. It was caused by one side unilaterally imposing novelties on the other side.
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If it was unimportant, then why did they care that theology was being modified slightly?
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I certainly don’t think either side believed the issues at stake were unimportant. I think they both sincerely and passionately believed that they were defending important truths.
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So do I Mark. As such, characterizing it as a hissy fit is rather simplistic.
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As I say, I would call it a mild description for a gross insult. How would Rome have reacted if, on Easter Sunday 1054, an envoy of the Patriarch had walked up to the high altar and, placing a bull of excommunication on it, announced that the Pope was excommunicated? Would Rome have thought it just another one of those little things? Perhaps not?
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It tells me something; since they couldn’t. Those that could, did and those that couldn’t didn’t. It is that simple or it might have been reversed.
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Constantinople was standing firm in the tradition handed down from the Fathers – Rome was not.
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I guess we should have continued with the tradition of a flat earth as well . . . yet we are criticized for having held to it for far too long. 🙂
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Not a good analogy. It is like Kasper saying that there is no direct claim by Jesus or the early Church that women could not be priests – true but disingenuous and misleading 🙂
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No, Kasper hasn’t followed the development of typology or theological development regarding the priesthood and inventing a new nover theology in this regard.
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I think you may underestimate him – bet he could.
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He could, but will deny that it is important or perhaps even correct.
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He’ll say the Church is developing 🙂
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Everything is developing even if it is a full demolition of one thought and a new and novel definition that replaces it.
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That’s why I persist with the Original Creed. If you start changing things like that unilaterally, where does it stop?
There may be a good argument, if there is then it should have been made before the whole Church at a Council, like the original. For me there’s no getting away from the fact that Rome changed something it had no business changing.
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Well it was hard to create a tradion of theology when you were fighting to just keep alive in the early Church. Now that the first Nicene creed says that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father, it is correct in the sense that the Father begot the Son and then the Son and the Father loved one another. So it is but a small ammendment that gives more honor to Christ. Perhaps, like Mary, you think Christ might not derserve some additional praise for His part in this Love between Father and Son?
That’s what I thought. That would make every Anglican a hypocrite at their reciting of it.
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Let’s see – who was it who sent legates to Constantinople in 1054 who chose Easter Sunday to put a writ of excommunication on the high altar at Hagia Sophia? Clue – it wasn’t the Orthodox. If you can think of a description in which this is not as gross an insult as could be contrived, I’ll withdraw the hissy fit comment 🙂
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And did it stop them from holding on to their position. It was as firmly held on both sides and you would have it that simply because one side was stronger that they are the entire cause. Sounds like sour grapes because you want Rome to be the scoundrel. There were no winners here: we all lost and both were obstinate in their views.
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Their position on the filioque was that of tradition – they were trying to stand on what the whole church had always agreed. Roe has intruduced a dangerous novelty and, as ever, I am afraid, refused to see it was at fault. For a church founded on repentance, it really does have a problem admitting it was ever wrong.
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It was as much tradition as it was that the world was flat. That type of developed understanding can be changed when a better model is finally approved and understood and then more science and more theology can then be given a good basis to built upon.
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No the world being flat was never in the Creed, nor was the filioque. It is actually more like Rome deciding the world was flat and insisting everyone else agreed 🙂
It is the Kasper argument – and I am surprised to see you using it.
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So how do you say the Nicene Creed, if you say it? Do you believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only? Or do you see the Holy Spirit as spiration of Love between both the Father and the Son . . . giving Christ a principle role in a mutual love of one another. Just wondering.
Is it a step forward or backward in theological purposes. It is exactly like the flat earth argument. We understood more about the central role of Christ and the relationship of Christ and the Father than we did previously. It was theological development as the spherical earth was a scientific development.
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We say it the way the early Church said it. We see no reason to question the likes of St Athanasius. Either the Fathers knew what they were doing – which we think they did – or they were wrong – if Rome believes that, then it cuts itself off from being able to claim their sanction for anything else. Kasper rules apply.
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So in the Nicene Creed you do not say, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life who proceeds from the Father and the Son” and in the Athanasian Creed you do not say, “The Holy Ghost is of the Father, and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.”
Well that is interesting that you follow the Eastern Rite churches when most of the Western Rite churches say it just as Rome does.
I’m glad to see that when you profess your faith before God and man you are not being a hypocrite. 🙂
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We do say the Athanasian Creed as the Church wrote it – we do the same with the Nicene Creed – it is the RCC who changed the latter unilaterally. I am a stubborn old Baptist and stick to what is handed down!
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No wonder you say that if you became anything else it would be Orthodox. Our theologies are little different here.
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I am, in many respects, Orthodox, but its externals are foreign to me. It adheres to the one Creed agreed on by the whole Church, and its somewhat austere theology appeals. But it is so overlain with Greek and Russian externals that it is, in that sense, foreign to me.
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Of course I have, one cannot be both a Christian and an Unitarian. If Protestantism doesn’t have have patristic roots, every bit as deep as Rome’s then it could work.
In a good many ways, Luther was an originalist, that may be why Medhat Ghabrial has stated that, ” Lutherans and Copts, have similar Christology as the article states, so are the Anglicans.”
But here we are indulging Rome’s tendency to tear the church apart for its own glory as it has consistently done since about 345. We should instead be finding ways to work together.
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Rest assure, I’m out of all people am happy to work together.
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I know you are, as I am. But sometimes some of the rhetoric sets me off! 🙂
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Many saints have commented that Peter was the first Pope, that Paul was the first Theologian and John the first Mystic of the Christian Church. We take it from these foundational stones (built on Jesus Christ) that they are among the first foundational stones to be laid in the building of the Church. and that others would build upon their works. For it is St. Paul who says much the same:
“Now he that planteth, and he that watereth, are one. And every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour. For we are God’s coadjutors: you are God’s husbandry; you are God’s building. According to the grace of God that is given to me, as a wise architect, I have laid the foundation; and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid; which is Christ Jesus. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble: Every man’s work shall be manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.”
If this is so, then show me an unbroken line of those who built upon these founding stones: the unbroken lines of Popes that succeeded St. Peter, your theologians stretching back to Paul and your Contemplative Saints who built upon St. John. That there are men who built with wood, hay and stubble, should not surprise . . . but with the fire of the Holy Spirit what remains are those things which were built with gold, silver and precious stones.
Were all the rules and all that needs be said there from the foundation or is development a sign of life and working of the Holy Spirit? They were built upon the foundation stones but the work remains when they are found to be worthy of the Edifice of the Church: this defined teaching and Holy Tradition remain.
So it surprises you that the Pope was not present at this council or that. Or that theology would develop and bad ideas burn while good and lasting Truths remain. Likewise you see Pope Francis as proof that the Office of Pope should not be recognized because of the man. The Church isn’t broken, the Offices are not broken but men build with straw all the time. The Church remains. It does not surprise me that everyone here does not think that their version of the Church is the right one . . . otherwise, what are you doing by staying where you are? So why is everyone surprised at the teachings of the RCC when it points out what seems obvious to us? And you make my point to Jess: we do not see the words of the councils the same or the words of the creeds and therefore it is daft to think that any unity is taking place. We have our hands full with those who are trying to remake the Church and are intent on removing some of the gold, silver and precious stones to be replaced with wood and straw. The Spirit will thwart their attempt and the Church will remain.
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Dave, we both know that no one can ‘prove’ Peter was the first Pope, or even that he was a Bishop of Rome. What we know is the early Church in Rome said so. I am happy with that. What we have only the laim of Rome for is the view that Peter’s office was hereditary and gave certain powers to its holder. You will not, I think, deny the Apostolic succession of the Orthodox Church, and it has never accepted the claims made about the office of Pope. No one except those with a self interest in it ever has. The early Church did not recognise it as having universal rights of jurisdiction, and if you have any evidence you will make a great name among scholars. It had, at best, a primacy of honour; it was not even informed about Constantinople 381 until the next century,
What has been built up by Rome is a vast self-important edifice designed to justify its own power. I dont blame it, most churches did and do the same, but nowhere in Scripture requires me to believe the exaggerated claims made by the RCC about the Pope, Mary and the saints. Not one of these things is said by anyone associated with jesus, or by Jesus, to be essential to my salvation.
We have one mediator, Christ Jesus, and we have access to him through faith. There is no key holder, no prime minister, these are man made myths designed to cement an edifice of clerical power. We know how the Apostles and first Christians lived in common – we have no record of any bishop living in a a palace and requiring servants and an administrative staff and the rest of it. We have many examples in the world of local churches getting on with the good news – and the RCC is one of them. It is when it makes these grandiose claims against the evidence of some pretty tawdry reality (shared by other churches let me hasten to add) that one says ‘no’.
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I don’t have definitive historical or empiritcal truth about much of what I and you hold as part of our Christian Faith. What I do have is a Church with a Tradition that recedes into the haze of past times where what you desire to be written in stone is only written in the human stones that follow upon one another. That is good enough for me.
Times change: you seem to think that because the Church grew so rapidly that order had to be established to regulate the purity of faith and doctrine was a bad thing. I think it was a necessary thing even if we had a long learning curve filled with unfortunate outcomes and filled with questionable characters as sinful as any man. But the stubble is burnt away always. What is good remains in tradition and in our defined teachings. We have an edifice built to last on human stones and will continue to be added to. And no, Mariology will not be stubble to be burned away.
I would like your thoughts Geoffrey your understanding of the phase “communion of saints” taken from the Apostles Creed. Again, I think you will note quite a different understanding that what has developed by the human stones which comprise the edifice of the Catholic Church.
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Paul calls all Christians saints, and I am in communion with all Christians. Paul may or may not have meant we are in communion with dead Christians who will rise again – I should be honoured to be in communion with them – they might be less enthused about an antiquated Baptist 🙂
We are warned, constantly about the dangers of ritual and formulaic religion by Jesus himself – all his harshest words are reserved for those who place extra burdens on the faithful – his yoke is light and he says nothing about saying hail mary or going to any source other than himself for grace. I am a simple man and I stick to hat he said as far as is given me to understand what I need to be saved. I need no theology, I need no esoteric knowledge of allegory, I need faith in Christ Jesus, and that faith brings forth in me works.
It really is very simple. It takes a bunch of priests to make it complicated – which is why we stick with the Biblical elders, deacons and have no sacramental priesthood – there was none in Scripture.
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And here I think is the fundamental problem with coming to an understanding between Catholics and non-Catholics. We see the Bible as the last public revelation of God as delivered to private individuals; at the death of the last apostle. However, unlike you, we do not think that revelation from God ended but is intended to be revealed by the Church. So where you have a fossilized faith that stops at the book of Revelation we have a living faith that is still unfolding and revealing a fuller understanding. The foundation is just that: Christ and the apostles. But there is so much that has been built thereupon and not all of it is straw. Every age has had its contributions.
Here then is what the Catholc Catechism has to say on the Communion of Saints:
II. THE COMMUNION OF THE CHURCH OF HEAVEN AND EARTH
954 The three states of the Church. “When the Lord comes in glory, and all his angels with him, death will be no more and all things will be subject to him. But at the present time some of his disciples are pilgrims on earth. Others have died and are being purified, while still others are in glory, contemplating ‘in full light, God himself triune and one, exactly as he is”‘:492
All of us, however, in varying degrees and in different ways share in the same charity towards God and our neighbors, and we all sing the one hymn of glory to our God. All, indeed, who are of Christ and who have his Spirit form one Church and in Christ cleave together.493
955 “So it is that the union of the wayfarers with the brethren who sleep in the peace of Christ is in no way interrupted, but on the contrary, according to the constant faith of the Church, this union is reinforced by an exchange of spiritual goods.”494
956 The intercession of the saints. “Being more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven fix the whole Church more firmly in holiness. . . . They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as they proffer the merits which they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus . . . . So by their fraternal concern is our weakness greatly helped.”495
Do not weep, for I shall be more useful to you after my death and I shall help you then more effectively than during my life.496
I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth.497
957 Communion with the saints. “It is not merely by the title of example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven; we seek, rather, that by this devotion to the exercise of fraternal charity the union of the whole Church in the Spirit may be strengthened. Exactly as Christian communion among our fellow pilgrims brings us closer to Christ, so our communion with the saints joins us to Christ, from whom as from its fountain and head issues all grace, and the life of the People of God itself”498:
We worship Christ as God’s Son; we love the martyrs as the Lord’s disciples and imitators, and rightly so because of their matchless devotion towards their king and master. May we also be their companions and fellow disciples!499
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I don’t see the faith as fossilised – we have the Spirit working in the world, and if we pay some heed to our prayers and to Him we are guided, and I am as much an inheritor of the treasury of the Christian past as anyone else who wishes to acquaint themselves with it 🙂 That seems an awful long-winded saying that we are all adopted children of the one God working our salvation in fear and trembling 🙂
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Geoffrey – basically, Holy Scripture isn’t rich enough for them. If we stick to Holy Scripture, our faith is ‘fossilized’. The alternative, of course, is to embrace everything that ‘Frankie da Pope’ comes up with to show that Christianity is a dynamic and responsive faith …..
I think we see where this is leading.
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Indeed so, for all Christians have picked that which they think should be kept and rejected that which they think needs be rejected. Therein there is no authority for any Church except the Catholic Church to say what is valuable and what is not, what is tradition and what is not. For even the Bible came from the same loins of the Church and put into readable form with all of the OT Scripture around A.D. 400. So indeed some men have decided for themselves on what they accept and reject while others accept what the leadership of the Church has preserved in Tradition and pronounced to be Divine Truth. We will never be able to cross that bridge I am afraid; though we certainly have a lot of folks calling themselve RC Christians who are picking and choosing that which they want to believe these days.
Again, as I said to Jess, I am happy that we have aired many an urban legend about one another here at AATW. It has made for good fellowship among Christians. But when it comes to seeing eye to eye on non-negotiables we must part company . . . which does mean parting fellowship or cooperation with one another; especially for the Glory of God. I have no doubt that there are persons of the deepest faith and love in every denomination and we can, in a spirit of love fight together agains the ravenous wolves of this age . . . and we should. But non-negotiables shall remain non-negotiable. 🙂
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But again Dave, this is all theory and has nothing to do with the real world. I have lost count of the number of times faithful RCs here have bemoaned the misdeeds, as they see them, of their hierarchy. Yes, your church has more rules than the EU, and they are obeyed by those subject to them about as often: no birth control – most Catholics ignore it; Latin is the real language of the Church – most Catholics ignore it; women should not be EEMs – they are; divorced people should not received communion unless they have had an annulment – most priests don’t ask, so no one really knows the figures here. One could go on and on. Yes, the RCC has a lot of rules, and yes, few obey all of them, and many ignore some really very important ones. As long as people like Pelosi and Biden can receive communion, it does not matter what your Bishops say about abortion – the message is clear – if you are an important person, a blind eye will be turned. How many RCCs actually believe in transubstantiation? PEW surveys suggest about half.
There is a Grand Canyon between the theory and the practice.
In practice, small local churches where we elect to be part of Christ’s church and we work together in good companionship, are far better vehicles for the Good News than these global structures wherein careerists can hid and make a good living.
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If there are so many rules how did I have them learned in so short a time I wonder. They fall under rather simple principles; if you understand the principles you are likely to know the teachings. I could teach an RCIA student in about 6 months of meeting with them 1 hour a week. There is always a Grand Canyon between a Mother Teresa or Padre Pio from the rest. But they serve to as reminders as to the wisdom of the Church. When you have no rules its easy to be a Christian in good standing: apparently the only requirement is to hang about with each other in fellowship . . . nothing else matters much. That we are heading in that direction by those who are leaving their Teachings behind should be of great joy to you and other non-Catholics. I’m not ringing a death knoll quite yet. The Barque of Peter seems to have enough good men and women to survive this storm as She has so many others.
As to careerists; I’ve know some. As to the average Priest – most are good men. Some well educated and some not so well. But the education seems to be getting better than it was.
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Dave – I’m not sure you have learned the rules. When asked about something, you often cut-and-paste screeds from the catechism of the RCC. It’s not clear to me that the whole thing is in your head.
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You didn’t read what I said then. One need only understand the principles and one can almost intuit the rules. They follow on without much mental effort at all. Ignorant farmers and unschooled children have learnt them at a very early age . . . what is so hard about it?
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I hope you are right, but if you left out the converts and the Hispanic immigrants, would the RC population of the USA be rising or falling?
It isn’t a case of rules or no rules. I don’t know any Christian fellowship which has no rules. I know of large Christian churches where there are rules but no real communion even in church, but I know of now local churches where that is the case. In my own fellowship we not only know the rules, be voluntarily abide by them. But then, like in the early church, we all know each other, we have fellowship events throughout the week and the year, and not one of us thinks of church as being somewhere where we go once a week – it is at the centre of our social life. I am aware of no local big churches where that is the case – save one black pentecostalist church.
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Well, Geoffrey that is the benefit of belonging to a parish of 40 some-odd souls. If each parish was of that size I suppose we could each say the same.
The numbers of “law-abiding” Catholics increasing and then decreasing is no different than other denominations. It is almost like breathing. We have been there before and we have then inhaled greatly and expanded at a fast rate. That is the problem when you try to evaluate a 2000 year old, living and breathing Church or edifice built of human souls, by taking a snapshot at one instant in time and drawing all sorts of conclusions from it.
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And that is why local community churches of the sort founded by Paul are the best model. You can have the best rules and the best intentions, but if there is no living community it doesn’t matter.
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If it can be done that is great. I wonder how many Cathoic Churches would have to be on every block of NYC to accommodate 40 people. I suppose you could build a skyscraper of churches with lots of small rooms. 🙂
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If they were full of communities of Christians helping each other and spreading the faith, why not 🙂
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I’ll see if The Donald will build us one on every block then. 🙂
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He’d more likely build a casino on each one. A much married man who makes money from gambling – sorry, count me out 🙂
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Nothing wrong with Church Bingo. 🙂
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Ah, we Baptists don’t hold with gambling 🙂
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That wasn’t gambling it was a way to raise money for the poor and other projects in the Church whilst having a bit of fun and fellowship. 🙂
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Alas, we see it as gambling. I say alas, because it would be a useful fund raiser – but we do it the hard way – as usual – no wonder there’s not too many of us 🙂
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Might be. We even gamble on our health when we spend our money on a Church dinner, breakfast or lunch to benefit the works of the Knights of Columbus or some other worthy group. That’s gambling too. 🙂
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Ah, that’s where we’ve an advantage – one of Mrs S’s hotpot suppers is best ballast you could have for a winter’s evening 🙂
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I’m glad to hear that some women have continued the tradion of learning how to cook. It is becoming a lost art I’m afraid. 🙂
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Mrs S’s hotpots are the Yorkshire equivalent of the ambrosia of the Gods. She taught the daughters to cook, and I am pleased to say that the sons in law are very happy she did 🙂
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There’s no doubt in my mind with Rome’s connection to St. Peter. There’s no evidence for a lot of things on matters of faith. I have discussions with empiricists all the time and the problem with empiricism is eventually you’ll have to take a stab in the dark.
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Mine either Philip. His tomb being found came as no shock to me . . . but the denials will continue to rage and never abate. We would have to come up with DNA proof if were possible to convince them.
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Indeed, literally built on.
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Yes. How foundational is that? But even if Peter were to rise from his tomb and write down for posterity all that went on in Rome, there are those who would deny it, as it was not in their KJV Bible. It is their only standard of proof and then it must be interpreted as they interpret it and not as the Church interprets it. So what chance is there when one has freely chosen to ignore all evidence but their own and of course their personal interpretation of scripture or the lack thereof. One must eventually cease to teach the faith if all one gets is jeers and incites some to anger; many others await the Good News and thirst for Truth. We can simply shake the dust from our sandals and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit. No malice, nothing lost and sadly nothing of importance gained . . . simply live and let live and hope and pray for the best. In the end we can part as friends though we belong to different faith traditions. That is the final outcome of ecumenism, I fear. At least we can respect others for their constancy in their faith beliefs and those things which we do hold in common.
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I agree, in so far as I said in my last comment, the point is not whether Peter was there – he was, but whether anyone in the early church regarded him as having jurisdictional rights over all Christians churches. For that there is no evidence.
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As you say, the early indications, though scant give the Primacy of Bishops to the Peter and the Chair of Peter. Pray tell why did the Church do this? Don’t you think that most of the hierarchy would have been against it? How did it develop then? Why did it continue to be discussed and refined as to what the Keys being given to Christ independently of the gift to bind and loose which He gave to all Bishops. That was the nagging question and it has been answered and understood. As Chalcedon says we have an Umpire . . . and you think you don’t and that we don’t need one. We disagree.
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You say that “the early indications…give the Primacy of Bishops to the Peter and the Chair of Peter”. There were (as Gregory the Great pointed out) three chairs of Peter – at Rome, Antioch and Alexandria. Secondly, “primacy” in the early centuries didn’t mean what it came to mean in the 11th century. In particular, it didn’t involve any of the claims to universal jurisdiction which became central to the doctrine of the papacy which took shape in the 11th century.
“Why did it continue to be discussed and refined…?” Because, starting from the 9th century, the popes made increasingly bold and unprecedented claims regarding the extent of their jurisdiction. The popes made it a subject of discussion when they sought more and more power over their brother bishops – in spite of the injunctions of Jesus to all the apostles (including Peter) that they should not exercise lordship over each other (Matt. 20:24ff; Luke 22:24ff).
“As Chalcedon says we have an Umpire”. But he’s a self-appointed umpire. How do we know the pope is the umpire? Because the pope says so. How do we know he’s right to say so? Because of an NT passage about the keys. And how do we know the pope’s interpretation is correct? Because he says so. And how do we know he has the authority to say so? Because of an NT passage about the keys. It looks suspiciously like a circular argument.
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As is yours . . . but you have no answer to the “keys” and you have no answer to the apparent failure of the Holy Spirit given at Pentacost and the assurance that the Gates of Hell will not prevail. We won’t agree here anymore than when the Churches agreed at the time of the split. It is a matter of faith. I have faith in the work of the Holy Spirit in the guidance and development of the RCC and you in the Orthodox. That is about as far as you or I can take it. You won’t accept the RCC’s explanation and we won’t accept yours. Its as simple as that. So we are where we are.
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“It is a matter of faith.” Yes, absolutely. Neither side can definitely prove its case. There are circular arguments on either side.
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Agreed my friend . . . I fear this is one of those old wounds that just won’t heal.
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Again, it is the definition of Primacy which is at stake here. No one can produce anything from the early Church which shows that the Pope was considered to have universal jurisdiction. The only church which took the line you do on the keys was, oddly enough based in Rome; there is no sign that Antioch, Alexandria or Constantinople agreed with this – in fact all the signs run the other way.
That Rome accepted it had a certain type of primacy is proof only that Rome has long arrogated to itself powers no one else agrees it has.
It simply is not true that the church discussed and refined this. Of the old pentarchy, four rejected Rome’s claims, three of them fell to Islam by the seventh century and the other, Constantinople, continued, and continues, to reject Rome’s self serving exegesis.
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Again, you would try to say that Chrisitanity should remain a small house church and not develop. You think that infants should remain infants or a child to remain a child. If the infant didn’t do it then the adult shouldn’t do it is all that I hear in your arguments.
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Not at all. We grow in every place we plant a church. That is sustainable and organic growth.
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I was not speaking here of converts to the faith, my friend. But development and growth in scripture scholarship, theology, and truths which are are hiding in Truths already known.
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There’s a very great deal of that outside the Catholic Church – indeed Newman, the greatest RC theologian of the last two centuries, wrote much of his best work before he became an RC 🙂
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And it led him where? 🙂
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To a church which failed to give him anything worthy of his great talents, treated him as a potential heretic and held back honouring him until he was close to senile. Great use of one of the greatest souls of modern times – or not?
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So he joined the club of the countless saints who were persecuted even by their own: St. John of the Cross and others . . . but is now counted by that same Church as Blessed. The Church settles these things in time and all are rewarded in heaven. I’m sure his mistreatment led him to more holiness than if he had been adored and swooned over . . . which leads to men and women who become self-absorbed. it was in God’s plan for the man and I’m sure he took it as Divine Providence. Note that he did not leave over such a trivial thing as to how he was mistreated.
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I understand that – but for those of us on the outside, it isn’t really very appetising – I wouldn’t fancy being at the mercy of some liberal bishop
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None of us do . . . but if it be God’s Will to test our love, fidelity and obedience then how else are we to know that we have gained these all important virtues?
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True that 🙂
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This is a non-problem. The issue is whether Peter’s office was inheritable, and what it involved. The evidence there can be read a number of ways. My problem is when Rome insists it is the only way of reading it; it isn’t, it’s one version. I respect those of you who hold it, and it is a reasonable interpretation; but I respect those who say it can be read another way, not least my Orthodox brothers and sisters, who seem to me to have as good a case for their reading.
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And the inheritability is a non-subject if you actually believed in typology and if you had been a Jew raised with offices which were handed down. As I said – St. Paul seems to indicate that each of the Apostles were nothing more than the foudation stones that would be built upon by others. You don’t want to believe it but why in heaven’s name would the first 50 Popes allow themselves to become such when it was a sentence of death? They obviously understood something about the office that you don’t want to see. Who would make up the office under those conditions?
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‘If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, 18 do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
So what if the first 50 popes were true Christians and martyrs of the faith; so what if they formed a natural descent from Peter?
Branches are broken off because of unbelief and new branches (people who stand by faith) are grafted in.
It seems to me that God broke off this branch (direct lineage from Peter) long ago and The Word is now spread by faithful servants, who have been grafted in.
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Please show me where the RCC was broken off and where others were grafted on. What sign of this have you? You won’t find it in the Bible and you won’t find it the history books. And anyway, Paul is speaking of the Jewish Faith being broken off and how we as Christians were grafted on. It has no bearing on this situation. But if you insist: I am sure that this is exactly how you and others think. In the depths of your hearts you do believe that Catholics are no longer Christian and that somehow you have been grafted on and taken its place. I might do the same had I remained outside the Church . . . it seems a fine solution as to why you are separated from Her.
Again, there is no amount of eplanation that will satisfy those who don’t want to be satisfied for they are satisfied with what they have . . . and that is fine. But then, suggesting such things as the RCC is no longer connected to the root is foolhardy at best.
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Dave – that is easy; the RCC was ‘broken off’ as representative of Christ and His teaching as soon as they said that there was someone other than Christ born without original sin and who lived their life without the taint of sin.
Holy Scripture states ‘all have sinned’ and enumerates the exceptions to this; ‘not even one’. When they start telling lies about the clear and plain Word of God (breaking the ninth commandment), at this point they have clearly been broken off.
As I’ve stated, I believe there are people of God within the RCC, but their understanding of their faith is seriously flawed. They are being led astray by their leadership.
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I have seen you keep beating this drum Jock so let me first just say that it is another poor interpretation of scripture that you are using. Paul was speaking here of ‘all’ as not distinction between Jews and Gentiles. He was not using the word all as a word meaning “without exception” for he would then have to make exception for Jesus and all children below the age of reason. Mary, we have held by tradition (by way of extension from the sinlessness of Christ) was without sin as well.
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Honestly! Paul is clear and plain and you are mitigating against this clear and plain meaning in order to persevere with a fiction.
Paul makes it clear that he means everybody. The verses that I have been ‘beating the drum’ with come at the end of a long development – and it is clear that it is not restricted to a Jew versus Gentile thing.
He states the theme which he subsequently develops in Romans 1v17 ‘For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’
He then goes on to show that there are none righteous in and of themselves. He starts with the ‘bad pagan’ (Romans 1v18 – 32) where he refers to those about whom he is talking in the third person. They wouldn’t be interested in his letter to the Romans and he does not even address them as potential readers (curiously, much of the depravity of the ‘bad pagan’ that Paul writes against in this section seems to have a sympathetic ear from Pope Francis). He then moves on to the ‘good pagan’ (Romans 2v1-16) where he starts addressing people as ‘you’. These are people who are trying to ‘be good’ and who may think that they can attain righteousness through doing good. But their goodness isn’t good enough. He then moves on to those who try to attain righteousness through religious observance. No – their religious observance, when put under the microscope, simply isn’t good enough.
Just in case anyone (like you) makes the mistake of thinking that he is only dealing with general categories – the Gentiles, or Jews, or good pagan, or religious man may in general be condemned, but there may be exceptions, he then quotes OT verses stating ‘There is no one righteous, not even one’. This follows his discussion of the ‘good pagan’ and the serious ‘religious man’. He isn’t simply showing that there is a problem with these categories; he is going much further and stating ‘not even one’. He then reaches the climax of this discourse on depravity with Romans 3v23, ‘ all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ Sure, the half sentence immediately preceding this verse does state ‘There is no difference between Jew and Gentile,’ but you have to ignore huge swathes of the preceding argument to come away with the impression that he is simply referring to these categories, ‘Jew’ and ‘Gentile’.
Taken in the context of the entire preceding discourse from 1v16 – 3v22, it is quite clear that in this case ‘all’ means ‘all’.
Of course, the clever-clever linguist who knows how to fool about with grammar may be able to find a different meaning.
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Jock, my friend, for all that, it is clear beginning with v9 and then the quotes from OT scritpture that he is speaking of the distinctions between those who were under the Law (the Jews) and those outside the Law (the Greeks or Gentiles). It is a distinctive ‘all’ in language not a presecription without exception for the reasons given before . . . 10:12 says it as well. That is why I have a Church to use as a lens to Scripture rather than myself. After all, She felt confident to codify the books that went into the makeup of the NT Scriptures and She should know how to read them as well.
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Dave – of course, Jews and Gentiles are uppermost in his mind – and he is saying that there is no difference; both are condemned. He does, though, go way beyond that, as I pointed out. He makes it clear that ‘all have sinned’ means ‘all’.
Furthermore, when he says ‘have sinned’ he means personal sin. He also states that we are all tainted by Original Sin, but that in and of itself is not what condemns us; we are condemned because we are sinners in the sense that we have sinned – and we continue to sin.
He makes it clear that all without exception are unrighteous, all under the Law and all outside the Law.
That is the basic starting point of the miracle of salvation.
If you dismiss Romans, then how about Ephesians 2?
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Note that he says here ‘All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.’
This means me, it means you, it means everybody contributing to this blog and everybody else; it means all. The logical conclusion of Ephesians 2v1-3 is that we should all be condemned. The miracle is Ephesians 2v4, that God should love us and make us alive in Christ. When talking about our sinnerhood, though (by which I mean personal sin), he says ‘all’ and he means ‘all without exception’.
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Jock, I agree it means us . . . but I don’t agree that it means children below the age of reason or Jesus Christ (quite apparently). Mary may not be quite as apparent but if you believe that Christ is a Divine Person, it is not hard to expect that God would preserve Her from sin due to that Singular Grace. She is saved both from Original Sin and from Actual Sin . . . that is what being “full of Grace” intuits . . . and Catholics cannot imagine Our Divine Lord being placed into the hands of a sinner which He showed obedience to. That Christ would not give Her special attention and thereby grace to oppose what we call “actual” sin is not some wild-eyed speculation but a hightened love of Christ that places His Sinless Divine and Human life into the care of a sinless human . . . born free of sin as Adam and Eve were . . . minus the sin that each committed during their life.
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Well, there is a fundamental difference here; whatever he did for Mary to preserve her from original sin, he could have done for the rest of us. Could you explain what Christ did for Mary? Because if she was without original sin and lived a life without the taint of sin, then I do not see why she needed a redeemer.
For the rest: Jesus Christ was thrown into the midst of sinful humanity, subject to all the pressures of sin, yet he did not sin. If you turn around and say that he had the extra special advantage of parents who did not sin, a mother who was untainted by original sin, then I’d say that he had an unfair advantage; it mitigates against the basic premise that Christ was fully man, with all that that entailed, as well as fully divine.
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He preserved Her from Original Sin. She could not have done that without the Redeemer. It was an application of Grace won on the Cross preemptively . . . Her whole life is a foreshadowing of that event and what it means for each of us. She received at conception what we receive at Baptism due to the Sacrifice of the Lamb of God. We receive Grace from God (as your citation in Ephesians says) to both reconcile us to God from sin and to abstain from sinning further. That most do not and require Confession and more grace during our life is no reason to believe that Mary was not given more grace and had not developed a stronger will to cooperate with that Grace in order to avoid even actual sin. It is fitting that of all women to ever be born of man that this was so . . . for it was singular Grace that made Her the Mother of Christ and a singualr Grace that preserved Her from Original Sin so that the Body of Christ was as perfect in these things as was Adam when he was first formed . . . likened to us in everything but sin. Was the first Eve the same and was Mary not the equal to Eve as she was created?
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Dave – the crucifixion was punishment for sin. In the case of Mary, you say that ‘Christ was punished for the sins she would have committed had God not wrought a miracle and kept her free from Original Sin.’
I suppose this is the principle that the Americans use in the Guantanamo bay prison camp. They don’t lock up criminals there; they lock up precisely the sort of people who look as if they might have done that sort of thing.
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Well then, I suppose we turned them into radical Islamic Terrorists because most of those who have been released have been found back on the battlefield once again.
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Constantinople and Moscow would say when Rome unilaterally added words to the ancient Nicene Creed. It is undeniable those words were not there in 325 and 381 and 451. Rome arrogated to itself the right – that would be, the Orthodox would say, when Rome split itself off.
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Indeed and other creeds have been added to combat errors that cropped up. Even Paul VI had his own creed. So what? You want to freeze the faith at a particular point of development . . . where according to your liking it should remain exactly the same without change or growth in understanding.
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No, I want the Church to stick to what it agreed – that there would be no unilateral additions to the central creed of the Universal Church. There is no getting round the fact that your Church added to what should not have been added. The argument you used here is that of Kasper and co. You can’t possibly say that that addition was in accord with the tradition of the church – it was as much a departure – indeed more – as allowing communion for the divorced. We real traddies object 🙂
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The change (or amendment) to theology is something seen constantly. Our understanding of the relationship of the 3 persons of the Trinity was ammended to overcome certain theological difficulties of which I am not familiar enough with to have it bother my mind. But it was important to both sides and the output theologically of the RCC far exceeds that of any other church. So if there is a better model it should be used . . . but of the two it seems that the foundation stone laid here has held far more weighty additions on top of it and thereby a very solid foundation indeed.
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No, Rome unilaterally changed part of the creed. It gets haughty over lesser things, such as the acceptance of contraception – talk about swallowing camels and straining at gnats.
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Yes, principles count. Contraception would like saying that the doors are closed at the Catholic Church and we are taking no new souls into our midst. Both the Bride of Christ and the human family needs to be open to life.
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Yes, but that is nowhere near as important as the Creed – hence my view that the RCC having swallowed whole herd of camels is straining at gnats.
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I ask again: how do you recite the creed and do you think that the Holy Spirit is spirated by love between God the Father and God the Son or simply by the Father?
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I believe what the Church decided – the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. If Athanasius had thought what you say, I am sure he’d have said so, he was quite a bright bunny 🙂
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Well then there is a fundamental diffence in our theologies as I truly believe the theology that is presented by the Western version of the Nicene and Athanasian Creed. To me, to take the earlier formula, is to make Christ only receptive and not in an active love with the Father. I think the action of love between the two is what proceeded as the Person of the Holy Spirit. We simply disagree . . . but for a Church it is important that we all come to the best understanding we can of our Godhead.
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Well, Rome can say that the Nicene Fathers were not right, and heretics will be emboldened – if they got that wrong, what else did they get wrong? The earlier formula, as you put it, is the only formula the whole church agreed upon – and as a tradionalist I take my tradition from the whole church, not its western bit. Even the old C of E accepted some time ago that the addition was wrong – but typically they said it and did nothing – bless ’em.
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Well it was hard to create a tradion of theology when you were fighting to just keep alive in the early Church. Now that the first Nicene creed says that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father, it is correct in the sense that the Father begot the Son and then the Son and the Father loved one another. So it is but a small ammendment that gives more honor to Christ. Perhaps, like Mary, you think Christ might not derserve some additional praise for His part in this Love between Father and Son?
That’s what I thought. That would make every Anglican a hypocrite at their reciting of it.
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There is only one Nicene Creed my friend 🙂 Rome may have unilaterally decided otherwise, but in so doing it caused a grave schism.
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There were more problems, from what I understand, than just the filioque.
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The three major issues were the Filioque (the popes mistakenly believed that the Creed had originally contained the Filioque and that the Greeks had removed it, and they didn’t fully understand what was at stake because they didn’t appreciate that the Latin verb “procedere” translates two different Greek words); the expansion of the papal claims (which was based in part on the document known as the Donation of Constantine, which we now know was a forgery, though the 11th century popes believed it was genuine); and the attempt to forbid the Greeks from using leavened bread in the Eucharist (which would, if the Greeks had complied, have involved the complete dismantling of the Byzantine liturgy).
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Thanks, Mark. I have not studied the historical situation further than knowing that the filioque was part of a ‘package’ of differences between East and West. Indeed, I’ll bet, though I am unlearned about it, that Rome will name other differences as well.
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Thomas Aquinas was fond of saying “X [whatever he was discussing at the time] can be seen in two ways”. No doubt that applies to the separation of East and West in the 11th century, too! Catholics and Orthodox see the same set of events either as prideful Eastern rejection of true Catholic teaching or else as arrogant Western imposition of heterodox novelties. At least, that’s how hardliners on either side see it. Others take a more nuanced “there were faults on both sides but our side was more in the right than the other side” kind of position.
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I suspect that is probably quite right. 🙂
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Thank you Mark.
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Surely, way more, but that was the killer thing – altering the Creed unilaterally!
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Are you sure in your own mind that the theology of the Eastern Creed is right theologically. For when it comes to Mary, you think that she detracts from Jesus somehow? So is Christ somehow detracting from God the Father by spirating with the Father a Love that is so infinite that it is, a Person of the Trinity? For me, it is much more satisfactory: for Christ said that He and the Father are One. And if one, then why not give to Christ the same glory you give to the Father? I promise it won’t detract from God the Father . . . and it will only enhance the Unity of the Three in One.
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The Filioque was introduced into the West in Spain as a way of combating Spanish Arianism. Arianism, of course, denied that the Son was “homoousios” (i.e. of the same essence, of the same substance) with the Father, and Spanish opponents of Arianism believed that the best way to show that the Son was “homoousios” with the Father was to say that the Son, like the Father, spirated the Spirit.
The problem with this is that, if you need to assert that the Son spirates the Spirit in order to guarantee that He is “homoousios” with the Father, how do you guarantee that the Spirit is “homoousios” with the Father and the Son? If their spirating the Spirit is what guarantees the the Son and the Father consubstantial, doesn’t that mean that the Spirit is the only person of the Trinity who doesn’t spirate another person, and doesn’t that in turn call into question the Spirit’s true divinity? The Spanish solution to the Arian problem doesn’t really solves the problem; rather, it shifts it.
Whereas if you say that the Son is “homoousios” with the Father by begetting and that the Spirit is “homoousios” with the Father by spiration, and that the Son and the Spirit are “homoousios” with each other because each of them is “homoousios” with the Father, you have, i think, a better balanced model of the Trinity.
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That may well have been the launching pad. But I am a simple man who has contemplated these matters in a very simple way. God the Father in Contemplating Himself (not unlike our own self-awareness) has created a ‘mirror’ if you will of Himself which “unlike our mirrors” is Real and Perfect Self Awareness to the Point that It is a Person . . . of the same Person begotten of the same Person being Reflected. Both then of the same substance love each other with Perfect Love instantly and it is the Essence or the same Substance . . . that is Love a third Person. Thereby, by this Eternal and Perfect Love is Shared Substance with the Father though the Love proceeds from the Father and the Son’s Awareness of the ‘other’, it is, in fact the Essence of the Same Substance: the Godhead.
I am not sure many Christians even bother to think on this much less read the theology as it can become rather dry and boring. But it is not boring to meditate upon as a layman, no matter who you are. All I am saying to Geoffrey is that if we are going to profess a belief before God and man we should at least take the time to meditate upon what the words mean before we say them. Words without understanding are pretty useless after all. 🙂
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What you say (very beautifully) in your first paragraph reminds me of Thomas Aquinas’s reading of Augustine. Gregory Palamas (revered by Orthodox in much the same way that Aquinas as is revered by Catholics), says something similar. Aquinas insists that the Filioque is necessary; Palamas regards it as unnecessary and heterodox. Maybe the two approaches are somehow complementary rather than exclusive?
It’s worth noting that Latin “procedere” tanslates a number of Greek verbs. ἐκπορεύεσθαι / ekporevsthai is the very used in the Creed. It denotes proceeding from an original source, and is never used by the Greek fathers to refer to the Spirit coming from the Son. The Greek fathers do, however, use verbs such as προϊέναι / proienai (go forth from) and προχεῖσθαι / procheisthai (flow from) to refer to the Spirit coming from the Son.
Because the Latin “procedere” has a wider range of meaning than any of these Greek verbs, to say in Latin that the Spirit proceeds from the Son sounds perfectly orthodox. But to append “from the Son” to the verb ἐκπορεύεσθαι / ekporevsthai (which is what the popes wished to impose on the Greeks in the 11th century) is unscriptural and unpatristic, and is, at best, theologically unfelicitous.
As you say, words without understanding are pretty useless. It’s a tragedy that the rift between East and West developed and hardened at a time when the Latins had a very poor understanding of the meaning of the key Greek words and the Greeks had a very poor understanding of the range of meaning of the key Latin word.
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I think what you say here, Mark, makes very much sense. Language can cause huge problems and still does. Mistranslations or untranslatable expressions that are missing in another language causes rifts and divide us in our understanding. I do rather regret the rift, especially in this timeof crisis for the RCC and the modernism that has crept into everything from theology, liturgy, music and practice. The Orthodox seem so much more “Catholic” than we do at times. We are so close on so many things it is a shame that we cannot find a way to understand our differences or define them in a way that we all could agree. But they’ve been looking at it for a 1000 years . . . it seems unlikely, alas!
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Thank you Mark – I’ve not seen that put so pithily before.
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I think the East has this better balanced. I don’t think anything about Marian veneration properly exercised detracts from Jesus – but as I told the huffy ginny, I cannot read de Montfort’s book and say the same. Do you really find in that book a Christocentric Mariology? If so, help me, because I can’t see it. I can see why someone might come away from it and think it was about worshipping Mary.
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To be quite honest, I couldn’t get through it. His writing style and/or use of language was not my cup of tea; it was like Alphonsus Liguori on steroids. Others like his writing. I have the same problem with Merton. Some love his writing and I find it a waste of my time.
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Isn’t the question rather what the office involved? The first Pope to systematise the Petrine claims was Leo the Great – some 400 years later.
It was a sentence of death to be a Christian, and it was not only Popes who died.
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Popes couldn’t hide and they didn’t so there mortality rate was much higher than the average Christian. That an office evolves and takes more upon its shoulders seems to baffle you. If I start a mom and pop store and it grows to the size of General Motors my office grows with it.
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In your eyes. But if you then tell the other mom and pop stores that gives you the right to set the rules for them, you’d soon be told you were getting too big for your britches – which is just what happened with the Popes. If they had been content with a primacy of honour, there would have been no schisms – they weren’t, they wanted to be the big I am – and ended up being the big I am with those who accepted that verdict – which excluded quite a lot of Christians, as it still does.
None of us accepts Rome’s claim to say who and who is not a church. Because we are, on the whole courteous people, we don’t blow a stack about it, but it is offensive. But as Christians, many of us take the view they are entitled to their view – but if they expect us to take it seriously, they are in error. it’s that that pushes Jock and thers to push back. I’v e reached the age when no longer much care – I see it does much good, and I know many Catholics who are better Christians than many Prots. I’m happy to say it, but no Catholic can really say it of me and know he’s saying what his church says. I find that sad, but I accept it is asymmetric. I am bound only by my conscience and what the Lord tells me through the Spirit – and I could not love you as a Christian brother more than I do. If all RCs were like you, the world would be a better place my friend 🙂
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It’s more like owning a franchise and yes you do then have the right to set the rules and to protect the use of your name. If you don’t like it you can start your own mom and pop as many did during the reformation and abide by whatever makes you happy. If you thrive, you thrive and if you go bust, you go bust.
And dittos to you my brother in Christ. As I say . . . we do not part fellowship or Christian love . . . it is the non-negotiable truths that brings us to a dead end when it comes to full unity.
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Yes, but Rome did not own the franchise – it claimed it did and the other mom and pop stores denied it. Rome then brought in the soldiers to enforce their claims – just like Jesus and the Apostles did 🙂
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Because we had the someone in the chair of Peter who held the Keys. 🙂
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So did Antioch – and there really is evidence Peter was the first bishop there. It, however, was never the capital of the Roman Empire – which is, of course, the real reason the Bisho of Rome invented the exegesis – or was it eisegesis – about the keys!
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No Christ said it and it actually means something . . . probably something important. That the tradition has Linus and then all the rest following stone by stone until our present day. Peter lived in a few places but it is where he died that is important. And thus that is where the chair resides.
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If it adhered in Peter, then why not Antioch? He was bishop there before Rome.
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Because it passed from person to person . . . not from town to town. When the pope left Rome he did not cease being pope because he was living in Avignon . . . but his rightful place is at the see of Rome as it was the see of Peter.
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Ah, but at that stage, if the office inhered in Peter, Antioch had as much right as Rome 🙂 I think we have to agree it ended in Rome because Rome was the capital of the empire and would always outrank Antioch. That was why when Constantine built the New Rome he insisted it have parity – no one mentioned Peter in any of that – odd if the early church in the C4th thought it as important as that!
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I may be the only one left but I still believe, Peter Himself laid hands on Linus before He died and thus began the long line of Popes.
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And it is as well, and a good reminder, that we all believe things that cannot be proved after all 🙂
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I agree totally. I’ve no problem with Rome’s claims – what I’ve a problem with is it insisting that they are the only way of reading the evidence 🙂
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I always understood two aspects to this: the communion of saints with each other and the communion of saints with God. Those of us who are ‘in Christ’ are saints (according to the apostle Paul).
One of my bench-marks on whether or not a church is Christian is the question of the communion of saints; how do they get on with each other? If it is normal for a church that people simply go along, get out again fast after the service and don’t interact with each other in terms (for example) of corporate prayer, then they don’t believe in the ‘Communion of Saints’ and it isn’t a Christian church.
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I shall listen 🙂
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Geoffrey, my friend, I think we have had very interesting dialogue or argument here which I always find stimulating; for it makes us uncover ourselves to ourselves and helps us articulate what we believe. As always, it is a pleasure to battle you even to a standstill . . . the respect for you and your views are well deserved.
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You are, as always, an example of how a gentleman and a Christian should argue these things. It is a huge pleasure to have these discourses with you.
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Good brother Jeff, the NT says the marriage bed is undefiled or sanctified. That means god mad male and female to marry and enjoy each other, go into their room and they are sanctified. The CC wants to reach into the married bedroom and dictate terms of contraception. “Celebate” old men dictating terms to married couples.
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Do you think Our Lord was in favour of married couples not being open to the creation of new life?
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Well, while I don’t agree with Bosco’s comment, it doesn’t seem to me that celibate men are in favour of creation of new life. At least, for them it is something abstract and theoretical and they’re not prepared to put in the hard work of bringing up children themselves.
Of course, even though they don’t have any practical experience themselves, they do seem to think they are qualified to tell other people how to bring up families.
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The Church is one. This is simply an ecclesiological axiom. “There is one body and one spirit, as you have been called to the one hope that belongs to your call. There is one Lord one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all.” (Eph.4.4-6) When Christians speak of different faiths or denominations or what have you they are merely noting the existence of many local Churches within the one Church, or that there are different confessions, yet still within the Church. One might call this spiritual communion, for it is above all doctrinal and sacramental, and it is the form of unity that existed in Apostolic times.
For the Orthodox, the Church is comprehended in terms of the special relationship between man and God, and the Orthodox perceive that relationship via the Trinity, Incarnation (Body of Christ) and Pentecost (Holy Spirit). Indeed the Orthodox believe that we receive the Body of Christ in the sacraments. Consequently, the Church is a Eucharistic society, a sacramental society, whatever the Church’s external or visible organization, however important that is, it is secondary to its sacramental life.
So, the Church is not merely a group of human beings brought together by common belief and aspirations; rather it is communion with and in God. The Church is not man-made, at least not in its essence, in its essence the Church is Christ and Spirit made.
Of course, the Church has a history, just as everything that exists in the world has a history. And the Church’s foundation can be traced back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles and Pentecost, at least in terms of its temporal existence, as Peter proclaimed, “Repent, and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ…and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2.38) That’s the beginning of the Church in history, in time and space—“And there were added that day about three thousand souls.” (Acts 2.41) As such, the early Church needed an organizational model as it grew and expanded into far-reaching regions of the world. The New Testament is evidence of this. And so there is a human element to the Church, in that sense, the Church is a society, with laws and limits, rights and rituals, do’s and dont’s. But the Church, in its essence, is beyond time and space, it has no beginning and its end shall only come when “God shall be all in all.” That is, the Church exists apart from the world, but, paradoxically, it is still within the world. I suppose what I am saying is that there is an earthly organization to the Church and a heavenly or spiritual organization to the Church, the visible and the invisible, the internal and the external. But the visible, the external, is of secondary importance compared to the invisible, the internal.
So, many folks may be members of the Church who are not visibly so, there is in an internal or mystical connection between all Christians. Irenaeus said where the Spirit is, there the Church is. That being so, I know where the Church is, but I don’t know where it is not. By faith, I proclaim that there is only one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, but there are many different ways of being related to that Church and separated from it. Orthodoxy does not require that people be forced to submit to the Church, it merely desires unity in diversity, harmony in freedom. The Spirit will do the rest.
That being said, the idea that there does not exist one true Church on Earth, but that its branches are their own churches or Truth, is to abandon belief in the promise of our Lord, that the forces of Hell would not prevail against the Church. There is perfect unity in the Church, perfect, but this does not mean that the various local churches do not contain some aspect of the true spirit of the Church. However, the Truth lies with the Church and she is perfectly united, holy, and infallible. The empirical fact that there are many local Churches does not mean that there are many Truths. There is only one Truth and that belongs to the Church.
As for the Filioque, the main Orthodox gripe is that it seems to subordinate and neglect the Spirit. And in Orthodoxy great emphasis is laid upon the Holy Spirit, both liturgically and theologically. St Seraphim of Sarov said the “true aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God.” Athanasius noted that the Word took flesh that mankind might receive the Spirit. Vladmir Lossky argued that acquiring the Holy Spirit as the purpose of the Christian life “sums up the whole spiritual tradition of the Orthodox Church.”
So, the seeming neglect of the Spirit in the double procession is the essence of the Orthodox complaint against the Filioque. For me, however, I don’t think the East and West are as far apart on this issue as many think. The Roman Catholic understanding of the Holy Spirit is basically the same as the Orthodox understanding. Indeed Augustine’s framing of the double procession is basically Gregory of Nyssa’s view that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, for Augustine notes that the Spirit does not proceed from the Son in the same way as he proceeds from the Father—the Spirit proceeds from the Father principaliter, but the Spirit proceeds from the Son per donum Patris. And the Council of Florence reiterated this understanding of the double procession. So, there is not much difference between East and West, at least theologically, concerning the Filioque. Now, the question is still important, but I don’t think the divergences are as wide as they at first appear on this issue.
However, I will say, that tampering with the wording of the Creed is a dangerous business and should be avoided at all costs.
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There is a huge amount here with which I think most of us can agree with.
I do think that the filioque has led to an underdeveloped Pneumatology in the Western Churches, and we have much to learn from the Orthodox Tradition there.
Ecclesiology is, I think sometimes, a tool of the devil. I have, in the course of a long and varied career come across a number of episcopi vagante, who could ‘prove’ with great ‘proofs’ they had been laid hands on by someone who had been laid hands on by someone … all the way back to Peter. It hasn’t stopped most of them being the most blatant heretics I have ever met. The notion that the Spirit comes on you only if you have had hands laid on you is simply a belief in a kind of magic. There is no magic, there is the gift of faith and the joy of Christ.
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Dave Smith – the Guantanamo Bay analogy seems a good one when trying to understand how you think about sin, original sin, and what Christ did for us at Calvary.
‘Original Sin’ can be seen as ‘being Muslim’. This gives the Americans the right to bang you up in Guantanamo Bay and torture you, even if you haven’t done anything; being Muslim (and therefore looking like precisely the sort of fellow who might commit a terrorist atrocity) is sufficient.
Christ suffered on the cross in place of sinners. You say that he did this pre-emptively for Mary; he was punished for the sins that she would have committed had God not miraculously intervened to keep her free from Original Sin. He took her place on the cross for sins that she hadn’t committed and it wouldn’t even have occurred to her to commit (you say that she lived her whole life without the taint of sin), just as Americans bang people up in Guantanamo for sins they have not committed, as some sort of pre-emptive preventative strike.
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Good brother Jock, good brother Servus also stated that Mary shed her blood for our redemption.
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Bosco – I do not believe that; suggesting that Mary shed her blood for our redemption is pure paganism.
There is only one who shed His blood for our redemption.
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Good brother Jock, you should know me better than for me to make things up. About 3 weeks ago good brother Servus said that. I mentioned it then, but no one ran with it. Ask him. Im sure he will admit it. Its only here in writing.
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My apologies – three weeks ago was the time that my son decided to emerge – so I was busy with other things.
I tried to explain the theories that Servus Fidelis had about the Virgin Mary to him – and he seems unimpressed. He left a substantial comment on it in his diaper.
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