Posted on 12/16/2007 4:05:55 PM PST by NYer
We can't, strictly speaking,and yet people do it all the time. Ever hear anyone say, "Prayer works?" Prayer doesn't work, God works, right?
I hit the cue ball. It kisses off the seven and hits the nine squarely. The nine drops the thirteen in the corner pocket. But strictly speaking, I dropped the 13 in the corner.
Discussing causality in the pool hall is hard enough. It gets really difficult when we're talking about God acting in His saints.
My daughter sits by the side of the road and prays for the toe tow-truck to get there. When he gets there she thaks God AND she thanks the tow-truck driver. Why thank the driver?
I often thank my wife for having our baby.
So, yeah, Aristotle reigns and all, but the way we attribute cause and the way we offer thanks shows that maybe it's not quite as simple as it might appear.
Why? The doctrine doesn't deny Mary's humanity at all.
Heck,compared to Jesus, none of us registers. I’m still glad to know you and won’t hesitate to ask you to pray for me.
Jesus didn't need a sinless vessel to be born sinless, any more than the Ten Commandments needed perfect contour and ornamentation of the ark to be efficacious. But a certain dignity was required of God. They may have been wandering around impoverished in the desert, but the vessel in which God would be carted around was meticulously planned, by His own decree, with immense dignity for His presence. Nazareth was likewise an impoverished, scorned community, but that did not lessen the dignity required of the vessel which would carry God's physical and spiritual presence for nine months. Anything short of perfect would place the dignity of Jesus Christ below the dignity of the Old Law, which Jesus came to fulfill. Insisting that Jesus could be born to any old "broad" in any spiritual condition doesn't jive at all with the rest of the Bible and relegates the Lord to a place lesser than Aaron's staff.
And it has been said that the dogma was proclaimed, when it was proclaimed, because it affirmed the divinity of Christ at a time when liberal Protestantism--followed within a generation or two by Catholic modernists--were rejecting it and the whole mindset of the early councils, as Greek essentialsm.
I'm still looking for the verse where Jesus says, "write this down". Can you help me?
“Why? The doctrine doesn’t deny Mary’s humanity at all.”
Of course it does, P. Every other human being since Adam was either (a) born distorted in such a way by the sin of Adam so as not to be able to fulfill their created purpose [Eastern Christianity] or (b)stained with “Original Sin” [Latin Christianity]. In either case, humanity needs a savior...except of course Panagia in the Latin way of thinking. Now if Panagia was born either free from “Original Sin” or not subject to the distortions of ancestral sin, then she was not a woman. She was a goddess and her Son not “True Man”. This is of course the most serious implication of the doctrine of the IC, but there are others. For example, what sort of example is a goddess to us insofar as our Theosis is concerned? If Panagia was ontologically different from us and had no need for a savior, how does she teach us that we do need one? Isn’t it precisely the point of the Incarnation that God became Man and dwelt among us? Doesn’t +Athanasius the Great teach us that all those divine “appearances” throughout the OT just were getting the job done? Why would God only choose a human form and not true humanity (another Christological heresy)through a goddess if more direct divine intervention wasn’t working. And why would some “goddess” do any good at all? Another IC problem is this whole Co-Redemptrix thing which logically follows from a notion that Panagia was ontologically different from the rest of humanity. It also, sadly, leads some beyond veneration and right into worship of the Theotokos.
Ah, but it doesn't say that at all. From Ineffabilis Deus
We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.
“And it has been said that the dogma was proclaimed, when it was proclaimed, because it affirmed the divinity of Christ at a time when liberal Protestantism—followed within a generation or two by Catholic modernists—were rejecting it and the whole mindset of the early councils, as Greek essentialsm.”
No kidding! I never knew that, but I will agree that it certainly might tend to reinforce exactly that. I doubt any Eastern Christian could, at least since Ephesus (where we condemned poor old Pelagius btw), doubt the divinity of Christ.You understand that such a thing could only happen in the West, where the idea of some sort of sissy, wimp Christ seems to have taken root as opposed to the Eastern concept of the Pantokrator! :)But tell me, what was seen as deficient about Ephesus? I feel constrained to say that messing around with what the Ecumenical Councils proclaimed has seldom turned out good for the West (filioque, for example).
What?
Does Col 3:16 mean anything to you?
“... in view of the merits of Jesus Christ,...”
Created grace, P? Sure looks like it and we all know what the East thinks of that medieval notion. But beyond that, doesn’t such a notion negate her free will acceptance of the angel’s announcement? Isn’t this Panagia a sinless automoton and thus not in the least worthy of emulation? Isn’t she ontologically different from all the rest of us? Why is this creature human, Pyro? Isn’t the Panagia of the Eastern Church fully human, in every sense conceived and “ensouled” just like you and me, thus transmitting humanity to her Son and in her manifest sinlessness, testified to by the consensus patrum (if not by all the Fathers)worthy of emulation and veneration because it was through her perfect response to God’s grace that she never sinned?
Her words in Luke 1 should answer that question for you.
Isn’t she ontologically different from all the rest of us? Why is this creature human, Pyro?
Her humanity is like Christ's - human in all things but sin.
It relates to the influence of Kant, whose philosophy came to dominate Protestant thought in the 19th Century, the abandoment of metaphysics as a hopeless enterprise, and the growing acceptance of the claims of modern science as the only way to Truth. I think it is also a matter of the believe that
Greek—read pagan- thought had now contaminated Christianity. It is the whole “dehellenization” thing. Since the Christological dogmas are expressed in Greek terms that they are no longer persuasive.
No more of an automaton than Eve, who was also created sinless.
This is what ya’ll get when you try and mix
mystery religions and paganism with Judaism.
“Her words in Luke 1 should answer that question for you.”
If that were so there wouldn’t have been, since the 19th century, any division in the Mariology of The Church would there?
“Her humanity is like Christ’s - human in all things but sin”
True Goddess, True Woman, P? I don’t think you want to go there, my young friend! :)
Let’s look at it another way. Is Christ worthy of emulation because He didn’t sin? I am not asking if our created purpose is to become like God, btw.
Is Panagia worthy of emulation because she didn’t, by the exercise of her free will in responding to God, sin or was she “preserved” from it and thus couldn’t sin?
“I think it is also a matter of the believe that
Greek—read pagan- thought had now contaminated Christianity. It is the whole “dehellenization” thing. Since the Christological dogmas are expressed in Greek terms that they are no longer persuasive.”
I take it these Western philosophers confused pagan Hellenism with the New Israel of The Fathers because both expressed ideas in Greek? Ironic that it was the West which was truly the heir to Hellenic paganism.
You know that's not what I meant! :-P
Jesus is human.
Jesus has no trace of sin or its effects.
So one can be human without a trace of sin or its effects.
So Mary can be human without a trace of sin or its effects.
Further:
A Maxim is (or could be), “Waking understands sleeping; sleeping does not understand waking. That is, the distorting effect of sin distorts the inellective and apprehensive faculties so that the sinner’s understanding of virtue or vice, sinlessness or sin, is not as good as that of a sinless person. Similarly, it is not necessarily that case that to have compassion for the guilty requires one to be guilty.
Further:
Isn’t sinlessness part of the Xtian hope? Do we expect to be less human or more human “in heaven”? I’d submit that we will be more human than ever when we are finally sinless. And similarly IHS is more truly human than I am and the Panagia as proleptically benefiting from the Victory of Christ is also more truly human than I am.
Is it an implication of your stand that sinfulness of some kind is part of the “ontos” of humanity?
Don't think I'm claiming more for this line of arguing than I am. I'm just tossing it out like steak to a hungry attorney pitbull to be torn apart.
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