Posted on 10/30/2014 6:27:04 AM PDT by Kaslin
First compassionate conservatism, now compassionate Catholicism.
A self limiting God is one of the cornerstones of liberal theology.
Henry Nelson Weiman, in the 50’s, began promulgating this notion in an effort to explain away the “problem” of evil. To wit, “How can an omnipotent God allow evil to reign in the world?” His position was that God, in His omniscience, limited His control of mankind in order to ensure human freedom.
This, of course, flew in the face of Calvin who had no truck with freedom, determining that everything is predetermined, or, more to the point, foreordained. By limiting God Weiman could allow God to keep His hands clean while grieving over evil.
Much of the theological claptrap in the latter part of the 20th century devolved from this particular brand of nonsense. God is not divine but is a natural process, like gravity. Hence, we have the Pope carrying on about an explicitly Unitarian and non Christian view of God.
It is interesting to note that Boston University, where Weiman taught, was a Methodist seminary which theology department was headed by a Unitarian, in the 50’s.
And this is what Penn Jillette has brought us...
It doesn’t pay to quote the Pope to Catholics for several reasons. (1) It was a hoax. If not that then (2) He was mistranslated. (3) You don’t know the context. And my favorite one is (4) He wasn’t speaking ex cathedra. So you see it just doesn’t pay. He can say whatever he wants and it doesn’t matter.
The criticism misunderstands Pope Francis’s remark. In fact, he is, like his predecessor Benedict XVI (from the point of view of us Orthodox Christians, the best Pope of Rome in living memory by far, and perhaps the best Pope of Rome since the schism of the Patriarchate of Rome from the Church) moving back toward Orthodox theology.
Francis expresses himself badly on the point (unless he explained more of what he meant than was quoted) but he is speaking in the manner of the Cappadocian Fathers and St. Dionysius the Areopagite’s “On the Divine Names”. It is neither God’s divinity nor His ominpotence, Francis was denying, but conceiving of God as a mere being, or seeing His activity as the activity of a mere being like a magician (or, for that matter an engineer). God is the very ground-of-all-being, prior to even the distinction between existence and non-existence, and no created binary distinction is applicable to Him.
Modern atheism correctly concludes that there is no mere being with the attributes we Christan ascribe to God, but bound in the philosophical shackles of rational categories, cannot see that the God whom we worship is not a being, but the transcendent ground-of-all-being, Who transcends all the categories of thought in which the rationalist deals, transcending the distinction between unity and multiplicity, subsisting from all eternity as the All-Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God, and even the distinction between transcendence and immanence in the Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
So God is not capable of creating perfection in the universe, but must wait for it to “evolve”?
Evolution requires death—the death of the less-than-perfect, so that only the fittest survive.
Ergo, God sends death into the world, in order to kill off the less-than-perfect.
And he rejoices in that, so that what he created can eventually be called “good”— or “good enough”.
Right... (sarc/off)
Huh? I don’t get you. What has Penn Jillette do do with Pope Francis?
I could not have it said any better
The Pope didn't say that, so this article is nonsense. I guess the author hopes that some people will buy it.
Can the writer of this article shut up too?
"Voglio solo sottolineare - ha proseguito Papa Francesco - che Dio e Cristo camminano con noi e sono presenti anche nella natura. Quando leggiamo nella Genesi il racconto della Creazione rischiamo di immaginare che Dio sia stato un mago, con tanto di bacchetta magica in grado di fare tutte le cose. Ma non è così. Egli ha creato gli esseri e li ha lasciati sviluppare secondo le leggi interne che Lui ha dato ad ognuno, perché si sviluppassero, perché arrivassero alla propria pienezza.... [Dio ha reso l'uomo] "responsabile della creazione, anche perché domini il Creato, perché lo sviluppi e così fino alla fine dei tempi... Quindi allo scienziato, e soprattutto allo scienziato cristiano, corrisponde l'atteggiamento di interrogarsi sull'avvenire dell'umanità e della terra, e, da essere libero e responsabile, di concorrere a prepararlo, a preservarlo, a eliminarne i rischi dell'ambiente sia naturale che umano. "Allo stesso tempo... lo scienziato dev'essere mosso dalla fiducia che la natura nasconda, nei suoi meccanismi evolutivi, delle potenzialità che spetta all'intelligenza e alla libertà scoprire e attuare per arrivare allo sviluppo che è nel disegno del Creatore. Questa speranza e fiducia in Dio, Autore della natura, e nella capacità dello spirito umano sono in grado di dare al ricercatore un'energia nuova e una serenità profonda. "Ma è anche vero che l'azione dell'uomo, quando la sua libertà diventa autonomia - che non è libertà, ma autonomia - distrugge il creato e l'uomo prende il posto del Creatore. E questo è il grave peccato contro Dio Creatore."
I agree, especially that Francesco was mistranslated. Here is what he said in Italian:"L'inizio del mondo non è opera del caos che deve a un altro la sua origine, ma deriva direttamente da un Principio supremo che crea per amore. Il Big-Bang, che oggi si pone all'origine del mondo, non contraddice l'intervento creatore divino ma lo esige. L'evoluzione nella natura non contrasta con la nozione di Creazione, perché l'evoluzione presuppone la creazione degli esseri che si evolvono"....
In the second paragraph, the one widely quoted, he is NOT saying God is not divine. My translation of his words: "I want to underline that God and Christ walk with us and are present throughout nature. When we read in Genesis the account of creation, we invoke an imaginary God, like a magician with a magic wand able to do everything. But He isn't that. He has created all that is; and has he has left or given to everything internal laws of development — as such, creation grew; its fullness arrived."
He goes on to reassert that God has given humankind responsibility to Creation, and that Christian views of science stress responsibility for preservation. He calls God "the Author of nature" able to rediscover new energy and deep serenity in the human spirit; but that when humans try to take the place of God, they wreak destruction -- "a grave sin against God."
Ping to post 13.
Francis expresses himself badly on the point (unless he explained more of what he meant than was quoted) but he is speaking in the manner of the Cappadocian Fathers and St. Dionysius the Areopagite’s “On the Divine Names”. It is neither God’s divinity nor His ominpotence, Francis was denying, but conceiving of God as a mere being, or seeing His activity as the activity of a mere being like a magician (or, for that matter an engineer). God is the very ground-of-all-being, prior to even the distinction between existence and non-existence, and no created binary distinction is applicable to Him.
Modern atheism correctly concludes that there is no mere being with the attributes we Christan ascribe to God, but bound in the philosophical shackles of rational categories, cannot see that the God whom we worship is not a being, but the transcendent ground-of-all-being, Who transcends all the categories of thought in which the rationalist deals, transcending the distinction between unity and multiplicity, subsisting from all eternity as the All-Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God, and even the distinction between transcendence and immanence in the Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
What a convoluted way of implying that the Orthodox Church has from its inception believed in Darwinian evolution.
Being “pro-science, pro-evolution” just means being a Humanist, not a Christian.
Surely you are not serious: your conclusion suggests that you are deficient both in discursive reason and mystical understanding.
Good clarification. Thank you.
Perfection is not attained in the material world but in the spiritual.
So we have a #2 He was mistranslated. That clears that up. I don’t know why people attack this Pope over his remarks. See post #5.
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