 |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Purgatory: Mary, woman, the physical and sex.
|
Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
On this thread, at least, the Protoevangelium has only been invoked to demonstrate the age of these beliefs, not their veracity.
Spot on. Veneration of Mary preceded the fourth century by (at least) two centuries. The notion that veneration of Mary was a later imposition by the Ecumenical Councils (or anyone else) does not hold water.
None of which requires anyone to believe in the historical or theological accuracy of the Infancy Gospel. PeJ demonstrates very clearly what ideas and beliefs were knocking around centuries prior to the Councils.
[ 20. August 2012, 08:21: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I constantly come back to a question I often ask in relation to points of Christian doctrine: when we argue so passionately, it begins to look like we want our doctrine to be true. Why do we want this particular doctrine to be true?
Accusations of Bulverism aside, I suspect that the answer to that question is closer to "because the Church has said it is" than "because it says something about Mary/sex/sin/purity".
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
|
Posted
I think the accusations of Bulverism are being laid on a little too liberally. Surely it's not out of bounds in any discussion to enquire as to someone's motives in holding the beliefs that they hold?
Take myself, for example. I'm gay. I believe that God is okay with that. Of course I do - and I have a vested interest in believing that. It's my very personal motivation that has caused me to study the issue very carefully for more than 30 years now. I think it would be perfectly legitimate for someone, in a discussion on that subject, to ask why I believe - and why I want to believe - what I do.
Now, I'm not suggesting that anyone who believes in Mary's perpetual virginity has a personal hangup about sex. Perhaps I'm suggesting that their Church might have an institutional hangup about sex. Perhaps, on the other hand, they just like singing lovely sentimental hymns about Mary and virginity. I don't know. I'd like to know. And if C.S.Lewis thought that that was out of bounds in a debate, then I'd like to know why he wanted to believe that, too!
--------------------
"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Accusations of Bulverism aside, I suspect that the answer to that question is closer to "because the Church has said it is" than "because it says something about Mary/sex/sin/purity".
As far as it goes, this is correct. Those of us in big-T Traditional churches take the big-T Tradition as a default position, which we must be argued out of rather than into. Sometimes it's not terribly hard to argue any given one of us out of a Traditional position; I've been argued out of a few myself. Nothing on this thread has even come close to arguing me out of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Just the same old canards, and a bunch of insulting innuendos about my psychology.
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I think the accusations of Bulverism are being laid on a little too liberally. Surely it's not out of bounds in any discussion to enquire as to someone's motives in holding the beliefs that they hold?
Why? What business is it of yours or anybody else what my motives are?
[ 20. August 2012, 09:48: Message edited by: mousethief ]
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I think the accusations of Bulverism are being laid on a little too liberally. Surely it's not out of bounds in any discussion to enquire as to someone's motives in holding the beliefs that they hold?
Why? What business is it of yours or anybody else what my motives are?
And that's a perfectly valid answer. More than valid, it's rather fun, because it leaves me free to infer whatever I like (which, in turn, would be none of your business).
--------------------
"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
because it leaves me free to infer whatever I like (which, in turn, would be none of your business).
Indeed it would be, provided it remains in your head and not posted on the internet.
--------------------
mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
mousethief, nobody is trying to argue you in to anything. Your Tradition - which I admire more and more thanks to you, despite the great harm being done in Russia - excludes me. OK. You will answer for that, if need be, to another Man. And I will say Father forgive. That I might be forgiven.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sir Pellinore
Quester Emeritus
# 12163
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
...
After all the comments on how Mary's purity does not indicate that sex is bad and impure, how then can you say that Mary's 'purity' (inverted commas added because I believe Mary to have had a sinful nature like any human), by which I presume you mean her virginity, is something that would raise the standard of human experience and that nuns should be role models in this area? If Mary was not a perpetual virgin, would this make her less of a role model in this respect? God's commandment to the vast majority of His people is to marry, have sex and bear children via sex - Mary is therefore MORE of a role model if she had children after Jesus, because she is obeying this commandment.
...
I would hesitate to put my construction of what a decent life according to what "God's commandment" interpreted by me should be on Mary, or indeed anyone.
It seems fascinating to me that some people are so obsessed with whether Mary remained a virgin sometime after the Immaculate Conception or not.
The core fact was the Birth of Jesus. I think Mary was far more than a "role model".
Purity to me means a completely pure vessel in which Christ was incarnated.
I am afraid we are coming from very different angles and taking completely different tacks. Taking this argument - which it has become - further would serve no useful purpose whatever.
--------------------
Well...
Posts: 5108 | From: The Deep North, Oz | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
|
Posted
Jade Constable
My ecumenical instincts come to the fore. It may be that the more important question is what difference do the different views over Mary make to the way we relate to one another. I think we are agreed that the central meaning is 'God with us'. Personally, I can live in peace with the differences. Also with those who think I'd be wise to change my view. There are worse things in life than being considered unwise.
--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Dash it ALL mousethief. You are MOST gracious. Because, in truth, I could have been more.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
egg
Shipmate
# 3982
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eirenist:
What a lot of difficulties we would avoid were it not for the doctrine of Original Sin!
I agree. It has occurred to me, reading through this lengthy thread, that no one seems to have made much of the connection between Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin (more correctly called Original Guilt) and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Augustine’s view (City of God Book 13 ch.3 “And what he [Adam] himself had become by sin and punishment, such he generated those whom he begot; that is to say, subject to sin and death.”) is that all human beings are born guilty of sin, which is passed on from generation to generation by the means of human reproduction. But that would not apply to Jesus, who was in all points tempted like as we are [and so capable of sinning, or the temptation would have been meaningless], yet without sin.
If Augustine is right, Jesus would prima facie have inherited Original Guilt from his mother; but since this is not an acceptable conclusion, there is a certain logic in holding that Mary was conceived immaculately, i.e. without Original Guilt, so that she would not have passed it on to her son in the normal way.
I don’t in fact believe that Augustine was right, but the Roman Catholic Church has accepted that he was, and all good RCs are required to believe it. He was clearly wrong in assuming that Adam and Eve, whom he took to be real people, would have lived for ever if they had not sinned, if indeed they were human as he assumed. Paul believed the same: Romans 5.12: “just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned –“ (mistranslated by Jerome in the Vulgate, “in quo omnes peccaverunt”, which is where Augustine was led astray into believing that Paul said all men were sinful, whereas he merely stated as a fact that all men had sinned, his point being that sin led to death and that was why all men died).
As to the perpetual virginity of Mary, I do not see anything in the Protevangelium of James that so states, and I should be grateful for a reference if it does; and I would not regard it as of much authority anyway, It is of about the same date (140-170 AD) as the infancy gospel of Thomas, which, in addition to including the charming story of Jesus making clay sparrows on the Sabbath, which Muhammad (peace be upon him) found so delightful that he included it in the Qur’an (sura 5.110), also includes some stories about the boy Jesus which make him out to be a rather vicious and unpleasant five-year old. Neither of them is worth anything as a contribution to the history of events.
This does not mean that the perpetual virginity of Mary is not true. That is a matter of faith, not I think based on evidence of any kind, not particularly admirable in a married woman, and contrary to the natural meaning of passages in the Gospels and to normal human nature. I dislike it since it makes Mary out to have been a bad Jewish wife to Joseph, a much underrated father to Jesus from whom he must have gained much of his conception of a good and loving father. The Protevangelium of James indicates that Joseph was not an old man, as is suggested elsewhere, but active in his business, since he only discovered Mary’s pregnancy about her sixth month when “he came back from his building” – I would suggest he was employed in the rebuilding of Sepphoris, about 4 miles from Nazareth, which had been sacked by Varus’ soldiers after it rebelled on the death of Herod in 4 BC. Teknon is generally translated carpenter, but in fact means something more like master builder; and it is notable that Jesus’ sayings are more concerned with stone buildings than with woodwork. I have a mental image of Joseph setting off from Nazareth for Sepphoris, which incidentally was Mary’s home town, accompanied over the years by one, two, three, four, five sons as they in turn grew old enough to help him with his work, while Mary stayed in Nazareth with her daughters and looked after the home as a good Jewish wife might be expected to do. As is mentioned upthread, John’s gospel includes the passage (6.42) in which the Jews said “Surely this is Jesus son of Joseph; we know his father and mother.” There is, I think, nothing in the synoptic gospels to suggest that Jesus knew during his earthly life that he was God, or that Mary differed from other mothers who loved their eldest son.
--------------------
egg
Posts: 110 | From: London UK | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by egg:
It has occurred to me, reading through this lengthy thread, that no one seems to have made much of the connection between Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin (more correctly called Original Guilt) and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
Josephine did so here.
--------------------
If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
egg, apart from your dislike if Mary were a perpetual virgin, you're ... conspicuously wrong about Jesus not knowing His divinity from at least 12 years of age from the gospels. And why would His Mum and Dad not have told Him the circumstances of His conception prior to that ?
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
|
Posted
By chance I was reading Jeremiah 18 and came across this: quote:
Jer 18:13
Therefore, the Lord says,
“Ask the people of other nations
whether they have heard of anything like this.
Israel should have been like a virgin.
But she has done something utterly revolting!
I recall that other prophets such as Ezekiel and Hosea also compare Israel to a prostitute.
So the idea comes to me that the virginity of Mary in some way represents/is a symbol of Israels turning back to God. (Matthew does appear to have been written for a Jewish Christian church.) She is also the fifth in Matthew's genealogy, that he goes at great pains to include, of women that the Law would be doubtful of from their life or ancestry. Perhaps it is part of Jesus redeeming the not always illustrious line of David.
I can see holes in this idea, but I think it could do with refinement rather than immediate rejection.
Does anyone know if any theologians have written about this.
Lamb Chopped?
--------------------
'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pancho
Shipmate
# 13533
|
Posted
I'm just skeptical that we need "re-vision" Mary and turn away from language about her chastity, purity and virginity.
The people who believe in "Mother most chaste, Mother inviolate, Mother unstained" give us Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame, Alfonso the Wise's Cantigas de Santa Maria, Michelangelo's Pietà, Raphael's Madonna, Byrd's Assumpta est Maria, and the cathedral of Chartres.
The people who try to revision Mary have given us papier-mâché puppets, felt banners, and the infamous "bendy poles".
[ 23. August 2012, 03:23: Message edited by: Pancho ]
Posts: 1988 | From: Alta California | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
|
Posted
I have loved Ave Maria since Disney's Fantasia in childhood, but never had the "vision" of that other stuff. For many it would not be a "re-vision". YMMV.
--------------------
'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
SeraphimSarov
Shipmate
# 4335
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
I guess my comments could also raise a wider issue about the use of image, metaphor or description in the official forms of the church. Some, while appropriate centuries ago, I would argue are less appropriate than they were.
Oh this idolatry of "relevance "!! ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
--------------------
"For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like"
Posts: 2247 | From: Sacramento, California | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
SeraphimSarov
Shipmate
# 4335
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
I guess my comments could also raise a wider issue about the use of image, metaphor or description in the official forms of the church. Some, while appropriate centuries ago, I would argue are less appropriate than they were.
Oh this idolatry of "relevance "!!
--------------------
"For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like"
Posts: 2247 | From: Sacramento, California | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SeraphimSarov:
quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
I guess my comments could also raise a wider issue about the use of image, metaphor or description in the official forms of the church. Some, while appropriate centuries ago, I would argue are less appropriate than they were.
Oh this idolatry of "relevance "!!
Huh! ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
That's why we've got four Gospel accounts. Some, especially this, of what was relevant to Matthew's church was not relevant enough to Mark, Luke & John's for them to mention it.
--------------------
'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
SeraphimSarov
Shipmate
# 4335
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
I'm just skeptical that we need "re-vision" Mary and turn away from language about her chastity, purity and virginity.
The people who believe in "Mother most chaste, Mother inviolate, Mother unstained" give us Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame, Alfonso the Wise's Cantigas de Santa Maria, Michelangelo's Pietà, Raphael's Madonna, Byrd's Assumpta est Maria, and the cathedral of Chartres.
The people who try to revision Mary have given us papier-mâché puppets, felt banners, and the infamous "bendy poles".
--------------------
"For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like"
Posts: 2247 | From: Sacramento, California | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
SeraphimSarov
Shipmate
# 4335
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
quote:
Originally posted by SeraphimSarov:
quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
I guess my comments could also raise a wider issue about the use of image, metaphor or description in the official forms of the church. Some, while appropriate centuries ago, I would argue are less appropriate than they were.
Oh this idolatry of "relevance "!!
Huh!
That's why we've got four Gospel accounts. Some, especially this, of what was relevant to Matthew's church was not relevant enough to Mark, Luke & John's for them to mention it.
No, that's your interpretation of why we have 4 Gospels ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
--------------------
"For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like"
Posts: 2247 | From: Sacramento, California | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SeraphimSarov:
quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
I guess my comments could also raise a wider issue about the use of image, metaphor or description in the official forms of the church. Some, while appropriate centuries ago, I would argue are less appropriate than they were.
Oh this idolatry of "relevance "!!
Huh!
That's why we've got four Gospel accounts. Some, especially this, of what was relevant to Matthew's church was not relevant enough to Mark, Luke & John's for them to mention it.
--------------------
'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
SeraphimSarov
Shipmate
# 4335
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
quote:
Originally posted by SeraphimSarov:
quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
I guess my comments could also raise a wider issue about the use of image, metaphor or description in the official forms of the church. Some, while appropriate centuries ago, I would argue are less appropriate than they were.
Oh this idolatry of "relevance "!!
Huh!
That's why we've got four Gospel accounts. Some, especially this, of what was relevant to Matthew's church was not relevant enough to Mark, Luke & John's for them to mention it.
No, that's your interpretation of why we have 4 Gospels
--------------------
"For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like"
Posts: 2247 | From: Sacramento, California | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
|
Posted
You mean that you don't think it is relevant!
--------------------
'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
|
Posted
And why is your interpretation of relevance being a sin any better than the interpretation of there being a sin in not being relevant?
--------------------
'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
I'm just skeptical that we need "re-vision" Mary and turn away from language about her chastity, purity and virginity.
The people who believe in "Mother most chaste, Mother inviolate, Mother unstained" give us Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame, Alfonso the Wise's Cantigas de Santa Maria, Michelangelo's Pietà, Raphael's Madonna, Byrd's Assumpta est Maria, and the cathedral of Chartres.
The people who try to revision Mary have given us papier-mâché puppets, felt banners, and the infamous "bendy poles".
QED, Pancho.
You have cut straight through the Gordian Knot.
Why stuff around with scholarship and evidence and truth when the issue can be settled by citing some nice sculpture and music and architecture?
Incidentally, what are infamous bendy poles?
Hope they're not like the Asherah poles in the OT, because they were really bad.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pancho
Shipmate
# 13533
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Incidentally, what are infamous bendy poles?
You've ventured into Ecclesiantics often enough to know what they are
quote:
QED, Pancho.
You have cut straight through the Gordian Knot.
Why stuff around with scholarship and evidence and truth when the issue can be settled by citing some nice sculpture and music and architecture?
Except that's not what I said.*
Other people have offered the scholarship and evidence. I questioned one of the premises of the OP, that the language of the Litany of Loreto creates a distance.
*ETA:that is, what I wrote is not what you imply.
[ 23. August 2012, 05:06: Message edited by: Pancho ]
Posts: 1988 | From: Alta California | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Incidentally, what are infamous bendy poles?
You've ventured into Ecclesiantics often enough to know what they are
Au contraire, I very rarely visit Ecclesiantics, because I have little patience with, or interest in, the issues discussed there.
I only became embroiled in this discussion because of what I considered to be mousethief's misrepresentation of Bulverism, because I am interested in C.S. Lewis.
OK, I've looked up bendy poles on Google and discovered that they are long flexible sticks on which people stand and oscillate.
Oddly enough, they have yet to feature in our worship, fun though it looks, and incorrigible disbelievers in Mary's perpetual virginity though we be.
Must be a specifically American Protestant liturgical idiosyncrasy.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
beatmenace
Shipmate
# 16955
|
Posted
Perhaps a tangent but since professing my ignorance of early Christian writings i dug out this website which lists most of the known ones.
Very interesting stuff.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/
Yes the Infancy Narrative of James is among them.
--------------------
"I'm the village idiot , aspiring to great things." (The Icicle Works)
Posts: 297 | From: Whitley Bay | Registered: Feb 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
egg
Shipmate
# 3982
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Scrumpmeister:
qb]
Josephine did so here [/QB][/QUOTE]
It's true that Josephine pointed out that the Orthodox Church does not believe in the Immaculate Conception, but she does not mention Augustine's doctrine of Original Sin or Original Guilt. I assume the Orthodox church does not accept that either.
I was merely pointing out, which I have not seen pointed out before, that if one takes Augustine's doctrine of Original Guilt as part of one's faith, there is at least a theoretical but quite logical reason for believing that Mary must have been born free from Original Guilt, i.e Immaculately Conceived, so that she could not pass it on to Jesus as every other mother passes it on to her children (according to Augustine); so that Jesus, unlike all ordinary human beings, was born free from Original Guilt.
It's all a bit theoretical, though the Roman Catholic Church has made it a dogma to be believed [i]de fide[i].
I distinguish what I think many Anglicans believe, which is that all human beings are born with a tendency to sin (call it Original Sin if you like). Whether Jesus was born with such a tendency or not, he did not (unlike every other human being) succumb to it; though he was tempted just as we are, and this necessarily implies that he could have sinned if he had not withstood the temptation. I think this is what the writer of Heb.4.15 means; and it is not compatible with the idea that Jesus could not have sinned.
[ 23. August 2012, 12:03: Message edited by: egg ]
--------------------
egg
Posts: 110 | From: London UK | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
egg
Shipmate
# 3982
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by egg:
quote:
Originally posted by The Scrumpmeister:
Josephine did so here
It's true that Josephine pointed out that the Orthodox Church does not believe in the Immaculate Conception, but she does not mention Augustine's doctrine of Original Sin or Original Guilt. I assume the Orthodox church does not accept that either.
I was merely pointing out, which I have not seen pointed out before, that if one takes Augustine's doctrine of Original Guilt as part of one's faith, there is at least a theoretical but quite logical reason for believing that Mary must have been born free from Original Guilt, i.e Immaculately Conceived, so that she could not pass it on to Jesus as every other mother passes it on to her children (according to Augustine); so that Jesus, unlike all ordinary human beings, was born free from Original Guilt.
It's all a bit theoretical, though the Roman Catholic Church has made it a dogma to be believed de fide.
I distinguish what I think many Anglicans believe, which is that all human beings are born with a tendency to sin (call it Original Sin if you like). Whether Jesus was born with such a tendency or not, he did not (unlike every other human being) succumb to it; though he was tempted just as we are, and this necessarily implies that he could have sinned if he had not withstood the temptation. I think this is what the writer of Heb.4.15 means; and it is not compatible with the idea that Jesus could not have sinned. [/QB]
[ 23. August 2012, 12:07: Message edited by: egg ]
--------------------
egg
Posts: 110 | From: London UK | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
egg
Shipmate
# 3982
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
egg, apart from your dislike if Mary were a perpetual virgin, you're ... conspicuously wrong about Jesus not knowing His divinity from at least 12 years of age from the gospels. And why would His Mum and Dad not have told Him the circumstances of His conception prior to that ?
Jesus was certainly remarkably and precociously well vesred in the Jewish culture and traditions at the age of 12, and I would like to think one of the people that he was arguing with was the great Hillel, who in some respects shared his thinking, but the dates don't quite fit. But there were others in the temple who were not far behind Hillel in their thinking.
As to your question, I find it difficult to believe that Jesus would have conducted his life, his teaching and example as he did, if he had known the circumstances of his conception and the fact that he was therefore different from all other human beings, and there is no evidence in the synoptic gospels that he did - but I suppose that is possible. Of course he called God his Father; but he taught all his disciples to pray to Our Father, and Christians have done so ever since.
--------------------
egg
Posts: 110 | From: London UK | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
ego eimi Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh ?
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Pages in this thread: 1 2 3 4 5
|
Contact us | Ship of Fools | Privacy statement
© Ship of Fools 2016
UBB.classicTM
6.5.0
|
|
|
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
