Theology of Andrew

Heidelberg #1

2012-01-27T04:57:00.000-08:00

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?

Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 4 on Ephesians

2012-01-17T17:59:00.001-08:00

"Think, where He sits? Above all principality and power. And with whom it is that you sit? With Him. And who you are? One dead, by nature a child of wrath. And what good have you done? None. Truly now it is high time to exclaim, "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!""

Lutheran Satire of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification

2012-01-11T15:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeJZAb-kS-c&list=UU2-3Cf7Hw10b3NW05p2Z7IA&index=4&feature=plcp

This is good except for the cheap shot at the end about the sale of indulgences.

An Inspiring Figure

2012-01-11T13:31:00.001-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gilmour_%28missionary%29

Quote that Rad-Trads hate/love?

2012-01-11T02:43:00.000-08:00

"In reading the Schema on the Liturgy, and in listening to the debate on it, I could not help thinking that, if the Church of Rome went on improving the Missal and Breviary long enough, they would one day invent the Book of Common Prayer."- Anglican Bishop of Ripon, John Moorman, an observer of the Second Vatican Council (1962-5)

That Old Liturgical Latitudinarian, Pope St. Gregory the Great

2012-01-05T21:02:00.000-08:00

"You know, my brother, the custom of the Roman church in which you remember you were trained. But if you have found anything in either the Roman or the Gallican or any other church which may be more acceptable to Almighty God, I am willing that you carefully make choice of the same and diligently teach the English church, which is as yet new in the faith, whatever you can gather from the several churches. For things are not to be loved for the sake of places but places for the sake of good things. Select, therefore, from every church the things that are devout religious and upright, and when you have, as it were, combined them into one body, let the minds of the English be trained therein." (to St. Augustine of Canterbury) in the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the British Isles

Great Passage From Ruth

2011-12-31T14:28:00.000-08:00

Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger? And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore. The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. Then she said, Let me find favour in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid, though I be not like unto one of thine handmaidens. -Ruth 2:10-13

Augustine Quotation Stolen from Pr. Weedon's Blog

2011-12-30T08:21:00.000-08:00

"But as I do not wish my reader to be bound down to me, so I do not wish my critic to be bound to himself. Let not the pious reader love me more than the catholic faith. Let not the critic love himself more than the catholic truth. I say to the pious reader, do not be willing to accept my writings as canonical Scriptures. But when you have discovered in the Scriptures what you did not previously believe, believe it unhesitatingly. While in my writings, unless you have understood certainly what you did not before hold as certain, be unwilling to hold it fast. I say to the critic, do not be wiling to amen my writings by your own opinion or argument, but [amend them] from the divine text or by unanswerable reason. If you apprehend anything of truth in them, its being there does not make it mine, but by understanding and loving it, let it be both yours and mine. But if you detect any falsehood, though it had once been mine in that I was guilty of error, now by avoiding it let it be neither yours nor mine." -St. Augustine "De Trinitate" 3.1

Read it for yourself, here

Early Gallicanism - Arnulf of Reims

2011-12-28T05:33:00.000-08:00

"a very monster of iniquity, reeking with the blood of his predecessor, mounts the throne of Peter. True, he [Pope Boniface VII] is expelled and condemned; but only to return again... What would you say of such a one, when you behold him sitting upon the throne glittering in purple and gold? Must he not be the 'Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God, and showing himself as God'? Verily such a one lacketh both wisdom and charity; he standeth in the temple as an image, as an idol, from which as from dead marble you would seek counsel.

But the Church of God is not subject to a wicked pope; nor even absolutely, and on all occasions, to a good one. Let us rather in our difficulties resort to our brethren of Belgium and Germany than to that city, where all things are venal, where judgment and justice are bartered for gold. Let us imitate the great church of Africa, which, in reply to the pretensions of the Roman pontiff, deemed it inconceivable that the Lord should have invested any one person with his own plenary prerogative and judicature, and yet have denied it to the great congregations of his priests assembled in council in different parts of the world... Why should he not be subject in judgment to those who, though lowest in place, are his superiors in virtue and in wisdom? Yea, not even he, the prince of the apostles, declined the rebuke of Paul, though his inferior in place, and, saith the great pope Gregory, 'if a bishop be in fault, I know not any one such who is not subject to the holy see; but if faultless, let every one understand that he is the equal of the Roman pontiff himself, and as well qualified as he to give judgment in any matter.'" - Abp. Arnulf of Reims A.D. 991

This speech was given in a Council which Pope John XV naturally declared null and void. Far be it from me to say this was an eschatological interpretation or that this and not Papal Supremacy was the majority opinion. However, it does seem to show how traditional and early Gallicanism had developed against Papal Supremacy.

"You Alone Are The Holy One"

2011-12-22T06:27:00.000-08:00

"The work of the Redeemer is a perfect work: nothing can be added to it, and nothing must be taken away from it. It is everlasting in its duration and efficacy; upon this the eye of faith should be invariably fixed, and from thence comfort and support in every state is to be drawn. Christ's blood is a constant propitiation, his righteousness is a perfect covering; to these reader, have daily recourse for cleansing and recommendation before God; by these you may silence all the accusations of Satan, all the clamours of conscience, all the threatenings of the law; for in Christ the believer is complete, and here may he safely rest in his dullest and heaviest moments." - Carl Heinrich von Bogatzky

First Lutheran Confession Today: 'All May, Some Should, None Must'

2011-12-22T04:16:00.000-08:00

You should speak to the confessor thus: Reverend and dear sir, I beseech you to hear my confession, and to pronounce forgiveness to me for God's sake.

Proceed!

I, a poor sinner, confess myself before God guilty of all sins; especially I confess

(insert sins here)

Then shall the confessor say:

God be merciful to thee and strengthen thy faith! Amen.

Furthermore:

Dost thou believe that my forgiveness is God's forgiveness?

Answer.

Yes, dear sir.

Then let him say:

As thou believest, so be it done unto thee. And by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ I forgive thee thy sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Depart in peace.

But those who have great burdens upon their consciences, or are distressed and tempted, the confessor will know how to comfort and to encourage to faith with more passages of Scripture. This is to be merely a general form of confession for the unlearned.

* These questions may not have been composed by Luther himself but reflect his teachings and were included in editions of the Small Catechism during his lifetime.

Ruminations on Roger Scruton's Essay: "What Losing Faith Really Means"

2011-12-20T05:20:00.000-08:00

Paying Attention to the Sky has posted an essay by Roger Scruton

As a person of vastly inferior intellect to Dr. Scruton, and as an ally to many of his causes, I wish to offer not so much a critique as my own perspective on the matter.

Two starting quotations:

"Husserl insists, the perspectival givenness of physical objects does not merely reflect our finite intellect or the physical makeup of our sensory apparatus. It is, on the contrary, rooted in the things themselves. As Husserl writes, even God, as the ideal of absolute knowledge, would have to experience physical objects in the same perspectival manner. Otherwise it would no longer be physical objects that he was experiencing." - Dan Zahavi "Husserl's Phenomenology" p 34

"A man must do his own believing as he must do his own dying" - Martin Luther as translated by Jaroslav Pelikan in "Luther and the Dawn of the Modern Era" p.5 (Pelikan goes on to attack the interpretation of this phrase that I will use)

Faith is an immensely personal thing. It is intensely uncool in academic settings to be a fan of the individual, as that is perceived even by those on the left as being crassly modern. Obviously, hyper-individualism has been problematic, but after seeing its excesses and those of the hyper-conformists (confessionalistas?) as I'd call them, I have to say I prefer St. Augustine to Pope Boniface VIII.

This is because, in my experience, when push comes to shove, at the root of all Western Christendom, lies the Confessions of St. Augustine. Perhaps the most individualistic propagation of theology ever, that spawned western introspection and was itself a reflection of Socrates' own struggles with his beliefs philosophy.

There was a phrase of medieval soteriology which went as follows: in fine salvus consistet - meaning One's salvation consists in the end (meaning the last moment of one's life).

Graham Greene's novels "The Heart of the Matter", and "Brideshead Revisited" by Evelyn Waugh exemplify this in Catholic thought. In both cases it is the individual in the last moment who decides their salvation or damnation. I don't think there are funerals (even in the harshest Rad-Trad Catholic churches) for those knowingly outside a state of grace, or who had excommunicated themselves (perhaps divorcees), where you'd hear a pious theologian tell the bereaved that because their loved one was outside the visible bonds of the Church they were burning in Hell (and this was to be known with dogmatic certainty). Divorcees, after all, now receive Catholic funderals, and canon law allows priests to say masses for "anyone, living or dead" (Canon 901).

In "Brighton Rock" Graham Greene has a murderer constantly singing the Agnus Dei to himself in the car, and continually repeating to himself that 'between the horse and the stirrup' - in that last moment of death - there can be true repentance. Greene himself wrote that perhaps no one loses his faith, it merely appears under another mask. And similarly, Greene placed into the mouth of the priest at the end of "Brighton Rock" a great speech about Charles Peguy who is tacitly acknowledged as a saint though he never received any of the sacraments of the Church. Simone Weil is another figure Catholics particularly admire who was in the same boat.

All of this in the end, is because whether they want to admit it or not, all Christians know that faith is a matter of the heart. The elect after all, are "hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3). It's not visible or precisely measurable by human terms. In Catholicism interior contrition (true sorrow for sins) alone can save a person without any of the sacraments. In Protestantism interior saving faith alone (trust in Christ's meritorious death on the cross) can save a person, without any visible confession of it. As much as churches like to categorize faith by Confirmations, Confessions, and outward signs, it is all meaningless (as they admit) without the personal, the individual, and the interior. This is perhaps best displayed in Robert Bolt's classic work "A Man For All Seasons" about Sir/St. Thomas More who refused the act of Supremacy based on his personal religious convictions.

While churches, confessions, creeds, and confirmations all aim to give human guages to that invisible divine faith, they must always be remembered as provisional rather than definitive. St. Joan of Arc after all was condemned as a heretic and burnt at the stake only to later by canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as a saint. As my father's friend liked to say "the heart has no dipstick".

If one wishes to guard against individuality I much prefer the way Luther proposed, when he wrote that:
"This is the reason why our theology is certain: it snatches us away from ourselves and places us outside ourselves, so that we do not depend on our own strength, conscience, experience, person, or works but depend on that which is outside ourselves, that is on the promise and truth of God, which cannot deceive."

By resting in the promises of God, one avoids the proud arrogance of individualism, but places oneself in relation to the one individual who ties everything together. As Peter Kreeft liked to say, Christ is the center of Catholicism, and Christ is the center of Protestantism, and ecumenism must work outward from this unity. The Roman Catholic theologian, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, liked to say that the crucifix is the focal point of every Catholic church for a reason. To quote Chesterton: the cross is the crux of the matter.

In Christ we find unity, and become a part of the True Israel. Elijah could not break bread with the rest of Israel when he was off in the wilderness, but God fed him by ravens. Let us not be too hasty in our professions of extra ecclesiam nulla salus, to forget that as with Elijah, many scraps fall from the table of the feast of Abraham. Shame on us, if we reduce the invisible to the visible communion.

Thus faith can remain even in the hardest of hearts. Faith can do this because it is a resilient thing. It moves mountains. It has toppled empires. The righteous shall live by faith, even faith, as small as a mustard seed, and even the faith in the confession "I believe Lord, help thou mine unbelief".

An Old Lutheran Ecumenical Statement on Eastern Orthodoxy

2011-12-20T05:04:00.001-08:00

"It was to destroy this sort of religion that Jesus Christ suffered himself to be nailed to the cross, and now we find it re-established under his name..." - Adolf von Harnack

Not Really Theology But...

2011-12-18T20:04:00.000-08:00

I finished my last history paper of the semester. It was on English newspaper coverage of Anti-Clericalism in the Spanish Civil War, and about how reports of anti-clerical violence were used to smear Communism by Fascists, but also how Christian Socialists perceived the Spanish Roman Catholic Church's siding with the Nationalists as in a sense anti-clerical in that it attacked the laity who were in one sense a royal priesthood.

It's been a good 5 years writing essays on Catholics, and that was my last one. From now on I guess I'll write about Protestants, which is awkward because I really haven't dealt with them in a while... Or I could just continue writing about Catholics. Apparently there are Lutheran and Protestant historians of (Roman) Catholicism. Leopold von Ranke and J.N.D. Kelly I can think of from the top of my head.

We'll see...

Excerpts of The Delicious Destruction of Thomism by Paul Ricoeur

2011-12-17T08:20:00.000-08:00

""repentance" belongs to the same thematic universe as trnsgression and merit, and it is no accident that it was precisely Judaism that laid emphasis on this concept. For "repentance" signifies that "return" to God, freely chosen, is always open to man; and the example of great and impious men who have "returned" to the Eternal attests that it is always possible for a man to "change his way." This emphasis on repentance is in conformity with the intepretation of "evil inclination" as occasion of sin and not as radical evil. The ethical universe of Pharisaism is already that of Pelagius: no great contrasts, as in Paul, Augustine, and Luther, between radical evil and radical deliverance, but a slow and progressive process of salvation, in which "pardon" is not lacking to "repentance," grace to the good will." - Paul Ricoeur "The Symbolism of Evil" (131)

"justice, although it is extrinsic to a man as far as its origin is concerned, has become something that dwells within him, as far as its operation is concerned; the "future" justice is already imputed to the man who believes; and so the man who is "declared" just is "made" just, really and vitally. Thus there is no ground for opposing the forensic and eschatological sense of justice to its immanent and present sense: for Paul the first is the cause of the second, but the second is the full manifestation of the first; the paradox is that the acme of outwardness is the acme of inwardness, of that inwardness that Paul calls new creature, or liberty. Liberty, considered from the point of view of last things, is not the power of hesitating and choosing between contraries, nor is it effort, good will, responsibility. For St. Paul, as for Hegel, it is being at home with oneself, in the whole, in the recapitulation of Christ." - Paul Ricoeur "The Symbolism of Evil" (148)

"Such is the symbol in the light of which the final experience of fault is perceived as something in the past that one has got beyond. It is because "justification" is the present which dominates the backward look on sin, that the supreme sin consists, in the last resort, in the vain attempt to justify oneself... Justification by faith, then, is what makes manifest the failure of justification by the law, and the failure of the justice of works is what reveals the unity of the entire domain of sin." - Paul Ricoeur "The Symbolism of Evil" (148)

"evil is not nothing; it is not a simple lack, a simple absence of order; it is the power of darkness; it is posited; in this sense it is something to be "taken way": "I am the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world," says the interior Master. Hence, every reduction of evil to a simple lack of being remains outside the symbolism of defilement, which is complete only when defilement has become guilt." - Paul Ricoeur "The Symbolism of Evil" (155)

A Beautiful Excerpt From Donne

2011-12-15T09:36:00.000-08:00

(this is New St. Paul's Cathedral in London)
John Donne (the sometime Dean of Old St. Paul's) has inspired me lately as a recusant (his mother I believe was the grand-niece of St. Thomas More) who turned Anglican. His faith is usually seen as a forgery out of expediency, like so many, a minister of the CofE for profit. However, lately I've found a lot of even his private writing to be unabashedly Protestant (Holy Sonnet XIV is the locus classicus). While this would be unfair to my Calvinistic and Anglican friends who could surely claim him as their own before I could, I have to say that his meditations on Christ crucified show him to come quite close to the Lutheran Tradition:

"There now hangs that sacred Body upon the Crosse, rebaptized in his owne teares and sweat, and embalmed in his owne blood alive. There are those bowells of compassion, which are so conspicuous, so manifested, as that you may see them through his wounds. There those glorious eyes grew faint in their light: so as the Sun ashamed to survive them, departed with his light too. And then that Sonne of God, who was never from us, and yet had now come a new way unto us in assuming our nature, delivers that soule (which was never out of his Father's hand) by a new way, a voluntary emission of it into his Father's hands; For though to his God our Lord, belong'd these issues of death, so that considered in his owne contract, he must necessarily die, yet at no breach or battery, which they had made upon his sacred Body, issued his soule, but emisit, hee gave up the Ghost, and as God breathed a soule into the first Adam, so this second Adam breathed his soule into God, into the hands of God. There wee leave you in that blessed dependancy, to hang upon him that hangs upon the Crosse, there bath in his teares, there suck at his woundes, and lie downe in peace in his grave, till hee vouchsafe you a resurrection, and an ascension into that Kingdome, which hee hath purchas'd for you, with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood." - John Donne

Rufinus' Commentary on the Creed: The Apocrypha

2011-12-13T15:29:00.000-08:00

It's funny because my working motto has been "Yea let God be true, but every man a liar" (Rom 3:4) when approaching the fathers. In other words, I've said, I want to respect the Tradition that has been passed down to me, but if it is the case that the fathers reject any doctrine I feel to be truly contained in the Scriptures then I will reject that fathers' teaching. But funnily enough, I've found more confirmation of Protestant beliefs in the fathers since I started reading them again.

I will not say what Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy says: namely, that the fathers teach our position alone. Such a case is necessary with the epistemic claims of both of those Traditions. However, Protestantism merely says, 'this is what the bible teaches' and in so much as the Church throughout the ages have confessed the bible, they have confessed this faith. For this reason, we only need to show how our doctrines are in the fathers, and need not prove that they are the only opinions in the fathers.

Regarding the issue of the canon, I found Rufinus' commentary on the Creed quite illuminating, and at one point I realized it was almost the exact same words as the 39 articles use, concerning the apocrypha. "And the other books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine."

"But it should be known that there are also other books which our fathers call not "Canonical" but "Ecclesiastical:" that is to say, Wisdom, called the Wisdom of Solomon, and another Wisdom, called the Wisdom of the Son of Syrach, which last-mentioned the Latins called by the general title Ecclesiasticus, designating not the author of the book, but the character of the writing. To the same class belong the Book of Tobit, and the Book of Judith, and the Books of the Maccabees. In the New Testament the little book which is called the Book of the Pastor of Hermas, [and that] which is called The Two Ways, or the Judgment of Peter; all of which they would have read in the Churches, but not appealed to for the confirmation of doctrine. The other writings they have named "Apocrypha." These they would not have read in the Churches.

These are the traditions which the Fathers have handed down to us, which, as I said, I have thought it opportune to set forth in this place, for the instruction of those who are being taught the first elements of the Church and of the Faith, that they may know from what fountains of the Word of God their draughts must be taken."-38

John Bunyan - Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (Excerpt)

2011-12-13T09:35:00.001-08:00

"I was often much cast down, and afflicted in my mind therewith, yet could I not let go my sins: yea, I was also then so overcome with despair of life and heaven, that I should often wish, either that there had been no hell, or that I had been a devil; supposing they were only tormentors; that if it must needs be, that I went thither, I might be rather a tormentor, than be tormented myself."

I read that today and could immediately relate.

I find that amidst Lutherans, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Copts there is so much derision and mockery that go towards Baptists. While the anabaptist heresy is evil in many ways, there have been many great Baptists whom I wish to learn from, John Bunyan being one of them.

I think Billy Graham should refer to himself as H.H. Rev. Dr. Mar Billy I Catholicos-Patriarch of all Baptists, claim spiritual descent from St. John the Baptist who had spiritual primacy even over St. Peter (Mt. 11:11), find 3 Old Catholic and/or PNCC bishops to ordain him, and then have ecumenical meetings in Rome on behalf of the 100 million odd Baptists around the world and be respected. (compare: http://ineffableglory.blogspot.com/2011/09/assyrian-church-of-east-b9shop-mar.html), then suddenly Pope Benedict would be forced to kiss his ring, and have ecumenical meetings with him, expressing their partnership in the gospel and the unfortunate and unnecessary historic divisions between them, etc.

St. Athanasius Incomparably Better than Origen

2011-12-12T19:09:00.000-08:00

"Thus each of these heresies, in respect of the peculiar impiety of its invention, has nothing in common with the Scriptures. And their advocates are aware of this, that the Scriptures are very much, or rather altogether, opposed to the doctrines of every one of them; but for the sake of deceiving the more simple sort ... they pretend like their 'father the devil John 8:44 ' to study and to quote the language of Scripture, in order that they may appear by their words to have a right belief, and so may persuade their wretched followers to believe what is contrary to the Scriptures. ... The Lord spoke concerning them, that 'there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, so that they shall deceive many Matthew 24:24.' ... Wherefore the faithful Christian and true disciple of the Gospel, having grace to discern spiritual things, and having built the house of his faith upon a rock, stands continually firm and secure from their deceits. But the simple person, as I said before, that is not thoroughly grounded in knowledge, such an one, considering only the words that are spoken and not perceiving their meaning, is immediately drawn away by their wiles. Wherefore it is good and needful for us to pray that we may receive the gift of discerning spirits, so that every one may know, according to the precept of John, whom he ought to reject, and whom to receive as friends and of the same faith. Now one might write at great length concerning these things, if one desired to go into details respecting them; for the impiety and perverseness of heresies will appear to be manifold and various, and the craft of the deceivers to be very terrible. But since holy Scripture is of all things most sufficient for us, therefore recommending to those who desire to know more of these matters, to read the Divine word, I now hasten to set before you that which most claims attention, and for the sake of which principally I have written these things." - St. Athanasius (#4 Here)

St. Athanasius is a little low-church for me here, I mean, he shouldn't have said that people should read the Scriptures and trust in their individual discernment by God's grace. He should've told them to read the dogmatic pronouncements of their bishops... because they're the successors of the apostles after all, carrying the apostles' orthodoxy and faith... except when they confess heresies like Arianism... at which point only the bishop of Rome is the successor of the apostles... unless he confesses monothelitism... in which case all his dogmatic pronouncements don't count as dogmatic pronouncements... I think that's how the logic goes...

Anyway, while St. Athanasius could suggest such a methodology to stop the Arians, I wish he'd written advice on how to deal with the Anabaptists... (until then, we'll just keep administering 3rd baptism I suppose).

Alexander of Lycopolis

2011-12-08T20:51:00.000-08:00

Was apparently not a fan of Philosophy. I'm starting to agree with the Orthodox on this, philosophy is not good. Or as Tertullian said: what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?

(although I'm cooking up a clever phenomenological philosophy of intersubjectivity that I plan to unleash on my thomistic opponents eventually)

Anyway, Alexander of Lycopolis, who NewAdvent informs me, was a Church Father, said:

"The philosophy of the Christians is termed simple. But it bestows very great attention to the formation of manners, enigmatically insinuating words of more certain truth respecting God... For Christians leaving to ethical students matters more toilsome and difficult, as, for instance, what is virtue, moral and intellectual; and to those who employ their time in forming hypotheses respecting morals, and the passions and affections, without marking out any element by which each virtue is to be attained, and heaping up, as it were, at random precepts less subtle— the common people, hearing these, even as we learn by experience, make great progress in modesty, and a character of piety is imprinted on their manners, quickening the moral disposition which from such usages is formed, and leading them by degrees to the desire of what is honourable and good.

But this being divided into many questions by the number of those who come after, there arise many, just as is the case with those who are devoted to dialectics, some more skilful than others, and, so to speak, more sagacious in handling nice and subtle questions; so that now they come forward as parents and originators of sects and heresies. And by these the formation of morals is hindered and rendered obscure; for those do not attain unto certain verity of discourse who wish to become the heads of the sects, and the common people is to a greater degree excited to strife and contention. And there being no rule nor law by which a solution may be obtained of the things which are called in question, but, as in other matters, this ambitious rivalry running out into excess, there is nothing to which it does not cause damage and injury.

the deception caused by discourse of this sort has drawn over to itself some of those who have pursued the study of philosophy with me..."

Not exactly an Augustinian word-smith this Alexander. Nonetheless the general sense seems to be:

1. Christianity is a simplistic philosophy dealing with God not virtue (Theology is probably a better term)
2. Heretics use philosophy, and it has led people away from the truth.
3. Heretical philosophy can be discerned experientially / by seeing it lead to immoral lifestyles.

How I treat the Church Fathers and non-conciliar traditions

2011-12-08T20:43:00.000-08:00

If a tradition is not Tradition, for instance, the view of a single church father, I treat it as the RCC treats private revelation. Just substitute the words "private revelation" for "tradition"

"Private revelation … can be a genuine help in understanding the Gospel and living it better at a particular moment in time; therefore it should not be disregarded. It is a help which is offered, but which one is not obliged to use … The criterion for the truth and value of a private revelation is therefore its orientation to Christ himself. When it leads us away from him, when it becomes independent of him or even presents itself as another and better plan of salvation, more important than the Gospel, then it certainly does not come from the Holy Spirit." ( Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Theological Commentary on the Message of Fatima , 26 June, 2000 ).

Humorous Polemicism

2011-12-08T14:36:00.000-08:00

God is currently teaching me how to lose arguments which is fitting for one such as I who is trying to become less and less dependant on human reasoning.

The thing that gets to me is that I like to joke about things, I like to admit where my case is hopelessly weak and enjoy it when others do the same. For instance, I remember once having a humorous conversation with a professor I had when I was Roman Catholic. He was Reformed, and we were discussing the problems of the Reformation. He joked that if I was willing to get rid of papal infallibility, he'd toss sola scriptura, and all of us could become Orthodox.

I didn't lunge at him and start attacking his views of sola scripture, I laughed, because there was a lot of truth in what he said.

It might be a history-person thing, Pelikan did it a lot in his writings, where to challenge a philsophical or theological point, you throw out a humorous anecdotal point to counter your opponent, not to 'prove' your case, but to lighten the mood.

It's like when Devin jokingly mentioned Martin Luther's views on James when I was defending his piety towards sacred scripture. It didn't completely level my views, but it was humorous, made me think, and realize the situation wasn't as simple as I'd portryed it.

Perhaps Origen isn't so bad...

2011-12-07T20:34:00.000-08:00

Origen makes a good point that the gold (philosophy) plundered from the Egyptians made both the ark and the golden calf. So we ought to be very careful with philosophy.

"These are they who, from their Greek studies, produce heretical notions, and set them up, like the golden calf, in Bethel, which signifies "God's house." In these words also there seems to me an indication that they have set up their own imaginations in the Scriptures, where the word of God dwells, which is called in a figure Bethel... Do you then, my son, diligently apply yourself to the reading of the sacred Scriptures. Apply yourself, I say. For we who read the things of God need much application, lest we should say or think anything too rashly about them. And applying yourself thus to the study of the things of God, with faithful prejudgments such as are well pleasing to God, knock at its locked door, and it will be opened to you by the porter, of whom Jesus says, "To him the porter opens." And applying yourself thus to the divine study, seek aright, and with unwavering trust in God, the meaning of the holy Scriptures, which so many have missed. Be not satisfied with knocking and seeking; for prayer is of all things indispensable to the knowledge of the things of God." -Origen's Letter to Gregory

It's interesting that he conflated God's house with the Scriptures, though I won't read too much into that. More than any specific phrases, I'm amazed to see once more how tied to the scriptures the fathers were. Every other sentence is a bible verse.

O Sweet Exchange!

2011-12-06T21:50:00.000-08:00

"In His mercy He took up the burden of our sins. He Himself gave up His own Son as a ransom for us-- the Holy One for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, the righteous one for the unrighteous, the incorruptible for the corruptible, the immortal for the mortal. For what else could cover our sins except for His righteousness? In whom we, lawless and impious as we were, be made righteous except in the Son of God alone? O sweet exchange! O unfathomable work of God! O blessings beyond all expectation! The sinfulness of many is hidden in the Righteous One. While the righteousness of the One justifies the many that are sinners." - Letter to Diognetus.

So far I don't like Origen...

2011-12-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

" Then came Peter and said unto Him, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?" Matthew 18:21http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

"there is no forgiveness, not even to a brother, who has sinned beyond the seven and seventy times." - Origen's Commentary on Matthew (5)

...
I must respectfully facepalm and say unto Origen: 'epic fail'.

The Use & Abuse of the Church Fathers: St. Ambrose

2011-12-06T07:36:00.000-08:00

When trying to argue about a 'side' in either the Great Schism (1054 - Between the East and the West) or in the Reformation, the use of the fathers can be downright abuse.

I found a perfect example this morning.

The Text Itself

Here's a portion of Saint Ambrose of Milan's "The Sacrament of the Incarnation of Our Lord"

"when he [Peter] heard But who do you say I am,' immediately, not unmindful of his station, exercised his primacy, that is, the primacy of confession, not of honor; the primacy of belief, not of rank... [those] who said that Christ was either Elias, or Jeremias... that voice had filth, that voice had perplexities... let our voice resound that Christ is the Son of God. My words are pure, in which expressed impiety has left no perplexities.' This, then, is Peter, who has replied for the rest of the Apostles rather, before the rest of men. And so he is called the foundation, because he knows how to preserve not only his own but the common foundation Christ agreed with him the Father revealed it to him. For he who speaks of the true generation of the Father, received it from the Father, did not receive it from the flesh. Faith, then, is the foundation of the Church, for it was not said of Peter's flesh, but of his faith, that 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' But his confession of faith conquered hell. And this confession did not shut out one heresy, for, since the Church like a good ship is often buffeted by many waves, the foundation of the Church should prevail against all heresies. The day will fail me sooner than the names of heretics and the different sects, yet against all is this general faith - that Christ is the Son of God, and eternal from the Father, and born of the Virgin Mary..." - 32-35

How it is used

Now if you're browsing "Catholic Answers" forums or reading the new Scott Hahn book, you may see quotations from this passage like: "[Peter] heard But who do you say I am,' immediately, not unmindful of his station, exercised his primacy, that is, the primacy of confession... the primacy of belief" or perhaps when attacking Anglicans and Orthodox, you'll see: "Peter... has replied for the rest of the Apostles"

Then when you're browsing Lutheran or Reformed websites, you'll see James White throw out: "Faith, then, is the foundation of the Church, for it was not said of Peter's flesh, but of his faith, that 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' But his confession of faith..." without any mention to that primacy talk earlier.

What it is actually saying:

Now the whole point of the text was to refute the Arian heresy which denied the deity of Christ, as well as the long list of other heresies down to the Monophysites, who all in some sense denied that Christ was both God and Man completely. The reason St. Ambrose wrote this, was to get that point across, not to discuss episcopal squables or establish an ecclesiology.

In the end, a Baptist can read this and add a hearty amen, just as much as a Roman Catholic can, because they both confess that Jesus is True God and True Man.

Or as the Simpsons constantly encourages us: can't we all just go beat up some Unitarians?

Do we really care what the fathers say?

I'll add this final warning to those who wish to turn the fathers into 11th or 16th century polemicists.We need to look at their writings honestly and carefully, admitting that in some ways we all stand in utter contradiction to the fathers. Perhaps even admitting that where they agreed, they were either wrong or at least, not totally right.

For instance, it is a widely known fact that the consensus of the fathers for some five hundred years, universally condemned musical instruments in worship, and claimed that this was a pagan practice.

Who follows such a belief?

And let's just say that we agree with the fathers and say: musical instruments are evil, or shouldn't be used in worship. What about David? For Holy Writ admonishes: "Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings." (Ps. 33:2)

Who is to be believed?

Even if we say the fathers, what would they say?

"I do not wish that credence be given us; let the Scripture be quoted. Not of myself do I say: ‘In the beginning was the Word,’ but I hear it; I do not feign but I read what we all read" - St. Ambrose of Milan (The Sacrament of the Incarnation of the Lord)

But the question this post should leave you with is of course: Did he take that out of context?

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

2011-12-04T16:43:00.000-08:00

good question David.

St. Gregory of Nyssa on Scripture

2011-12-03T15:11:00.000-08:00

"Just as at the sea those who are carried away from the direction of the harbor bring themselves back on course by a clear sign, on seeing a tall beacon light or some mountain peak coming into view, so Scripture may guide those adrift on the sea of life back into the harbor of the divine will" - St. Gregory of Nyssa

Anselmian Substitutionary Atonement in the Church of the East?

2011-12-03T10:18:00.000-08:00

"Jesus Christ walked in the flesh thirty-three years on the earth, O King. In the thirtieth year he repaid to God all the debt that the human kind and angels owed to Him. It was a debt that no man and no angel was able to pay, because there has never been a created being that was free from sin, except the Man with whom God clothed Himself and became one with Him in a wonderful unity." - Catholicos Timothy I, Patriarch of the Church of the East (here)

The Sign of the Cross

2011-12-02T05:32:00.000-08:00

I came across this article by a Roman Catholic priest.

Apparently all Christians, even in the West, made the sign of the cross the (now) Orthodox way. As you can usually guess with Catholic-Orthodox history, this changed when Pope Innocent III decided to change things and have Western Christians go left to right shoulder. It makes more sense now that he ordered the crusade which sacked Constantinople in 1204 as well.

I was curious why my Lutheran pastor crossed himself 'the Orthodox way', and now I see why. I too will join the Orthodox in making the signum crucis right to left.

The Church of the East ; Philip Jenkins ; Cornelius

2011-12-01T19:39:00.000-08:00

No one has been sent to us Orientals by the Pope. The holy apostles aforesaid taught us and we still hold today what they handed down to us. -Rabban Bar Sauma c. 1290

I read way too much of this book tonight, instead of doing my homework.

It's funny because the more I read about Orthodoxy both Eastern and Oriental, and the more Confessional Anglicans and Lutherans I read, the more I am overwhelmed by the fact that we all confess the same traditional faith. Where we diverge is obviously important, but the fact that we all agree on the Trinity, largely the first 7 ecumenical councils, and to differing degrees, the Old and New Testament, there's actually a lot in common by way of heritage.

And it's also funny because at the same time, I'm amazed at how absent Christ can be in faiths that bear his name. Suddenly one's identity becomes based on who is the true catholicos, or who is the real head of the church. In reality, I think we should be looking to the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour. As a Protestant Christian I also think the bishops of the world should stop claiming to be "more bishop-y than other bishops" (to quote my old Reformed professor of religious philosophy). If a bishop or a pastor is a shepherd, this should always be remembered to be at best a visible analogy or sign of Christ who is the True head of the Church, the real universal shepherd.

You can have all the unified ecclesiastical bodies in the world and yet lose your soul.

I'm struck by the story of Cornelius in Acts 10, who was an unbaptized gentile that prayed. And yet when St. Peter arrives at his door, he exclaims so beautifully:

"So Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ ( he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."

While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, "Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days."

This is my new ecclesiology.

(John Woo is a Chinese-American Lutheran, just threw him in here to show an 'eastern Christian')

Surprised by Joy

2011-11-30T17:30:00.000-08:00

It's funny because I'm supposed to feel somber and solemn these days. My RC chaplain friend is pissed at me, and I have a bunch of papers due, but I can't help it. I'm not sad or scared.

I'm joyful.

I feel so free.

I haven't felt this good in so long. I have hope. I sing with St. Paul: "Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies." (Rom 8:33)

The Reformer of Wittenberg used to sign his name: Martinus Eleutherius, meaning Martin the Free One.

As an Anglican I used to pray daily in the morning Liturgy to the God, "whose service is perfect freedom". I love that phrase. It's beautiful.

I have the whole evening to myself, I could do anything, and I'm going to sit down, put on some pajamas, make some hot chocolate, and grab my biggest bible and a patristic commentary.

Just the thought that God unconditionally accepts me for Christ's sake is too marvellous to bear. This great crucified God, "[w]ho was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." (Rm 4:25).

Blessed be God forever.

Consecration

2011-11-29T14:35:00.000-08:00

Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. - 1 Tim 4:14

I actually think the Methodists have pwned the Anglicans with this verse. If St. Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus, why were the hands of the presbytery laid upon him in consecration? This would go with St. Jerome's / the Presbyterians' argument that there are only two levels of church gov't.

Interdasting...

Maculata?

2011-11-28T04:39:00.000-08:00

I asked my pastor if Lutherans held to the Immaculate Conception and he said that it was sort of a pious belief (which Luther held originally), and I was content in that, but after reading St. Bernard's immaculate(?) case against the Immaculate Conception... I'm not so sure

In any case, like St. Augustine, out of reverence for the Mother of God, I will make no speculation as to her sinfulness.

Funny moment

2011-11-25T21:06:00.000-08:00

on my facebook there appeared two suggestions for things for me to like:
The Catholic Church
&
Martin Luther

facebook is apparently getting really advanced...

Some Passages from St. Bernard of Clairvaux & Thoughts

2011-11-24T14:15:00.000-08:00

"And who need wonder when I say that the Word was united to human flesh through the faith of Mary, seeing that He received that same flesh from hers ? There is nothing in the foregoing explanation opposed to our regarding the faith of Mary as a type of the kingdom of heaven ; nor does it seem unfitting to compare her faith with the kingdom of heaven, since by that same faith its losses are repaired."

***

"O Lamb of God ! O truly meek Lamb ! do Thou open the book. Open out Thy pierced hands and feet, that the treasure of salvation and the plentiful redemption hidden
in them may come forth."

***

"If there be anyone stained with crime, and driven headlong by despair to the pit of destruction, let him call upon this life-giving name, and he will speedily be restored to hope and salvation. Is there anyone amongst you in hardness of heart, in sloth, or tepidity, in bitterness of mind, if he will but invoke the name of Jesus his heart will be softened, and tears of contrition will flow gently and abundantly. In dangers and distress, in fears and anxieties, let him call on this name of power, and his confidence will return, his peace of mind will be restored. Doubts and embarrassments will be dispelled and give place to certainty. There is no ill of life, no adversity or misfortune, in which this adorable name will not bring help and fortitude. It is a remedy whose virtue our dear Saviour invites us to test."

-----------------------------------------

I've always loved St. Bernard. I believe it was Calvin who cited him more than any other Christian author. He has such a lively faith, and a love for Jesus that just shines through the page. I wish I had someone like him to teach me the faith sometimes.

The pastor I've been meeting with has been great, and is very meek. Not at all argumentative or polemical, a quiet man. Of course as our Lord said, "they will all be taught by God" (Jn 6:45) so I suppose I have nothing to complain about. Just like the Blessed Virgin, and the Patriarchs, and St. Bernard (and Calvin?), all I can do is trust in the promises of God, and call upon the name of Jesus, for he - not me or anyone else - is my Saviour.

"they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."" - John 6:28-29

Jesus I trust in You

Retraction

2011-11-23T20:02:00.001-08:00

Fred has rightly reminded and corrected me, that I was mistaken about St. Augustine's concubine.

A Photograph of Two Great Christian Adulterers

2011-11-23T17:12:00.000-08:00

I was trying to explain to someone the other day that a person's sin is no reason to discount their theology.

These two men were both great Christian thinkers and witnesses, and yes, there is substantial evidence that both of them had mistresses / cheated on their wives.

If only I could find a picture of these two with Fr. Karl Rahner (though apparently he was technically a fornicator, and his mistress was an adulteress), then we'd have all 3 of them.

The great other exception is of course St. Augustine, who had multiple concubines, once for over a decade.

Of course, we are not good, because of our righteousness, but because of Christ. After all, concerning the so-called "free" will, St. Augustine wrote:

"Behold what damage the disobedience of the will has inflicted on man's nature! Let him be permitted to pray that he may be healed! Why need he [Pelagius] presume so much on the capacity of his nature? It is wounded, hurt, damaged, destroyed. It is a true confession of its weakness, not a false defence of its capacity, that it stands in need of." - St. Augustine (On Nature and Grace, 62.)

And as the very traditional Catholic legend goes, the saints rejoice in Heaven over their sins, because they were opportunities for the abundance of God's grace to shine through.

Some Milton

2011-11-23T17:04:00.000-08:00

This downfall; since by Fate the strength of Gods
And this Empyreal substance cannot fail,
Since through experience of this great event
In Arms not worse, in foresight much advanc't,
We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal Warr
Irreconcileable, to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the Tyranny of Heav'n.
So spake th' Apostate Angel, though in pain...
- John Milton "Paradise Lost" Bk. 1, Lns. 115-125

Proposed Syllogism

2011-11-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

love is the fulfilling of the law - Romans 13:10
by works of the law no human being will be justified - Romans 3:20
ergo:
justification cannot be based upon Love (as Roman Catholics claim justifying faith is faith formed by love, or faith & love)

Good Shepherd Iconography

2011-11-22T04:40:00.000-08:00

Roman Catholic Jesus (The Good Shepherd)

My commentary here seems to be the way that Western Christian art de-masculinizes Jesus. Sometimes to the extreme. For instance, the Western mystics speak about Christ nursing them at times. (St. Bernard claimed to have nursed from the Blessed Virgin, but I'm not touching that issue). I sometimes enjoy these portrayals of Christ, and I think they were produced to show the approachability(?) of Christ, and his meekness. I like this image a lot, and after spending enough time in the RCC, I have come to identify with it's once foreign iconography and art. It's a very kind Jesus.

East Orthodox Jesus (The Good Shepherd)

There's no one quite like Orthodox Jesus. Half Putin, half Goliath. That sheep is being dragged with Him whether it likes it or not (paradoxically contradictory to the EO view of predestination, but I guess sometimes lex orandi lex credendi non est). Sometimes I feel like I'm looking at Vlad the Impaler, rather that our blessed Lord, but other times I'm impressed by the authority and power of Christ. This icon reminds me of his strong words: "[m]y sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me". If I heard this man shouting at me (with a heavy Russian accent?) I would certainly stop what I was doing, and listen.

Synthesis / Protestant(?) Jesus

This image is a nice rapproachment between the East & West. It's an image from a Lutheran church in my province. I won't say it's the best because of it's denominational affiliation, after all, it might've just been a public domain image that they slapped on their website. However, I think it does a good job of capturing the humanity of Christ (while keeping him masculine), and also the sheep over his shoulders is quite significant to me, and is more reminiscent of Lk 15:5 "when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing."

Christ is my Good Shepherd, who leaves the 99 to find me, a wayward sheep, one which doesn't heed his voice, and wanders my own way, but whom the Lord graciously picks up and carries home himself.

Morning Ramblings: The Paraclete's Power

2011-11-22T03:56:00.000-08:00

I just wrote this long and great story of the Holy Ghost leading me to resist temptation, and then I realized that it all just amounted to me trying to impress my RC friends that I'm still a Christian and more holy now than ever.

...It's hard not picking up the shackles of the Law over and over again. It's so much easier to try to justify yourself, than to plead guilty and ask for pardon.

In reality, despite whatever meager acheivements would've been won by me (or thttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhe Spirit in me), I am called to repent of my false righteousness and simply trust in the victory of Christ rather than any of my own victories.

"...sanctifying is nothing else than bringing us to Christ to receive this good, to which we could not attain of ourselves... He [The Holy Ghost] fetches us to Christ" - Martin Luther (The Large Catechism) 39, 53

So instead of another chapter to a pseudo-Augustine's style "Confessions", here's some wonderful music by Johann Sebastian Bach.

With wiki's more literal translation of the words:

Well for me that I have Jesus,
O how strong I hold to him
that he might refresh my heart,
when sick and sad am I.
Jesus have I, who loves me
and gives to me his own,
ah, therefore I will not leave Jesus,
when I feel my heart is breaking.

Jesus remains my joy,
my heart's comfort and essence,
Jesus resists all suffering,
He is my life's strength,
my eye's desire and sun,
my soul's love and joy;
so will I not leave Jesus
out of heart and face.

This is my 'resisting the Devil' theme music. Every time I'm really tempted I think of these words, hum Bach, and trust in the righteousness of Christ. I've been sitting in my office at the university listening to it for probably an hour now.

More on Vocation: Things I thought today in my office

2011-11-21T18:43:00.000-08:00

A girl came into my office jokingly asking me if I knew anything about American foreign policy and religion after 1914, and was shocked when I provided her with three separate answers and sources for each (1. American endorsement of radical Islam during the Soviet-Afghan War, 2. Vatican-U.S Relations from Truman to Kennedy, 3. The preferred status and evacuation of Christian South Vietnamese for refugee status after the fall of Saigon). She kept telling me I was so smart, but she has more funding and higher grades than I do because she doesn't argue with the professors.

I prayed a bit, trying to discern my vocation and came to these hesitant conclusions:

1. You are more intelligent than most professors, but there are many other people who are just as intelligent as you are, and plenty of people more intelligent. It is good, and you should be grateful for it, but it is not the one needful
thing.

2. You really need to be married, and loved. I can do a lot, but I have no faith in myself. If there is someone who is in my corner, so to speak, I could do so much more with my life.

3. There will be nothing ordinary about your life. There is no template you are working against. My story doesn't fit the 'traditional' vocation stories of a cleric, professor, or anything else. I will have to be led by God himself to what my calling is.

No more purely anti-Roman Catholic posts

2011-11-21T18:38:00.001-08:00

I feel that I have sufficiently defended my theological shift in beliefs thus far. That being said, I truly love my Roman Catholic friends and all the wonderful Christian truths they profess. For this reason, I want to cease making this blog primarily about a polemical attack on any confession (though I'm sure I will slip often).

After all, Our Blessed Lord said, "For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you." (Mt. 7:2).

While it goes against my current theology, as someone who has switched confessions before, it would be prudent for me to be careful in my judgment of others.

Luther's really Real Presence v. Thomistic Calvinism

2011-11-21T05:47:00.000-08:00

I was shown a brilliant article furthermore ripping apart Aquinas in ways I never knew! For instance the entire Lutheran/Nominalist argument that in the 'hoc enim meum corpus est', Aquinas asserts the 'hoc' as the body of Christ (because he can't say the bread remains), so it amounts to 'my body is my body'. Brilliant. Here's a later quotation from the argument though, that is likewise surprising and fascinating:

"Luther’s understanding of the real presence cannot be
deemed a via media between Roman excess and Reformed understatement.
The medieval theory of transubstantiation is, in fact,
poles removed from any crass overstatement of the real presence.
Rather, transubstantiation, at any rate as expounded by Thomas
Aquinas, represents a watering down and evaporating away of the
real presence, which is conceived more as the presence of the idea
of the body of Christ than as the actual presence of the sacred
body itself. In keeping with the anti-Thomist position of his
nominalist forbears, Luther, as the two quotations at the head of
this section indicate, had a much stronger conception of the real
presence than did Aquinas. “[T]he massive limbs [are] there so
concealed that no one sees or feels them.” “[S]o great a body [is]
in so small a piece of bread.” Such a massively realistic confession
would have been impossible for Thomas Aquinas, whom the late
Hermann Sasse, writing to the Swedish Gnesio-Lutheran Tom
Hardt, dubbed a “Semi-Calvinist” in this connection." - Dr. John Stephenson (here: http://www.cls.org.tw/lib/logia/Journals/04-1%20Lord%27s%20Supper.pdf)

(This is my friend Margaret's Dad, who had some hilarious and great conversations with me - he is an incredible historical theologian)

Funny Quote From Luther's Small Catechism

2011-11-20T16:48:00.000-08:00

"20. But what should you do if you are not aware of this need and have no hunger and thirst for the Sacrament?
To such a person no better advice can be given than this: first, he should touch his body to see if he still has flesh and blood. Then he should believe what the Scriptures say of it ...[Gal 5, Rom 7]... Second, he should look around to see whether he is still in the world, and remember that there will be no lack of sin and trouble, as the Scriptures say...[Jn 15, 1Jn2,5]... Third, he will certainly have the devil also around him, who with his lying and murdering day and night will let him have no peace..."- Luther's Small Catechism.

Concupiscence & You

2011-11-17T14:23:00.000-08:00

"What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? God forbid. But I do not know sin, but by the law; for I had not known concupiscence, if the law did not say: Thou shalt not covet. But sin taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. " - Romans 7:7-8 (Douay-Rheims/Roman Catholic translation)

Works of the Law/N.T. Wright
It has been suggested that I read Bishop Wright's interpretation on justification. I have, it's wrong. This passage proves all the points against him.

He - and subsequently RCs - has interpretted the 'works of the law' which we are not justified by, as 'external legal/mosaic works and ceremonies' (ex. circumcision). His Grace concludes that Christian justification is primarily the life of Christ lived in us and shown by virtue, by following the 'spiritual law' of Christ (his morality). He rejects the claim that the Reformers made that 'works of the law' meant good works performed by Christians.

It shows that covetting - an internal matter of the heart, IS opposed to the law/'works of the law'. Covetting is not a mosaic ritual, it's an issue of Christ-like virtue.

Likewise Galatians 5 lists the gifts of the Holy Spirit and says, "against such things there is no law", again identifying virtue with 'the law'.

Concupiscence
The case laid out at the Council of Trent, which I knowingly reject, is the argument that it is not sin formally dwelling in us that St. Paul refers to, but concupiscence (the desire for sin in St. Augustine, or material original sin in Thomas Aquinas - even here you see how the RC shift is made to rethinking humanity's sinful nature). I've already shown how Thomistic hermeneutics obliges us to read "sin" here and in Romans 7:20 as Formal, Substantial, and Entire, SIN.

Likewise in 7:8 "sin taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence". What is the subject of the sentence: sin. What is it doing? causing concupiscence/lust/the desire for sin. This is totally the opposite of Trent! Trent says that concupiscence - which isn't sin, but dwells in us - leads us to sin. St. Paul says that sin - which IS sin, dwells in us - and makes us have concupiscence/desire for sin.

I don't know how it could be any clearer that while one may not be comfortable with saying "sin nature" (I actually had an FSSP priest use this phrase twice with me by the way in confession - James knows the guy!), the passage clearly implies that Sin is dwelling in Christians, and making them desire sinful things.

This isn't the rose-coloured picture we get of the scholastics, with a good human nature merely having a potential for evil. (I learned my understanding of Thomas' doctrine of Original Sin, by reading the Called To Communion posts on Trent, and Chesterton's book on St. Thomas)

How Do We Know the True Religion?

2011-11-17T06:07:00.000-08:00

On the curious question of how Christians know heresy from orthodoxy, I found a great quote from St. Irenaeus of Lyons in his book Against the Heresies:

"Anyone who keeps unswervingly in himself the canon of truth received through baptism will recognize the names and sayings and parables from the Scriptures, but this blasphemous hypothesis of theirs [viz. of the heretics] he will not recognize. For if he recognizes the jewels, he will not accept the fox as the image of the king. He will restore each one of the passages to its proper order, and having fit it into the body of the truth, he will lay bare their fabrication and show that it is without support." (via: http://pleroma.typepad.com/)

It is interesting that St. Irenaeus does not point us in this instance, to a magisterium, but rather to the Gospel, which is signified in baptism (one of the ordinary means of grace).

Luther on Noah

2011-11-17T04:21:00.000-08:00

"Nor must we trust in holiness of origin, in forefathers, or in the gifts of God which we enjoy. We must look to the Word alone and judge thereby. Those alone who truly embrace the Word will be as immovable forever as Mount Zion. They may be few in number and thoroughly despised by the world, as were Noah and his children. But God, through these few, preserved to man the truth of that promised mastery when he had not even room to set his foot upon the earth...

Let us say with Noah: I know that I am righteous before God, even though the whole world condemn me as heretical and wicked, yea, even desert me. Thus did the apostles desert Christ, leaving him alone; but he said (Jn 16, 32): "I am not alone." Thus did the false brethren desert Paul. Hence, this is no uncommon danger, and it is not for us to despair; but with courage to uphold the true doctrine, in spite of the world's condemnation and curse." - Luther's Commentary on Genesis 6

A Great Gulf Fixed

2011-11-16T20:36:00.000-08:00

"Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved." - Second Vatican Council "Lumen Gentium" (14)

If Roman Catholicism is true, I'm an apostate who has rejected God's love and fellowship. I've refused the means of grace to eradicate my mortal sins, and I've torn the Church asunder by schism and heresy.

***

"But when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned... when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel...I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing."- Galatians 2 (various)

The witness of the Reformation is to do once more what St. Paul did before St. Peter, to force the Roman Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) Church to listen to the message of the Gospel (sola gratia ; sola fide ; solo Christo).

As the Protestant observers should have replied to the council fathers of Vatican II: 'whosoever hears and rejects the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, could not be saved'

Why Protestantism? (or rather, why the Lutheran Church-Canada)

2011-11-16T10:49:00.000-08:00

Devin Rose - a friend who has helped me in so many ways over the years, asked me a fair question.

If Roman Catholicism is not the true religion, how do you know your 'brand' of Protestantism is correct?

1. Rationalist Assumptions of Roman Catholicism

Like every argument for Roman Catholicism, this one begins with pure reason (which Kant despised so much). It assumes that divine revelation devolves naturally to arguments about divine revelation. It assumes that Aristotle's account of logic is the only account of logic, and that human nature is essentially Aristotelian.

What if Aristotle was wrong (as the Church Fathers thought he was)?

How would you disprove Roman Catholicism in a way that was satisfactory to them? Admittedly, you'd have to use Aristotelian logic.

For instance, Kant and (Lord) Russell, both ripped apart the 5 'proofs' for God's existence using empirical epistemology / analytic philosophy. What is RC's reply? Wrong logic. You started with the wrong rules. I might ask, who says we have to start with your rules?

So what I did, and what the Church Fathers did, was use the logic of a system against itself. With my concupiscence/consubstantiation argument, I used Thomism to show the why Trent was wrong.

Were I to then come up with a system based on the same epistemology, I'd have contradicted myself! Because the Roman Catholic claim is circular reasoning: logic is what we say it is, and this is logically demonstrable.

Protestantism says something quite different in it's epistemology.

Protestantism begins with God. God (as St. Anselm and Descartes understood him) was: that Being, a greater than which, cannot be conceived.

So we are presented with the Revelation of God's Word to Moses, through Jesus. How do we decide if this Word is true or not? If we require a rational argument to demonstrate it's truth (which Aristotelianism would have us do), then we aren't actually saying there is truth inherent in the Word. It's just a really good human philosophy, using allegedly divine sources.

By contrast God's Word is a pre-rational revelation that is necessarily self-referential, and circular. God says it, and it's authoritative because God says it. It can only be accepted or rejected. In any case, there's no way to falsify the claims of God about Himself, we can't know. We either trust, or reason.

In short: the epistemological authority of God's Word is greater than the epistemological authority of any argument about his Word.

2. Only Two Traditions

Again, retaining their rationalism, Roman Catholicism asserts that there are 22 000 Christian 'churches' all claiming to have 'the true religion', let alone Islam and Hinduism. Without reason, how can we judge which claims are best.

First of all, when we're judging claims outside of Christianity, we can certainly use philosophy and reason to undermine these things. (That's why Tertullian used Stoic philosophy to undermine the Stoics, but didn't adopt it in his theology.)

Secondly, there are hardly 22 or 25 k denominations. Likewise, Protestantism follows none of the rules Roman Catholicism does, regarding a communion. For RCs, a church is a communion. For Protestants a church is a confession. There are only really two confessions or Traditions in what I would identify historically as 'catholic Protestantism'. These are Reformed Theology and Lutheran Theology.

Also, it's important to note that both of these confessions acknowledge that the other teaches the saving gospel of justification by faith alone, which in the end is -at least existentially/salvifically- all that matters. So it's not even a necessary issue of 'which is right' (without being too latitudinarian), as any Christian who trusts in God's grace will be saved.

Furthermore as we've seen via Protestant epistemology, the only way to 'internally undermine' things (as I did for Roman Catholicism), as by making Scriptural arguments against them.

In the same way that Roman Catholics are fine having the Pope alone know the true interpretation of Scripture, they seem quite upset that Protestant confessions ultimately confess that their church has the most correct doctrine.

It must also be remembered the numbers have nothing to do with who has 'the true church', as at many times (Noah, Judah, St. Paul, St. Athanasius) the true church was a minority faction.

3. Inherently Humanist Implications in the Question

Next the RC apologist would revert to their argument that God didn't reveal himself properly in his Word, as it's easy if not obligatory to misunderstand it without the Pope (Magisterium and Church can easily be conflated to the Petrine office).

In the same way we saw Papal Infallibility as a de facto denial of the Inspiration of Scripture, we see here the de facto denial of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in two ways. First, it denies that the individual can actually be inspired by the Holy Spirit to be led into the truth. Secondly it denies that there is truly any difference which the Holy Spirit makes when reading the bible. (This is the rationalistic and pelagian understanding, coupled with an intellectually centred faith, that rejects grace alone or even de facto grace in the believer operating at all)

The individual Christian reading God's revelation with the illumination of the Holy Spirit and the rest of scripture to compare a passage to? Rubbish they say.

Conclusion:
How do I know that the Lutheran Church-Canada is either: the, or a, true church? First of all, it doesn't matter, because ecclesiastical membership is not a salvific issue. Salvation is the work of the regenerating Spirit of Christ, not church bodies. Secondly, when I accept God's Revelation as true (because he could swear by no one greater than himself Hb. 6:13), and am illuminated by the Holy Spirit, I conclude that the gospel of the Augsburg Confession, was the gospel of Christ.

In short, to require any extra-revelatory verification of either God's existence or the validity of his Revelation would be blasphemy.

*note* This is the primary reasoning and epistemological defense of Protestantism/Confessional Lutheranism. There are other arguments in its defense, such as an argument from Patristics or Church History, but these are not what establishes the fundamental truth. They are secondary arguments in both the general apologetic discourse, and importance generally.

How The Roman Church Masters the Scriptures

2011-11-15T19:29:00.001-08:00

As a previous commenter jcrng (I think I know who this is, my old Deli co-worker) made the point, any Catholic (*read Roman Catholic) would agree that Scripture is inspired and authoritative in and of itself without the Church's approval.

Here's how that breaks down in practice if not in theory.

Let's look at St. Paul's famous exposition of the struggle of the Christian life in Romans 7:20 "Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me."

How should this be interpretted?

Well in Tradition, both St. Jerome (letter 2) and St. Augustine (Nature and Grace) agree in many places that the will of the baptized Christian is not free to do good. It is free to sin or not to sin, but any good work is directly attributable to the Holy Spirit. This is because, as any plain reading of the text will tell you, St. Paul says: "sin ... dwells within me". Not concupiscence or the opportunity to sin (as the Scholastics will say), but sin. Aquinas argues in III. Q. 75, A. 2, that to use a proper noun is to signify it substantially (this is how he 'proves' transubstantiation). If this interpretive principle is applied to Rom. 7:20, this means that (Original) Sin, formally and substantially, dwells in the baptized Christian.

Simple enough, this interpretation, popular enough before Trent, suddenly leads Martin Luther et al, to say that the Christian is simul iust et peccator / at the same time righteous and a sinner.

This utterly undermines the entire system of Purgatory, Indulgences, etc., and St. Peter's still has to be built. Enter the 22 Spanish and Portugeuse bishops who somehow equal an ecumenical/universl Church council, and the Roman Church declares in Trent that: even though the apostle saith sin, the Church has never understood it to be sin proper, but concupiscence (material original sin/opportunity to sin).

...

So you have Scripture and Tradition in unity on the matter, and the Magisterium saying "wrong".

How is this justified.

First of all, the interpretation of the Bible is made impossible. The Church denies (in a logically circle argument referencing St. Peter's epistle) that Scripture is clear for the laity to understand. Likewise tradition (which had always been public tradition, ie. knowable and written down) suddenly becomes secret unwritten tradition passed on esoterically through the Church. In the end, the only person who can infallibly judge the matter is the Pope.

So Scripture (and less importantly Tradition) are both declared to be fundamentally incomprehensible, and only knowable through the Pope.

This means in practice that it is not the text or Scripture, or the proclaimed message it records, which holds the Truth, but the Papacy. God's revelation is thus only understandable by a secret (gnostic?) special revelation made clear by the Magisterium (presumably Magisterial pronouncements are clear and comprehensible?).

In the end this amounts to saying de facto, that Scripture is not inspired. It also amounts to saying that Tradition is not a valid way of interpretting Scripture either, because this can be confusing, and not all the sources are public or written down, some are secret - knowable and interpretable only by the Pope. In the end, this amounts to something like the inspiration of the Papacy, rather than the inspiration of Scripture, or even a reliance on Scripture interpretted by Tradition.

The Distinction Between The Word Proclaimed and the Word Recorded

2011-11-15T17:43:00.000-08:00

"While the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the pillar and ground of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life" - St. Irenaeus of Lyons (I stole this quote from Jared's blog)

"For in the first place the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God." - Romans 3:2

The central argument that Roman Catholicism (hereafter referred to simply as RC) bases its epistemology upon is the claim that Sola Scriptura cannot be true because the Church wrote the Bible. Thus, where the Reformers (and as aforequoted, St. Irenaeus) said that the Gospel made the Church, Tridentine RC taught the opposite. After all, how could we know the gospel if we didn't even have the New Testament canon?

1. Ontological Pre-eminance of the Word
The problem with this state of affairs is that it immediately assumes. First of all, the New Testament is a record of the teachings of Christ, his proclaimed word, through his apostles and messengers. The epistemological point must be stressed that the written record of Scripture is true and authoritative, because it faithfully represents objective events. In other words, the authority of the scriptural passage "whoever believes and is baptized will be saved" (Mk.16:16) rests upon the fact that Christ historically and objectively said this in history first, and that the Bible records it secondly. It is not St. Mark's authority that we trust in when we read this, it is the authority of Christ. It is not the case that St. Mark wrote these words and authored these ideas, it is the fact that they are Christ's words and ideas. In modern terms, if St. Mark wrote this phrase in an essay submitted to me, he would have had to cite it, because it wasn't his idea (and he'd better do it Chicago Style!)

This is summed up nicely in the Belgic Confession, which states: "the preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God". I.E. Even if no one wrote it down, the preaching of the apostles was the Word of God in oral form. In the same way that I can hum Bach's music without reading a music note, the Gospel was known in the Church even before the canon was decided, Nay! even before the Scripture was written.

This argument may sound familiar as it was used in a different form by St. Paul against the judaizers: "the law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise." (Gal. 3:17). The "promise" or the gospel which Abraham believed in, justified him (Rm 4) and existed long before a New Testament, which leads us to the next point.

2. The Gospel According To Abraham.
The Old Testament, which St. Paul reminds us, was intrusted to the Jews, is the story of Israel. Christians since the 1st century argued after St. Paul, that the Christian Church, was the True Israel. The Old Testament was a Christian book, as the apostle reminds us that all scripture speaks of Him (Christ). Isaiah 53 is a clear example of the gospel in the Old Testament. Genesis 18 was a proof-text for the Trinity.

The idea that Christians needed the Magesterium to know the Gospel or that they needed the New Testament to know the Gospel, flies in the face of all this.

Conclusion:

For these reasons, it is wrong to say that the Church makes the Gospel. The fact that Pope Damasus oversaw a Council in Rome (382) which declared the canon of scripture, no more creates the Scripture/Gospel, than me telling my friend what I read in class, creates the book I read. It's a subversive argument that makes man the master of God's Word. The Church is ministerial, it is the servant of the Gospel, not magisterial, the master of the Gospel.

Return to Protestantism

2011-11-15T15:44:00.000-08:00

Just when you thought I'd quietly acquiesced to papaldom, the evangelischegeist suddenly came flowing back into me. The shackles of the Law fell off, and I found myself awash once more in the unmerited grace of Christ.

I've come up with new arguments for Protestantism/against Roman Catholicism, as well as a new Barthian (tremble at the name!) epistemological argument against Thomism, or rather certain understandings of Thomism.

They are as follows:
1. The proper distinction between the proclaimed word, and the written word of Scripture.

2. An argument that Papal Infallibility and the Magesterium of the Church necessarily result in textual relativism, and a de facto denial of Scriptural Inspiration, and commit a form of gnosticism.

3. A defense of Heiko Oberman's understanding of the complex historical theology of scripture and tradition. (tradition 0, tradition 1, tradition 2, etc)

4. My old argument about how the Thomistic philosophy of language employed in III. Q. 75, A. 2 flatly contradicts the Council of Trent's doctrine of Concupiscence as Material Original Sin, AND (interestingly enough) can be used to verify Consubstantiation rather than Transubstantiation.

5. This one has to come last, because it is a rejection of the Aristotelian logic I employ in arguments 1-4., that not only does the tradition of the Church (ex. Tertullian) require us to reject Greek Philosophy as leading us to heresy, but also the Ontological Primacy of the Word, demands us to reject any theoretical basis for legitimizing Revelation. Ultimately, Revelation is necessarily self-referential and cannot be reasoned about but only either accepted or rejected.

More on Sin and Grace

2011-01-12T06:49:00.000-08:00

"Christ grants justification to those who believe in him, simply because they have faith and not because they serve the law. The blessing granted to Abraham for his exemplary faith is extended to the Gentiles, so that we may receive the promised Spirit through faith.

In other words, the promised gift to believers is not a spirit of outward observance but one of inward devotion inspired by love." - St. Augustine's commentary on Galatians

I've been reading Bl. Cardinal Newman's daily devotional book and it is painstakingly Pelagian in its assertions and all the worst sections are from his Anglican days. Moralism is a Protestant disease that Catholics seem to love. This year, I am reading daily devotions from St. Augustine. He writes some extraordinary things about salvation and is very careful in his writings to speak alot about sin and alot about grace.

I was in the chaplaincy office yesterday and a Presbyterian who is becoming Catholic said to me that his professor described Christianity's view of the world as marred by sin, and he thought that sounded Protestant to him.

...

I don't think he'll ever ask my opinion again on that matter, as I thoroughly thrashed any attempts to remove Original Sin and Concupiscence from our theology. To fight Pelagianism and Total Depravity you don't try to find a middle ground between sin and grace, this is the mistake of some Jesuits and Newman (late Anglican period), rather you multiply sin and you multiply grace.

The more terribly you paint sin, the more wonderful you paint grace. The more Adam the more Christ I think. Or as the Lutherans say, the more law, the more gospel.

I've seen three different perspectives on justification in Catholic life:

1. Universalism / acceptance / Liberalism

2. "Semi-Pelagianism"(for my Reformed audience) which basically makes it sound like God brings 50% to the table and we bring 50% to the table and this synergism somehow solves the problem.

3. Augustinianism (Thank God for Pope Benedict XVI) - God gives 100%, he gives us every ounce of grace that we need for salvation. Every prayer, work, or even the desire for these things, is motivated by God, as the council of Orange declares. "What have you that you did not receive" as the apostle saith. The difference between Augustinianism and Protestantism or rather the divergence between Catholic and Protestant Augustinianism, is twofold.

Does God formally (Aristotelian Category) work this salvation, justification, and sanctification in us, or outside of us. Catholics say in, Protestants say out.

Does faith mean fiducia or fide, is it personal trust in God (will) or assent to his promises (intellect), or both.

Finally, Protestants radically diverge from Augustine on the issue of love (as we do from him on the issue of reprobation). St. Augustine clearly believed that humans do love God through the power of the Holy Spirit and that this love was tied to their faith, in a holistic turn to God and regeneration, rather than just a trust without love or without any interior transformation necessary.

Aquinas solves the Contrition Debate

2010-09-26T17:11:00.000-07:00

SO. I haven't blogged in a long time, mostly on here because apparently chinese pornographers keep leaving large amounts of comments to my posts, and so I've been at Recusant Corner.

However, I stumbled across something tonight that I thought I'd post as it was very relevant to a longstanding debate that has occured on this blog for the last year (or more).

Contrition vs. Perfect Contrition vs. Imperfect Contrition.

My scruples surrounded the idea of perfect contrition and the term 'perfect love for God'. As is the case with most post-Tridentine Catholic theology, the grounds are a mess. There are so many qualifiers and hastily thrown together documents and a rebuttle of a misunderstood Protestantism, that it left me without much hope.

So for some reason, after all this, I went back to St. Thomas, and read these words which shocked me:

"we must say that sorrow, however slight it be, provided it suffice for true contrition, blots out all sin." - http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5005.htm

Now as far as I exegeted this chapter of the summa, St. Thomas seems to be arguing that any sorrow for sins is a divine and therefore infinite sort of thing. Thus sorrow for sins possesses the infinite and gracious efficacy that sanctifying grace has, and where one is the next will follow. Basically resulting in a theology where, sorrow for sins with any kind of conviction, is a sign of efficacious grace, and necessarily entails a desire for confession, and necessarily gives one the ability to hope for their own redemption.

(which is good as I haven't been to confession in a month, and can't go until Saturday).

Things are always simpler with Aquinas.

Bernard on Journey, Rest, and Peace

2010-06-12T09:59:00.000-07:00

"It is so that these impious ones wander in a circle, longing after something to gratify their yearnings, yet madly rejecting that which alone can bring them to their desired end, not by exhaustion but by attainment. They wear themselves out in vain travail, without reaching their blessed consummation, because they delight in creatures, not in the Creator. They want to traverse creation, trying all things one by one, rather than think of coming to Him who is Lord of all. And if their utmost longing were realized, so that they should have all the world for their own, yet without possessing Him who is the Author of all being, then the same law of their desires would make them contemn what they had and restlessly seek Him whom they still lacked, that is, God Himself. Rest is in Him alone. Man knows no peace in the world; but he has no disturbance when he is with God. And so the soul says with confidence, ‘Whom have I in heaven but Thee; and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee. God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. It is good for me to hold me fast by God, to put my trust in the Lord God’ (Ps. 73.25ff). Even by this way one would eventually come to God, if only he might have time to test all lesser goods in turn." - St. Bernard of Clairvaux "On Loving God" chapter vii

Peter Kreeft's Thoughts on Justification

2010-06-12T06:31:00.000-07:00

"The gift of God's love is ours for the taking. I am a Roman Catholic. But the most liberating idea I have ever heard I first learned from Martin Luther. Pope John Paul II told the German Lutheran bishops that Luther was profoundly right about this idea. He said that Catholic teaching affirms it just as strongly and that there was no contradiction between Protestant and Catholic theology on this terribly important point, which was the central issue of the Protestant Reformation. I speak, of course, about "justification by faith" and its consequence, which Luther called "Christian liberty" or "the liberty of a Christian" in his little gem of an essay by that name.

Let us be careful to approach the point in the right way. I think most misunderstandings begin at this very first step. Let's begin with a solid certainty: God is love. God is a lover, not a manager, businessman, accountant, owner, or puppet-master. What He wants from us first of all is not a technically correct performance but our heart. Protestants and Catholics alike need to relearn or reemphasize that simple, liberating truth... it liberated me just as it had the Catholic Augustinian monk Luther 450 years earlier. The crucial sentence for me was: "We may think God wants actions of a certain kind, but God wants people of a certain sort." (Mere Christianity)

The point is amazingly simple, which is why so many of us just don't get it. Heaven is free because love is free. It is ours for the taking. The taking is faith. "If you believe, you will be saved." It is really that simple. If I offer you a gift, you have it if and only if you have the faith to take it.

The primacy of faith does not discount or denigrate works but liberates them. Our good works can now also be free - free from the worry and slavery and performance anxiety of having to buy Heaven with them. Our good works can now flow from genuine love of neighbor, not fear of Hell. Nobody wants to be loved merely as a means to build up the lover's merit pile. That attempt is ridiculous logically as well as psychologically. How much does Heaven cost? A thousand good works? Would 999 not do, then? The very question shows its own absurdity. That absurdity comes from forgetting that God is love.

...

The whole point of justification by faith is God's scandalous, crazy, and wonderful gift of love." - Peter Kreeft "The God Who Loves You" p. 23-25

Not exactly an analytical take on the issue, but a good read nonetheless.

The Roman Catholic condemnations seem to be on the issue of faith being the sole basis of our justification. This leaves works at least some spot for our trust and assurance of salvation. BUT what Kreeft and others have done, for the sake of sanity, is really said that faith plus the habitus or innate regenerated inclination towards love are the ground of our justification. So as long as you can say 'I love God' and in some way whatsoever mean it, you can have a grounding in your faith, because it is faith formed by love. Thus the anathemas of Trent are just barely dodged, and one can be a Catholic of the Pascalian/Jansenist flavour and remain orthodox.

According to J.V. Fesko, this also has a similitude to some outliers in the Reformed Tradition, such as Jonathon Edwards, Albert Ritschl, and others in the early 20th century who emphasized mystical union and the Fatherly judgments of God / Congruent merit, rather than the juridicial / imputation doctrines. Or in other words, if you heap up the Congruent merit, and believe that every time God judges a believers work he is polishing the spots from it (to use Calvin's analogy), and you believe that he imputes perfection to the person's infused faith, hope and love, THEN you can have some sort of assurance. But again, this is just barely dodging Trent, and probably outside the mainstream of Roman Catholic theology.

Another Gospel and the Greek Text

2010-06-11T20:49:00.000-07:00

I've been told not to 'go back under the yoke of bondage' as St. Paul taught the Galatians, meaning that I should not re-enter Catholicism because it is 'another gospel'. This has worked well, and I found myself reading Galatians daily to maintain my zeal. I'm reading a book by a Reformed theologian named Fesko about the History and summary of the doctrine of justification, understood to be the gospel in Protestantism.

It seems to me that the argument of Alister McGrath about Augustine is wrong for a few reasons. The argument goes that St. Augustine didn't understand Greek or Hebrew, and only used Latin to write his theology and commentaries, and when it came to the Psalms the Latin was terrible in it's blatant mistranslations. Likewise the Greek word logozomai which should have been understood as a forensic/legal term for impute/recount/repute/declare something as just, was translated into Latin as iustificare which means 'to make just'. Thus St. Augustine and all the Catholic expositers on justification to Trent and beyond, shared in this mistake, and thus conflated justification and sanctification into one process of salvation, whereas they should've kept these two processes distinct like the human and divine natures of Christ.

...However the Eastern Orthodox who worked in the original Greek, and presumably had no such iustificare translations, also interpret Scripture in this way, and see justification, sanctification, and glorification (Theosis) as all one indistinguishable process. Looks like it's back to the drawing board there.

Christianities (?)

2010-06-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

C.S. Lewis famously described Christendom as a house with different rooms, from Congregationalism to Greek Orthodoxy in it's diversity. He is a man universally respected by everyone from Mormons to Baptists to Roman Catholics to Anglicans. He was one of the few great men that were Anglican on purpose, but he respected other creeds at odds with his own. He somehow managed to affirm sola fide in one place, and Purgatory in another.

In any case, I was thinking about him today as I listened to a discussion on the Great Schism/Orthodox-Catholic split of 1054. I am always amazed and perplexed by how people personally understand their faith. I know the intellectually fighting arena quite well, but it's a different thing entirely to look at the practical spiritual journeys of individuals. I was thinking about Photios 'the great' of Constantinople. What made him want to be a Christian? Why did he enter the priesthood? When he read the Scriptures what did he imagine they meant? What was the faith to him? When he died what were his thoughts about? Was he trusting in Christ as Lord and Saviour, as Billy Graham (and Romans 10) would tell him to? or was he thinking about the Filioque and his own 'orthodoxy' and merit before God?

He is only really considered a schismatic, and examined as a historical figure, but what did it mean for Photios to be a Christian? Is he in Hell or Heaven? I'm finding these questions more interesting now, as opposed to the supreme apologetic ones.

I am thinking about this today, because I realize that in my heart, the gospel feels like it is the offer of Free Grace and Righteousness to the repentant sinner trusting in Jesus apart from works. It is 'of the Lord', and an effectual call. But what did Photios think Christianity was? What did the Venerable Bede? What did saintly Augustine?

Am I (or anyone for that matter) allowed to say what I personally think Christianity is essentially/substantially and make that the measure of everyone else's orthodoxy?

I was looking for what Christianity was in the Vincentian way: believed everywhere, at all times, by everyone. But what if that doesn't exist? What if Christianity is as simple as saying "Jesus is Lord"? What if it is as simple as saying an "Our Father" and meaning it? What if it is as complex as Confessing every mortal sin in number and kind, and receiving the sacraments at the proper time and with the right disposition and dying in this state?

The more and more I look, the less and less sure I am. I don't think there are any easy answers. I had a Baptist pastor once tell me: There are no black and white answers to colorful questions. He might be right... but I'm starting to sound like a Kantian, if not a Relativist.

I was talking to my friend Fr. Scott, my Anglican Priest, and he was talking about the Orthodox Church, and how they haven't had time to go into Western Scholastic squables because they've been praying so much. "Is justification by faith alone or faith formed by love? - I don't know but the Communists are coming, let's pray". If the blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the church as Tertullian writes, then the Orthodox Christians of Russia must be a green tree with all they've suffered. Muslims, Commies, and everything in between. I don't really like Orthodox theology, I'm more of a Filioque guy myself (thank Thomas for that), but perhaps I might be leaning towards the sort of unIntellectual or rather non-polemical inquiry that I despised so much in my Evangelical upbringing.

Once again, my common rejoinder: I just don't know. I don't know where I'll end up, I truly and honestly don't, but I'm enjoying some time to just browse and not buy. It is a humbling experience. I have been so humiliated with all of these changes, and as John Donne wrote: Humiliation is the beginning of Sanctification, so perhaps this is all a part of God's unknowable Providence, I hope so.

Theologia Cordis

2010-06-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

"Search me, O God, and know my heart" - Psalm 139:23

"O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me. Say to my soul, I am your salvation. Say it so that I can hear it. My heart is listening, Lord; open the ears of my heart and say to my soul, I am your salvation. Let me run towards this voice and seize hold of you. Do not hide your face from me: let me die so that I may see it, for not to see it would be death to me indeed." - St. Augustine of Hippo

Some Fathers on Peter and the Rock (1)

2010-06-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to go through all the Church Fathers to find their views on Peter and the Rock, and by the help of my friend Matt, I have found 6 so far:

"In a passage in this book, I said about the Apostle Peter: ‘On him as on a rock the Church was built’...But I know that very frequently at a later time, I so explained what the Lord said: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,’ that it be understood as built upon Him whom Peter confessed saying: ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ and so Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the Church which is built upon this rock, and has received ‘the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ For, ‘Thou art Peter’ and not ‘Thou art the rock’ was said to him. But ‘the rock was Christ,’ in confessing whom, as also the whole Church confesses, Simon was called Peter. But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable." - Augustine "Retractions"

""If, because the Lord has said to Peter, ‘Upon this rock I will build My Church,’ ‘to thee have I given the keys of the heavenly kingdom;’ or, ‘Whatsoever thou shalt have bound or loosed in earth, shall be bound or loosed in the heavens,’ you therefore presume that the power of binding and loosing has derived to you, that is, to every Church akin to Peter, what sort of man are you, subverting and wholly changing the manifest intention of the Lord, conferring (as that intention did) this (gift) personally upon Peter? ‘On thee,’ He says, ‘will I build My church;’ and, ‘I will give thee the keys’...and, ‘Whatsoever thou shalt have loosed or bound’...In (Peter) himself the Church was reared; that is, through (Peter) himself; (Peter) himself essayed the key; you see what key: ‘Men of Israel, let what I say sink into your ears: Jesus the Nazarene, a man destined by God for you,’ and so forth. (Peter) himself, therefore, was the first to unbar, in Christ’s baptism, the entrance to the heavenly kingdom, in which kingdom are ‘loosed’ the sins that were beforetime ‘bound;’ and those which have not been ‘loosed’ are ‘bound,’ in accordance with true salvation.." - Tertullian, "On Modesty" 21

"And if we too have said like Peter, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ not as if flesh and blood had revealed it unto us, but by the light from the Father in heaven having shone in our heart, we become a Peter, and to us there might be said by the Word, ‘Thou art Peter,’ etc. For a rock is every disciple of Christ of whom those drank who drank of the spiritual rock which followed them, and upon every such rock is built every word of the Church, and the polity in accordance with it; for in each of the perfect, who have the combination of words and deeds and thoughts which fill up the blessedness, is the church built by God.

But if you suppose that upon the one Peter only the whole church is built by God, what would you say about John the son of thunder or each one of the Apostles? Shall we otherwise dare to say, that against Peter in particular the gates of Hades shall not prevail, but that they shall prevail against the other Apostles and the perfect? Does not the saying previously made, ‘The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,’ hold in regard to all and in the case of each of them? And also the saying, ‘Upon this rock I will build My Church?’ Are the keys of the kingdom of heaven given by the Lord to Peter only, and will no other of the blessed receive them? But if this promise, ‘I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ be common to others, how shall not all things previously spoken of, and the things which are subjoined as having been addressed to Peter, be common to them?

‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ If any one says this to Him...he will obtain the things that were spoken according to the letter of the Gospel to that Peter, but, as the spirit of the Gospel teaches to every one who becomes such as that Peter was. For all bear the surname ‘rock’ who are the imitators of Christ, that is, of the spiritual rock which followed those who are being saved, that they may drink from it the spiritual draught. But these bear the surname of rock just as Christ does. But also as members of Christ deriving their surname from Him they are called Christians, and from the rock, Peters...And to all such the saying of the Savior might be spoken, ‘Thou art Peter’ etc., down to the words, ‘prevail against it.’ But what is the it? Is it the rock upon which Christ builds the Church, or is it the Church? For the phrase is ambiguous. Or is it as if the rock and the Church were one and the same? This I think to be true; for neither against the rock on which Christ builds His Church, nor against the Church will the gates of Hades prevail. Now, if the gates of Hades prevail against any one, such an one cannot be a rock upon which the Christ builds the Church, nor the Church built by Jesus upon the rock" Origen, Commentary on Matthew, Chapters 10-11).

These last three I have to re-check the sources again for.

""Upon this rock," not upon Peter. For He built His Church not upon man, but upon the faith of Peter. But what was his faith? "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." - John Chrysostom

"To Peter the Father revealed that he should say, "Thou art the Son of the living God." Therefore the building of the Church is upon this rock of confession; this faith is the foundation of the Church." - Hilary

""Faith, then, is the foundation of the Church, for it was not said of Peter’s flesh, but of his faith, that ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ But his confession of faith conquered hell." - Ambrose of Milan

If I can go through the Fathers and find a consensus against it, not only can I prove Traditionally speaking that Rome is not the Rock on which the Church is built, but also that faith is what the Church is built on. That's a big if though, and only one of my plans.

Psalms 124-139 (lines that stood out)

2010-06-06T17:09:00.000-07:00

"Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth." - Psalm 124:8

"Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be moved, but abides for ever." - Psalm 125:1

"May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy." - Psalm 126:5

"Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labour in vain." - Psalm 127:1

"Happy is everyone who fears the Lord,
who walks in his ways." - Psalm 128:1

"The Lord is righteous... ‘The blessing of the Lord be upon you!
We bless you in the name of the Lord!’" - Psalm 129:4, 8

"Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord...If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you" - Psalm 130: 1,3-4

"I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother" - Psalm 131:2

"Let your priests be clothed with righteousness...The Lord swore to David a sure oath
from which he will not turn back...the Lord has chosen Zion;
he has desired it for his habitation:
‘This is my resting-place for ever;
here I will reside, for I have desired it.
I will abundantly bless its provisions;
I will satisfy its poor with bread.
Its priests I will clothe with salvation,
and its faithful will shout for joy... " - Psalm 132: various

"How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down over the collar of his robes.
It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord ordained his blessing,
life for evermore." - Psalm 133 (I love the way it pictures oil running down the beard, I think of God's grace and blessings just overflowing from his ministry)

"May the Lord, maker of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion." - Psalm 134:3

"Your name, O Lord, endures for ever,
your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages.
For the Lord will vindicate his people,
and have compassion on his servants." - Psalm 135:13-14

"It is he who remembered us in our low estate,
for his steadfast love endures for ever" - Psalm 136:23

"Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy." - Psalm 137:6

"I bow down towards your holy temple
and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness;
for you have exalted your name and your word
above everything...The Lord will fulfil his purpose for me" - Psalm 138:2,8

"even the darkness is not dark to you" - Psalm 139:12

Personal Post: Confusion and the Death of Truisms

2010-06-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to spend the next week in prayer and scripture trying to figure out what religion I'm going to be in the end. I think it's a bad plan to just go by one's heart, but everyone seems to have suggested it. I've had Protestant moments and Catholic moments. I just need clarity. I think it's a pretty even balance as all my personal benefits fall on the Protestant side, and all my intellectual prowess falls on the Catholic side.

I feel so strange not having a specific creed. I feel like I'm standing infront of a table, and on the table is a Catholic Catechism, a Book of Concord, and the Westminster Confession of faith. I feel like I understand each of them fairly well. Although no one else seems to agree on this point. It will be interesting to see what a week will do (probably nothing), I keep asking God which side to choose, but he seems annoyingly bi-partisan. I'm finding comfort in the Psalms though, as always.

I was thinking about Edward Gibbon today, the famous English historian who I enjoy reading when I feel cynical. When he was at Magdalen college (where C.S. Lewis was I believe), he faced a rationalist theologian (I think he was CofE) and defended miracles based on the famous Catholic preacher, Bishop Boussett's writings, and eventually converted to Roman Catholicism. His father pulled him out of school, and sent him to Switzerland to live with a Reformed Pastor. Eventually his father said if he didn't revert to Protestantism he would disinherit Edward, and so Edward re-converted on Christmas Day. He said the Romish creed disappeared then from his mind like a dream. After that he wrote scathingly against all organized religion, and was known by some as the father of the English Enlightenment.

I tend to go with the existentialists and postmoderns who say that you cannot but be affected by what you are taught. My mom was trying to give me the Billy Graham / Baptist altar call talk today about 'trusting in the cross' we got in a fight when I told her how complex it was and that she hadn't studied the nature of the debate or understood it at all. I think I wish Edward Gibbon were around today so that I could talk with him. I am a blender of confused theology. I have the Evangelical Arminian decision theology that I was raised with, blended with the Methodism and Biblicism I learned in England, mixed with the Calvinism and Reformed theology I've read everywhere from Karl Barth to Jonathon Edwards, blended with the catholic moralism and neoplatonism of the Fathers, countered by the polemicism of Luther, Calvin, Loyola, and Bellarmine, blended with the Roman Catholic romanticism of Chesterton, Waugh, and Newman, blended with the intellectual foundation of Thomism, attacked by the Fideism of Kierkegaard, the subjectivism of Kant, the skepticism of Sartre, and all topped off with a liberal scoop of C.S. Lewis. My mind, is like a bunch of wires that short circuit now. Whenever someone says an evangelical-ism or a truism, all the arguments start going off in my head like a bar room brawl.

For example. I'll just pick trite phrases people have told me in the last few days and how I react to them inside.

"Do whatever makes you happy" - John Stuart Mill, utilitarianistic hedonism, selfishness, but could also be understood in the Augustinian/Aristotelian/Thomistic framework of choosing whatever ultimately is best for me. But most decisions in life don't make me happy, I should exercise even though it doesn't make me happy, but if I followed this advice I never would.

"Just follow the Bible" - Whose interpretation of the bible should I have? which book should I start at? If I read the Pauline epistles I will lean towards Protestantism, but if I read the Johannine literature I will lean towards Rome. Should I think bishops when I read apostles? should I think magesterium when I read church? Should I think Total Depravity when I read Sin and Adam? Who wrote the bible? Do the Fathers have the right to interpret it? or is it as Luther said, that they are soot-filled bags that poison the spiritual milk of the Word? Kant said you should only do things if you are to make them universal maxims, and I definately don't think everyone should just read the bible for themselves and interpret it without proper education, it is a hard book to understand.

"Just pray" - If the Calvinists are right and I am outside God's grace, then he won't listen to my prayers, if the Catholics are right my soul is dead and unable to access God's grace or resurrect my soul in order to hear from him or feel the leading of the Spirit. How should I pray? How will I know what an answer is and what an arbitrary idealization of my own random thoughts is present? Should I pray my Rosary or not? Should I use my Prayer book (Anglican) or will that lead me astray? Why should I pray if God already has made up his mind? If God is Good by nature, why would I pray to ask him to be good, wouldn't he already do whatever is best by necessity?

...

so ya. Lil bit confused... I just know I don't want to make decisions based on what other people are telling me, I have Catholics emailing me patristic citations, and Evangelicals inviting me to their bible churches, and an Atheist co-worker came up to me the other day and congratulated me for leaving Roman Catholicism like she had when she became an Atheist. (I wanted to kill myself because of the sin of scandal that I've caused with all of this). I have parents preaching, a girlfriend who is trying to be impartial (but favours her native Anglicanism), and even though I was trying not to think about it today, I looked down at my shoes which our Catholic chaplain bought me on a pilgrimage. Even my shoes are reminding me of the Reformation.

...

I'm gonna read some Psalms and try to get some exercise.

Careful Inquiry

2010-06-05T04:33:00.000-07:00

"Have thou ever in thy mind this seal, which for the present has been lightly touched in my discourse, by way of summary, but shall be stated, should the Lord permit, to the best of my power with the proof from the Scriptures. For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell thee these things, give not absolute credence, unless thou receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning, but on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures." - St. Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. A.D. 350, Catechetical Lecture IV. 17)

I have no problem with the Fathers, I am still trying to learn them without merely proof-texting them, which is hard, because it seems that their proof-texts are the only thing people care about.

But what is their limit. This troubles me. St. Cyril here says that we are to weigh everything he says against the Scriptures. Of course the debate then immediately goes to 'whose interpretation of the scriptures', which I don't want to get into right now.

In the same way that I am extremely troubled by Trent declaring "concupiscence"/material original sin, what St. Paul calls "sin", I am disturbed by the way Tradition is treated.

I have abandonned the Newman-ian understanding that doctrine develops. The only thing that develops is heresy, the Arians argued that the Trinity was a development, and the catholics argued that it was a Tradition. What is true, must be either in Scripture or the public Tradition of the Church (councils and fathers).

In my personal scruples I was interested to find out from J.N.D. Kelly, that the Tradition of Penance/Reconciliation was quite different than it is now. For example, in the early church, a person could always receive communion unless they committed 3 sins: murder, adultery, apostasy. All other sins were considered to be forgiven merely by contrition and the petition in the Lord's prayer: 'forgive us our trespasses/dimmite nobis debita nostra'. As well, Penance -according to the Fathers- could only be formally done once. You got one shot, and once you had done your penance for a few years, the bishop would come to you and administer the Eucharist. No absolution was ever given, and the first record of absolution in A.D. 589 was called by a contemporary an 'excreable precept' for there to be a human absolution.

Then eventually we get Trent which says:

"the Lord then principally instituted the Sacrament of Penance, when, being raised from the dead, he breathed upon His disciples saying: 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained' (John 20:22-23). By which action so signal and words so clear the consent of all the Fathers has ever understood that the power of forgiving and retaining sins was communicated to the Apostles and to their lawful successors, for the reconciling of the faithful who have fallen after Baptism." (Sess. XIV, c. i)

...

So how do we get from 500 years of no confession to a priest, and the only mortal sins being murder, adultery, and apostasy, to: every time you deliberately lust you have to go to confession or you are damned.

This seems to be my issue. Tradition either is static or it develops. If it develops, then there really is a big problem with saying Revelation ended with Christ. If it is ongoing, then the Fathers can eventually be outgrown. For example, St. Augustine, Prosper, and St. Thomas Aquinas all taught the doctrine of reprobation, the idea that God predestines to Damnation.

After the debate with the Jansenists, the Magesterium decided that actually God gives sufficient grace to everyone. Bye bye doctrine of Reprobation, bye bye Tradition, make room for development.

This is an issue I need to carefully inquire into.

Likewise, I'm tired of reading pages of sifted quotes from the Fathers either for or against sola scriptura, sola fide, or any other doctrine. The fact that someone can even make up such pages shows how complex the issues are.

So in the end, if the Church directly contradicts the sense of scripture by saying concupiscence isn't sin, when Paul calls it "sin", does it have that kind of authority? St. Cyril seems to think it doesn't... that is until someone finds me another St. Cyril quote to show why he believed in sola ecclesia.

lord have mercy.

How I Feel Today

2010-06-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

I have told my friend who is a priest in the ANiC that I am going to be received there, but now I have alot of Catholics proving to me that my intellectual 'escape route' has collapsed. It appears I am caught, and left with my true motive for leaving the Roman Catholic Church: I need assurance of God's grace and love towards me. I need to know that even though I haven't been to confession, God will still accept me with open arms.

Anyway, that's just me being honest, and I'm sure some Catholic will seize the opportunity to attack me for my behaviour. In any case, in my current weird position as an Anglo-Catholic holding Reformation soteriology, I've decided to really delve into the Fathers this summer, as well as exegesis on the issue of Justification. (to further confuse myself)

I came across this passage in St. Jerome's Letters tonight which was similar to how I feel sometimes:

"Oh! That I could behold the desert, lovelier to me than any city! Oh! That I could see those lonely spots made into a paradise by the saints that throng them! But since my sins prevent me from thrusting into your blessed company a head laden with every transgression, I adjure you (and I know that you can do it) by your prayers to deliver me from the darkness of this world... I have the will but not the power; this last can only come in answer to your prayers. For my part, I am like a sick sheep astray from the flock. Unless the good Shepherd shall place me on his shoulders and carry me back to the fold, (Luke 15:3-5) my steps will totter, and in the very effort of rising I shall find my feet give way. I am the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) who although I have squandered all the portion entrusted to me by my father, have not yet bowed the knee in submission to him; not yet have I commenced to put away from me the allurements of my former excesses. And because it is only a little while since I have begun not so much to abandon my vices as to desire to abandon them, the devil now ensnares me in new toils, he puts new stumbling-blocks in my path, he encompasses me on every side.

The seas around, and all around the main.

I find myself in mid-ocean, unwilling to retreat and unable to advance. It only remains that your prayers should win for me the gale of the Holy Spirit to waft me to the haven upon the desired shore." - Letter 2 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001002.htm)

please pray for me.

Time

2010-06-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

I need a little more time than I thought to address the Catholic hate mail and remind the Protestants that I don't think they have 'won' the battle in the sense they think they have.

I am not a piece of meat. I have found a few points in the Roman Catholic confession untenable, and I have personally and existentially come to believe in the biblical yet unpatristic and unhistorical doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone.

I no longer feel I am obliged to remain in communion with the Pope of Rome for my salvation, but I have nothing evil to say to him or to other Roman Catholics.

My reading of Scripture and Tradition as well as the interior witness of the Holy Spirit has led me to where I am, you are free to call me damned, heretic, or fool. I have no defence, only trust in Christ.

I am going to need some more time before I blog on anything, Triumphalism has become a bitter taste in my mouth.

Ecclesiology (1) - Church Structure

2010-06-02T11:53:00.000-07:00

The area in-between the *** are personal reflections and not properly arguments, so feel free to skip them.

***
Preface:

I've now decided on my soteriology, an absolutely basic understanding that "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Romans 10:13), regardless of whether they are Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed or (ana)Baptist. That most simple gospel, that if I ask God for forgiveness, for the sake of Jesus Christ, he will not withhold it from me, because he desires that all should be saved, over and above the retension of a visible unified Church. So I have accepted this much of the Reformation, that God freely offers his grace to any whom the Spirit regenerates. The fact that Paul could rebuke Peter on a gospel issue, means to me that soteriology must come first.

But now comes the next challenge must be dealt with: Ecclesiology.
***

1. Which style of Church Governance is correct?

Episcopal:

This model has support from Acts 1, and the succession of Matthias to Judas "bishopric" in the King James, or apostolic office. What does that mean however? The Fathers seem to indicate that each city or geographic diocese (a Roman Province decided on by the Pagan Imperial powers) had a bishop who was a figure of unity. However, if Paul and Peter were both in Rome, then that raises questions about the nature of the rule of 'one bishop one diocese'. In fact, if the Pope has universal jurisdiction, then really there is either only one global diocese/bishop, or 2 bishops in every diocese (again going against Tradition).

Likewise, the Methodists made a strong argument. For example, Timothy was allegedly to be appointed as Bishop of Ephesus, this tends to be the Roman Catholic argument. However, look at 1 Tim 4:14 "Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery (or priesthood)." If Timothy was given his ministry (bishop) by the laying on of hands by the presbytery/priesthood, this means his succession was passed on by the priesthood, and not by the Episcopate. This means, as the Methodists will tell you, that all that is required to make a church is at least 3 priests validly ordained in apostolical succession, and they could then vote in a bishop (in the Alexandrian and Nicene Tradition, which states that bishops must be elected). An interesting argument to be sure.

Anyone arguing for a congregationalist style of church government like the Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Baptists, would have to base their argument on the ecclesial 'popular sovereignty' of Christians. They argue (quite rightly in terms of linguistics) that 'ecclesia's (churches) were assemblies in ancient Greece. For example, in Athens, the Ecclesia was a group of around 5000 men who would elect a leader like Pericles. Baptists argue that their 'bishops' (pastors) are elected by the congregations and that the 'laying on of hands' really means the raised hands that were used in voting. While the burden of proof is on them to show the truth to this unsubstantiated claim, it is still one argument. The case can be made that Presbyter/Priest, and Pastor/Bishop are actually all equivalent terms, and that in the hierarchy there is only two offices: laity and pastorate/presbytery.

***
I accept the authority of Scripture, the Fathers, and Tradition, and so the second two sources seem nigh unanimous in their support for the episcopal system of governance. As St. Ignatius of Antioch so harshly warned "do nothing without the bishop", and the Didache and other early texts seem to make the sacramental validity of the Eucharist to be dependent on either the presence or permission of a bishop in the line of apostles. I don't believe Tradition teaches a Petrine supremacy of jurisdiction though.

So, that leaves the Anglican Church of Canada, the Orthodox Church in America, and the Anglican Network/Anglican Church in North America (Evangelical & Anglo-Catholic split). I think Eastern Orthodoxy has gone against Antiquity and Tradition (ironically enough) by calling early medieval teachings 'apostolic tradition' (and thus falling into a quasi-Roman gnosticism of 'the secret tradition of the apostles'). The Anglican Church of Canada has gone against nature and grace by blessing homosexual unions and supporting abortion, leaving me the Anglican Church in North America, of which I am currently seeking membership.
***

Apologia Pro Mi Vita

2010-05-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

I've been challenged that I am not in fact actually a Christian at all and that I merely blog on here for entertainment and to provoke controversy. For someone who has spent over 500 posts for 2 years or more, praying, weeping, searching, and longing for the truth, I'm not even going to honor such an utterly baseless and offensive charge. It is much easier to simply dismiss people, than deal with them as actual human beings.

Since I have been provoked, I will give a response.

Everyone keeps asking me about encountering Jesus. I don't think you can encounter Jesus. The article of the creed seems clear to me "he ascended into Heaven". The way Paul taught people about Jesus was not by administering the sacraments: "For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect" (1 Cor 1:17 KJV).

I made the argument in another post that I think the catholic faith holds Tradition to be a deposit, not an ever-evolving system of new doctrines, or merely 'whatever the magisterium says at this hour' (Pace Cardinal Manning). The episcopate is a part of Tradition, Papal Primacy is an innovation. At least that's the "unoriginal" argument I put forth previously. When I converted to Roman Catholicism last year, I did so because I intellectually believed it was the only Christian worldview I could uphold. I sought for months - begging people to help me - find a way out. Intellectually, I finally found one, and I faced the question of: at a personal soul level, do I enjoy being Roman Catholic? or would I not prefer to be Orthodox, Anglo-Catholic, Lutheran, or Reformed?

My heart was not strangely warmed by the thought of nearly never receiving communion, being forced to confess to a priest even when my conscience didn't particularly trouble me (on pain of damnation), denying the hope and joy giving gospel I had been raised with, and having my friends and family desert me. (apparently it was all a scheme of eventual self-glorification...)

As I re-examined the Word of God in Scripture, the 3 'words' I received from God on pilgrimage, and my own experience, I found that I was free. If I am certain about one doctrine, it is Total Depravity. It is that absolutely nothing within me is worthy of condign merit, that I have no pure intentions, and that I can only be saved by looking to Christ Alone (with a capital A). If salvation is about anything I contribute, I am utterly hopeless. What do we have that we have not received? asks the apostle (1 Cor 4:7). The more I try to focus on my own improvement, the worse I do. The more I accept my total inability, and rest on the promises of Christ, and grasp his righteousness by faith, the more I am at peace. I have rarely been more peaceful, than in the last few days.

I took Communion at an Anglo-Catholic church today, and it was wonderful. I had confessed to God a hundred times my sin, I was not rid of it, but I received him in faith. In Lutheran theology the Eucharist forgives sin, in Roman Catholic theology it is not for the sinful, but the absolved, Jesus comes not to sinners, but to the righteous, those who have jumped through the hoops, followed the rules, towed the party line. Such are allegedly God's children. That I find repugnant. We do not bring anything to God but sin and suffering, and he accepts it and pours out grace upon us. The Eucharist is a means of grace for the believer, even if he is 'unworthy'. God after all "justified the UNGODLY".

There. There's my personal experience. I have no hatred for actual Apostolic and Patristic Tradition, for the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, for the Church and the Law (when applied properly with the gospel).

So to the question: Why is a priest/human/the Church necessary? To lead us to Christ. To say here is the Lord, here is his grace, it is free, it is yours, take it. Catholics claim they have the same view. Actually, what I've experienced, is the opposite. You receive the 'New' Law: do this and live, when you have done your part, God will do his. Clergy should be a special mediation of grace, not the sole mediation of grace. The Church is not the Holy Spirit, and Peter is not the Church.

At the end of the day, it is my soul. Perhaps God will look on me on the day of Judgment and say "you did not submit to the Roman Pontiff, enter into my wrath!" But as Luther says, we have the exterior witness, and the interior witness. By the exterior witness I have shown the the Roman claims to infallibility are seriously dubious, as is the exegesis and Tradition it is built on. The interior witness, is the freedom and grace of the gospel that I feel, the hope about the future, the certainty with which I know Christ will save me.

...but of course, everyone who throws their life away in a secret dishonest pursuit of God for their own glorification, attention, and desire for controversy says such things, why could I ever be trusted...

Random Augustine

2010-05-25T19:58:00.000-07:00

"[Referring to a Psalm]...For by "spontaneous rain" nothing else is meant than grace, not rendered to merit, but given freely, whence also it is called grace; for He gave it, not because we were worthy, but because He willed. And knowing this, we shall not trust in ourselves; and this is to be made "weak." But He Himself makes us perfect, who says also to the Apostle Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." Man, then, was to be persuaded how much God loved us, and what manner of men we were whom He loved; the former, lest we should despair; the latter, lest we should be proud. And this most necessary topic the apostle thus explains: "But God commends," he says, "His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." Romans 5:8-10— Donavit Also in another place: "What," he says, "shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how has He not with Him also freely given us all things?" Now that which is declared to us as already done, was shown also to the ancient righteous as about to be done; that through the same faith they themselves also might be humbled, and so made weak; and might be made weak, and so perfected." - St. Augustine, On the Trinity, Book IV, ch. 1

Nothing particularly polemical here, just a quote I enjoyed.

Rebuilding From the Ground Up (1) - The Irrationality of the Theology of the Cross

2010-05-25T15:16:00.001-07:00

What is the basis of philosophical justification? Is it reason? Is it practicality? Is it authority?

This is the first problem when trying to rebuild the faith. Some will say Reason is our starting point - heck, I used to say that.

But let's think about that idea in a historical-genealogical way. The ancient Greeks stated that reason was the mark of the gods in man, and that if we shared anything it was reason. Aquinas and other scholastics say that reason is the image of God in man, and that man is essentially a rational animal. But what if we disagree? Is there a reason to attribute reason a special place? or is this just arbitrary.

Using reason we can argue for the necessary being, God. But then what. Can we say that we really understand God? Wouldn't we be saying that we - finite beings - could comprehend an infinite being? (and thus make him finite).

The truth of the matter - I think - is that while we can say 'some necessary being' was required to start this whole thing, you can't say much more than that.

To say that a being would need to give us revelation is irrational. The deists quite easily argued that for God to love or be involved with humanity is not logical, it is gracious, love has no reason, and yet "love alone is credible" (Hans Urs Von Balthasar).

Thomas Aquinas in good patristic tradition said that the only thing we could actually say about God was - what Pelikan called 'the metaphysics of Exodus' - that God is who he is (Ex. 3:14). God is, and so we are. So then the smartest question would then be to ask: what does God say about humanity, reason, revelation, etc. And how can we judge between revelations?

Why should I trust the Bible and not the Qu'ran? In the end, really, there is no argument for why the Christian revelation really is true, except the conviction of the Holy Spirit. This is where I find Rome to be no better than Wittenberg. The Protestant says "God's revelation is true because God said so, and there is no authority higher than God", the other says "God's revelation is true because we say so, and there is no authority higher than us (the Church)".

So what is the Christian supposed to do. By the common grace of reason, he knows some kind of Being must exist. Then we have the Revelation to Israel in the Old Testament, and from that community Jesus of Nazareth, and the apostles of the church. The problem is that reason is uncapable of giving me an answer to tons of issues. Why did God have to become a man? Ockham argued that God could've become a Donkey and saved us. How can we say our finite human reason is capable of comprehending an infinite being. Likewise, even if we just accept the Old Testament, God does some crazily irrational things. He orders Moses to kill his son against the natural law (unreasonable) as old Soren reminds us (Fear and Trembling), and he orders the slaughter of every man, woman, and child of foreign tribes purely by his will, he says he "will have compassion on whom he will have compassion", and when Moses asked to see God's glory, God showed him his backside (Luther implies Butt). None of these are rational things.

I can explain after the fact that Jesus had to be a God-man, as Anselm did, and that makes sense, how God saved us seems rational. Why he saved us, is entirely another matter.

So the Christian is left with reason which has already been shown an inadequate tool at arriving at an understanding of this irrational God. Hans Urs Von Balthasar (I believe paraphrasing Karl Barth) said that God's revelation is like an unfinished symphony of Mozart's. There is no way to 'reason out' an ending to it, it is purely gracious and benevolent, it has no reason to exist, but it does, and yet people's hearts are moved by it.

The grace of God is like music, it is a gift, and gifts are not rational, or rather, they are not for our fallen minds. Scripture and Augustine teach us that humanity is fallen and that their minds have been corrupted by sin. "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" asks Tertullian (with an implied answer of Nothing). And the Scriptures warn against vain philosophy, and Paul writes that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man (1 Cor 1:25).

Thus no such analogia entis, Analogy of Being, is possible for the Christian. Catholic Thomism proposed such an understanding, but really -as Barth claims- only an Analogy of Faith is possible, because if God is the ultimate truth of the universe, and he has given us his eternal word, and the deposit of faith once and for all (Jude 3), and reason is uncapable of 'explaining' him, then we can only use the faith. The Theology of the Cross is foolishness to the world of rationalism, which makes it's own Theology of Glory. But God is known by the Theology of the Cross, he gives life and takes life, his gratuitous and arbitrary grace and blessings flow where they will, and he descends to a stable to be born, dies on a cross between two criminals, and raises from the dead. There is nothing in Plato or Aristotle that will tell you that is logical, it is a theology of foolishness, a theology of the cross, not a theology of glory.

So for the Christian, we have our only epistemological foundation being God and what he reveals and enlightens via the Holy Spirit, who is "the light which enlightens everyone" (Jn 1:9).

As to which books fall within the Canon, which councils are correct, and which fathers orthodox, I'll give you all of them. The next post will be on Authority for the Christian.

I will be defending the Book of Concord's formulation that doctrine must be:

"supported by firm testimonies of Scripture, and to be approved by the ancient and accepted symbols... [which] ... have... [been] ... constantly judged to be the only and perpetual consensus of the truly believing Church, which was formerly defended against manifold heresies and errors, and is now repeated."

And defend Scripture first, read within the ancient creeds, and in accordance with the first councils, and with the insights of the Fathers, Tradition, and a very careful and limitted use of reason.

The Next Necessary Step

2010-05-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

So now that I've at least shown that there is good reason to doubt the catholicity and historicity of Catholic claims, I have of course to show why whatever confession I eventually adopt (Probably Lutheran, but possibly Reformed) is superior to my previous one.

I still have to figure out:
-Apostolic Succession
-Protestant Canon
-Christology (Lutheran and Reformed both have issues with either their understanding of the atonement or the Eucharist)
-Ecclesiology
-Proper status of Tradition

And most importantly, I have to find a historical defense of the prime existential reason I'm switching, that crazy doctrine we call: Justification.

So far I think I can at least give sufficient defense of it with Augustine, Hippolytus, Prosper, Bernard of Clairvaux, Teresa of Avila, and some others.

This Article Just Might Have Destroyed My Faith in Catholicism

2010-05-24T20:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.christiantruth.com/Beckwith-Response-to-Return-to-Rome.html

I just don`t even know what to say... It is very difficult to argue against... Wow.

Well, I know what I`ll be thinking about for my day at work tomorrow.

Another Personal Rant: Melanchthon, Confession, and My Damnation

2010-05-24T18:43:00.001-07:00

I read these things that Melanchthon said today and I could relate:

"The condition of Church affairs causes me anxiety which nothing can mitigate. Not a single day goes by on which I do not wish that my life was at an end."

"All the waters of the Elbe would not yield me tears sufficient to weep for the miseries caused by the Reformation."

He was not fully a Donatist, he cared about the unity of the Church (obviously not enough, but still). While others said that the Papacy was the Anti-Christ, Melanchthon said he would happily submit to it, if it only taught the doctrine of sola fide / the gospel as he understood it.

I also was re-reading the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. There were a few spots where I winced. This one especially to me seemed to be the entire Reformation summed up:

"when individuals voluntarily separate themselves from God, it is not enough to return to observing the commandments, for they must receive pardon and peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation"

This made me sad. It is this doctrine of Catholicism and Trent more than anything that frustrates me personally (though I understand the Church's defense of the doctrine, and it seems logical and scriptural and patristic enough for me). It is the idea that a person can cry out to God for salvation and not be received by him without the Church. The idea that God cannot save individuals, or rather that these individuals can have no assurance whatsoever of the efficacy of God's grace. Even the medievals said that to those who do what they can, God will not withhold his grace.

But let's make this really practical. Confession wasn't offered tonight (my only time off) and I was planning on going. As I've said before I COULD get up at 5 AM and go to confession at the scary Traditionalist parish. I theoretically could, just like theoretically I could get on a plane to Rome and find a priest there to give me reconciliation. But the reality is that it is not feasible, and that while I intend on confessing, it is not a practical possibility. For the last three weeks I have studied the bible and prayed and cried in repentance. But none of that matters. I am outside of God's grace. There is no assurance I can have. If my plane begins to crash on Thursday I can beg God to forgive me, but I can't know according to Rome.

None of this of course proves it isn't true, none of this removes Rome's claim to authority, etc. I am guilty, I freely admit it.

But there's just something that seems so wrong about it. So utterly unChristian. There is a complete revolting at this idea in my heart. It's the same thing Luther said in the 95 theses. Why doesn't the Pope empty purgatory? Why doesn't the church 'loose' the requirements for penance and declare the whole world saved, or at the very least, repentant Catholics who haven't received the sacrament yet.

This is the reason why I hate being Catholic. If this is Christ, bound in all the canon laws of the church, trapped by all the legal requirements. In the Lutheran confessions, the Eucharist makes the unworthy worthy, it remits sin, because it is Christ, and he loves and died for sinners. In the Roman Catholic confession, Christ is only offered to those who are worthy, those who have jumped through the sacramental hoops, it is a weapon to withhold from the politicians who disagree with the Church, or the remarried. It is a sacrifice where WE offer something to God, rather than receive something from him. It is a work first and foremost, and a blessing only after.

So while Catholicism might not teach that we are justified by the works of the Old Law, I hate that it teaches we are justified by the works of the New Law, or at least a work of the new law (confession). The whole purpose of confession is supposed to be that we are unworthy of God's grace, that Christ as highpriest has absolved us, not that if we do something, then God will forgive us.

I'm sorry this is a terrible rant.

I really like what Melanchthon wrote before he died:

"Thou shalt be delivered from sins, and be freed from the acrimony and fury of theologians" and "Thou shalt go to the light, see God, look upon his Son, learn those wonderful mysteries which thou hast not been able to understand in this life."

Lord have mercy on this confused Catholic trying not to be swept away on every wind of doctrine, but also to abide in your word.

Donatism and the Catholic Luther

2010-05-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

"... if unfortunately there are such things in Rome as might be improved, there neither is, nor can be any reason that one should tear oneself away from the Church in schism. Rather, the worse things become, the more a man should help and cling to her, for by schism and contempt nothing can be mended. We must not desert God on account of the devil; or abandon the children of God who are still in the Roman communion, because of the multitude of the ungodly. There is no sin, there is no evil that should destroy charity or break the bond of union. For charity can do all things, and to unity nothing is difficult." - Martin Luther (Feb. 1519) [cited from Dave Armstrong's blog http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2008/06/catholic-sounding-utterances-of-martin.html]

There's an interesting article by ELCA Lutheran David Yeago, citing this case from Luther, as an example of why Donatism - while essentially being a part of Reformed and other Protestant confessions - was never Lutheran (according to him, obviously the claim is debatable).

While I still find Luther's doctrine of sin compelling and his theology of the cross, I don't think it is perfect. For instance, you can't square the Reformation teaching with that of the non-Pauline New Testament. For instance, just look at the book of Matthew: 6:15 makes salvation conditioned on a person's forgiveness of others, 7:21-23 says not all who call on Christ as Lord will be saved, and of course the famous 25:31-46 makes salvation conditioned on works or 'evangelical obedience'.

While they try to get around it by saying that they are not against works, in my opinion it still doesn't get around the salvic nature or assurance of salvation which Jesus clearly attributes to them. But no confession is perfect, there exists no explicit biblical prooftexts for the sacrifice of the mass, apostolic succession, or other key Catholic doctrines.

When it comes to the doctrine of the Church (Ecclesiology), I think Catholicism has nailed it dead on. Early Luther emphasizes the role of the keys of the kingdom and the existential assurance and peace people should have from having the church loose their sin by the administration of the sacraments. Hans Urs Von Balthasar makes the case that every wilfull breaking of communion is a case of Donatism, and that there is no reason ever to break the unity of charity, as God has declared that love "bears all things" (1 Cor 13), and that the Gates of Hell will never prevail against the Church, which is visible.

I feel like alot of what Luther wanted reformed has been changed. The Liturgies are in vernacular, the bible is read (to the point that I've heard Catholics complain about having to stand for our long readings), and the shift in other doctrines and emphasis have made the doctrine of justification by faith and works declared by Trent to be either turned Protestant in practice, or at least interpretted in the most gracious way possible.

Notice what I'm not saying. I'm not saying the word is preached. I'm not saying Trent is gone. I'm not saying I find freedom and hope in the synergistic gospel. I'm just saying I know this:
1. It is always wrong to break the unity of the church
2. I as an individual have no right to arrogate my own interpretation over and against the Augustinian tradition which has been in force for over a thousand years.
3. I as an individual nonetheless am obliged by Christ to "abide in his word" if I want to be his disciple, and thus can only preach what I find there, which may sound similar though not identical to the doctrine of Faith Alone, or at least, to emphasize above everything else, that personal conversion to Christ and trust in him alone for salvation is the essential doctrine of Christianity.
4. I cannot accept the other innovations of the Reformation (priesthood of all believers, denial of apostolic succession of bishops, denial of reverance for the saints, denial of auriculur confession).

I find in Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Schillebeeckx, and Yves Congar, (and I'm told Henri De Lubac is similar) a form of Roman Catholicism that is 'evangelical, catholic, and orthodox'. The biggest problem is, outside of Balthasar, finding Catholics that are 'evangelical', just as the problem I found in the Anglican church was finding people who were 'catholic' and/or 'orthodox'.

I guess I must say that I despise indulgences (thank God for our episcopal chair being empty at the moment, so we don't have to put up with any more of those), I no longer feel obliged to pray to the saints, and I dislike the restrictions on communion. But that is a longshot from saying I like Calvinism, or even Lutheranism as a whole. I do like early Luther when he's being Catholic, and I like that they have such a high view of unity. I think what he does best - as does Protestantism - is remind Catholicism of that truth they never like to admit, that truth which they sometimes deny, that God is not bound to the sacraments, that salvation is "of the Lord" as Jonah teaches, and that we should look to Christ for hope, not to ourselves (which the sacramental system sometimes encourages).

The other doctrine I'm really examining, is the idea that the Eucharist forgives sins, I know we say this about venial sins, but not mortal ones. I'll have to investigate more on Luther's teaching here.

Good Short Article on Penal Substitution

2010-05-24T06:27:00.000-07:00

http://jaysanalysis.wordpress.com/2010/05/22/response-to-turretinfan-on-the-crucifixion/#more-527

This is the big problem I find with Luther and Calvin's theology of the cross. It either says God damned his own nature and separated the inseperable members of the Trinity, or it divides the one will of the Father and the Son. ... but of course as Luther aptly wrote: "Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has"

Pentecost

2010-05-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

"The word "Church" (Latin ecclesia, from the Greek ek-ka-lein, to "call out of") means a convocation or an assembly. It designates the assemblies of the people, usually for a religious purpose. Ekklesia is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament for the assembly of the Chosen People before God, above all for their assembly on Mount Sinai where Israel received the Law and was established by God as his holy people. By calling itself "Church," the first community of Christian believers recognized itself as heir to that assembly. In the Church, God is "calling together" his people from all the ends of the earth. the equivalent Greek term Kyriake, from which the English word Church and the German Kirche are derived, means "what belongs to the Lord."" -Catechism of the Catholic Church

I'm tired of hearing people say "happy birthday Church", the Church is much older than Pentecost. It's a dispensationalist error to say the Church was born on Pentecost.

The Trinitarian founding of the Church was in some way instituted by the Father in the election of Israel, some way instituted by Christ with his institution of the apostolic ministry, and some way instituted by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Some Favourite Passages From Ephesians

2010-05-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

"You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived... But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ —by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus." - Ephesians 2:1-2, 4-7

"Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen." - Ephesians 3:20-21

I remember a conversation about the freedom of the will and cooperation with God that was once happening between a Catholic and a Reformed guy, and the Reformed guy quoted Eph. 2:1 and said "how much can a dead person cooperate?". It was funny, even if unaccurate (as our Roman Church teaches that God takes the initiative to make us alive in his grace).

I like the line also in Chapter 3:

"through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him."

What a difficult verse to exegete after 1517. The gospel coming through the church, but the gospel of "confidence through faith" and in this case, clearly a 'fiducia' faith, a personal trust. Sometimes I wish I was born in 3rd century Corinth, the theology would be alot more simple. Although I would probably have become apostate at the first sign of persecution. As Flannery O'Conner once wrote, if they made it quick I could be a martyr, though I don't have the longsuffering to be a saint.

"There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all" - Ephesians 4:4-6

People always tell me you aren't allowed to make this dichotemy between the Church and the Gospel, but I'm having alot of trouble with it. Eventually one ideal will be sacrificed on the altar of the other.

I know it's out of context to understand it this way, but I like to imagine 4:32 as a declaration: "God in Christ has forgiven you.".

Anyway, early morning Mass tomorrow, enough Gospel, time for some Law (jk).

Ruminations

2010-05-22T16:25:00.000-07:00

This is a completely personal post - there will be no dogmatic arguing, just me writing things for the sake of honesty. It will be Wesleyan to the core - that is - based on personal experience not Scripture and Tradition. I am literally just copying online what I wrote down and put in my wallet a few weeks ago.

A few weeks ago I went as a pilgram to St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal, QC. I saw the steps leading up to the Church and there was a specific staircase to crawl on your hands and knees saying prayers. My first thought was - Luther in Rome. I kept trying to 'feel something' but it didn't work. We sat through the intolerable freewheeling liturgy they called Mass, and then proceeded to see all the statues and shrines to the saints. I went to the shrine of St. Joseph and prayed, and it didn't do anything (obviously that's not fair, as many of my prayers aren't answered, but I'm just saying).

Then we went up to the largest sanctuary, it was Gigantic, and in the middle was a giant crucifix. I was in a state of mortal sin, and there were no confessions (even at a shrine!) My friend was sketching the scene and I sat there staring at the crucifix and praying. I wrote 2 things down on the business card of my friend who is an Anglican priest. They were the first things God "said" (I don't even want to try to explain how this occurs) to me in a long time.

1. 'I love you more than you can hate me.' - I was in mortal sin, and I was thinking about how a Catholic friend said that when we are in such a state we are utterly forsaken by God, and in his wrath like Christ on the cross (she was a Traditionalist, and I don't know how orthodox what she said was). In any case, the thought was basically, that any sin, is too small for Christ's death to be invalidated by. In the middle of the giant room, there was Christ, his death, his atonement, his righteousness.

2. "My faithfulness is not dependent on yours". I was thinking about how in Catholicism the New Covenant is nullified by the unfaithfulness of the Christian. If I commit a mortal sin, even if I repent (without priestly absolution), I am still out of Christ, I am in condemnation. I was thinking when I felt this sentence, of the event in the Old Testament (Gen 12) where God pledges his faithfulness to Abraham, even though he doesn't do anything for it. I was thinking about Jacob, and how God chose him, even though he was a sinner, and even though he did some terrible things, God was still faithful to him.

Finally, we walked outside and saw a giant statue of Christ resurrected. At this point I felt this urging:

"Die already, and let me live." In dying I die to self, in living I live in Christ. This was much less revelatory, and pretty much just Galatians 2:20, but I wrote it on the card, so I figured I'd just put it in this post.

By the time we got to this part, my friend (a former Anabaptist) asked if I wanted to go see the heart of Br. Andre, soon to be another Canadian saint. I told him no, and that I thought it was stupid, even though I knew the bible verse in Acts 'proving' relics. I just felt confused, and after all that experience, I read Hans Urs Von Balthasar and then was ok with the Papacy and everything.

I think my problem is not that I have a problem with the Church or Catholicism, if I could live up to the standard, and fulfill all the works of the (new) law, then I'd be fine. If I had the ability to break my sin habits, and remain in 'sanctifying grace' for more than a day, and remember not to eat meat on fridays (or substitute a prayer), then I'd be fine. But the only verses I seem to find whenever I look at myself, are basically the list of proof-texts for the doctrine of Total Depravity.

Hence why I enjoy reading Luther.

I don't know what I'll do. I ended up deciding against Anglicanism, which was the closest thing to Rome (I thought at least). Lutheranism is closer in doctrine (no Calvin snuck in), but I don't know. I'm going to mass tomorrow morning with a Catholic friend. If I eventually leave Catholicism, I want to do it after making a final sacramental confession, just to prove to people that it's not about me being too 'embarrassed' to confess. But like I said, I just don't know.

I find my biggest pet peeve is ignorance. I HATE sitting through a Protestant service where the pastor smuggly mocks a viewpoint without even trying to understand it, and I HATE listening to Catholics talk about how 'no one but us' have preserved due respect for the Eucharist / believe in the real presence / are sacramental / read the Fathers, etc. Perhaps I'm just a theological snob.

I also found out a priest who served in my parish for over a year just got tried for molesting children and was also secretly married (though strangely it has nothing to do with my feelings about justification and/or the Church)... Lord have mercy.

Luther

2010-05-22T15:42:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Martin Marty's biography of Martin Luther. I can't make myself like Calvin, but there's something about ol' Martin, he of all the Reformers I think really knows Catholicism. It's funny because I thought as a Catholic Luther would be less appealing, but actually his writing becomes more appealing, because all of his complaints I can now truly identify with. I've heard other Catholics ask the same questions he asked, and heard priests give me his solutions to the same problems (I guess he was more successful than Catholics would like to admit).

Lutheranism I also find appealing because of it's faithfulness to regenerative baptism and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (and I think Consubstantiation/Sacramental Union is more defensible than Transubstantiation). The main appeal though - the reason a friend of mine said he is Lutheran - is the appeal of the Theology of the Cross, rather than the Theology of Glory.

Of course the other reason I like Lutheranism is because I haven't actually been to a Lutheran Church service, so I can't come up with any personal complaints. It is still an ideal, not a reality.

I'm not saying I'm converting or anything, I'm just saying I really like alot of what Luther had to say, and can empathize with his story. (I spent literally 8 hours today thinking about Justification, all day at work, trying to find SOME way to make Catholicism sound gracious...no luck so far)

More on the Faillure of Anglicanism

2010-05-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

I want to enumerate more the reasons why Anglicanism failed in my eyes.

I could maneuver around the Caesaropapism if I tried hard enough. Surely a ruler choosing a bishop does not invalidate the sacrament of Episcopal Consecration.

The best defense I had of Anglicanism was my argument that a portion of the Church - validly ordained in apostolic succession - voted (even under duress it is still valid) to separate with Rome. Under the six articles of Henry VIII which were very Catholic, this could be defensible. It would be the same case the Eastern Orthodox made with Photius.

The problem arises not even with the Edwardian ordinal (making Anglican ordinations basically presbyterian ordinations of elders, rather than priests). Rome can argue all it wants about the invalidity of the liturgy, etc, but theoretically one could argue that Rome cannot change the catholic tradition of Episcopal Ordination and make requisite that "roman innovation" of the addition of "intent" to matter and form, for a sacrament.

The problem arises when one looks at the theological history of Anglicanism. Under the former Presbyterian John Tillotson as ABC (Archbishop of Canterbury), transubstantiation was declared a horrifying and immoral error in accordance with the 39 articles. However, Rowan Williams and Pope Benedict XVI could substantially agree (pun intended) on the Eucharistic presence.

If the argument is made that a body of bishops in the historic episcopate of England are allowed to descent and remain catholic, and that I may submit to them, then that means I have to submit to them and commune with them. This is the problem. If I live in the era of Elizabethan Calvinism, I can't talk about infusion of righteousness, and likewise after 1930, I can't in the Anglican church declare contraception (and eventually homosexuality) to be disordered acts. If I follow the logic of my apologia of Anglo-dissent, it leads me to Liberalism, not to Confessional Protestantism. Perhaps in the days before Women-Bishops and gay clergy, in the 1928 and the glory days of Anglo-Catholicism I could make my case and proudly be Anglican. But the reality of the situation is that if I wanted to cross the Thames, I would not be in Nigeria with the Anglican Church in North America or the Reformed Episcopal Church, I would be with Desmond Tutu and Katharine Jefferts Schori.

It is as Cardinal Newman so wisely prophesied: there is only Rome and Liberalism, and Anglicanism is the half-way house.

As I've previously noted, if I was in search of the 'comforting doctrine', that is, justification by faith alone, which would free me from perpetual fear, guilt, and necessary auricular confession, then I would not be obliged to look for it in an apostolically successing episcopate. The Presbyterians or the Lutherans, or the Baptists would do. As I cannot conceive of a non-episcopal church as in any way catholic, and as I am unable to conceive of women in the presbyterate -much less the episcopate- as being in any way catholic, I am forced to deny both the Anglican communion, and the Protestant communions.

This - I think - is my killer argument against Anglicanism. That it was possible to be one pre-1967, but after that, not likely. Luckily my argument only grows stronger as time goes on, as the Anglo-American churches are slowly killing their apostolic succession by adding women into the mix, who cannot receive the sacrament.

Private Judgment Revisited

2010-05-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

One commentator noted that Protestants see final authority as resting in Scripture alone, and Catholics see it in the Church alone.

But one could say that in another way: for Protestants the final authority is their own private judgment of the Scriptures, and for Catholics the final authority is the consensus of the Church / Magesterium / Tradition.

When it is phrased that way, I clearly side with Catholicism.

As Tertullian teaches:

"They [Heretics] put forward the Scriptures, and by this insolence of theirs they at once influence some. In the encounter itself, however, they weary the strong, they catch the weak, and dismiss waverers with a doubt. Accordingly, we oppose to them this step above all others, of not admitting them to any discussion of the Scriptures.

If in these lie their resources, before they can use them, it ought to be clearly seen to whom belongs the possession of the Scriptures, that none may be admitted to the use thereof who has no title at all to the privilege.

...

Truth is just as much opposed by an adulteration of its [Scripture's] meaning as it is by a corruption of its text.

...

Our appeal, therefore, must not be made to the Scriptures; nor must controversy be admitted on points in which victory will either be impossible, or uncertain, or not certain enough. But even if a discussion from the Scriptures should not turn out in such a way as to place both sides on a par, (yet) the natural order of things would require that this point should be first proposed, which is now the only one which we must discuss: "With whom lies that very faith to which the Scriptures belong. From what and through whom, and when, and to whom, has been handed down that rule, by which men become Christians?" For wherever it shall be manifest that the true Christian rule and faith shall be, there will likewise be the true Scriptures and expositions thereof, and all the Christian traditions.

...

Since this is the case, in order that the truth may be adjudged to belong to us, ‘as many as walk according to the rule,’ which the church has handed down from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, and Christ from God, the reason of our position is clear, when it determines that heretics ought not to be allowed to challenge an appeal to the Scriptures, since we, without the scriptures, prove that they have nothing to do with the Scriptures. For as they are heretics, they cannot be true Christians, because it is not from Christ that they get that which they pursue of their own mere choice, and from the pursuit incur and admit the name of heretics. Thus not being Christians, they have acquired no right to the Christian Scriptures; and it may be very fairly said to them, ‘Who are you?’”" - Tertullian "The Prescription Against Heretics"

In football (soccer) games in England, the home team shouts at newcomers and the opposing sides: "who are you!?" (which sounds like: Eww AHHH YAAHH). That reminds me of Tertullian here.

Personal Clarifications

2010-05-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

As for my very near conversion to Anglicanism, it was based on the desire to be accepted by God, even when in a state of Mortal Sin, or at least the desire for grace before I receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Similarly, I've always had issue with the Scholastic / Greek Patristic understanding as humans only 'wounded' by original sin, and not totally depraved. I find Trent troubling in it's understanding of Concupiscence light, and tend more towards Augustine and Calvin.

I thought Sola Fide could be supported by many passages in scripture, but also that it was not justification by imputation, but rather by infusion or transformation. Philippians 3:12 seems to me to entirely repudiate the 'bare dogma of double imputation' as Cardinal Newman called it.

So for a while, based on my personal experience, I wanted to leave Catholicism. Which would've made me a Methodist/Wesleyan (using personal experience as an authority). But instead I've simply decided to do as Hans Urs Von Balthasar says, believe in love. Love alone is credible, and it is completely unbelievable. There's no reason why God would love us, or accept us, even if we 'jump through the sacramental hoops'. So I have decided that when I am in mortal sin, it is time for me to - in good Thomist tradition - practice the theological virtue of hope. Hope in God's good providence, that I will not die in a state of mortal sin, and hope that if I did, God would accept me based on his mercy, and my congruent merit (the fact that I tried to get to confession).

I've also decided to read my bible more often, and to try to find some good Catholic Biblical Theology if there is such a thing.

Sola Scriptura and Private Judgment

2010-05-18T07:54:00.001-07:00

I argued that Sola Scriptura is the same as Solo Scriptura, and that in the end there is no formal difference between the two.

Called to Communion did a post on this a long time ago which was brilliant. Please read it, or at least part 4 where the Catholic argument begins (http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/11/solo-scriptura-sola-scriptura-and-the-question-of-interpretive-authority/)

Their basic argument is that Protestants define 'the gospel' being preached as a necessary pre-requisite for a Church. With Sola Scriptura, the individual reads and defines what the gospel is for himself, and then picks the church that agrees with him. If at any time the church disagrees with him, he leaves and either establishes a new church or joins a new church that agrees with his view of the gospel. Therefore, sola and solo scriptura are the same thing in the end.

Their argument is more nuanced but that is the basic line of it.

Protestants can talk about submitting to the Councils, but if I say to them "one baptism for the remission of sins" they deny it, saying baptism cannot remitt sins, because the bible says: x. If I show them the second council of nicea (787) that declares iconic veneration of Christ and the Virgin, they say it can't be true because of what the bible says. Thus even the universal agreement of the Church is not enough to trump their own private interpretation. Which is why Solo and Sola Scriptura are no different.

This was pretty much the straw that broke the camels back for me with Anglicanism. I wanted to refute what the priest was saying in his sermon on sunday, but I know that all I can do is offer my interpretation of scripture and the councils and Tradition of the Church, but in the end, Anglicanism allows the individual to decide and interpret whatever they want.

True submission, is accepting the teaching of the Church when you DON'T personally feel it is right. This can never happen in Protestantism, because the Church always has to remain subject to Scripture, which means it has to remain subject to the individual's interpretation of scripture.

The Usual Suspects: Original Sin, The Fall, and Concupiscence

2010-05-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

So I guess I'm not ending my inquiry. Although of course we will be playing by Wesleyan (prison) rules I guess, Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience, are all fair play.

The main issue of contention that has remained since the Reformation between Protestants and Catholics and is chronologically the first battleground, is nature (and thus grace).

What is Nature? Was it perfect without grace? Was Adam merely natural, or did he also have sanctifying grace? What is original sin? etc.

I'm going to try to keep posts shorter so that you don't have to read as much, with the sacrifice being extra prooftexts.

Pelagius argued that Nature was perfect in itself, and that Adam was not given any gift of grace, because nature itself is a gracious gift. Protestantism agrees with Pelagius in arguing that Nature was perfect and was without grace, it was "good", and man likewise "very good" ('no one is good but God alone' as Jesus said).

The Cappadocians and Augustine argued on the contrary that man was not without grace, and that the 'breath of life' implied more than life, but actually the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and/or Sanctifying Grace. God blessed them in the garden before the Fall, and this seems to me, to indicate a divine gift (grace). This is "Original Righteousness" in Thomas. It thus follows that Original Sin is merely "not having Original Righteousness/Sanctifying Grace".

Fr. Hardon (man I feel gross typing that name) has an article on it here:
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/God/God_013.htm

Called to Communion also has good posts on it as well (here's just part 7 in the series: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/03/aquinas-and-trent-part-7/)

The Faillure of Anglicanism: Papists & Puritans

2010-05-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

I guess I didn't clarify my choice enough yesterday. Paradoxically, the RCs criticized me for denying Anglicanism, and the Protestants didn't reprimand me for 'mindlessly' lapsing into Romanism.

I went to the Anglican Church in North America (the conservative one) yesterday with the intent to communicate, to give up Rome (at least for the day), and to have my cake and eat it to (get married & be a priest). But while I was there, I heard a sermon on Church Unity. He argued that structural unity with heretics is sinful (which is why their church broke with the ACC and TEC), and that the church has an obligation to follow the bible.

The argument the former Jesuit and almost Cardinal (died 2 days before the red hat arrived) Hans Urs Von Balthasar made was fairly simple. He had alot of proofs from both Scripture and Patristics, but I will just lay down the steps in the argument:

1. The Church existed as a visible reality.
2. The Church is allowed to teach, and it is a Christian's duty to obey rather than make private judgments.
3. The Church as a communion must exist until the end of time in the same form it initially had. (apostolic succession)
4. The flock/communion is fed by Peter as Christ commanded (Petrine Supremacy)
5. All who deny to commune with Peter's successor and refuse to accept the teaching of the church are lapsed.

The quote I used from Thomas yesterday was showing how Petrine Supremacy is a biblical doctrine, and how if the Church is a succession, that doctrine must find it's place in the structure of the communion.

The issue I have with Anglicanism is that it has historically proposed two models for church reform which I find uncatholic.

-Erastianism / State Interference, even yesterday we prayed for the supreme governess the Queen. Caesar/Rome/Pagan State Power is the Anti-Christ, and Caesaropapism is a heresy. Many can claim that the Vatican IS a State and thus falls under the same condemnation, but there is a difference. The Roman Church is related to the state incidentally, the English Church is related to the state fundamentally. This is one reason why the Puritans could not conform to the Church of England, which makes the Presbyterians preferrable to the Anglicans.

-Protestantism / Sola Scriptura. It's in the 39 articles, and in the end, the question is begged: what is the point of being an Anglican if you want to be a Protestant. There is a line in the articles which says that the first 7 councils of the church catholic are only to be trusted in as much as they agree with Scripture. Depending on your interpretation that could mean: bishops are unnecessary, infant baptism is an innovation, images in worship are forbidden, etc. It sets up private judgment as the second principle on which reform is to be made.

IF Anglicanism had said: the English Church will reform itself (as Richard Hooker claimed it did), then it should have done it by the authority of the church and through councils. Instead, parliament legislated doctrine (BCP), the English Civil War occurred, parliament re-legislated doctrine (WCF), and eventually monarchy was restored and we have the BCP again.

There is no place for the teaching of the church. The bishops are chosen by the State, and so the church is not allowed to teach, and every one of the churches teachings is subject to the judgment of the individual Christian and Scripture.

In such a case, it would be as Johann Adam Mohler wrote: "Without a doubt, if the Church were a historical and antiquarian society, if she had no self-concept, no knowledge of her origin, of her essence and her mission...She would be like someone who, by researching documents he himself has written, tries to discover whether he really exists!"

You have to start with Tradition. This is why - I think - Jaroslav Pelikan chose Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy allows no 'new' exegesis. It is TRULY an antiquarian society. If you find a 'new' reading of scripture (like sola fide) which none of the Fathers found, then you're reading it wrong. Anglicanism doesn't work because it is neither Catholicism nor Orthodoxy, both have their own interior logic, whereas Anglicanism is a Reformed Protestant church that forgot that during the Oxford Movement (which was universally repudiated by it's teaching authorities / the English bishops), and then eventually decided to either enter the Roman Church, or exist on the fringes of the ecclesiastical realities.

To break communion to 'purify' the Church is to simply become MORE Protestant, not less. It is only proving that there is no principle of unity, no structure able to keep the Church "one" as the creed declares she must be. It is Donatism.

Likewise, even the Anglican Church in North America ordains women to the presbyterate, which is so obviously a heresy, that I need not bother to refute it. I love the Book of Common Prayer, I love many Anglican authors and churchmen, and alot of their mission and understanding. On most days I prefer their liturgy to the butchering of ours that occurs weekly in the Roman Communion in Canada. But if I just decided my preference was what made my religion, that it was built on nothing else, I couldn't look an atheist in the eye again. I couldn't claim to be a reasonable person, or truly be a Thomist/Christian Aristotelian.

As Our Lord teaches:

"Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practise what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them...You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?" - Matthew 23:1-4, 33

The teaching authority, Moses' seat, which in Roman Catholicism is replaced by St. Peter's Chair, and it is to be obeyed, even if the people sitting in it are corrupt. Dante wrote that many Popes will be in Hell, and this verse seems to be a worthy proof-text for such a belief. But this is the fundamental difference: Protestantism like the Early Modern Revolutionaries and Calvin's Geneva Bible commentary, argue that you can legitimately resist an authority if it is tyrannical. The problem with this is, that only authorities can authoritatively define what tyranny constitutes, which means there is a necessary regress to anarchy.

God-fearing Englishmen and Commonwealth citizens on the other hand (like us Canadians), submit to "the powers that be" (Rm. 13:1). Catholics are called to the same thing. When Pope Paul VI spoke to the World Council of Churches, he declared "I am Peter". If the Church is a succession through all time, and an apostolical succession, one must submit to the Bishop of Rome. If the Church is not a succession, but can fundamentally change in structure and teaching, and only exists as a pure spiritual reality and sometimes visible, or partially incarnate (as the WCF says it is), then one must fully embrace Protestantism and Sola Scriptura, and become a dissenter of some kind (whether Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, or Quaker).

And while Mr. Bennett has made an argument against it, I still contend, that Sola Scriptura of necessity leads to Liberalism/Socinianism/Unitarianism. As Adolf von Harnack said "A dogma without infallibility has no meaning". Dogmatics are based on interpretations of Scripture. Without the Protestant Confessions claiming their own infallibility, what use is the Westminster Confession? Although the swift excommunication of the Federal Vision & New Pauline Perspectivists from the Presbyterian fold makes their case a little stronger in empirical reality if not in philosophical abstraction.

Thus between Papists, Puritans, and Prelates, it seems the last category is untenable. Now I'll have to find an argument against Presbyterianism, though I don't know of any off the top of my head aside from lumping them with Donatism (though that kind of inaccuracy is the kind of thing they sink to when they call the Roman Confession 'Pelagian', so I might need to go elsewhere).

Aquinas and Balthasar ftw...

2010-05-16T09:02:00.000-07:00

"...a Church cannot be a "branch" of a historical unity which no longer exists" - Hans Urs Von Balthasar (The Office of Peter) p. 91

""our Lord says: “There shall be one fold and one shepherd” (John 10:16).

But let one say that the one head and one shepherd is Christ, who is one spouse of one Church; his answer does not suffice. For, clearly, Christ Himself perfects all the sacraments of th Church: it is He who baptizes; it is He who forgives sins; it is He, the true priest, who offered Himself on the altar of the cross, and by whose power His body is daily consecrated on the altar—nevertheless, because He was not going to be with all the faithful in bodily presence, He chose ministers to dispense the things just mentioned to the faithful, as was said above. By the same reasoning, then, when He was going to withdraw His bodily presence from the Church, He had to commit it to one who would in His place have the care of the universal Church. Hence it is that He said to Peter before His ascension: “Feed My sheep” (John 21:17); and before His passion: “You being once converted confirm your brethren” (Luke 22:32); and to him alone did He promise: “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Mat. 16:19), in order to show that the power of the keys was to flow through him to others to preserve the unity of the Church.

But it cannot be said that, although He gave Peter this dignity, it does not flow on to others. For, clearly, Christ established the Church so that it was to endure to the end of the world; in the words of Isaiah (9:7): “He shall sit upon the throne of David and upon His kingdom to establish and strengthen it with judgment and with justice from henceforth and forever.” It is clear that He so established therein those who were then in the ministry that their power was to be passed on to others even to the end of time; especially so, since He Himself says: “Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world” (Mat. 28:20).

By this, of course, we exclude the presumptuous error of some who attempt to withdraw themselves from the obedience and the rule of Peter by not recognizing in his successor, the Roman Pontiff, the pastor of the universal Church." - St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Contra Gentiles 4, 76. http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles4.htm#76

ok. I submit, and reject Anglicanism and other expedients as attempts for me to escape the divine command of being converted, the painful reality of sanctification, and my need to repent. It's not that I like Catholicism, it's that there is nowhere else. Henceforth, I will continue trying to find a way to like it.

I'm sorry for disappointing everyone who reads this at some point, either today, or in the last few weeks.

Textual Realism and Philosophical Realism

2010-05-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

In my endless ruminations over the Reformation and amidst the constant disquiet of my heart and mind, I've been thinking about an important issue.

Catholicism affirms philosophical realism, where free agents who participate in Being are able to access the objective truth through their senses. It argues against any Cartesian or Berkeleyan attempt at undermining the reliability of the senses, or (at least after Thomas) a prioritizing of Platonic spirit over matter (see Transubstantiation).

One famous Lutheran rationalist Immanuel Kant, argued for subjectivism, that is, each person is only able to see from their own perspective. A person cannot be objective because they are a subject, and they can only know what they empirically see or can rationally prove. Catholicism reacts against this because it holds the priority of the objective metaphysical reality of Being, over and above the individual subjective and existential experience.

However, there is one area they seem to despise objective reality. Scripture. As a Roman Catholic I remember arguing with someone over exegesis, and exasperated they simply said: no matter what this verse says, there is no way that you can or would ever interpret it differently than the Church teaches you must. The Protestant was arguing that Scripture had an objective meaning and that we as subjects could understand it. By contrast I had to argue that Scripture is by nature murky, unclear, and has a hidden meaning that only the Magesterium can truly discover and declare.

The perfect example is my oft-repeated complaint about concupiscence, and where St. Paul calls it "sin" and Trent says that even though the apostle says sin, it is not formally "sin". Or perhaps the admonision of St. Paul that a bishop should be the husband of one wife, where the Magesterium declares that a bishop should not be the husband of one wife.

So as I ponder this, I'm starting to wonder who the real Realists are? It seems like we are just so many Cartesian exegetes, while claiming to be the children of St. Thomas in all other areas.

The Convert's Defense

2010-05-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

Here is an article written by R.R. Reno, one of the converts mentioned in the previous article, defending himself, it is also interesting:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2006/08/jason-byassee-and-female-ordin

Converts: Philosophy, Liberalism, and Justification

2010-05-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article on more people who converted from Protestantism to Catholicism: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_17_123/ai_n16776668/

The interesting thing that I'm starting to notice about all the conversions to Catholicism is that they're usually based on two things:
-philosophy
-liberalism

In general, people tell the tale of how on the road to persecute more of God's faithful, a blinding light shone and Lo! Aristotle stood before them saying 'why do you persecute me!'. And then they have a conversion to Thomism. Certainly that's where alot of people have gone to hide from postmodernism, and continue to 'give medieval answers to contemporary questions' (as one Church historian described Trent). This is at least a good reason to convert, philosophy is important, and Catholicism offers the best philosophical system I've seen in a long time. So I don't mind this option, as it's kind of why I converted (the philosophical argument about the canon and infalliblity of the church), although it has nothing to do with Christ and God whose ways are above our ways, and who calls us to be 'fools for Christ'.

The second of course is that their church had 'suddenly' grown liberal, and that because our Roman Catechism and Pope Benedict XVI are conservative, that means our Church must likewise be conservative. I think this is a bad reason, as you will find almost immediately, just as many liberals in Catholicism as in the Episcopal Church or the ELCA. The only difference between Catholic and Protestant liberals - and it's a big difference to be sure - is that the Catholic liberals are just biding their time, slowly undermining things, destroying Catechesis and the ministry of the Word with Historical criticism. In Protestantism they do the same thing, except they're open about it, and declare themselves (which really only makes them easier to avoid, but also means they are better organized).

A final observation is that I've never heard of a convert from Classical Protestantism say that they were overwhelmed by the Catholic doctrine of justification and synergistic soteriology (Scott Hahn doesn't count as he was a FV/NPP/Neonomian). Interestingly enough, in every account, justification is either stated as not mattering anymore, or the ludicrous claim is made that because of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, the Reformation is over. In NO way did the JDDJ solve any Reformation issue, but it did mark the Lutherans' willingness to sell their heritage and doctrine in order to fulfill some high-minded ecumenical pipe-dream.

Anyway. I just think it's funny that no biblical exegetes and Classical Protestants are converting to Catholicism, but certainly, alot of intellectuals shopping for moral philosophy and epistemological certainty arrive there. Similarly, Evangelicals who never understood Confessional Protestantism in the first place and likewise threw away their birth right like Esau, without knowledge of what they were doing end up here.

In the end, perhaps Cardinal Avery Dulles was right when he noted that Catholics don't primarily care about Justification, and prefer discussing the sacramentology and the liturgy, to the issue, let alone worry about it. This seems to be the real conversion these Protestants had, no longer carrying about that doctrine which their spiritual ancestors once called "the article on which the church stands or falls".

(Those are just my observations as a Roman Catholic, looking back on)

Catholics I Like

2010-05-12T05:31:00.000-07:00

My Lutheran friend and I were talking the other day and I told him that I was tempted to leave the Roman fold, and he told me to keep reading Balthasar and I'd change my mind. We then talked about (Hans Urs Von) Balthasar and he described that man as 'the only Catholic anyone likes'. I laughed, and realized that there aren't alot of fun Catholics to read. I was thinking about all the authors I love reading: C.S. Lewis, Jaroslav Pelikan, John Henry Newman, Rowan Williams, von Balthasar, (RJN & Schillebeeckx when I get the chance), and now (thanks to a faithful commentator of the blog), Luigi Giussani. Not all of them are Catholics, but all of them have this one thing in common that I love: they are honest.

There are some great moments in Pelikan where he just lays out the plain problems in the confessions, the contradictions, the inconsistencies, and doesn't try to hide it. It is something that has to be dealt with.

Rowan Williams has a way of just addressing the true pastoral reality of the faith being lived. He has that wonderfully Anglican quality of trying to unite two things, people, or ideas that traditionally have been at odds.

Newman - though the Calvinists hate him - has some wonderful moments where he openly confesses his ineptitude on a subject, discusses the problems with even his own theology, and always warns against accepting his views against those true authorities on the faith. He describes a humble, honest, and living faith that he has, not one that he learned in a textbook.

I was reading an article Fred posted by Giussani, and there was this wonderful reference summing up everything I am trying to say here:

"[describing a scene from a novel:] Abbé Gaston, the hero of the book, To Every Man a Penny, has to hear the Confession of a German soldier whom the French partisans have arrested and is to be executed; since he is a Catholic, and all trembling, the partisans allow him to make his confession, though they are Communists. Abbé Gaston says, “Confess yourself well, my boy, because you have to die. So, what have you done?” And, naturally, he says, “Women.” “Now you must repent, because you have to appear before the court of God.” And the other, with some embarrassment, says, “How can I repent? It was something I liked; if I had the chance, I’d do it again now. How can I repent?” So Abbé Gaston, all worried because he couldn’t send that individual to heaven, suddenly has a stroke of genius and says, “But are you sorry you’re not sorry?” and the other says, “Yes, I am sorry I am not sorry.” This is the last remnant of truth in that individual; this is the acknowledgment of the truth. On that infinitesimal point God builds the man’s defence. “Father, they don’t know what they are doing,” after three years of persecution at their hands."

and his description of Confession:

"This is what keeps you away from Confession–not desiring the good, not accepting to ask for the good; only this. It is not the fact that you foresee that without a miracle you will go wrong again, because a miracle can happen, and you have to ask for it if you really want the good, if you want the “something more,” if you want to be true. The miracle could happen in twenty years’ time, when your concubine dies."

These are the Catholics I like, the ones who are honest about the good, the bad, and the ugly, in the faith, and most of all dwell on the beautiful. The ones who always consciously center on Christ. These are the ones who make my faith about something beyond mere intellectual assent to a rational argument/apologetic.

Election

2010-05-12T04:10:00.000-07:00

"He made us to believe in Christ, who made for us a Christ on whom we believe. He makes in men the beginning and the completion of the faith in Jesus who made the man Jesus the beginner and finisher of faith" - St. Augustine of Hippo (The Predestination of the Saints 31).

When I read that quote, I almost thought it was Calvin. Catholics generally abhor the doctrine of predestination, and ever since Augusti--err Jansenism was condemned, it's been almost impossible for Catholics to even mention predestination without getting knocked out and mysteriously waking up in a locked cell next to a pile of Molina's works. That might be a little exaggerated... As a one-time Calvinist (this blog testifies to that), I personally/existentially find predestination to be perhaps the most comforting doctrine ever proclaimed.

As one commenter noted, Catholics traditionally have found comfort in the notion of the gift of perseverance (as have Calvinists), except that after Trent, it has been heretical to claim you know with any certainty that you are elected (which now makes it fun to exegete St. Paul's "For I am Certain"). Anyway, perhaps we'll rehearse this debate over again and I'll read some more Augustine (which is never a bad thing).

My theology reminds me of Nietzsche's cosmology, a continual meaningless repetition of the same thing over and over for a presumed infinite time, but only consisting of finite materials, or like Camus' take on the Myth of Sisyphus, rolling the ball up the hill for eternity, only to have it roll back down and start over again.

lord have mercy.

Clarification on Contrition

2010-05-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

In Catholic dogmatics, I just wanted to clarify, as the Catechism says: "imperfect contrition cannot obtain the forgiveness of grave sins".

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02065a.htm

You can read on Catholic encyclopedia, that perfect contrition is sorrow for sins because of a pure motive / love for God without reference to one's own damnation or existential position. It is the idea that you love God even if he damns you, or as Rowan Williams notes 'the Catholic doctrine of pure love' so detestable to Protestants.

When perfect contrition is united to a desire to go to confession as soon as possible (again this part is another issue, what does the word 'possible' mean), then sin can be remitted if someone dies. But, to go back to the example, I'll use myself.

Currently I have 24 mortal sins and counting on my soul (last confession was about 3 weeks ago). Right now, I am sorry for my sins and I would guess that it is mostly because I'm going to Hell, if I could just be accepted by God without having to confess, then I wouldn't worry about confessing it, meaning that I guess I'm not really sorry or 'sorry enough'. So if I was on my way to confession on saturday and got hit by a bus or died somehow, God would not accept me into Heaven. Christ's death, my baptism, my faith, my desire to repent, none of it would have any effect on my soul. It would remained stained, I would be damned.

But again as I've previously noted, the Catholic position is not based on Existentialism. What happens to me does not matter, what matters is what is objectively true. The objective fact of Catholicism is that God has established the Church and the Sacraments as the means of Grace. No matter how much I might find that fact inconvenient or frustrating, doesn't matter, because the truth of the matter is that I find myself in the situation, I do not make my own situation. So I get it, I'm not saying the Catholic Church is wrong because I can't be saved in it 6 days out of the week, that's just bad philosophy. Likewise if one goes the Existential/Protestant route, one has equally troubling issues like "have I picked the right church?" or "how can I be sure Justification is by faith alone?".

As they say, there is no rest for the weary.

Which is more relevant?

2010-05-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

At the risk of greatly oversimplifying things, I believe these two quotes consist of the main disagreement between Protestants and Catholics:

"...unless you understand first of all what your position is before God, and the judgment which he passes upon you, you have no foundation on which your salvation can be laid, or on which piety towards God can be reared" (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 11.1, A.D. 1559).
(yes I stole that from Jay's blog)

or

"Anyone who is to find Christ must first find the church. How could anyone know where Christ is and what faith is in him unless he knew where his believers are?" - Martin Luther

Which is more important? The Existential (what must I do to be saved? - the question asked of Our Lord) or the Systemic (how can I know unless someone shows me - Ethiopian Eunuch). How does one choose between Aristotle and Kierkegaard?

Is Rome any better than Oxford in Discipline?

2010-05-10T17:02:00.000-07:00

""Protestantism and Popery are real religions ... but the Via Media, viewed as an integral system, has scarcely had existence except on paper." I grant the objection, though I endeavour to lessen it:—"It still remains to be tried, whether what is called Anglo-Catholicism, the religion of Andrewes, Laud, Hammond, Butler, and Wilson, is capable of being professed, acted on, and maintained on a large sphere of action, or whether it be a mere modification or transition-state of either Romanism or popular Protestantism." I trusted that some day it would prove to be a substantive religion." - John Henry Cardinal Newman "Apologia"

"That there is no perfect equation between the ideal and the real, that actual Catholicism lags considerably behind its idea, that it has never yet appeared in history as a complete and perfect thing, but always as a thing in process of development and laborious growth: such is the testimony of ecclesiastical and social history, and it is unnecessary to establish these points in detail." - Karl Adam "The Spirit of Catholicism" Ch. XIII

The criticism Newman levelled at his own religion after he had abandoned it, that is the via media (Anglo-Catholicism), was that it was merely a paper religion. From my experience in the Roman Catholic Church, I often wonder if my own religion exists merely on paper. It seems like the Catechism and a few conservative theologians (Balthasar, Pope Benedict XVI, and popularizers like George Weigel) are the only places you'll find 'confessional' (if I can use the phrase) Roman Catholicism.

Two examples of this spring to mind:

The first is my recurring problem with Concupiscence and Original Sin. I've asked many priests and Roman Catholics about this issue, and EVERY one of them has given me the Lutheran answer to the issue. Every priest and layperson has in one way or another argued for 'simul iust et peccator' (at the same time just and a sinner, or more idiomatically: at the same time a saint and sinner). I've heard the former bishop of St. Catharines come so close to teaching the doctrine, as well as openly heard another priest in my parish teach it, that I wonder whether there is any realm in the Church where Trent is still "believed and confessed" to be the work of the Spirit. I've heard Anglicans pray to "our mother Jesus" (Julian of Norwich is such a troublemaker), but I've heard Catholics deny the doctrine of Original Sin, claim that they've never heard of Purgatory, much less believed in it, and held views on Justification at odds with those of the Council of Trent. Perhaps Protestants are right in rejoicing at how "Protestant" many Catholics are, and indeed how many -by the Reformers standards- are 'saved'.

The second thing I find ironic in our Communion is how contradictory our doctrine and practice are. Listen to Vatican II's theology of the Liturgy: "every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ... is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree" (Sacrosanctum Concilium 7). Furthermore the council declared "the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows." (Ibid 10).

It all sounds great on paper, but what is the liturgy actually like in the Roman Church? I went to St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal, probably the biggest Catholic location in our country, where a Canadian saint is to be canonized and celebrated later this year, and the abomination I experienced there, they dared to call a mass.

During the Liturgy, the priest invented random prayers, he added phrases and stories, he changed liturgical actions, he removed the Kyrie, he added another great Amen after the consecration and then continued to talk in a conversational matter about the acoustics of the room while holding the consecrated host. It was abysmal. The liturgy of the word was nothing more than: God is love, be nice to people, don't be bad. The thing I find ironic, is the claim that the Anglicans only have liberalism and moralism. If that is the case, then we have quickly surpassed them. Throughout all the heresy I've heard (by our own Magesterium's definition) from priests and Catholic teachers and theologians alike, from the disgusting liturgical abuses, I honestly ask this final question:

Is there any point in Roman Catholics retaining the argument that their religion is an empirical reality and that other confessions (specifically Anglo-Catholicism) are merely "paper religions"?

Sacred Scripture, and I

2010-05-05T06:43:00.000-07:00

"If it is true that the Scripture is so easy to understand, what is the use of so many commentaries made by your ministers, what is the object of so many harmonies, what is the good of so many schools of Theology ? here is need of no more, say you, than the doctrine of the pure word of God in the Church. But where is this word of God? In the Scripture? And Scripture-is it some secret thing ? No-you say not to the faithful. Why, then, these interpreters and these preachers? If you are faithful, you will understand the Scriptures as well as they do; send them off to unbelievers, and simply keep some deacons to give you the morsel of bread and pour out the wine of your supper. If you can feed yourselves in the field of the Scripture, what do you want , with pastors? Some young innocent, some mere child who is able to read, will do just as well. But whence comes this continual and irreconcilable discord which there is among you, brethren in Luther, over these words, This is my body" - St. Francis de Sales "The Catholic Controversy" Chapter X

I have to agree with St. Francis, even as someone who has done a year of biblical studies and read through the whole bible, and studied theology, I cannot boast to understand it on my own. I can come up with something that might sound like a valid interpretation, and indeed for myself this is enough. But teaching others the scriptures is really difficult. I get some very complex questions when I do bible study.

What I find as I wrestle with the Scriptures now, is that God is not calling me to Protestantism or Catholicism, he is calling me to holiness. That is the only true call I hear from Our Lord, the call to conversion, but also of the sufficiency of Christ. It is a paradox, and I can't quite grasp it perfectly, though I know of 3 or 4 schools of thought that would give me interpretations, none of them is exact.

I am thoroughly enjoying Acts, and I love the Pauline epistles, but what does "Righteousness of God" mean? what does even "Justification/logozomai" mean? These - at least to an only partially learned Christian - are extra biblical debates that require Tradition and Authority. Sorry if that is an unsatisfactory view, or if I just repeated what I've already said, but those are my thoughts on Sacred Scripture.

It is the Revelation of God, and in it God calls me to follow Christ, but in many areas, it is a mystery, and only through Tradition and Authorities is it understandable to me.

The Exegesis Issue

2010-05-05T04:38:00.000-07:00

I've been reading even more of Acts, and some of Hans Urs Von Balthasar's great apology for the Papacy, and the two have left me with the same old thought.

The Problem

I was reading Acts, and there are some parts that seem so "Catholic". For instance, the church binds on the consciences of believers that they are not to fornicate in the council of Jerusalem. They call a council, Peter stands up among them, and they declare a moral discipline - albeit a shortlived one, but one just the same.

There are some mentions of Bishops or "overseers" and some heirarchical mention that is uncanny. But in the next chapter there is simply 'the brothers', and every time the Eucharist (presumably) is described it is "bread" that is broken, not the body of Christ. This of course, not being a problem for consubstantiators and Reformed guys, but certainly is a problem for the Catholic, as transubstantiation means that it literally ceases to be bread. Anyway, it's a weak argument, but it's there.

Then I realized, how am I even supposed to know what the Scripture says? Who am I? to ask the great question of the Psalms.

I was reading Balthasar and he cites Jn 21:3 as an example of Petrine Supremacy: "Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.”". I burst out laughing in the car when I read it. What a ridiculous prooftext. But then I thought about it, and it holds up. That could certainly be one interpretation of the text, and who is to say it is right or wrong?

As the American philosopher Alan Watts says: the judge and the prosecuter are the same person in such a case.

Once more, I was reminded that you cannot read Scripture without a Tradition. And how does one arbitrate between Traditions except by the creeds formulation: "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church", it is the 'map' left by the fathers for us.

There is one way out, that I've mentioned before:

The Inner Light

Protestants like Kierkegaard have promoted this view, and talking to a friend about Jonathan Edwards, he seems to (in a much lesser extent) agree with this epistemology, basic structure. George Fox the famous founding Quaker, claimed that the personal witness of the Holy Spirit is above all other authorities: Scripture, Tradition, Reason, etc. Only if I accepted this idea, could I leave what I see is a binding authority placed on me by the Catholic Church. It would lead to subjectivism, which would lead to relativism, and it would be fideism, which means I could have no witness to my university atheist friends, except that of inner peace and tranquility, etc.

I thought about it long and hard, and 2 minutes later, I decided that I am sticking with logic, Aristotle, and Augustine, who declared with the African bishops: "Whoever has separated himself from the Catholic Church, no matter how laudably he lives, will not have eternal life, but has earned the anger of God because of this one crime: that he abandoned his union with Christ' (Epistle 141)". Even the famously 'liberal' Vatican II states: "They could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it, or to remain in it" (Lumen Gentium 14).

Conclusion:

So no matter how much I may hate the freewheeling liturgies of aging hippy priests. The moralizing and lack of the gospel of the work of Christ everywhere. The liberalism which misses the goodness of both the Protestant and Catholic gospels. The almost exclusive focus on social justice. All of the things I hate about Catholicism. Despite all of that, I am bound to observe it, unless I throw away my entire brain, and live in peace and freedom for a while, only to regret it eternally.
I think my favourite Augustinian slogan (and probably the one I quote most) is: "The Church is a whore, but she's my mother".

until next time, pax Christi tecum.

The Council of Jerusalem

2010-05-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

"Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds, we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you... who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.’" -Acts 15:24-29

If Dogma doesn't develop, then really, we should consider the 'essentials' of Christianity: food regulations and no pre-marital sex. I wonder if Catholics agree whether this was a church council or not.

I mean it's a great prooftext, and as long as you make the dogma/discipline divide (distinction) then you can get around their dietary rulings, and say it was a council.

No one can really win though, because it seems like Petrine supremacy from "Peter stood up" (15:7), but also congregationalism as "the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided".

Hurray, 2 more polemic readings that anachronistically interpret the text in light of later ideas. I would make a terrible exegete, I should stick to Anglo-American History.

Concupiscence and Original Sin Revisited.

2010-05-03T05:38:00.001-07:00

So the other day I was at my Chaplain's apartment and we were talking about la Nouvelle Theologie, and he asked if I knew about it, and I said "oh ya, when the modernists won out". For example Pope Leo XIII and others condemned many modern ideas as heresy (see Syllabus of Errors) that would later be -if not approved- at least painted in a much better light.

Now when you have an institution of highly trained philosophers like you do in Catholicism, you can get out of any claim of contradition, there's always some reason why technically it isn't a contradiction. 2 examples. Religious Freedom, which was condemned by Leo XIII or at least people thought it was condemned, because he wrote 'it is against reason for truth and error to have equal rights'. But Vatican II said, those in error had rights, so technically, Leo's statements are made meaningless, and the respect for other religions shown in the Vatican over the last 100 years have been a de facto contradiction of Leo's claims. I'm not with SSPX and those condemning religious freedom, I'm all for it, I'm just showing how dichotemies can emerge and how things can "change" within Catholicism without using the word 'change'.

Secondly, the Development of Doctrine used to be considered a hereetical modern idea because it said Dogma could 'change' over time. The Tridentine doctrine was that every Tradition was actually passed on by the apostles. So St. Paul was walking around Ephesus expounding the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and giving Indulgences. Obviously, most Catholics today would not hold this view, and Cardinal Newman is probably responsible for this. I don't disagree that Dogma develops, again I'm just saying that it's place has 'changed' (or developed) in the Catholic view.

So the Modern/Contemporary Church can "re-interpret"/Develop/Change it's own previous teaching it seems, to the point that previous teaching is superfluous, but can they do that with Scripture? This has troubled me. I know we're "never supposed to put a dichotemy between Scripture and Tradition", but it is something we have to engage in, even as we engage in solving contradictions in the bible.

The Council of Trent said in Session 5, First Decree, Canon 5:
"...concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin."

So to simplify. Concupiscence, is not properly sin according to Trent, even though St. Paul (the apostle referenced) called it sin.

Luckily for Trent, St. Paul does not appear to have engaged in Aristotelian definitions in his epistles, so he didn't say "sin materially but not formally dwelleth in me", but only "sin dwelleth in me" (Rm 7:20).

"Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." (Rm 7:20)

The problem for Catholic theology is that a distinction is made between Original and Actual sin, and further Mortal and Venial sins. For a sin to really "count" as a sin, someone has to willfully and knowingly commit it. Then Catholic teaching is that when someone has done this, they have clearly shown that they are rejecting God.

The problem is that Paul attributes the bad action to the sin which dwells in him, for the Reformers: (Formally) Original Sin, for Trent: Concupiscence (Materially Original Sin).

Pastorally, whenever I've asked Catholics about this issue, they have sided (unknowingly) with Luther and Calvin. Calvin said that man was nothing but a heap of Concupiscence, and he and Luther argued the biblical definition of sin was: anything that fell short of the Glory of God. Thus every human action was sin. Luther said the only mortal sin, damnable sin in the end, was unbelief. The problem I see personally in Tridentine doctrine is the fact that Christians who know the law, ALWAYS sin mortally, because they know it, and they do it. The Catechism says 'with full consent of the will', but one might argue phenomenologically, that obviously any act committed is done with the full consent of the will, how else could it occur if not from a completed decision of the will? (maybe they could half commit a sin?)

As well, I don't know any Catholics who would agree that every time they lied, masurbated, or dishonored their parents, they really thought "I hate God, and by this action I willfully reject him, because my faith and works are so closely tied!".

Rowan Williams paraphrases St. Augustine by saying "most sins are committed by people weeping and groaning" (De natura et gratia xxix 33 - though this is a fairly liberal paraphrase, I checked, it is not inaccurate).

Now I dont deny that Catholicism offers forgiveness through the sacrament of reconciliation/confession/penance, and I don't deny that the best in the Catholic tradition have basically disagreed with Church teaching on mortal sin - or to put it sophistically - have had a very open view as to what constitutes perfect contrition (basically any contrition = perfect). Some pre-Tridentine Catholics even taught justification by faith alone like the Spirituali and Cardinal Pole (although the Catholics get out of this by saying that they taught it by infusion, and had a view of the Chruch that they would've submitted, and indeed did submit, as Cardinal Reginald Pole did). BUT, if you read the Catechism, it still says that if you are in a state of mortal sin (and most would be amazed at how many things are dogmatically mortal sins) and you don't have a perfect love for God (which must be the result of an actual grace from God), then you are not allowed to hope you will be saved. Imperfect contrition does not equal forgiveness, repentance does not equal forgiveness, only perfect love for God (perfect contrition) and a desire for immediate sacramental confession = forgiveness. My friend who I have bible study with (a Catholic) always says "I hope we don't get hit by buses before saturday (the day we have Confession)", because technically speaking we would go to Hell.

We almost got into a car accident the other day, and even though I'm planning on going to confession, I'm still in mortal sin (I didn't go to mass yesterday, among other things), and even though I've asked God for forgiveness and confessed to him, I wouldn't say I have perfect love for God. If I did have perfect love for God, why would I sin in the first place? Riddle me that.

Now the Reformers argued that when we physically died, Original Sin is gone because it is tied to our 'flesh', and of course Catholcs jump on that and say "AHA! gnostics! Manichees!, etc". Except that St. Paul seems to say exactly what they do, and I doubt we'd want to account him a gnostic or a manichee. But that isn't a sufficient rebuttle to that criticism, I know.

There are so many prayers we find in medieval history for a good death, and people genuinely terrified that after all their lives of repentance and attempts to follow Christ, at that last pivotal moment when they died, they could lose it all. I reminds me a bit of musical chairs. When the music stops, you have to rush and hope there's a chair. Not a very comforting image, not very Romans 8:1. And I know of course, good Aristotelians don't use such existential arguments. Just because something horrifies a person almost to the point of insanity with fear and guilt, doesn't mean you can't 'technically' call it love, or grace.

Don't worry Catholics, my head is still holding the gun to my heart. Aristotle has not been "put to death" as Luther admonished. But I'm assuming that eventually one of two things will happen: 1) I'll give in to my emotions and become an Existentialist, and thereby become Protestant, or 2) My heart will just die, and my reason will finally have control of my passions as Aristotle and Kant spoke so highly of.

But sometimes I picture all of the people of the world, the Protestants, and the Catholics and Orthodox who don't go to confession, or die without it. It is like a scene from "Watchmen":

On that last day, we will look up to Christ and shout "Save us!", and he'll whisper "no".