Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
Yesterday's Reuters headline: "The Vatican on Tuesday said Christian denominations outside the Roman Catholic Church were not full churches of Jesus Christ." The actual proclamation, posted on the official Vatican Web site, says that Protestant Churches are really "ecclesial communities" rather than Churches, because they lack apostolic succession, and therefore they "have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery." Furthermore, not even the Eastern Orthodox Churches are real Churches, even though they were explicitly referred to as such in the Vatican document Unitatis Redintegratio (Decree on Ecumenism). The new document explains that they were only called Churches because "the Council wanted to adopt the traditional use of the term." This new clarification, issued officially by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but in fact strongly supported by Pope Benedict XVI, manages to insult both Protestants and the Orthodox, and it may set ecumenism back a hundred years.
The new document, officially entitled "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church," claims that the positions it takes do not reverse the intent of various Vatican II documents, especially Unitatis Redintegratio, but merely clarify them. In support of this contention, it cites other documents, all issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973), Communionis notio (1992), and Dominus Iesus (2000). The last two of these documents were issued while the current pope, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was prefect of the Congregation. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was born in 1542 with the name Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition, and for centuries it has operated as an extremely conservative force with the Roman Catholic Church, opposing innovation and modernizing tendencies, suppressing dissent, and sometimes, in its first few centuries, persecuting those who believed differently. More recently, the congregation has engaged in the suppression of some of Catholicism's most innovative and committed thinkers, such as Yves Congar, Hans Küng, Charles Curran, Matthew Fox, and Jon Sobrino and other liberation theologians. In light of the history of the Congregation of the Faith, such conservative statements as those released this week are hardly surprising, though they are quite unwelcome.
It is natural for members of various Christian Churches to believe that the institutions to which they belong are the best representatives of Christ's body on earth--otherwise, why wouldn't they join a different Church? It is disingenuous, however, for the leader of a Church that has committed itself "irrevocably" (to use Pope John Paul II's word in Ut Unum Sint [That They May Be One] 3, emphasis original) to ecumenism to claim to be interested in unity while at the same time declaring that all other Christians belong to Churches that are in some way deficient. How different was the attitude of Benedict's predecessors, who wrote, "In subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the [Roman] Catholic Church--for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame" (Unitatis Redintegratio 3). In Benedict's view, at various times in history groups of Christians wandered from the original, pure Roman Catholic Church, and any notion of Christian unity today is predicated on the idea of those groups abandoning their errors and returning to the Roman Catholic fold. The pope's problem seems to be that he is a theologian rather than a historian. Otherwise he could not possibly make such outrageous statements and think that they were compatible with the spirit of ecumenism that his immediate predecessors promoted.
One of the pope's most strident arguments against the validity of other Churches is that they can't trace their bishops' lineages back to the original apostles, as the bishops in the Roman Catholic Church can. There are three problems with this idea.
First, many Protestants deny the importance of apostolic succession as a guarantor of legitimacy. They would argue that faithfulness to the Bible and/or the teachings of Christ is a better measure of authentic Christian faith than the ability to trace one's spiritual ancestry through an ecclesiastical bureaucracy. A peripheral knowledge of the lives of some of the medieval and early modern popes (e.g., Stephen VI, Sergius III, Innocent VIII, Alexander VI) is enough to call the insistence on apostolic succession into serious question. Moreover, the Avignon Papacy and the divided lines of papal claimants in subsequent decades calls into serious question the legitimacy of the whole approach. Perhaps the strongest argument against the necessity of apostolic succession comes from the Apostle Paul, who was an acknowledged apostle despite not having been ordained by one of Jesus' original twelve disciples. In fact, Paul makes much of the fact that his authority came directly from Jesus Christ rather than from one of the apostles (Gal 1:11-12). Apostolic succession was a useful tool for combating incipient heresy and establishing the antiquity of the churches in particular locales, but merely stating that apostolic succession is a necessary prerequisite for being a true church does not make it so.
The second problem with the new document's insistence upon apostolic succession is the fact that at least three other Christian communions have apostolic succession claims that are as valid as that of the Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox Churches, which split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1054, can trace their lineages back to the same apostles that the Roman Catholic Church can, a fact acknowledged by Unitatis Redintegratio 14. The Oriental Orthodox Churches, such as the Coptic and Ethiopic Orthodox Churches, split from the Roman Catholic Church several centuries earlier, but they too can trace their episcopal lineages back to the same apostles claimed by the Roman Catholic Church as its founders. Finally, the Anglican Church, which broke away from the Roman Catholic Church during the reign of King Henry VIII, can likewise trace the lineage of every bishop back through the first archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine. In addition to these three collections of Christian Churches, the Old Catholics and some Methodists also see value in the idea of apostolic succession, and they can trace their episcopal lineages just as far back as Catholic bishops can.
The third problem with the idea of apostolic succession is that the earliest bishops in certain places are simply unknown, and the lists produced in the third and fourth centuries that purported to identify every bishop back to the founding of the church in a particular area were often historically unreliable. Who was the founding bishop of Byzantium? Who brought the gospel to Alexandria? To Edessa? To Antioch? There are lists that give names (e.g., http://www.friesian.com/popes.htm), such as the Apostles Mark (Alexandria), Andrew (Byzantium), and Thaddeus (Armenia), but the association of the apostles with the founding of these churches is legendary, not historical. The most obvious breakdown of historicity in the realm of apostolic succession involves none other than the see occupied by the pope, the bishop of Rome. It is certain that Peter did make his way to Rome before the time of Nero, where he perished, apparently in the Neronian persecution following the Great Fire of Rome, but it is equally certain that the church in Rome predates Peter, as it also predates Paul's arrival there (Paul also apparently died during the Neronian persecution). The Roman Catholic Church may legitimately claim a close association with both Peter and Paul, but it may not legitimately claim that either was the founder of the church there. The fact of the matter is that the gospel reached Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Edessa, and other early centers of Christianity in the hands of unknown, faithful Christians, not apostles, and the legitimacy of the churches established there did not suffer in the least because of it.
All the talk in the new document about apostolic succession is merely a smokescreen, however, for the main point that the Congregation of the Faith and the pope wanted to drive home: recognition of the absolute primacy of the pope. After playing with the words "subsists in" (Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church] 8) and "church" (Unitatis Redintegratio 14) in an effort to make them mean something other than what they originally meant, the document gets down to the nitty-gritty. "Since communion with the Catholic Church, the visible head of which is the Bishop of Rome and the Successor of Peter, is not some external complement to a particular Church but rather one of its internal constitutive principles, these venerable Christian communities lack something in their condition as particular churches." From an ecumenical standpoint, this position is a non-starter. Communion with Rome and acknowledging the authority of the pope as bishop of Rome is a far different matter from recognizing the pope as the "visible head" of the entire church, without peer. The pope is an intelligent man, and he knows that discussions with other Churches will make no progress on the basis of this prerequisite, so the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the pope, despite his protestations, has no interest in pursuing ecumenism. Trying to persuade other Christians to become Roman Catholics, which is evidently the pope's approach to other Churches, is not ecumenism, it's proselytism.
Fortunately, this document does not represent the viewpoint of all Catholics, either laypeople or scholars. Many ordinary Catholics would scoff at the idea that other denominations were not legitimate Churches, which just happen to have different ideas about certain topics and different ways of expressing a common Christianity. Similarly, many Catholic scholars are doing impressive work in areas such as theology, history, biblical study, and ethics, work that interacts with ideas produced by non-Catholic scholars. In the classroom and in publications, Catholics and non-Catholics learn from each other, challenge one another, and, perhaps most importantly, respect one another.
How does one define the Church? Christians have many different understandings of the term, and Catholics are divided among themselves, as are non-Catholics. The ecumenical movement is engaged in addressing this issue in thoughtful, meaningful, and respectful ways. Will the narrow-minded view expressed in "Responses" be the death-knell of the ecumenical movement? Hardly. Unity among Christians is too important an idea to be set aside. Will the document set back ecumenical efforts? Perhaps, but Christians committed to Christian unity--Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant alike--will get beyond it. The ecumenical movement is alive and well, and no intemperate pronouncement from the Congregation of the Faith, or the current pope, can restrain it for long. Even if ecumenism, at least as it involves the Roman Catholic Church's connection with other Churches, is temporarily set back a hundred years, that distance can be closed either by changes of heart or changes of leadership.
since Marlowe has asked me not to post to him i don’t intend to take part...
that said it i normally reffered to as the sin of Adam not the sin of Eve...
“There is no devil or Satan to blame, other than us. Placing the blame on some “evil angel” is clearly passing the buck instead of fessing up to our own responsibility.”
Why then in your baptismal liturgy does the Priest ask the parents and godparents, three times, “do you renounce Satan?” if he does not have culpability in sin?
Renouncing Satan (much as renouncing the sins of the Bishop of Rome) has nothing to do with culpability and everything to do with renouncing the ways and beleifs that lead to either.
I suppose there was no serpent either?
Eve was "deceived". If there were no "serpent" and no "Satan", then who deceived Eve?
God is all powerful, all knowing, and all present. Therefore, there is no way when God created Satan that God was not aware that Satan would rebel. God could have created differently, but chose not to.
He chose this particular creation to create. He set it in motion.
Therefore, God is ORIGINATOR of everything, however, He is not the author of evil/wickedness. That came from Satan.
(Evil/calamity is different than evil/wickedness. Floods, for example, are a calamity(evil) and they CAN be directly initiated by God.)
If that is incorrect, please let me know, kosta50.
In other words, the net result is that kosta50’s theology is based on an interpretation over time – and thus, when he debates with us, he is “coming from” a worldview which is counter-indicative to many of us.
Our to put it another way, kosta50’s theology is a “doctrine and tradition of man” per se.
And herein lies a fatal flaw of that worldview: the apostolic succession took it upon itself to pick and choose that which was to be preserved and that which was to be discarded.
The book of Enoch is a great example, the Jews hated it because it referred to Christ so they discarded it - and the Catholics hated it because it referred to angels and demons and they discarded it. This even though it is quoted in Scripture in Jude, in John and in Peter’s epistle – the “rule” which is usually honored for determining what will be preserved or not.
If it were not for the fragments found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, there would be no proof that it existed even though it was cherished by many of the early church fathers and the Ethiopians who kept a version over the millennia which may or may not be faithful – which we cannot fully determine because the chain of custody was broken.
Obviously then, there is no assurance that all of the manuscripts of non-affiliated assemblies survived, perhaps some manuscripts declared practices of the succession, e.g. transubstantiation, to be an abomination. But how would we know?
At bottom, each Christian must decide Whom he will believe – God or a counsel or a trusted religious leader, etc.
For me, there is not contest at all. I happily receive as certain knowledge only God the Father’s revelations in (1) Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God, (2) the indwelling Holy Spirit, (3) Scripture which the indwelling Spirit personally authenticates and (4) Creation, both spiritual and physical. Everything else – including my own sensory perception and reason, ancient manuscripts, the counsel of others et al - is greatly subordinated.
Thus in this discussion – my testimony is that the Lake of Fire is real, the Great White Throne Judgment is real, Hell is real, Heaven is real, Death is real, Life is real, Evil is real, Good is real, Satan is real, Paradise is real, this heaven and earth is real, the new heaven and earth is real.
“Real” includes both physical and spiritual reality.
A thing is true because God said it.
To God be the glory!
No, you didn't give me the answer. Do you believe that God created evil? Yes or no, Dr. E. No hyperboles.
The sin was committed by Eve first. However, Adam was the first to refuse to repent. It was the refusal to repent (Adam blamed God and Eve blamed the serpent—both were passing the buck) that sealed their fate. The rules haven't changed. We all sin, but not all repent and cannot be saved.
Satan is a personification of all evil. Renouncing all evil is not passing the buck. Orthodoxy teaches that we always blame ourselves first, for a good reason.
I appreciate the statement of faith in the received and inspired Word of God.
I would change the above italicized quote from your post, A-G, to say: "God is Spirit, so the spiritual realm is the greater of all realms. The physical or any other realm would be a subset of the greater. There is no realm to which God does not have access."
Is Satan a real person? Was there a person who took Jesus to the high mountain and the pinnacle of the Temple? Or did Jesus take himself there in order to somehow be tempted by his own desires?
If there was no person who took Jesus up to the high mountain and tempted Jesus to worship him, then Jesus, by his own desires, was tempted to worship the personification of evil. Either that or the Gospel writers were just making this stuff up for dramatic effect.
Did Jesus even go to the pinnacle of the temple? Is that story just a fable? Did Jesus take himself up to the pinnacle of the temple because he had some inward desire to worship evil?
This is really weird stuff, kosta. Does your church agree with you on this stuff.
The serpent is temptation presented by the tree. God placed it there so that we would know the limit of our freedom.
So, yes of course the seprent was there, as it is in a cream puff if you are a diabetic. Aything that is a temptation to us is the proverbial serpent, a bait, the "forbidden fruit."
Eve was "deceived". If there were no "serpent" and no "Satan", then who deceived Eve?
Yes, of course. Who else? The temptation was there, the sin was committed by Eve giving in to temptation. The rules haven't changed. This happens over and over every day. And we have no one but ourselves to blame for it.
Our giving in to temptation is the source of sin. It is an act committed by us, by our choice and free will.
Eve did exactly what God told her not to do because she did not believe God but herself because to her "the fruit was good to eat."
Adam and Eve fell from grace because they trusted themselves more than God. Happens every day to all their descendents. The "serpent" didn't do it. They did it. We do it. But we all like to say "the devil made me do it," just as Eve blamed the serpent. That's called passing the buck.
That is correct. Everything God made was good. And yes, calamity/evil is not the same wickedness/evil. Very well said.
God did not create wickendess. The problem is that by calling calamity evil (KJV) leads one to beleive He also created wickedness.
*****The serpent is temptation presented by the tree****
Interesting. Because the bible clearly shows that Eve was not tempted by the tree until the serpent lied to her and told her that she would not die. It was only then that she looked at the tree and saw that it was pleasant to the eye, and she was tempted by Satan’s promise that if she would partake of it, she would become as God.
These were lies. Eve did not lie to herself, she was lied to by the serpent.
Genesis 3:1-6 KJV
(1) Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
(2) And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
(3) But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
(4) And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
(5) For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
(6) And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
How much more of the Bible don’t you believe? Do you believe that God created the heavens and the earth? How long did it take him? Was there a flood? Did Jonah get swallowed by a great fish?
Jesus seems to believe these were all actual events.
Paul seems to believe that the serpent was a real being:
2 Corinthians 11:3 KJV
(3) But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
On what authority do you deny the personhood of Satan or the existence of the serpent?
It won’t be catholic or orthodox, thank you. The truth doesn’t hurt because it’s not the truth. the Body of Christ is the true church, not a denomination.
Wow, what a GREAT post! This is one of the best answers I’ve seen on these threads. Thank you! JESUS is the head of the Church, the Body of Christ, the ONE true church.
Thank you for your fine and devoted service. Don’t let the ‘turkeys get you down.’
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