One of the most common charges against Catholic-minded Christians concerns imagery, and one of the most contested areas is one where, if we heeded the message of Christ, we should be most united – because it concerns the Blessed Virgin Mary.
My thoughts here are prompted by yet another long screed from the long-time commentator here, Bosco. There are those, I know, who would say “ignore him,” but that is not, I think a good way. Those same voices will say “but you have made these points before and he will take no notice.” They may be right, but then others may read and they may take notice. The job of the sower is to cast the seed. If it is good seed it will take root in the right soil.
So let us begin with what Bosco says here:
When Jesus says he is “the living water,” I am sure that Bosco does not suppose that He is saying that He is made out of water; Jesus is using an image to help us understand. The Church does the same. If we take the images to which Bosco refers, they are aids to understanding. There is the world of difference between, for example, the cherubim and seraphim on the Ark of the Covenant (aids to worship) and the Golden Calf (an object of worship). I am sure Bosco knows this difference, so it is unclear why he persists in a literal reading. It may be that to him kings are “on top of things right after the birth,” but if he were to pause for a moment, two things might become clear. There has never been a moment in history when a king has been “on top of things right after the birth,” and the crowns are an image to help our worship.
What is being symbolised here is the Kingship of Christ. I am sure that Bosco acknowledges Christ is King, so what more natural than an image of Him crowned? His mother is the mother of the King, and as such, is also worthy of a crown. She is also the crown of our race as the handmaiden of the Lord through whom salvation was born into the world. The imagery is clear and an aid to worship.
The critics of Bosco are right, these things have been pointed out to him before. But for Bosco, and others, there is one way, their way, of looking at things, and all other ways are wrong, facts and arguments which are not congruent to that view are ignored. Bosco will not engage with the argument advanced here, which raises the question of his purpose?
heres something else you can claim is false….mary never interacted with jesus ministry after he left home. there is no account of her traveling with him or cooking for the guys or helping him preach or anything. the closest she came was standing outside a house where he was, calling for him, and he didnt even come out to see her. some big queen of heaven. absentee queen. not one word from her.only time she saw him was at the crucifixion, and even then no words of hers were recorded. even at pentacost, no wise words from the all powerful queen of heaven and earth were recorded.
The idea that Our Lady “never interacted with Jesus’ ministry is tenable on only the narrowest reading of what one imagines that Ministry to have been. Without Our Lady’s “yes” to God’s will, there would have been no ministry. In the Magnificat we see the central themes of that Ministry highlighted, as we do in the words of the Song of Symeon. The first miracle sees Our Lady modelling the perfect Christian response to the words of Christ – “do as He tells you.” She is there at the foot of the Cross. Christ’s last earthly command is to have St John care for his beloved mother. It is a sadly impoverished view of Ministry that relegates Our Lady to having no part in it.
you still maintain that im not born again and am usually wrong in my opinions. i go by what is written in scripture while your religion is based on things not in scripture. not only are they not in scripture, they contradict scripture.
There is, as ever, the trope that “I go by scripture” without any acknolwedgement of what Scripture is. The Blessed Apostles show no signs of calling their own work “scripture” and yet the Church, of which they were part and which their Lord founded, recognised it as such. Sciptural fundamentalism is again, a sadly diminished view of what the Apostles did and one of the purposes of the Church which Christ founded.
Then, sadly and predictably, there is the attack on intercessory prayer.
catholic literature vacillates back and forth on some subjects. i read were its good to ask mary to send jesus a prayer request, and i read where you have to go thru mary to get a prayer thru to jesus. the majority says you cant get thru to jesus, that you have to go thru mary. louis de montfort says one can only get to jesus thru mary. i “talk” to catholics in other sites, and it seems to be a 50 50 split on this. half pray to jesus most of the time and half only pray to mary. its not funny anymore when your whole prayer life is wasted praying to nothing. salvation comes from asking jesus to come into your life. if one dies expecting this queen of heaven to save them at the hour of their death, well, their fate is sealed. the reason you or I are here is to work out salvation.mary is fine, but she didnt die for my sins.
I am sure that Bosco has access to a book where the following words appear: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (St James 5:16) These words of St Paul’swould also suggest that intercessory prayer is expected of us:
18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.
Then, of course, there is Jesus Himself, who tells us “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
When we pray to Our Lady, or the Saints, it is asking them to intercede for us before the Throne of God. It is an act of humility and piety.
Now, these things have been explained to our brother Bosco many times, but usually only in the replies to his comments. If he cares to respond to the arguments made here, I guarantee him a hearing. if he simply wishes to restate exploded myths, then he must find someone with greater patience.
All Along the Watchtower 
I often ponder the “ignorance is bliss” crowd like Bosco; the same crowd who is born again and once saved, always saved mindset. There is for these happy but foolish folks not a moment where they ponder the scriptural admonition to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” as they say they have no fear and so not worries or trembling need occur in their lives.
They have reached the teleological end of man already: which is God and nothing can separate them from that end which they already possess. If that is so, then why endure any pain or suffering in this life and to what end is furthering their suffering and traversing in this vale of sorrow? So why not end it all when troubles and sorrows come your way? God (which you have found so quickly) is the end of man and perseverance is not a problem since you are saved. So He will certainly forgive all your sins now that you are in such a deep relationship with Him. Seems most of the Bosco types would simply die by their own hands and live in complete happiness for all eternity rather than walk about for no reason when they could escape all sorrow and suffering in life.
Such people to me are an enigma. Why delay your beatitude and eternal happiness? If I had such a blissful understanding of their Christianity from a young age I could have skipped all the bad stuff in life and realized that bliss which the ignorant seem to have though they aren’t usually so blissfully ignorant to pull the trigger so to speak.
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Good points, Dave. I have the feeling that they are in no hurry to shiuffle off this mortal coil.
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good brother scoop, one has to have salvation befor one can work it out. by the way, salvation isnt given out piecemeal, its given in its entirety all at once. either one is saved or one isnt. dont get robbed of salvation by this false religion. you cant earn salvation.
ill take this time to answer good brother jock. he belittles my testimony on how i was born again. hes right about me not crying my eyes out about what a miserable sinner i was, and no theological diatribe. i wasnt even looking to be born again. i never heard of it. sure, i wanted to go to heaven, but i was gonna put that off until i got old.
later that nite, in a split second, i was changed.
you religious ritual ridden folks dont think god works that way. im here to tell you that is how he works.
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OK – I’ll bite on this one.
First and foremost – I don’t really understand why you waste time with Bosco. You wrote:
A person truly motivated by the Spirit would have the humility tio want to learn. The reason I, and others, doubt your claim to be born-again is that in your every word you sound unborn again. There is no sign at all of the Spirit in anything you right, which is sad.
And this is perfectly true. Bosco once explained his `conversion experience’ to us; a young attractive girl wearing tight jeans was handing out tracts and he felt (what he claimed was) the Holy Spirit coming on. There isn’t really any evidence in anything he writes of `repentance’ – I see no indication that he understands what the crucifixion was all about and I have seen no evidence of `be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’
I’ll bite on the `intercessory prayer’ business, There is one major difference between asking someone who has already passed from this life to intercede for you and to discuss matters with another Christian and draw something to the attention of another Christian as a matter for prayer. The difference is that you get a proper interaction; the other Christian might (horror of horrors) point out to you that your view is mistaken, or might be able to help shed some light on an issue, because two sanctified minds working together in harmony is sometimes useful. Asking some (already dead) saint to intercede for you is simply a way of projecting your own thoughts, views, mind-set onto someone else when that may very often be the last thing you need.
I have found individual prayer useful – and the Lord’s Prayer tells us how to do it. First of all, we’re praying for the mission here on earth, that God’s name be hallowed, for his kingdom, that his will be done. Only after that do we go on to prayer for ourselves – where we ask for daily bread, forgiveness of sins and not to be led into temptation.
With corporate prayer at a church prayer meeting, we’re praying for the mission. One of the major issues here is that prayer keeps us from being self-centred and keeps us from concentrating on ourselves. When we understand what our prayer life is supposed to be concentrated on (the mission at home and abroad), this should help to prevent us from becoming too selfish and self-centred – and the human mind has a great propensity for this.
In the `prayer of intercession’ to some departed saint, I see an awful lot of projection-of-self onto the saint that is supposed to make the intercession and I see this as the opposite of the prayer to which Jesus exhorts us in the Lord’s Prayer.
I’d also say that too much concentration on the internet and internet discussions has the same detrimental effect on prayer life – it isn’t like meeting and discussing the mission at a good church prayer meeting.
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If anyone is in heaven , they are not dead. Jesus makes this point in the Gospels. It’s literally from His mouth. Furthermore, even if we’re to assume the most cynical despicable reason for intercessory prayer on the person who asks of it, it doesn’t follow that the person either in the Church Militant or Triumphant is required to pray for that person in the manner to which they ask. Yes, the person on earth can give material advice and pray for supernatural graces, but also the person in heaven, closer to the Lamb can prayer for graces that can best aid the person asking for prayer.
Again, as St. Paul makes clear that the virtueS of the Way is faith, hope, and love. Cynicism should be avoided in Christianity, we are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.
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Phillip – look – I know you weren’t exactly pleased that I didn’t like the short story you recommended on the previous thread, but please try to keep the tone civil by not picking up on stupid technicalities of language use.
Everybody knows that anybody in heaven is not `dead’ in the sense that you mean. Everybody also knows that they are `dead’ in the sense that they have passed on.
If that’s the best you can do, then you’re worse than Bosco!
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There wasn’t anything uncivil or uncharitable that I said. It is merely a reiteration make the point on the root of cynicism in the remainder of your comment, it a sort of preamble sort of way in a treatise.
It’s noticed that you chose not address that point. And I suppose you can address it now, if you wish, but I simply not have time time for comments that lack discourse, and moving forward will no longer engage with you personally here without apology.
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Phillip – I apologise for the tone.
I do note that you didn’t really respond to the point that I made.
We all know that the saints in heaven are doing the work of the Lord – and that includes interceding for those that are still here. I don’t think you’ll find anyone who disputes this.
My concern about prayer of intercession (clearly stated in what I wrote) does not concern what goes on in heaven – it concerns what goes on here and the way it affects the person who is asking the saint in heaven to intercede.
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Apology for tone accepted. There was nothing personal with my comment here. I left our engagement on literature with your last word because I think that it came down to your taste and you made good points on Twain and Poe too. So, there was nothing left to be said on my part. You deserved the last word there.
And, so I reiterated the point of Jesus’ comments of those in heaven are living in a sort of indicative statement to introduce the bulk of my original comment that there seems to be a cynicism in that particular conclusion. And that’s not to say something bad personally on your part, I think living in our day and age cynicism is rampart in most of us and is something we should all look to shed.
And maybe I should have explained my take a grace a bit deeper in my original comment in this thread. Catholics have a theology of infused grace, so whereas you’re concerned with the material aspect of what intercessory prayer does, perhaps, psychologically to a person, I’d say that there is a supernatural element here that can transform the one who asks for prayer based on those both in heaven and earth who are asking for graces to be bestowed on the one asking for intercessions.
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Phillip – again, my objection has nothing to do with the reasons why a person might ask a saint in heaven to intercede. They may have the best and most godly reasons for doing so – so cynicism doesn’t really have anything to do with it.
The problem here is that there is a great qualitative difference between discussing with someone whom you know here on earth about something, with a view to intercessionary prayer – and asking someone in heaven to intercede with God on your behalf.
Cynicism really has nothing to do with it.
I’d be surprised if you haven’t met Christians who seem so preoccupied with their own personal problems and their own spiritual (and other) difficulties-of-life that it looks positively unhealthy (spiritually). And their prayer-life becomes thoroughly self-obsessed, continually concentrated on the question `am I a good enough Christian’ rather than looking way beyond oneself and instead getting absorbed in the mission.
Now, you get self-obsessed people with self-obsessed prayer in all churches and you get it among churches where people direct their prayers directly to God and do not ask the saints to intercede with God for them. So it is a problem. But asking saints in heaven for intercession on your behalf exacerbates this problem rather than helps.
Prayer is supernatural and I don’t think that anyone would disagree with you that God blesses those who pray according to His will.
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I’m reflecting your thoughts here, so there’s still much to discern. Nonetheless, I’m not quite sure how your point of view fits the Psalms. One could propose that all prayer to God is prayer according to the will of God
It reminds me of a story of a woman who was throwing rocks outside of a Catholic hospital at I believe a statue of the Virgin Mary. One of the staff, concerned with the material property that is the statue went to stop the woman, but a sister stopped her and said, “Let her be, she is praying.”
And so the Psalms even get pretty ugly and even one could argue self-obsessed in relation the identity of the people of Israel and even military conquest. They can be argued too concerned personally… with am I good enough? “create for me a clean heart O Lord, put a steadfast spirit within me…” “A sinner was I conceived…” “I am worm…” etc.
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Phillip – I take the Lord’s Prayer as a benchmark for prayer. I also see the prayer of the tax collector in Luke 18v13. Neither of these support your view on prayer to a saint for intercession.
In the psalms I see exactly the same thing. Overwhelmingly, David is praying first and foremost for the mission. He is (of course) also praying for his part in it, but it is first and foremost the mission and its success. Hallowed be God’s name, God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done. That is what he is praying for – and to understand what I mean, you have to see this.
This is how the believer is told to pray when Jesus teaches us how to pray (and we also have the psalms to illustrate this).
When David sins in a way that is truly awful, fornication with Uriah the Hittite’s wife and then murdering (or as good as murdering) Uriah the Hittite, we see his prayer asking to be cleansed of hyssop – which is more in line with the prayer of the tax collector in Luke 18v13.
The psalms is one place where we really see David praying directly to God the father (no intermediary) so I don’t really see what you are saying here.
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And we can’t make these intercessory prayers for others or ask others to pray for grace? What about the example of Monica praying for the conversion of her son, Augustine? What if I were to pray to God and then ask Monica to pray for the conversion of a loved one? I don’t see that too different from your examples. What about accounts people asking Catherine of Siena to pray for them and it being more efficacious? Why would that stop when she is closer to God?
Just because you ask for someone to pray for you, also doesn’t mean that you can’t also go to God. It’s not an either/or.
And I get that David is praying just to God, but you said the issues occurs when people do that too. So, I wanted your take on the Psalms with that understanding.
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Phillip – you’re being deliberately disingenuous here – you’re the one who adds `and we can’t make these intercessory prayers for others?’ as if this was somehow implied in something I wrote.
Christians are, or at least should be, all the time actively seeking to pray that God’s name is hallowed, God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You draw to the attention of your Christian companions that the conversion of some individual or some group requires prayer and then you have the Christian community praying for it.
I don’t really understand your shift here – Monica praying for her son (while presumably she is still here on earth) and then you switch to you asking Monica for something after she has departed.
I think you’re being deliberately disingenuous and deliberately misunderstanding – that’s how it comes across. If it isn’t, then I apologise.
Praying for the conversion of somebody is clearly a good thing and according to the will of God. A good acid test of whether you ought to be praying for something is whether you can actually take it to your fellow Christians and they agree with you about it. Then it isn’t simply you wanting to see the conversion of somebody – the whole group wants to see this happening.
There are other matters which people pray about that seem much more trivial, much more self indulgent, much less connected with God’s name being hallowed, God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done here on earth as it is in heaven – and it is with these issues that prayer to a saint who is in heaven, asking the saint in heaven to make intercession, that it becomes positively dangerous – you no longer have your Christian friends with their own critical thinking capabilities helping you to discern what is God’s will and what is your own selfish and self indulgent desire.
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Why are you assuming my intentions? Again, seriously man, I am not seeing this conversation as a debate or an argument to win. We’re all pub companions here at AATW are we not? I have a thought, so I bounce it off you to develop and discern my own thoughts on the subject. What more can I do but say it clearly again? I am just prodding your thought processes.
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In regards to Monica, Monica praying on earth is what you’re saying is okay and praying to Monica in Heaven is what I am saying is okay. I am merely making a distinction here between the scenarios because in one situation you’re saying that’s a good and in the other, it’s not. And from what I understand, you’re saying in the latter because we merely project our disorders upon these Saints who then cannot respond.
However, even if you were to see it as pointless, because you can simply pray to God, as an example if one does pray to a saint for a good–like you said praying for conversion is–to Monica who exemplified the act on earth, would you consider this as outside the realm of projection because are the ends not the same? Is not the teleology the same?
You ask your neighbor to pray for the conversion of your Son
He prays for your Son to come to the Faith
Your Son converts
You ask Monica in heaven to pray for the conversion of your Son
(if you have faith in such matters) She prays for you Son to Come to the Faith
You Son converts
In that syllogism there is equivalency, I don’t see how you can then so boldly say I’m disingenuous? You can merely ask for clarification rather than a rush in judgment of my intentions
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Phillip – I do take your point about the pub discussion – and that’s how I’ve always seen it. But I also see a strong disconnect between what I write and your response. I don’t really see how they are connected. But I’ll let that pass.
As far as what you wrote goes – I’ve never said that it was `pointless because you can simply pray to God.’ I’m simply pointing out that (a) I don’t see it in the context of the way we are instructed in Scripture to pray or any examples of this sort of prayer in Scripture – and (b) I also see that it can be harmful – for reasons I stated.
So I never said that it was pointless; I simply pointed out what our Lord commanded in this matter (which seems at odds) and examples of Scripture (which also seem at odds).
Take the example of wanting your son to convert and praying for it (your example).
If you bring it before the church (i.e. real people with whom you interact) then in addition to the prayers you’ll also get a discussion among the fellowship of what can be done to help him see the light, etc ….etc …. and you’ll see God working in this and through this.
This won’t happen if you pray to Monica who is now in heaven – so there is a major difference.
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The Sacred Scriptures do not spell many things out, so that leads into the debate between what is implicitly and explicityly taught by it. And this gets into tradition too. What did the early Christians understand to be the case even in relation to Sacred Scripture. And there’s not enough time to hash out this complex topic.
The syllogism that I provided I think makes clear that even in the most noble of intentions, you’re of the position that it’s just not fruitful in anyway–especially in your last sentence. So, I’d argue by your comment here, point B really doesn’t matter in your argument because that’s merely an observation or a condemnation of the intentions of individual people, but even if a person exhibits perfect intention, the act still does nothing.
Again, the syllogism, the example, is to merely development the conversation, so I propose that our discussion just simply gets back to the Catholic/non-Catholic debate on the topic.
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Phillip – well, you may be right that it is Catholic versus non-Catholic. I don’t know, because I don’t have sufficient knowledge of either of them.
I’d say you’re not correct about part (b) – that is one of the main ways that I work – I look for examples in Scripture and if I had found them I would have tried (perhaps unsuccessfully) to work this business of prayer-to-saints into my own faith, but I didn’t find it so I didn’t try to work it in.
I do try to look behind the instructions (for example – in the Lord’s prayer) and behind the examples (for example – the tax collector’s prayer of Luke 18v13) and to build my prayer life accordingly.
One important example for me is Moses prayer of intercession when God states his express intent to wipe his chosen people from the face of the earth and make Moses into a great nation. Moses is horrified and God listens to his prayer.
But your assessment of a Catholic versus non-Catholic divide here in the approach is probably correct.
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To be honest, I think Part B has some good observations and as you indicated can be applied to a wholesale of things in spirituality.
But I would say for us in conversation, if you’re of the mind that there is no fruitfulness of the objective act then I don’t see how I could possibly convince you that even if what you say about Part B is a good observation that there is also good reasons to still do it–Again, because you’re of the opinion that there’s no fruitfulness.
So, that would be my conundrum in the conversation. And that’s my reason for the two examples, I needed to know if it were possible to make an argument that could either persuade you or at least acknowledge. And our differences of Part A leads us not to be to further development Part B.
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Phillip – well, you may well be right about this, but now we’re entering into the realms of speculation – what if Mahatma Ghandi had come from Belfast? Would he have worn warmer clothing? I didn’t see a-priori the fruitfulness and also I didn’t see anything in Scripture – either by way of explicit command (or exhortation) or by example.
As far as intercession goes – I think that we should take very seriously the prayer of Moses – and in this light we should be asking ourselves what prayers of intercession should we be making (and not `passing the buck’ to some saint who is already in heaven – we can rest assured that they are doing God’s work). There should be more prayer of intercession in our own prayer life.
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Surely, you see the purpose of my comment now is for us to focus more on the fruitfulness of the objective act–not the intention of the will when moving one to act.
I don’t know how else to explain the purpose of my comment.
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And I could care less that you liked a story or not, what a bizarre statement.
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On Bosco, I have not tried in a while, so it seemed a moment to have another go. I expect nothing, but that’s in other hands.
I take your points about intercessory prayer, and yes, there is a difference between praying for someone who is here in this life and asking them to pray for you. But if you believe, as I and many millions do, that the Saints are alive with God, then it is natural to add them to those to whom one prays.
I have no doubt there is some projection, but don’t have the same difficulty with it as you.
The fact is that we are all different, and it makes sense to me that God provides ways which suit each of us.
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oh yeah good brother, the many ways to god approach. jesus seems not to be of that opinion. he is the way, and coming to god any other way is the path of thieves and robbers. so far catholic fables are batting 100 as far as being against what scripture says. i wonder if you ever wondered why that is.
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“making supplication for all the saints”, not to. The saints in this case would be the general membership. But thats beside the point. Any imagery is damaging to authenticity. As an example; have nearly any believer close their eyes and think of god. What do you see? That is a blasphemous caricature of what any serious theologian knows is not god.
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Jim makes a good point here. As Aquinas proposes the only thing we can know about the nature of God is what God is not.
To Jim’s point, Theists and Atheists do this alike, but in different ways. There’s a book I think by the title “Would you baptize an alien?” By Paul Mueller SJ and another guy who explain this pretty well in what they call Scientific fundamentalism. And they make the same point that Christians are too guilty of it.
In fact, Jim posed to me the question, If I was God what would I do and I made a similar point that I wouldn’t have the slightest idea.
Then again, they make the point that Science does the same thing with caricatures because humans naturally make signs to communicate. For example, the God “particle” isn’t a particle at all, not like a speck of dust and they haven’t seen it in the manner, but they merely apply an image to it because to put an image to something is naturally human.
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The danger is the symbolism becomes a short sighted version of the intended doctrine. To let go of all these things (graven images) is to see what lies behind it. Money is a good example of that. Take the great depression as an example. There was no less raw materials, lumber, ore, etc. But the entire country shut down because of money—a sickness really, in a human invention. This is why the imagery stands in the way of illumination. Its an extremely difficult barrier to the message. That is one reason (a big one) that eastern philosophies and gurus have a method to eliminate the imagery by chicanery, carefully allowing you yourself to see the folly in beliefs that block your enlightenment. I think there is wisdom in that.
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Of course all things can be misused, that is not an argument against them per se. It may be that for one with your mindset imagery stands in the way, but for those with a more poetic and literary turn of mind, imagery is helpful; the Bible uses it often enough.
I am sure you know that Christianity originated in the Middle East, but am unsure whether you are familiar with the Eastern Churches. You will not find in them an iconoclastic spirit. I think there is more wisdom than you are allowing yourself access to. Have you read St Ephrem? Or perhaps, closer to home, Austin Farrer?
Why narrow your mind when God gave us so many aids to help us?
I have never understood those who think there is one way of perceiving these things, but am struck by the fact it is always their way of seeing it.
To dismiss, as you seem to be, two milennia of art and thought seems infinitely sad.
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Look at the condition of the church. What is standing in the way? 2000 years and it just continues to decline in different ways. Why? I have never understood those who think there is one way of perceiving these things, but am struck by the fact it is always their way of seeing it.. Hello pot…
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What is your definition of decline Jim? The Church has survived everyone who thinks like you and will continue to do so. There are many ways of perceiving the Kingdom of God, but none of them begin by asking for a scientific definition. Do you read novels, do you visit art galleries, do you read poetry? If so, then how you perceive what these media have to tell you without resort to imagery is a mystery.
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I don’t read novels, but I enjoy non fiction in many varieties. I do visit art galleries often with my family, and I love poetry. I even have a poetry blog, but haven’t had much time lately.
https://mrhaikuman.wordpress.com/
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jim – totally off topic, but I’d like to thank you for mentioning David Bohm in a recent post on your blog.
This brings back memories of my student days when, back in 1991 I hitch-hiked to Leipzig in order to listen to the `International Congress of Mathematical Physics’. During this, there was a discussion, panel of four physicists, discussing quantum physics, one of them very much in favour of Bohmian mechanics, while the others took a more conservative line.
I hadn’t come across David Bohm before, so the first thing I did after the conference was get hold of `Quantum Physics’ by David Bohm (I got the Dover edition). I read it from cover to cover – and decided that I liked it and I liked his approach to quantum physics.
I had forgotten all about this, but as a result of your post, I found it on my bookshelf and decided to re-read it (and I found a BA boarding pass from a flight approximately 25 years ago which I was using as a book mark the last time I had read it).
This will be my summer reading this year – and very nice too! So thanks for that.
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Wow! Thats really cool. That was THE physics book in its day. It was quite a time in science history.
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That, Jim, is your view, but it not the teaching of the Church founded on the rock of St Peter. I am unsure why your view should prevail? What special charism or insight have you that millions of Christians for nearly two milennia have not?
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Because one cannot effectively evaluate themselves. You don’t even know who you are other than what people have told you, plus a few cursory facts about height and weight, what stimuli you prefer, and biases.
Whenever a failing venture needs to righten the ship, they always being in an outsider to solve the entrenched failures. You’re welcome.
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I do hope you have more insight into yourself, Jim, than a few cursory facts and what other people tell you.
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I don’t know any more than you do. I do know that logic and religion are at odds, way back at dualism.
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In which case you are wiser than any man who has ever existed. Having read your way through Aquinas, you can put us all right. How has mankind got it wrong for so long Jim. I am assuming your insights have made you world famous? Alternatively, there may be more to the heavens and the earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy/
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I have trouble believing you even read my comment. All I know is to observe the polarities of life as one. They are all one process. This and that, up and down, good and evil. One can’t be aware of either without the other. Its all one process. Maybe you can answer this; Who stands at the Right hand of god in scripture? Who is it that stands on the left hand? Funny it never mentions it, but we all know who, for you cant have one without the other. Thats why the jews had to introduce yetzer hara, to obsolve god of any mischief. But we all know “let not your right hand know what your left hand doeth? Its all one—good and evil. You worry too much. I come in peace, yet often leave in pieces…
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I read your comment and I note a narrowness of thought characteristic of an atheist who frequents Christian blogs. Why should anyone sit at the left hand of a God? Do you really think the image of sitting at the right hand is to be read literally? I have difficulty thinking that anyone ever took that literally. I note you never answer my questions.
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Why would I bother explaining, you’ve already decided I’m shallow. “ Jim makes a good point here. As Aquinas proposes the only thing we can know about the nature of God is what God is not.
To Jim’s point, Theists and Atheists do this alike, but in different ways. There’s a book I think by the title “Would you baptize an alien?” By Paul Mueller SJ and another guy who explain this pretty well in what they call Scientific fundamentalism. And they make the same point that Christians are too guilty of it.
In fact, Jim posed to me the question, If I was God what would I do and I made a similar point that I wouldn’t have the slightest idea”—Phillip. Maybe the problem isn’t me, but you? I didn’t come here to battle at all and offered an outsiders view of the idolatry. Maybe its uncomfortable to you for a reason?
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Jim – it may be an outsider view, but it is a view that I share and I am an `insider’.
Furthermore, this isn’t something that is simply stated in the Old Testament – and then ignored – this was the tradition of `the church’ from antiquity. The Jews still seem to follow this – try looking at the interior of synagogues where they seem to bend over backwards not to have images. Any time I have looked inside a synagogue (as a tourist) I have come away from it thinking that – at least in the way they present their place of worship that they are closer to my (Christian) faith than either Orthodox or Catholicism.
When Catholicism and Orthodoxism decided that they enjoyed images, they deviated from a long-standing tradition of The Church which can be traced right back to the time of Moses.
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Thank you. Similar to Islamic aniconism. They say creation is gods alone.
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Jim – now I suppose we should await the response `the Muslim religion is rubbish. Muslims don’t have images. Therefore images are a good thing ……’
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Haha. Maybe so, but being true to moses is very important to them.
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Yes – I appreciate that.
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If that is your level, Jim … well it would not surprise me. If I were you I’d stop, already having made a sad spectacle of myself. Like Bosco, you won’t.
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Chalcedon – I wrote that one and – apologies – it probably was out of place.
Jim brought up the Muslim faith – and right now I am somewhat bothered by the attitude towards the Middle East which means that huge atrocities against Palestinians By Israel get overlooked. One enormous ingredient in this is the response of the `Christian’ community – which turns a blind eye to the bad stuff, because – well – God has promised the reconstitution of the State of Israel (he did no such thing – Romans 9-11 clearly talks about salvation from sin – not some national salvation) and the odd major atrocity along the way can be overlooked ……
Not a good time to get into that right now – but the mention of Muslims and the shoddy attitude of Christians (which goes along way to explaining why many Muslims seem to hate us) triggered this.
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Cuts two ways, alas, Jock. What do you suppose happened in the heartland of early Christianity where thousands of churches vanished after Muslim conquest?
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What a universe of art you lose.
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I might agree there. There are two reasons the buddhists demand a discipline during their process of awakening. One is to develop character, the other, it allows them to express their vision of the divine world through the arts. Really a fascinating approach. One thing I’ve thought a lot about over the years is learning the art of the sculpture. It’s like Aquinas and what god is not, by removing stone to reveal what is beneath. Never made the opportunity for that to happen though. But, like a buddhist would say, too bad, maybe next time. Heh.
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I had stuff to do yesterday, so I didn’t get to see the thread develop, but I will add that I came across this particular point from Aquinas, who is realist in the Aristotelean sense.
When we name things, it in fact gives a sort of image. For example, if we call a tree a tree. And all things that have treeness are represented by this some sort of uniformity of a tree in our mind which is not the same tree that one is currently looking at but understands that this particular object has treeness.
Naturally, we do the same thing with Divine things Aquinas says, Q. 13 Prima Pars. We name them by our intellect, but not as they really are in themselves because we can only know things in the way in creation. There’s no way to grasp the form of God, as you indicated in your first comment, doing so is representing them not as they really are from the words of Aquinas.
However, it necessitates that words are signs of ideas, so it becomes necessary to create a sign to communicate an idea with others. Art works in the same way and especially in an age when many were illiterate. It serves to communicate an idea to another person. So, by the same logic, that since images cannot fully grasp a concept we should do away with them then the same argument must be applied to language as a whole because language is merely a system where words as signs communicate ideas.
In Christianity, naturally, this is the foundation of the idea of the eternal Logos. The Word is the expression of what is in the Intellect of God.
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What a sad view of God and the talents he has given man.
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That is sad. So you would approve the painting over of the murals of the Hagia Sophia!?
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Chalcedon – no I most certainly wouldn’t. Are they threatening to do that now that it has been declared to be a Mosque?
For the record: I’m against imposing my own views on other people, so if you enjoy places of worship that have images and you enjoy that sort of thing, then I’m not the one to stop you.
Just don’t expect me to join you in that – I prefer my own worship without images.
As far as I’m concerned, the tradition of the church is without images. This goes back to the time of Moses and you see that the synagogues of today (Jewish faith) get their style from that tradition – it was the early Christian church that decided to break with that tradition.
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They did it in 1453 and will have to again if it becomes a mosque.
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I heard in the news that the Turkish president is trying to find some sort of compromise to allow the murals to stay and to be covered during services. He is aware that Hagia Sophia is a major source of revenue for Istanbul, so whether it’s worked out that way, I don’t know.
The floor which is a work of art will probably be covered in carpets though
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It isn’t uncomfortable, it’s banal.
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And I don’t frequent many christian blogs. Just here and occasionally Mel Wild (In my fathers House) When I am stimulated enough to comment, I do. I have read the past several posts here and hit the like button. I have learned some things along the way too.
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The authors of the book I mentioned rejected this dichotomy of logic and religion. In their opinion, both trained scientist at the Vatican observatory, of course, it’s a result of 19th century fundamentalism that was birthed more in Christianity and science in the West. (Although science maybe earlier,. And Christian Fundamentalism is inherently Protestant and only has existed in Catholicism maybe in the past century).
Religion becomes fundamental when it rejects science for a literal interpretation of Scripture. And Science does the same with religion when it insists on a literal reading of Christianity—which a modern reality within Christianity. St. Paul-Augustine-Aquinas and beyond all gave metaphorical exegesis in theology. So, it’s best to not generalize the entire operation of religion.
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I have written about images here too from an ANE perspective, rather than a Late Antiwue one. Images can mislead, but they also can teach and inspire. There are no guarantees in life and we are all adults. I have no objection to statues and icons generally, but fo object to abuses – but that goes for anything. I’m not going to touch the other debates but I’m glad to see Jim again. We need to have a catch up on genetics and evolution as I’d like to discuss a book I recently read.
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I do like to talk to Jim too.
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I think we’d all agree that if Christianity is true, it has nothing to fear from the truth.
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Thank you. That would be a fun discussion.
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i wish to thank good brother chalcedon for addressing this issue. i hope it will bring some sanity to those who fall prey to insanity. i shouldnt call it insanity. smart people fall prey to religion. anyway, the comment that sparked this all really wasnt about images. it was about the way mary is considered a queen of heaven, all knowing all powerful which good brother gave a honorable mention to in the post i commented on. i used the use of images as partly why this false idea about mary is passed on. my point was, and is, if mary was all knowing, how come she didnt know certain things.
good brother wants me to address some issues. ill give his post another read and jot down some notes and get back to him. yes, weve gone over the graven image thing a number of times. in my hard hitting earth shaking comment i didnt try to explain biblically why they are bad. i wanted to show the consequences the images have on weak minds who dont know their bible. how can anyone sit there and say graven (carved, engraved) images are what god wants us to use. well anyone who has thumbed thru the old testament that is. you catholic bible scholars have seen all the verses where god says not to make them or parade them down the street. yet you condemn me in no uncertain terms for bringing them up.
im guilty of idolatry, and have broken every commandment. i havent told anyone they are going to hell. never in my whole history on commenting in this fine site. i never tell anyone that anyway. as long as one is alive, one can be saved. its my hope that the dear readers here will open the door to christ. you all know this about me.
the subject of mary and saints being in heaven was brought up.that they hear prayers and send them on to christ or god. one falsehood after another with you bible scholars. where is your mind when you read thru the scriptures. you cant find on single solitary verse where it says humans are now inhabiting heaven. i challenge anyone of you to find one. let me add a proviso. good brother john was taken to heaven and saw two olive trees which i believe he said were elisha and moses. but im not 100% sure if they were in heaven proper or a subdivision. the dead in christ are in whats called paradise. its separate from heaven.thief on the cross and so forth. do you scholars use your heads for more than a hat rack, as my grandma always said to me. rev 19 or 20, heaven comes down to mankind after the judgment and after armageddon, all this after the thousand yrs reign of christ on earth. do those words in the bible mean anything to you? i say this in hopes that you stop wasting your prayer life on hot air, a phantasm. your false religion has told you saints are in heaven at your service. the bible surely didnt tell you that.yes, i know the worn out old try….oh, the saints are in heaven in the vial the angel is holding. silly rabbit, there are odors of prayers coming out of the vial from the prayers of the living on earth. good brother john saw no people running around heaven fielding prayers.
yes, you dont like this, but its for your own good. just examine the flimsy fables about your queen of heaven. one…why does she pray to god for you when according to catholic fable, she is sitting next to him. two…rev 12, say hello to mary. catholic lore says mary is all powerful, does battle with the devil, will crush his head, has a throne in heaven next to gods. the woman in rev 12, which by the was is the church, flees from the devil, is given wings to fly away, like a scared sparrow, and the earth has to aid in her escape and hides from the devil for 3 and a half yrs. wait, shes all powerful and does battle with the devil. who is keeping her throne warm for her. my advise to cathols…get your lies straight. dont you ever question your churchs fables.
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I look forward to your engaging with my points. When you do, I will engage with these.
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ok, ill address your points at the bottom good brother
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hey, i think i was wrong about mary statues. they really are alive
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I find it odd to examine this subject in some kind of formulaic description that is supposed to shine light on whether the highest gifts God bestowed upon man is imagination and the accompanying use of what has developed from this creative gift: paintings. poetry, mathematics, music, philosophy, theology et al. Why then, when no other creature has been endowed with such a gift should man abandon them to the view that they are valueless? If so, then why is the most magnificent creature God created so moved by them; it not only stimulates rational thought but emotional and sensual reactions. It can bring revulsion, love, tears or joy to the individual or it can be viewed like a dog looking at a math problem . . . without any understanding whatever.
What do the great Saints of contemplative prayer speak to over and over again? Using our imaginations and from there letting God take us where he will to show us and speak of us in ways that cannot adequately be expressed formal language and that is why poetry is a better venue for those who prefer to think outside the box to utilize that is formal language.
Of course, nobody thinks God, Himself is completely knowable by the use of such things but it comes about as close as man can get with the gifts that we are endowed with. It opens up pathways of understanding that are unutterable and cannot be adequately related to another via language. It is why contemplative writers must use a type of poetic speech when they try to make the unknowable knowable to those who do not allow God to lead them to such deep prayer. Even after the beatific vision their will be an infinity of knowing that understanding which will never be finished and will keep us happily captivated by God for all eternity. But it is a way to let God help us to strengthen these gifts and use them for the good rather to use them to negate themselves and declare them unuseful. What a terrible waste of a gift. It is like giving a
book to a worm who would only devour the paper.
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bravo. your attempt to say god wants us to make and serve graven (carved, engraved) images without actually saying it, is breathtaking.
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Do you believe that Christ, the Son of God had a Divine and a Human Nature? If so, one would wonder about the picture images he taught in the Lord’s Prayer and those he taught in parables . . . or were they simply useless images imposed on minds that could not possibly understand them or get anything out of them? If the latter, then (being God) why in the world would he use images countless times in His teaching?
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Yes – images are very important for getting the point across. Page 3 of The Sun uses images – and improves the readership figures no end.
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good brother jock, what does looking at a piece of plaster carved to resemble a human tell you. i say this not just to you, but to the idolaters here.
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Bosco – I encourage you to read Page 3 of The Sun and you’ll find out for yourself.
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whats the sun, a newspaper or something? i should believe every word of it like it was the gospel?
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Bosco – The Sun is one of the UK newspapers. I found a summary of the editorial stances of the various UK newspapers on Grouse Beater’s blog
The Independent: Everything’s shit, and it’s all our fault.
Daily Mail: Everything’s shit, and it’s all their fault.
Daily Telegraph: Everything’s shit, not like it was in my day.
The Times: Everything’s shit, but you’ll have to pay more money to see why.
Daily Express: Everything’s shit, and has been since Diana died.
The Mirror: Everything’s shit, and it’s all the fault of the Tories.
The Guardian: Everything’s shit, and it’s all the fault of the bankers.
Daily Record: Everything’s shit, and it’s all the fault of the English bastards.
The New European: Everything’s shit, and it’s all the fault of democracy.
The Financial Times: Everything’s shit, so thank god you’re rich.
Local newspaper: Everything’s shit and it’s all the fault of the council. The Sun: “Everything’s fab!”, says Page 3 stunner Tracy, 36-30-32, from Essex.
You’ll find the ful text of Grouse Beater’s piece here
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thanks good brother. ill take a look. i dont believe it dawned on me that you are english and live in england.
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is the link you sent me this page three? i read it, as fast as i could. just talk about newspapers and who writes what and what have you. interesting reading, if i was a spinster librarian. maybe im not smart enough to see how that ties into being face first to the ground befor a graven(carved, engraved) image.
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Chalcedon – with apologies for lowering the tone of your blog – there’s only so much I can take of the Scoop-and-Bosco show without losing it.
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poor good brother scoop. i think hes in the decline of health. somehow, hes equating jesus words as reason for making statues and images. well, it happens to everyone at one time. hope it doesnt happen to me for some time now.
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so you use the cherubs on the ark as aids to worship. there are two cherubs on either side of gods throne . the are is a re creation of the throne. its my understanding that the populace couldnt go in to see it, so it was no help in worship. ill say this here and maybe more times….god wants people to worship him in spirit and truth, not wood and stone. but does your religion care? heck no. bring out the wood and stone. so how does a crown on a baby help worship christ? are you saying that catholics are so feeble of mind that they cant remember jesus is lord without looking at some image of a baby with a crown? i guess you are. catholics always call them…”reminders”. as you admit mary is a handmaid of the lord. one of the lowest positions someone could have. how many handmaids are given golden crowns in jolly old england? we dont have handmaids here in war torn america. we call them something else. but our housekeeper didnt wear a crown while she was cleaning my room or doing laundry. but, that is a small matter.
yes, the cathols here have tried time and time again to tell me how wonderful it is to make and serve images and that i shouldnt take the bible at face value. im a bad person for believing the bible. well, thats because im a bad person for not knowing that the bible doesnt mean what it says. god says no images, but if i were smart and listened to the cathols that i would know that god really said to make as many statues and images as possible and get down on my knees face first to the ground befor them. i cant count how many times god came down on people for having statues, which god likes to call them idols. too many times to count. yet bosco is a bad person for siding with the almighty god. i know my words wont change your mind about idols, but i “remind” you about what god thinks of them, since cathols are in constant need of “reminding”. but idols are as important to cathols as air is to living beings.
let me remind you of a bible story. as the israelites conquered lands, one girl decided to keep a little figurine she found. gods command was to destroy and kill everything, livestock too. this girl figured , hey, what the heck, nobody will care. but she hid it knowing she wasnt supposed to have it. god knew. he told joshua, i believe, to go find it and trash it. he found it and trashed it. i cant remember what happened to the girl. but you cathols think god loves for you to have them and use them in worship of him. this kind of activity is what keeps people from the salvation afforded by the invisible god. its not funny.
its not the fault of catholic devotees for the fables invented by their religion. it is their fault for believing them when bibles are available to them. first, mary didnt give her permission to have the baby, neither was she asked. good brother chalcedon say in his about post that without marys cooperation there would be no salvation or jesus. i see this all the time. it hurts me that my friend good brother put it in writing, that gods plan of salvation could be thwarted by a little girl. mary could have said,,,thanks but no thanks and that would be that. it is fitting that jesus said…these people draw near to me with their lips but their heart is far from me. you cathols worship a powerless god. a god that only can operate at the whims of men. you have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. good brother calls”my” view of jesus ministry impoverished. let him provide scripture and verse where his mother mary ever participated in his ministry, except for getting snubbed. then there is that catholic fable that mary was at the foot of the cross. ive seen pictures of this mary standing right there at the cross with these beams of light coming out her hands. cathols lap that stuff up. silly rabbits, angry bloodthirsty roman guards were at the foot of the cross and the marys and the few others sat at a distance, as recounted in scripture. does this matter? not to mary worshipers who have to flesh out these fables.
“There is, as ever, the trope that “I go by scripture” without any acknolwedgement of what Scripture is”
scripture is from the cover page to the end cover page of the bible.
i have no problem stating i believe every word of the book, cover to cover. good brother says the apostles didnt think their adventures were going to be scripture. silly rabbit, the new testament was collected after they were dead. how could they know or care.good brothers attempt at lessening the importance of the new and old testaments is definitely a catholic phenomena. the catholic church has a history of hating the bible. the wonderful catholic church just officially unbanned the bible in1964. befor that date, the law to torture and or burn at the stake anyone caught with any part of the bile was still on the books. what a joke. catholics always tell me the CC gave us the bible, and some say the Cc wrote it. since the CC doesnt have the teeth to kill and torture anymore, it tells its faithful that they cant understand the bible. only their costume holymen the majisterium can understand gods word to mankind. this is the attempt to discourage the faithful from opening it. when they do open it they usually leave the CC
I am sure that Bosco has access to a book where the following words appear: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another”
yes, sure. i am a witness to that. but again, bosco is wrong in that he doesnt believe the dead are to be asked to pray for us. sure, one can ask the dead, but its forbidden. anyway, they cant hear you. once again, this behavior will keep one form believing the words of jesus and will never feel the need to seek the risen lord. they have thousands of dead people who perform different functions. one day when i was still a member of that damned of god site catholic answers.com, i lost my car keys. i mentioned that for some reason. a lady messenged me and told me she was going to ask some saint , whos job was to find lost things, to find my keys. tomas more, whos job it was to strap people to the rack for owning any piece of the bible. was made the patron saint of politicians. i guess politicians can ask more to keep it hidden that he is supporting a girlfriend, other than his wife, with contribution funds. good ol catholic church, they got all the bases covered.saul got in big trouble with god and angered samuel for disturbing his rest. one cannot find one instance in scripture where the dead are to be asked for anything. but, like it should be obvious, the CC doesnt care what the bible or god thinks.
“When we pray to Our Lady, or the Saints, it is asking them to intercede for us before the Throne of God.”
we have an account of heaven from good brother john. there are no crowds of supposed saints all gathered in front of god interceding for us. first, the bible is clear,…there is only one intercessor, jesus himself. the CC says…nope, we got thousands of dead people we are going to put in the way from you coming to the throne to seek jesus. they are called” stumbling blocks” anything in the way of a relation with christ. now, you cant say you werent warned.
my question is, why do you believe clever stories instead of the word of god.?
i believe i addressed every point made by good brother chalcedon.
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Bosco, I don’t know that you “get” this at all.
You seem to regard the Bible as an instruction manual, and yet you deny the authority of those who drew up the manual.
One question: how do you know which books should be in the Bible?
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hi good brother. the books in the bible are listed in the table of contents.
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Do you actually believe that the original contains a table of contents? Surely, not even you are that ignorant?
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“The idea that Our Lady “never interacted with Jesus’ ministry is tenable on only the narrowest reading”
i hate being wrong. please give me just one passage of mary interacting or helping in jesus 3 and a half yr ministry.. thanks in advance.
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They are mentioned in the text of what I wrote, Bosco. You know, you do actually have to read what the other person in a dialogue writes.
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hi good brother. ill have to read it again. i dont recall any mention of it.
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It’s there. You’ll see a fuller response in today’s posting, Bosco.
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Pingback: Images and Bibliotry | All Along the Watchtower
Thank you for the enlightening post. It doesn’t actually sat anywhere in Scripture that our Lord didn’t go out to her then. It just never says He did either, but I would guess that He did.
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