Will the Pope's Pronouncement Set Ecumenism Back a Hundred Years? (Challenge to Apostolicity)

Progressive Theology ^ | July 07

[xzins]

I forget which of you Grpls said it, but I think it’s true. You cannot PROVE the existence of God.

On this one, I’m going to make Kosta smile. I disagree with him on so much so often, he’ll probably think he won the lottery or something.

Paul(?) says it in Chapter 11 of Hebrews so well. It’s by FAITH that we know that God created. It is through BELIEVING in Him that we are saved.

That doesn’t mean that faith is irrational, because one can compile such a compelling evidentiary case that it amazes me that I didn’t always believe. RnMomof7 used to tell me that I didn’t pull up my faith bootstraps and save myself by conjuring up a sufficient number of grains of faith. It struck me at the time. But, it clearly is so.

Unless you’re born again you can’t (EVEN) see the Kingdom of God.

I believe God intentionally left it in the realm of faith. Those who come to Him must BELIEVE that He is, and that He’s a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Some simply aren’t coming in, because some simply won’t ever have faith.

[kosta50]

Paul(?) says it in Chapter 11 of Hebrews so well. It’s by FAITH that we know that God created. It is through BELIEVING in Him that we are saved

That's right. A leap of faith. After that everything we say about God becomes "real" and "tangible." But, then, if we believe there are unicorns on Jupiter...we could tangibly discss the sice and color of their horns, couldn't we?

[kosta50]

discss the sice = discuss the size

[Kolokotronis]

"The Orthodox approach to God is best summarized in St. John of Damascus' Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book I, Chapter III"

That's near as fine a "definition" as we're likely to find. But it is of course totally and necessarily incomplete since Ο ΩΝ cannot be described. The apophatic theology of the Christian East is as effective as it gets when it comes to speaking about God. The finest expression of this is the Cappadocian comment, "I believe in God; God does not "exist".

[xzins]

if we believe there are unicorns on Jupiter...we could tangibly discss the sice and color of their horns, couldn't we?

Not unless those unicorns had some way of imparting information about themselves. We could discuss it, but there would have to be some kind of support for our comments to make them something other than pure conjecture.

[Gamecock]

Sorry, but I don’t buy off on the whole leap of faith concept.

Faith is the reasonable response to the evidence provided. Of course a Calvinist would say God provides our faith, the reason. Faith is not a blind leap.

[xzins]

Leap of Faith...

It's not a leap of faith.

It's a PUSH of Faith.

Someone pushed me. :>)

[kosta50]

Not unless those unicorns had some way of imparting information about themselves

Okay, what support do Mormons have for the Book of Mormon? Or the Mohammedans for the koran? Or the Jews for the Five books of Moses? That in all these cases somehow "God" is speaking through all those authors? It has to be takn on faith and afith alone. There is no proof anywhere that any of these books are from God. God is not communicating with us; we hame men saying God is communicating through them. The scirptures, like God Himself, must be accepted a priori by a leap of faith. After that, everything that's in them becomes "real."

[kosta50]

Gamecock: It's not a leap of faith.

xzinst's a PUSH of Faith

I realize that the "force" behind the acceptance of faith varies among denominations, but no matter how you look at it, the first step had to be complete (blind) acceptance of God. It was not a logical deduction because, as xzins indicated, there is no logical proof that God exists! How can you then use reaosn to come to faith?!? God does not make sense because aything that is eternal, simple, indivisble, transcendental, bigger then the universe, yet somehow can empty itself into a womb of a woman etc., does not really make much sense.

[Kolokotronis]

"God does not make sense because anything that is eternal, simple, indivisible, transcendental, bigger than the universe, yet somehow can empty itself into a womb of a woman etc., does not really make much sense."

But at the level of Faith we know it is True that Ο ΩΝ, that which is the essence and origin of "being" itself, was contained within the womb of the Most Holy Theotokos and that that womb of a very human young woman was broader than the heavens because it did contain Ο ΩΝ.

This is not a concept which is difficult for Orthodox to understand or accept since as Kosta will assure you, every Sunday when we attend the Divine Liturgy, when we lift our eyes above the Royal Doors of the iconstasion, we see this:

The icon Theotokos Platytera, Broader than the Heavens is always depicted behind and up above the altar in Orthodox Churches. What the human intellect says makes no sense is for us made both rational and True through the Theotokos Platytera who is the connection "between the Creator and creation, between God and man, heaven and earth."

[kosta50]

But at the level of Faith we know it is True thatO W N, that which is the essence and origin of "being" itself, was contained within the womb of the Most Holy Theotokos and that that womb of a very human young woman was broader than the heavens because it did contain O W N

Throuigh faith, not through reason, or logic. Through faith the Resurrection is real and "makes [spiritual] sense."

[stfassisi]

The icon Theotokos Platytera, Broader than the Heavens is always depicted behind and up above the altar in Orthodox Churches. What the human intellect says makes no sense is for us made both rational and True through the Theotokos Platytera who is the connection "between the Creator and creation, between God and man, heaven and earth."

Beautifully stated!

[Zero Sum]

Kolo: The finest introduction I have ever read to On the Incarnation was written by Lewis.

I think Lewis makes a very good point about the underlying assumptions of each age (which is true in general and not just in theology), which is why we shouldn't neglect to study the Fathers. And then:

Lewis: St. Athanasius has suffered in popular estimation from a certain sentence in the "Athanasian Creed." I will not labour the point that that work is not exactly a creed and was not by St. Athanasius, for I think it is a very fine piece of writing. The words "Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly" are the offence. They are commonly misunderstood. The operative word is keep; not acquire, or even believe, but keep. The author, in fact, is not talking about unbelievers, but about deserters, not about those who have never heard of Christ, nor even those who have misunderstood and refused to accept Him, but of those who having really understood and really believed, then allow themselves, under the sway of sloth or of fashion or any other invited confusion to be drawn away into sub-Christian modes of thought. They are a warning against the curious modern assumption that all changes of belief, however brought about, are necessarily exempt from blame. But this is not my immediate concern. I mention "the creed (commonly called) of St. Athanasius" only to get out of the reader's way what may have been a bogey and to put the true Athanasius in its place. His epitaph is Athanasius contra mundum, "Athanasius against the world." We are proud that our own country has more than once stood against the world. Athanasius did the same. He stood for the Trinitarian doctrine, "whole and undefiled," when it looked as if all the civilised world was slipping back from Christianity into the religion of Arius - into one of those "sensible" synthetic religions which are so strongly recommended today and which, then as now, included among their devotees many highly cultivated clergymen. It is his glory that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away.

When I first opened his De Incarnatione I soon discovered by a very simple test that I was reading a masterpiece. I knew very little Christian Greek except that of the New Testament and I had expected difficulties. To my astonishment I found it almost as easy as Xenophon; and only a master mind could, in the fourth century, have written so deeply on such a subject with such classical simplicity. Every page I read confirmed this impression. His approach to the Miracles is badly needed today, for it is the final answer to those who object to them as "arbitrary and meaningless violations of the laws of Nature." They are here shown to be rather the re-telling in capital letters of the same message which Nature writes in her crabbed cursive hand; the very operations one would expect of Him who was so full of life that when He wished to die He had to "borrow death from others." The whole book, indeed, is a picture of the Tree of Life - a sappy and golden book, full of buoyancy and confidence. We cannot, I admit, appropriate all its confidence today. We cannot point to the high virtue of Christian living and the gay, almost mocking courage of Christian martyrdom, as a proof of our doctrines with quite that assurance which Athanasius takes as a matter of course. But whoever may be to blame for that it is not Athanasius.

Wow! OK, +Athanasius' On the Incarnation of the Word just got bumped to the top of my reading list!

By the way, C.S. Lewis may have spent his professional career in England, but he was born and at heart always remained an Irishman. ;)

When one reads the tracts of +J.C. Ryle, it is often, if not always, as if one of the Greek Fathers was dropped into Victorian England with a complete command of the English language.

And he even had a beard! :)

[Zero Sum]

When we speak of infallibility there is no need to differentiate the two, since infallibility—by necessity—encompasses inerrancy. That which is infallible (incapable of error) is also inerrant (free from any error).

I'll buy that. But I still think it's useful to differentiate speakers/writers from the statements themselves, as the article on NewAdvent did (whether or not one buys the claim that the Holy Spirit inspired the writers to write infallibly is another matter entirely).

Thanks for sharing that. I always enjoy reading Lewis, as I find in him a very recognizable mind set expressed in a "foreign" language. :)

I enjoy reading Lewis, too. I've also been enjoying reading +John Chrysostom. One of my favorites is apparently a letter he wrote to a deaconess in Constantinople (St. Olympias) when he was in exile during the last years of his life. Despite his tribulations, he insisted that in truth No one can harm the man who does not harm himself. This was a common theme in his earlier homilies, and is also a major theme in Lewis' book.

No, it doesn't follow that doubt demonstrates the necessity of faith. Faith and doubt are mutually exclusive.

Only if you equate faith with certainty. But faith is a belief in things unseen, of which we can be not at all certain (at least not in a logical or empirical sense). When we understand that we don't see or know everything about everything (a very humbling realization that in fact, despite all the advances in science and technology, what we do see is very little) then that demonstrates the necessity of faith. Now the object of that faith can be, of course, a point of great contention...

He threatened and rebuked ordinary, insignificant Pharisees, and small money changers. Why didn't He threaten Ponitus Pilate and the Sanhendrin? Do you think God would engage in small talk with local zealots? And where is "love those who hate you" in "your father is the devil," or "you don't know the scripture and the power of God?" Where is compassion? Is it really plausible that this is one and the same Jesus speaking? I doubt it.

The Fathers preached and wrote extensively on the Gospels, and many of those writings have been preserved. I'm sure they'll be able to provide much better and more articulate answers than I could. :)

[Zero Sum]

Creation is, by definition, rearrangement of things "that are already here," the building blocks. But the blocks have to exist before any building takes place.

Not according to this: St. John of Damascus Concerning the Creation:

Since, then, God, Who is good and more than good, did not find satisfaction in self-contemplation, but in fits exceeding goodness wished certain things to come into existence which would enjoy His benefits and share in His goodness, He brought all things out of nothing into being and created them, both what is invisible and what is visible. Yea, even man, who is a compound of the visible and the invisible. And it is by thought that He creates, and thought is the basis of the work, the Word filling it and the Spirit perfecting it(2).

Besides, if your definition is true, does that mean that God just rearranged himself? It can be said that we come from God's goodness, but we still have a differnent essence.

The Orthodox approach to God is best summarized in St. John of Damascus' Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book I, Chapter III

As much as I enjoyed +John of Damascus' book, I didn't think much of that chapter (which is not at all apophatic). Here's the rub:

Things then that are mutable are also wholly created. But things that are created must be the work of some maker, and the maker cannot have been created. For if he had been created, he also must surely have been created by some one, and so on till we arrive at something uncreated.

Why is it necessary that eventually we arrive at something uncreated? When we count 1,2,3, etc, we don't ever arrive at a "highest" number, so how can we conclude this here? The assumption that there is a "limit" is the same assumption used by St. Thomas Aquinas in his first four "proofs" (his fifth talks about an "intelligent" mover).

Logos is not "the Law." Nowhere in the Bible is it translated as "the Law."

Right, it's translated as "Word". Now if you perceived me as being loose with concepts and making some illogical "leaps", well, that's because I did. As I said above, it's impossible logically to deduce God from general to specific (since He can't be "contained" by axioms), so we can only look for clues and go the other way. All I meant was that contemplating the "natural order" of things draws my mind to some concept of "God". We can describe (approximately) the way objects behave with certain mathematical relations, or "laws". Interestingly enough, the more we investigate, the more the "laws" that govern the behavior of things seem to be "unified". Also, there are certain quantities or coefficients (speed of light, gravitaional constant, Planck's constant, etc.) that appear to be constant, as least as far as we can tell. And this apparent constancy and unity in the "laws" makes it at least plausible to believe that something is truly and perfectly constant and One in essence, with an uncreated "Word" that brought all things into being. But this is not a proof, nor did I intend it to be taken as such.

[irishtenor]

I thought I told you... Do not mention the unicorns on Jupiter to anyone who doesn’t know the secret handshake, but then, they would already know about them, wouldn’t they? :>)

[MarkBsnr]

***Of course a Calvinist would say God provides our faith, the reason. Faith is not a blind leap.***

Of course it is. Faith by definition differs wholly and substantially from reason and proof. The only way that someone could say that their faith was not blind was if they were Gnostic.

There is evidence, sure. I have experienced holy places and been unable to describe or even understand them. I have also experienced one encounter with concentrated evil and cannot describe or be wholly coherant about it either.

We have evidence, but not proof. We have experiences but not substantiation.

[Gamecock]

Lack of understanding does not translate into a blind leap. People get on airplanes everyday and have no understanding of how they work, yet they have faith that they will arrive at their destination safely.

Conversely, my grandmother thought the moon walk was fake and rasslin’ was real, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

[MarkBsnr]

Wrong analogy.

What if this was the first airplane, and it was not the Wright Brothers aircraft that was well documented?

What if a Bombardier 50 passenger regional jet materialized back in the year 30? How many people do you think would hop on board? Especially if the people that got on never returned? A giant leap of faith, sir.

The Jewish effort effectively failed and the Gentiles were the fallback.

[irishtenor]

***The Jewish effort effectively failed and the Gentiles were the fallback.***

Please tell me you are not saying that God failed and had to go to plan B.