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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Pope Francis' Extraordinary Synod Oct 2014
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
At last Beeswax Altar. God be praised at your good confession.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Is it not thought to be implicit in "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it"?
If an individual repents of (admits and apologises for) their mistakes and wrongdoings, will they not be forgiven ? Isn't that a major part of the Christian message ? That hell will not prevail against the contrite of heart ?
Stubbornly persisting in thoughts and actions long since found wanting because the admission of error is intolerable is the very opposite of the behaviour which the Catholic Church (and every other Christian church) preaches as the way to partake in Jesus' triumph over hell.
Best wishes,
Russ
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Jesus would have hated artificial contraception.
History of Birth Controlshows contraception was used in Egypt, Rome and Greece long before the time of Jesus.
The Talmudic rabbis were discussing this in the first four centuries C.E. Jewish views on Contraception and Procreation There are a number of cases where contraception is approved.
It seems likely Jesus knew it existed. Is there any record of him challenging the rabbinical pro-contraception views? I haven't seen it and that leads me to believe it wasn't that important to him.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Palimpsest, I suspect that Beeswax Altar's post was not entirely serious. But of course, I may be wrong.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
First, I said that I don't get why people are staying, which is not exactly the same as saying that they should be leaving. Second, it's more than just about wilfully ignoring Church doctrine. I do that on occasion, too. I sin, and sometimes wilfully so, and sometimes it takes quite a while for me to sort that out. It's rather the "not having a problem with that" that I have a problem with. At the point where one simply shrugs a "whatever" at Church teaching, I don't really know why one would still want to be part of that Church.
...becoming Protestant would be the honest thing to do.
Seems to me that Jesus and the apostles counted themselves as good Jews, whilst not thinking much of the religious establishment and the rules and observances with which the leaders burdened the people.
That's a mood, a sense-impression, rather than a formal exegesis of any particular verse of the Bible, but such things can impact on the way people think.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Seems to me that Jesus and the apostles counted themselves as good Jews, whilst not thinking much of the religious establishment and the rules and observances with which the leaders burdened the people. That's a mood, a sense-impression, rather than a formal exegesis of any particular verse of the Bible, but such things can impact on the way people think.
So your point is that many heresies do not even rely on eisegesis, but rather are simply due to confirmation bias? I couldn't agree more.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
…If I became convinced that the RCC was no more than an earthly institution, I would investigate whether perhaps some other Christian institution could claim more (like the Orthodox). If I find that not, then I would stop being a Christian and resume my search for true religion elsewhere.
I am one shipmate who earnestly desires that you do not find it necessary to resume your search for true religion, that you have, in the end, come home.
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
IngoB: quote: And why should I love my neighbour as myself unless Christianity is true?
And why should any Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Confucian, Baha'i, or other religionist (however permanently you have said they are damned) love his or her neighbour, except, of course, that the statement is contained in their sacred writings as well?
Come to that, why should any atheist love his/her neighbour, except that even those Godless lost souls tend to agree with the premise, as being the one way we can make this whole thing work together?
What is it about Christianity having a "nobody-else" rule about something that is just about universally accepted as a Good Idea (whether or not all those people, Christians included, actually practise it)
An simple admission that there are other people out there who also have moral standards might make some of your arguments worth reading.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
What is it about Christianity having a "nobody-else" rule about something that is just about universally accepted as a Good Idea (whether or not all those people, Christians included, actually practise it)
I don't think that Jesus was simply stating a (positive) Golden Rule there. Maybe the Jews interpreted Leviticus 19:18 as being a Golden Rule, but the Jesus of the Sermon of the Mount was presumably serious about what he was saying.
I will highlight the crucial bit in for example Wikipedia's positive Golden Rule for you:
"One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself."
Whether they spell it out this carefully or not, that's what everybody and his dog is interpreting the (positive) Golden Rule as saying. There is a particular class of relationships, that of one person to others (where others here are usually exactly not next of kin, spouses, best friends, brothers of war, etc. because we have special rules for relationships to them...). If we consider how we should shape our relationships to others, we should consider how we would like those others to shape their relationship to us. This is abstract and unilateral in the present moment, hence quite advanced as a moral principle. But it really is just a sophisticated form of tit-for-tat, of the most basic collaborative principle, and importantly what one has to do is easily limited by what one expects others to do. If all I want of you, the other, is that you leave me in peace, then all I have to give to you, the other, is that I leave you in peace. There is no minimum standard here, just reciprocity.
That's not what Jesus is saying though. Try to listen to this with fresh ears:
"Love your neighbour as you love yourself."
That's actually batshit insane, by any worldly standards. Of course you do not love your neighbour as yourself. Perhaps hardwired biology helps you to love your children as yourself. But your neighbour? This is no mere tit-for-tat (if in the abstract), this is not talking about having a set of relationships with others and shaping them fairly. This is actually telling you that you should consider somebody else as you consider yourself. And yes, "love" here probably does not mean any kind of romantic feeling or indeed even paternal sentiments. But that is quite OK, because you don't love yourself in that way either (one hopes). But the way you love yourself bends all the world around you into a constant focus of concern for yourself. From making yourself a toast in the morning to planning your investments for retirement, from taking offence at a disparaging remark made about you to trying to chat up that attractive sales person, your entire world is just shot through with the love of yourself. And that you are now supposed to give to just every "neighbour" that you encounter?
That is not merely a difficult thing to do. It is basically impossible. We can probably demonstrate scientifically that it is impossible, because you cannot hook up your dopamine reward system to external entities like that. Everybody and his dog, faced with a demand like that, interprets this as the usual (positive) Golden Rule, which makes a lot more sense. Everybody Christian and his dog adds a bit of practical charity on top, to make their failure less obvious.
But I'm pretty sure that Jesus meant it. Like really. The guy was bonkers. Or God. Anyhow, he basically dismissed the (positive) Golden Rule explicitly in Luke 6:32-35:
"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish."
That's Christian. It's not the (positive) Golden Rule. It's nuts. Or true religion.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
The way I see it, Jesus goes further than the Golden Rule.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
"Love your neighbour as you love yourself."
That's actually batshit insane, by any worldly standards. Of course you do not love your neighbour as yourself. Perhaps hardwired biology helps you to love your children as yourself. But your neighbour?
…
That is not merely a difficult thing to do. It is basically impossible.
…
But I'm pretty sure that Jesus meant it. Like really. The guy was bonkers. Or God.
…
That's Christian. … It's nuts. Or true religion.
I'm pretty sure you and I are speaking from the same side of the street, but I find disturbing the way you identify with the fallen world in this expostulation.
The Beatitudes are not platitudes. They, each one of them, express an unalterable aspect of The Law of the Cosmos.
When we have patience, humility, excruciating love for one's enemies, forgiveness, tolerance, acceptance—when we have these things then we begin to align our will with the basic principle of the universe. When we do not so align our will then we delude ourselves as to how the world is and we suffer the wages of sin.
To accept the foundation of patience, humility, love, forgiveness, and the rest is akin to reconciling oneself to the law of gravity. We can rail against it, refuse to accept it, but in the end bodies fall to the earth. We cannot live a successful life when we deny this law.
That is not batshit insane. It is a difficult thing to do. It is not basically impossible—it is essential. Jesus surely meant it—he was it. It is not nuts. It is true religion.
[ 14. November 2014, 00:25: Message edited by: The Silent Acolyte ]
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Sorry, but no. It's not gravity. We have fallen down. It's grace. We are now trying to fall up again.
There is no salvation to be had from human nature, Pelagius was wrong.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
Your response has got nothing to do with my post.
Yes, we have fallen.
Yes, it's grace.
Salvation is from God alone. It's witless to name-drop.
God's nature is love and when played out in time that means patience, humility, excruciating love for one's enemies, forgiveness, tolerance, acceptance. The God-man shows us the way, whether we conceive of it as a return to Paradise or an ascent to the Heavenly City.
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
When we have patience, humility, excruciating love for one's enemies, forgiveness, tolerance, acceptance—when we have these things then we begin to align our will with the basic principle of the universe. When we do not so align our will then we delude ourselves as to how the world is and we suffer the wages of sin.
This pretends that if only human interactions were as they should be then this universe would turn into a paradise. This is naive to the point of being nonsensical. You can be the nicest person in the world, and still be eaten up by cancer or a lion. Death (and illness, and pain, and disability, and ...) may lose its sting - but not in this world, where it is the law as punishment for Adam's sin. And most other human conflicts can be traced to that other annoying feature of this world, namely that it gives us little without sweat, blood and tears. The world does not bend to human wishes naturally, it has to be bent to them, and in the process often ends up broken. But more significantly for our purposes here, this endless struggle to eek out an existence is the most fundamental driver of human conflict. The rat race that leaves the weak and the poor perish on the sidelines isn't just an evil human invention. It is a direct result of humans trying to cope with an indifferent or even hostile world, where some are more successful at dealing with this by making it more of a problem for others. This, too, is a punishment for Adam's sin. The dominion over this world is given to the devil, it is not a friendly place that is just waiting for us to come to our senses, whereupon all will be a global love fest. Christian life in this world is an over and against, it is sacrifice in order to foreshadow an other-wordly ideal. We are not trying to harmonise with nature, because it really is a dog-eat-dog world out there. Capitalism is much more "natural" than Christianity. And yes, we do find the remnants of human goodness in ourselves, and we enjoy the remnants of the beauty and harmony of nature. Still, we are ruins struggling in a universal ruin, and it is only by grace and sacrifice that we regain some of the wholesomeness that ought to be there.
The natural place of love, beauty, harmony and truth is dying miserably on a cross. It is supernatural to see these resurrected and ascending to heaven. From there they will come again to judge the living and the dead, that is our hope, but till then...
TICTH is SNAFU.
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
To accept the foundation of patience, humility, love, forgiveness, and the rest is akin to reconciling oneself to the law of gravity. We can rail against it, refuse to accept it, but in the end bodies fall to the earth. We cannot live a successful life when we deny this law.
Being a Christian in general makes life harder, not easier. What the Lord asks us to do is not at all to be in harmony with how the world is, but how it ought to have been, and will be again, upon His return. We do not relax into goodness, we do not let go and find that all clicks into place. We fight the good fight, we run the race, we serve in obedience. That this yoke is light is heavy-handed sarcasm for those struggling to drag themselves forward with their heavy crosses on their back. Of course, it doesn't stay that way. As anybody who has struggled hard and suffered much to achieve anything knows, there comes a time when the hardship of targeted struggle turns into it own strange kind of reward. It is easiest experienced in sport, when at some point the sweat, and the aching muscles, and the fatigue become a good and a joy. Then the yoke truly becomes light. And there we also find most easily the true nature of Christian siblinghood. It is not the trivial familiarity of a weird social gathering where one sings a few trite songs and hears another boring sermon. It is the knowing nod of one old warrior to another as they pass each other in the trenches. It is the experienced triathletes warming up together before their next run. It is the PhD students sitting together over a coffee and bitching a bit about life and their professors. The true Christian siblinghood is born from a collective struggle, from hardships endured and embraced together (whether shared or in parallel). It is the recognition in somebody else of the same narrow path taken against harsh odds.
That instead of embracing struggle we all just need to remember our "true nature" is a destructive falsehood. Fallen human nature is a fat couch potato.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The true Christian siblinghood is born from a collective struggle, from hardships endured and embraced together (whether shared or in parallel). It is the recognition in somebody else of the same narrow path taken against harsh odds.
You find this only with other Christians? I don't. I find it with others who are sharing the same struggle, or those with whom I empathise in their own struggles.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
You find this only with other Christians? I don't. I find it with others who are sharing the same struggle, or those with whom I empathise in their own struggles.
I explain Christian siblinghood precisely in terms of three non-Christian examples of people uniting in their struggles, and you ask me this question?
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
You find this only with other Christians? I don't. I find it with others who are sharing the same struggle, or those with whom I empathise in their own struggles.
I explain Christian siblinghood precisely in terms of three non-Christian examples of people uniting in their struggles, and you ask me this question?
Sorry. What I meant was - how is this any different?
A struggle is a struggle. The fact that your Church makes things a struggle which need not be is what puzzles me.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Sorry. What I meant was - how is this any different? A struggle is a struggle.
I gave three examples: WWI trench warfare, triathlete competition and PhD studies. Are you seriously going to suggest that these struggles are the same?! What is common to all of them is that they can bind people together through shared difficulty endured for a higher purpose - and my point was that Christianity does that, too. They all have different purposes considered in and by themselves though, obviously, and so does Christianity.
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
The fact that your Church makes things a struggle which need not be is what puzzles me.
I have little interest in what you think need be. I have lots of interest in what God thinks need be. I believe that I get a way more accurate picture about the latter from the RCC than from you. And if what God wants is challenging, then I don't find that particularly surprising.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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agingjb
Shipmate
# 16555
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Posted
I cannot see how a Jewish teacher quoting from the Torah can easily be called crazy.
One thing the demanding requirement to love my neighbour as myself suggests to me is that I should pay attention to my neighbour's opinions.
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Refraction Villanelles
Posts: 464 | From: Southern England | Registered: Jul 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
That's a nice piece of writing by IngoB above - 'ruins struggling in a universal ruin' and so on, but wow, mega-bleak. Is this a standard Christian view?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
That's a nice piece of writing by IngoB above - 'ruins struggling in a universal ruin' and so on, but wow, mega-bleak. Is this a standard Christian view?
I don't know about 'standard', but it resonated with me, and struck me as more aspirational than bleak.
In fact, what I thought was: 'My church group is reading "The Purpose Driven Life" this term. I ought to tell them to ditch that shit and read IngoB.'
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Kind of "uber-Calvinistic" Catholicism I would have thought. The world ruined, human nature ruined. Image of God in human beings pretty much obliterated. Marred or obscured (the Orthodox norm) creates too much space for Pelagian self-improvement? Or where the Orthodox got it wrong (cf Catholic doctrine)?
How great was the Fall thereof? It's an old argument within Christendom; not just between Orthodox and Catholics. We Protestants have our own version of it.
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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
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
That's a nice piece of writing by IngoB above - 'ruins struggling in a universal ruin' and so on, but wow, mega-bleak. Is this a standard Christian view?
I don't know about 'standard', but it resonated with me, and struck me as more aspirational than bleak.
In fact, what I thought was: 'My church group is reading "The Purpose Driven Life" this term. I ought to tell them to ditch that shit and read IngoB.'
I suppose so, but behind aspiration is often disappointment. That's what gob-smacked me, the degree of it, like kind of grinding life down into a dust. Whatever tootles your tootle.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Kind of "uber-Calvinistic" Catholicism I would have thought. The world ruined, human nature ruined. Image of God in human beings pretty much obliterated. Marred or obscured (the Orthodox norm) creates too much space for Pelagian self-improvement? Or where the Orthodox got it wrong (cf Catholic doctrine)?
How great was the Fall thereof? It's an old argument within Christendom; not just between Orthodox and Catholics. We Protestants have our own version of it.
Yes, now there's some intellectual geography to ground it. The world ruined? Hmm. So many presuppositions in that - just off to the pub anyway, so I will mull them over.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
It doesn't tootle my tootle. I think Christianity holds in tension both a very low view and a very high view of human nature; fallen, yet made in God's image. Diminish either one of those poles and you unbalance the understanding, either in the direction of over-optimism or over-pessimism. Either imbalance produces casualties. I am a worm and no man who can do all things through Christ who strengthens me?
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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
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Kind of "uber-Calvinistic" Catholicism I would have thought.
St Augustine was Catholic. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
In at least two hundred thousand years of sapience, ruined, fallen from what?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Kind of "uber-Calvinistic" Catholicism I would have thought.
St Augustine was Catholic.
Absolutely. Calvin gives him both ticks and crosses in the Institutes.
I think there is an issue of balance involved in our proclamations. The proud scattered, the lowly lifted up? A heavy emphasis on ruin, or some equivalent of "total depravity", can actually crush the lowly and make the proud proud that they "can take it". Neither of those impacts is good for either group.
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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
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
Martin, not sure what you're getting at; some teleology of moral progress, perhaps?
If so, I don't believe in it. Moral improvement occurs in individuals, not groups. The world as a whole is as desperately wicked as it was when Jesus was born. By the grace of God, some of us human beings are becoming less wicked.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
'Desperately wicked'? Wow, you guys should be in Hollywood.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
It doesn't tootle my tootle. I think Christianity holds in tension both a very low view and a very high view of human nature; fallen, yet made in God's image. Diminish either one of those poles and you unbalance the understanding, either in the direction of over-optimism or over-pessimism. Either imbalance produces casualties. I am a worm and no man who can do all things through Christ who strengthens me?
Yes, that kind of makes sense to me. One of my trainers used to mutter, 'god or a worm' about humans. But the worm is itself a kind of god in its own world.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Fr Weber. I agree. If there is any improvement, it is of God. And I disagree. It is collective. Cultural. Social. Synergistic. We are both better AND worse than the sum of our parts. We are evolving socially.
And I'm asking the question that if we are ruined, fallen, when were we unruined? Unfallen? What are we ruined, fallen from?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Pancho
Shipmate
# 13533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Image of God in human beings pretty much obliterated.
Catholics wouldn't say this at all. Human beings remain the image of God. It hasn't been obliterated but it has a stain, the stain of Original Sin. Jesus Christ is here to heal that stain through His living Mystical Body, the Church.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
That's a nice piece of writing by IngoB above - 'ruins struggling in a universal ruin' and so on, but wow, mega-bleak. Is this a standard Christian view?
It reminds me of a famous quotation by J.R.R. Tolkien "I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect 'history' to be anything but a 'long defeat'—though it contains . . . some samples or glimpses of final victory."
It's both realistic and hopeful. It's realistic because we the world is how it is, a continuous struggle. It's hopeful because we know that we have already won. Christ has risen from the dead.
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“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’"
Posts: 1988 | From: Alta California | Registered: Mar 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Image of God in human beings pretty much obliterated.
Catholics wouldn't say this at all. Human beings remain the image of God. It hasn't been obliterated but it has a stain, the stain of Original Sin. Jesus Christ is here to heal that stain through His living Mystical Body, the Church.
I thought that was the way things worked.
IngoB's vivid rhetoric reminded me of uber-Calvinist pronouncements I've heard, that's all.
Does Catholicism also hold in tension the high (image of God) and low (all have sinned and fall short) understanding of human nature?
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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
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Pancho
Shipmate
# 13533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Does Catholicism also hold in tension the high (image of God) and low (all have sinned and fall short) understanding of human nature?
I'm probably not the right person to answer this. For the moment I'll just say that my lived experience as a Catholic is not of tension but of the Cross. I mean, we all learn that we are made in the image of God and that we are all sinners but I don't see the tension that you speak of as a theme that runs through catechisms, saint's writings, sermons, etc.
It's more that this world is a Vale of Tears (as we pray in the "Hail, Holy Queen" prayer) and yet the world is full of beauty as well, and the glimpses of "final victory" to which Tolkien alluded above, and yet we still know that the world is hurt and not as it should be because we live in it and cannot deny it but we have Our Lord and His Church, and the Blessed Virgin, and the Saints, and the Cross He taught us to take up.
I mean, the classic Catholic response to anyone having a bad day, or with a complaint or a petty annoyance, is to "offer it up". Offer it up to God, become a living sacrifice through your union with Christ in His Mystical Body. Our union with this Body is through Baptism in which we're cleansed of this stain and if we stumble we only have to return to the Sacraments. (We have the saints as examples to follow and as helpers in a real way too.) I suppose this is how any tension between "Man the Image of God" and "Man the Sinner" is resolved, through participation in the life of the Chruch, his Mystical Body, and its life-giving sacraments.
I find a much more prominent theme for Catholics than the tension between high and low is the search to do God's will. The Synod on the Family is a part of that search.
[ 14. November 2014, 21:03: Message edited by: Pancho ]
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“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’"
Posts: 1988 | From: Alta California | Registered: Mar 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
It's both realistic and hopeful. It's realistic because we the world is how it is, a continuous struggle. It's hopeful because we know that we have already won. Christ has risen from the dead.
My question would be - why does the Church, then, make it even more of a struggle in so many ways which are unnecessary for faith? (see all the dead horse issues).
Fine if one has chosen to become a Catholic. But, for example, the woman in poverty yet forced to use no contraception doesn't have that kind of choice. Why make the struggle even harder for her? This is not spiritual discipline or Christlikeness - it's unkindness of the worst sort, brought about by heaping guilt on others imo.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
I've come across quite a few people who have become frightened of their own shadows. Their submission is based on a kind of worminess. A genuine humility and meekness seems to me to be the opposite of that. It takes courage of a high order when facing injustice to practise meekness.
There is a wrong kind of fear which arises when humble people are made afraid of themselves. Jesus tells us that we are worth more than that. John teaches us that perfect love casts out fear.
There is a fine line between virtuous submission and craven avoidance of a necessary confrontation of evil, out of some sense of personal inferiority. Courage is also a virtue. Cowardice masquerading as meekness is a denial of responsibility.
And that is where the rubber hits the road when wrestling with the tension between the high and low view of human nature, seeing the truth in both. and seeking to live Christ-like lives.
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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
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Forthview
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# 12376
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Posted
'forced to use no contraception' is a bit strong.
While it is true that in some parts of the world - very few - where the Catholic Church can make it difficult for people to access contraceptive devices,I cannot think of anywhere in the world where the Catholic Church can force anyone not to use contraception.
Posts: 3444 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2007
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
My question would be - why does the Church, then, make it even more of a struggle in so many ways which are unnecessary for faith? (see all the dead horse issues). ...
Because the RCC, corporately rather than every individual Catholic, believes contraceptives to be an interference in the natural process and always wrong. You may disagree. I may disagree. But that is what it believes and that is what it teaches.
I believe; I suspect you believe; that cannibalism is wrong. One can imagine a situation where rationalist intellectuals who held all the levers of power, argued that burying or cremating the dead was an unconscionable waste of a valuable food resource. All of us when we die should be recycled by being turned into food either for people or for medical reasons only for animals. I wouldn't feel that because my opinion was founded in a belief that those in power did not share, that should inhibit me from saying in season and out of season, that those in power were taking the rest of the world to hell in a handcart. Would you?
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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CL
Shipmate
# 16145
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
It's both realistic and hopeful. It's realistic because we the world is how it is, a continuous struggle. It's hopeful because we know that we have already won. Christ has risen from the dead.
My question would be - why does the Church, then, make it even more of a struggle in so many ways which are unnecessary for faith? (see all the dead horse issues).
Fine if one has chosen to become a Catholic. But, for example, the woman in poverty yet forced to use no contraception doesn't have that kind of choice. Why make the struggle even harder for her? This is not spiritual discipline or Christlikeness - it's unkindness of the worst sort, brought about by heaping guilt on others imo.
Not only is the above not correct, it's not even wrong.
Posts: 647 | From: Ireland | Registered: Jan 2011
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
Good example Enoch. Made me think of the dystopian future in Soylent Green.
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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
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I wouldn't feel that because my opinion was founded in a belief that those in power did not share, that should inhibit me from saying in season and out of season, that those in power were taking the rest of the world to hell in a handcart. Would you?
Except that it's the RC which has the people in power who are giving out the edicts which disadvantage others - not the systems in political power. The RC are the ones who give women and gay people such a raw deal - not the 'rationalist intellectuals'.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
'forced to use no contraception' is a bit strong.
While it is true that in some parts of the world - very few - where the Catholic Church can make it difficult for people to access contraceptive devices,I cannot think of anywhere in the world where the Catholic Church can force anyone not to use contraception.
True - it's more of a guilt trip than overt force.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
Boogie, is there no part of your mind in which you can even entertain the possibility - however seemingly remote - that the RCC teaches what it does about sexual ethics because it genuinely belives that this teaching is of God? Must it be instead a pointlessly cruel abuse of power all the way down?
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I wouldn't feel that because my opinion was founded in a belief that those in power did not share, that should inhibit me from saying in season and out of season, that those in power were taking the rest of the world to hell in a handcart. Would you?
Except that it's the RC which has the people in power who are giving out the edicts which disadvantage others - not the systems in political power. The RC are the ones who give women and gay people such a raw deal - not the 'rationalist intellectuals'.
Is the RCC stopping you from arguing your case?
Unless you're one of the few residents of its enclave in Rome, the RCC has not been exercising power in that way since the end of the Papal States in 1870.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Boogie, is there no part of your mind in which you can even entertain the possibility - however seemingly remote - that the RCC teaches what it does about sexual ethics because it genuinely belives that this teaching is of God? Must it be instead a pointlessly cruel abuse of power all the way down?
There's no reason - and I could come up with a bazillion examples from religion, politics, ethics - that it cannot be what the RCC genuinely believes is the teaching of God, and a cruel abuse of power.
I'd grant you the 'pointless', because it's clearly not pointless.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Boogie, is there no part of your mind in which you can even entertain the possibility - however seemingly remote - that the RCC teaches what it does about sexual ethics because it genuinely belives that this teaching is of God? Must it be instead a pointlessly cruel abuse of power all the way down?
Is it not very easy to continue believing what works well for them? They would change their minds if they were women or gay, methinks!
And, before you tell me many women agree with them - I know this.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
I'll take that as a "no" and a "yes" respectively then.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Planeta Plicata
Shipmate
# 17543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Is it not very easy to continue believing what works well for them? They would change their minds if they were women or gay, methinks!
If self-interest played as big a role in determining Catholic doctrine as the usual snide comments imply, you'd think they would have got round to abolishing clerical celibacy by now.
Posts: 53 | Registered: Feb 2013
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Horseman Bree
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# 5290
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Posted
Self-interest has had a viable role in the church (just as it has in the rest of the world) for quite a long time. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that many of the arguments of the early Church were also power struggles, settled by underhanded means, for instance, just as it is difficult to see the action of the Holy Spirit in some of the bickerings of the C of E, or of the Baptists, or of the Mormons (see: recent admissions about J. Smith's many wives)
Why would the RC church be exempt from mere humanity?
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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