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Source: (consider it) Thread: Excommunication
PaulTH*
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# 320

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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Do the "exclusivist" claims of Islam bother you as much as the Catholic claims? If not, why not?

The exclusivist claims of any institution, religion or philosophy bother me equally, especially when they relate to such important matters as where, and in what state, we may spend eternity. Catholicism, some forms of Protestantism and Islam have nothing to choose between them in this respect. This is because I hold to an opinion that anything we can say about God is wrong, or at best speculative. It often surprises me that some devotees of a particular religious tradition can't see this.

To a Christian, followers of other faiths are all duped, presumably by satan. To a Muslim, Christians are idol worshippers, worshipping a man as God. To a Protestant there's a fair amount of idol worship in both Orthodoxy and Catholicism. To an Orthodox Christian, the rest of Christendom is schismatic. The list of all these exclusivities is endless. As an earth creature with an ape brain, I couldn't begin to fathom which human tradition has been lucky enough to have been granted an exclusive insight into the mind of God, while all the rest of the world is duped by ignorance.

Hence I don't do exclusive. It's a divisive cause of war, persecution and intolerance of others. All food for satan.

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Yours in Christ
Paul

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Sorry, that's merging two quite different issues both of which might be important, but which are nothing like the same.

To be honest, I don't think I merged anything. I was pretty much exclusively talking about your A.

As to:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
B. is whether, if an organisation claims to be Christian, that should have implications for the ethos, the level of care and integrity etc within it, whether being Christian should make a difference to how as an organisation it behaves, in its dealings with the world around, its members and particularly, its staff.

It is possible for an organisation to have a management structure that is fully compliant with its doctrinal understanding of A and for it to ignore B. Complying with A does not protect it from its way of conducting itself being a complete travesty of every way in which the belief it should have in B should bear fruit.

I think I would broadly agree. That too, surely, is rather uncontroversial.

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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."

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Nick Tamen

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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
A. is whether the management structure for running the church is divinely commanded, of the esse rather than just the bene esse. If you are RC or Calvinist by background, you are likely to insist that it is, though from scripture and tradition, you will deduce a markedly different structure.

FWIW, the Calvinist/Reformed view is that the specific structure of church government is de bene esse, not de esse.

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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott

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Enoch
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quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
FWIW, the Calvinist/Reformed view is that the specific structure of church government is de bene esse, not de esse.

That's interesting, and I would certainly bow to your knowledge as one who unlike me, comes from that background. I have though met people from that tradition who have given the impression that they regard the creation and following of what they would call a New Testament church structure as being a binding requirement, with full doctrinal force.

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Although, as a Jesuit, he's doctrinally conservative

Ok, that's funny. I stopped trying to work out by how many decades that is wide of the mark when I got to over 6.
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Then he called to Extraordinary Synod of 2014, followed by the Ordinary Synod of 2015. There he found that the Church, as a whole, is unable to budge anything like as much as he would have wanted.

This is true.
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
The Pope's pastoral instincts which were honed in his native Argentina, have come to nothing against the sclerotic institutions of the machine.

That's an interesting way to put it. Some of us would instead say that it became clear that between the settled doctrine and the pastoral implementation of that teaching, there was not nearly as much wiggle-room as there was assumed by many (including the Holy Father himself) to be. Familiaris consortio (1981) had, of course, already covered the same ground; a proper reappraisal of that document (treating it as a step rather than a stumbling-block) could have saved a huge amount of strife, uncertaintly, disappointment and ink.

[ 23. May 2016, 15:45: Message edited by: Chesterbelloc ]

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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."

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Nick Tamen

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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
FWIW, the Calvinist/Reformed view is that the specific structure of church government is de bene esse, not de esse.

That's interesting, and I would certainly bow to your knowledge as one who unlike me, comes from that background. I have though met people from that tradition who have given the impression that they regard the creation and following of what they would call a New Testament church structure as being a binding requirement, with full doctrinal force.
I have no doubt that you have met such people. But they would be the exceptions on the edges, not the mainstream.

Which is not to say that the mainstream would not assert that a belief that the pattern adopted by most (not all) Reformed churches is indeed the New Testament pattern, and the preferable pattern. But they wouldn't go so far as to say it is essential; Calvin was open to other patterns, including the retention of bishops, which he supported maintaining in England and advocated for the Reformed Church in Poland. (The Reformed Church of Hungary still has them, as do some union churches, like the Church in South India.) Of course, he might envision the role of the bishop differently from other traditions.

In brief, the Reformed position would be that the church must be governed according to certain principles and understandings set forth in Scripture, but that the specifics can be adapted or changed from time to time and place to place, depending on the needs of the church in that time and place.

/tangent

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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott

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Russ
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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Do the "exclusivist" claims of Islam bother you as much as the Catholic claims? If not, why not?

What would be your view, Chesterbelloc, of an institution like a golf club restricting membership to male players only ?

My view would be that as a private club, as one institution among many, there's no problem with that. And indeed that the principle of freedom of association requires that male golfers are allowed to choose to hang out in a male-only group if they so wish.

But that on the other hand, if in a small mountainous country there were only one area of non-built land suitable for playing golf, then to reserve that land for the use of male folders only would be an injustice, an abuse of monopoly power.

And similarly, if the club in question had been set up by the state and funded by the state for the purpose of encouraging healthy sporting activity in the citizens then it would be a betrayal of that mission to restrict the benefits to male citizens only.

And no doctrine of the proper role of women that the existing male clubmembers may hold would make such an action OK.

So with regard to Muslims, on the one hand general principles apply just as much to them as to everyone else. If Allah says to Mohammed "go make disciples of all" or the equivalent, and Mohammed says "only the ones willing & able to learn Arabic" then that's a falling-short.

(I don't know enough about Islam to know how far it aspires to universal conversion. It's just an example of adding requirements which exclude some people).

But, not being Muslim, I don't believe that God gave Mohammed any imperative to universality. Rather I see Islam as an Arabic cultural response to a partial insight into God.

Whereas I do believe that Christian sectarianism is a contradiction, that Christians are called to a universal brotherhood (but not to a common culture). And my wife is Catholic. So the fallings-short in Catholic culture are of greater personal interest to me.

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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas

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Chesterbelloc

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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Do the "exclusivist" claims of Islam bother you as much as the Catholic claims? If not, why not?

What would be your view, Chesterbelloc, of an institution like a golf club restricting membership to male players only ?

My view would be that as a private club, as one institution among many, there's no problem with that. And indeed that the principle of freedom of association requires that male golfers are allowed to choose to hang out in a male-only group if they so wish.

Snap.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But that on the other hand, if in a small mountainous country there were only one area of non-built land suitable for playing golf, then to reserve that land for the use of male folders only would be an injustice, an abuse of monopoly power.

And similarly, if the club in question had been set up by the state and funded by the state for the purpose of encouraging healthy sporting activity in the citizens then it would be a betrayal of that mission to restrict the benefits to male citizens only.

And no doctrine of the proper role of women that the existing male clubmembers may hold would make such an action OK.

What is the point you're trying to make with this (analogy?).
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
So with regard to Muslims, on the one hand general principles apply just as much to them as to everyone else. If Allah says to Mohammed "go make disciples of all" or the equivalent, and Mohammed says "only the ones willing & able to learn Arabic" then that's a falling-short.

(I don't know enough about Islam to know how far it aspires to universal conversion. It's just an example of adding requirements which exclude some people).

And your point is that the Catholic Church is adding cultural requirements not necessary for salvation? Have I got that right? If so, it would be really useful if, without instead just proposing more hypothetical situations, analogies or questions, you would just confirm that and then tell me which cultural add-on the Church is forcing on would-be adherents.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But, not being Muslim, I don't believe that God gave Mohammed any imperative to universality. Rather I see Islam as an Arabic cultural response to a partial insight into God.

I entirely agree. I think it probably started as a more-or-less Christian heresy, premissed on a misunderstanding of Christian sources, which gradually developed into its own, radically distinct thing.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Whereas I do believe that Christian sectarianism is a contradiction, that Christians are called to a universal brotherhood (but not to a common culture). And my wife is Catholic. So the fallings-short in Catholic culture are of greater personal interest to me.

But what are these shortfallings, according to you? Because Catholicism seems to me to be one of the most culturally diverse religions on the planet.

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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."

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PaulTH*
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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Some of us would instead say that it became clear that between the settled doctrine and the pastoral implementation of that teaching, there was not nearly as much wiggle-room as there was assumed by many (including the Holy Father himself) to be. Familiaris consortio (1981) had, of course, already covered the same ground; a proper reappraisal of that document (treating it as a step rather than a stumbling-block) could have saved a huge amount of strife, uncertaintly, disappointment and ink.

This is so true. I think back in 2013, the Holy Father perhaps didn't quite realise the extent of the lack of wiggle room. His questionnaire to the faithful was meant to give him the ammunition he needed to instigate pastoral change. The two synods brought home to him the realities of constraint. Even Pope Benedict XVI, back in 1972 as a theologian, made proposals not dissimilar to those made by Cardinal Kasper. But he later claimed that once the Magisterium had pronounced on the issue, with Familiaris Consortio, the matter was settled.

Which brings me to wonder. If FC is regarded as an infallible pronouncement of the Magisterium, why did Pope Francis initiate this whole process? As Chesterbelloc said, he "could have saved a huge amount of strife, uncertainty, disappointment and ink"

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Yours in Christ
Paul

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St Deird
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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
In which case, yes, in general I would condemn such inconsistency and have no qualms about doing it as a faithful Catholic. I can think of concrete instances of that right now, but I won't share them out loud, if you don't mind.

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
If so, it would be really useful if, without instead just proposing more hypothetical situations, analogies or questions, you would just confirm that and then tell me which cultural add-on the Church is forcing on would-be adherents.

I'm not sure how those two statements aren't rather problematic, taken together. Why do you get to confine yourself to hypotheticals when your opponents have to be specific?

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Chesterbelloc

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I haven't been confining myself to hypotheticls, though. The instance you quote above was one where I thought no particular good - for the purposes of the conversation - would come of me spelling out some of the inconsistencies I perceive.

But since you ask, I was thinking of the way the Family Synods were conducted and the ensuing document Amoris Laetitia - as I've just been been discussing with PaulTH above.

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Eliab
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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
What is the point you're trying to make with this (analogy?)

I think the point is that, while my reasons for thinking that you might not be a good fit with the rest of my private prayer group might be very convincing, I would need to be a lot surer of my ground before declaring that you are excluded from the universal Church of Jesus Christ, which is the primary mode of salvation for the whole world*.

Your arguments have a tendency to blur two, very different, lines of defence for the Catholic position. The first is the "our club, our rules" approach that Russ is (I think) primarily attacking, on the grounds that you don't really think that the RCC is just "our club" or that its teachings are merely "our rules".

The second approach is to defend the teachings themselves as God-given, which is in my view the stronger and more consistent position, but then the challenge for you is to argue that on something like the divorce/remarriage question, the Catholic line is not only right, and important, but so important as to be worth separating from otherwise-faithful Christians if they disagree with you.

The doctrine/culture thing is a red herring, I think. The more important distinction is the worth-splitting-the-church-over/Christians-may-reasonably-differ one. You're not being asked "why are you right?" but "why do you think it's right to divide the Church over this?"


(*I suspect from your posts that you would personally be exactly as indifferent to my opinion about your ultimate salvation as you would be about my view of your suitability for a prayer group, and that you're slightly baffled why anyone confident in their own views would see an important distinction between the two. I think you're unusual in that respect. Russ's analogy distinguishes can't-join-this-golf-club from can't-play-golf-at-all to make a similar distinction, which I think was the point).

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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

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Enoch
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Eliab, I think there is much profound wisdom on what you've just written. Thank you. To me it gets a [Overused]

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I think the point is that, while my reasons for thinking that you might not be a good fit with the rest of my private prayer group might be very convincing, I would need to be a lot surer of my ground before declaring that you are excluded from the universal Church of Jesus Christ, which is the primary mode of salvation for the whole world.

The Catholic Church believes that it is the primary mode of salvation for all of God's people. True. Other Christians have different ideas and think that this Catholic claim is erroneous. Such Christians naturally need not concern themselves about not being able to sign up as members of the Catholic Church, since they do not believe they are jeopardising their chances of salvation thereby, and Catholics can't stop them living their own faith life to the full. Each having explained their position to the other, and each deciding how to practise their own faith, the matter rests. God, meanwhile, will save those whom He will, no matter what either group believes.

If you think there is a problem with this situation, what do you think the Catholic Church should do differently here? Would it be anything short of ceasing to believe that Christ founded her as the ark of salvation?
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Your arguments have a tendency to blur two, very different, lines of defence for the Catholic position. The first is the "our club, our rules" approach that Russ is (I think) primarily attacking, on the grounds that you don't really think that the RCC is just "our club" or that its teachings are merely "our rules".

True (though I don't see the "blurring" you talk about). But we can't make others agree with us, and if they are right we ARE just a club amongst others. We can deal with that. If others can't accept this, and they can't bring themselves to sign up to membership of our "club", what do you think we should do about this?
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
The second approach is to defend the teachings themselves as God-given, which is in my view the stronger and more consistent position, but then the challenge for you is to argue that on something like the divorce/remarriage question, the Catholic line is not only right, and important, but so important as to be worth separating from otherwise-faithful Christians if they disagree with you.

Hold on - who's doing the "separating"? We think what we think about divorce/remarriages; others think differently. We believe we are right; we cannot make everyone else do so. So we are mutually separated by that lack of agreement. If you're talking about other Catholics not agreeing with the Church's teaching on this, then we ask them to stay with us but also to respect the Church's teaching by not violating it, or if they cannot do that to refrain from receiving Communion unless/until they can "make a good confession" re such a violation. And we can't even enforce that!
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
The doctrine/culture thing is a red herring, I think.

Well, that's a relief!
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
The more important distinction is the worth-splitting-the-church-over/Christians-may-reasonably-differ one. You're not being asked "why are you right?" but "why do you think it's right to divide the Church over this?"

Again, who's "dividing the Church" here?
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I suspect from your posts that you would personally be exactly as indifferent to my opinion about your ultimate salvation as you would be about my view of your suitability for a prayer group, and that you're slightly baffled why anyone confident in their own views would see an important distinction between the two. I think you're unusual in that respect.

I may be, for all I know. But if I genuinely believed you to be wrong in your view of my chances of salvation, I could regret that we differ, without letting it worry me personally about my salvation. If it niggled me, against my better judgement, that's when I might get back to you to talk it through again.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Russ's analogy distinguishes can't-join-this-golf-club from can't-play-golf-at-all to make a similar distinction, which I think was the point).

I don't think Russ's analogy works.

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moonlitdoor
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quote:

If you think there is a problem with this situation, what do you think the Catholic Church should do differently here? Would it be anything short of ceasing to believe that Christ founded her as the ark of salvation?

Of course I am not Eliab but for me it would be far short of the Catholic church ceasing to believe that.

I don't know whether or not there is an institutional church that is the primary mode of salvation for the world, but if there is, it's fairly likely to be the Catholic church, certainly a lot more likely than the Anglican church of which I am a member.

Therefore if I could become Catholic without promising to believe something that I don't, I would become Catholic. The longer the list of things I must believe to become a Catholic, the less likely it is that I could do that. The shorter the list, the more likely it is that I could.

Obviously it is not for me to tell the Catholic church what to do, but what would help me is if it said 'here are our teachings which we proclaim and govern ourselves by, but if you are not able to believe some of them, you can still come in.'

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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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I can understand that sort of dilemma, moonlitdoor. I recognise some of it from the period before my own conversion.

But the nub of it is this: becoming a Catholic involves accepting - giving willing assent to - the idea that the Church is an authoritative teacher of faith and morals. That she has the charism of teaching the truth. This is the key for converts, it seems to me.

It's not about accepting a whole list of things - it starts and ends with this one big thing. And when one's own judgement conflicts with the Church's definitive teaching on some matter (and by no means everything the Church teaches is a definitive matter requiring complete assent) one is required to endure that tension that rather than simply rejecting the doctrine for one's own opinion.

Thus it's not a matter of working through a checklist as much as it is making a decision to accept the Church's claim to be an authoritative teacher of faith and morals. No-one is going to get you to sign off specifically on each and every defined doctrine, and not all of your individual reservations are necessarily going to disappear overnight. But it requires making an act of trust, of faith, an affirmation in the Church's doctrinal charism, and a commitment at least not openly to oppose or undermine in the Church's authority in teaching those doctrines with which one struggles to give full intellectual assent. I.e., not to make it a habit to prefer one's own opinions to the Church's core teaching, but rather to continue to leave oneself open to the possibility of being surprised by the truth.

That one bare minimum requirement is a big ask, of course - no doubt about that. But anyone who cannot do that - or would think it an impossible indignity to their own intellect to do so - would, it seems to me, almost certainly be deeply unhappy as a Catholic.

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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."

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Eliab
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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
If you think there is a problem with this situation, what do you think the Catholic Church should do differently here? Would it be anything short of ceasing to believe that Christ founded her as the ark of salvation?

Obviously I do think that the Catholic Church should cease believing that it’s “the Church” in a way that the rest of us aren’t, because I think that claim is untrue. If I didn’t think it untrue, I’d become a Catholic. But since that’s not going to happen, I think the general rule to apply is this:

If you think that membership of your church is an ordinary requirement* for salvation, then what you require as conditions of membership should be exactly coterminous with what you think it is usually necessary to do to be saved. If you ask for less, then you risk misleading your members, if you ask more, you are imposing a barrier to salvation where God did not. Both of these things are self-evidently bad.

It is, of course, open to you to say that the RCC does just that. But in practice, I rather doubt it. If I converted to Catholicism I’d have to declare that I accepted everything that the Church teaches. As there’s a lot that I can’t and don’t accept, that’s not a promise I can make. Therefore unless the RCC thinks that all its controversial teachings are matters of salvation (and if so, the current Pope’s talk of pastoral accommodation sounds downright misleading and dangerous to me), it is in fact placing unwarranted obstacles in the way of my joining it.

quote:
But we can't make others agree with us, and if they are right we ARE just a club amongst others.
I don’t think I agree. I’m not a Catholic, but I don’t think you’re just a club. You’re the largest part of a Church that ought to be united – and arguably (the Orthodox differ) the most senior part. You’re the default expression of Christianity in much (most?) of the world. I don’t think any Christian should be indifferent to what the RCC teaches. You are “our religion” in an important sense, despite our divisions.

quote:
Hold on - who's doing the "separating"? We think what we think about divorce/remarriages; others think differently. We believe we are right; we cannot make everyone else do so. So we are mutually separated by that lack of agreement.
[…]
Again, who's "dividing the Church" here?

Well obviously the side that says “we can’t be united unless you agree with me about X” is doing the separating and dividing.

There’s no inherent reason why Christians can’t be united despite disagreements – everyone disagrees with someone in their church about something. Mutual disagreement does not imply necessary separation: the person who make X a criterion for membership or unity is doing something more than merely disagreeing about X.

That’s a quite different question to “who is right about X?”.

quote:
I don't think Russ's analogy works.
Only because it’s obvious whether a person is playing golf, but not obvious whether they are part of a true church. I think it works find to make the point that more is required to justify excluding someone from an activity absolutely, than to justify excluding them from one particular group that practices that activity.

(*I say ordinary requirement, because as I understand it, it’s consistent with Catholicism to believe that God might make many exceptions to save those outside the RCC, and to hope that he will in fact do so in every particular case).

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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

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Forthview
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For all we know God may make many exceptions in the case of those within the RC church.
There is no guarantee of salvation just because one has been baptised. One has to try to live ,as best one can , a life which is permeated with love of God and of neighbour.

It is God who is the final judge and arbiter of our eternal salvation, not actually the Catholic Church.

The Church has the role and mandate of announcing God's Word to all who will listen. It can and should give the faithful directions. but it is not the Church who is the judge.

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Enoch
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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I can understand that sort of dilemma, moonlitdoor. I recognise some of it from the period before my own conversion.

But the nub of it is this: becoming a Catholic involves accepting - giving willing assent to - the idea that the Church is an authoritative teacher of faith and morals. That she has the charism of teaching the truth. This is the key for converts, it seems to me.

It's not about accepting a whole list of things - it starts and ends with this one big thing. And when one's own judgement conflicts with the Church's definitive teaching on some matter (and by no means everything the Church teaches is a definitive matter requiring complete assent) one is required to endure that tension that rather than simply rejecting the doctrine for one's own opinion.

Thus it's not a matter of working through a checklist as much as it is making a decision to accept the Church's claim to be an authoritative teacher of faith and morals. No-one is going to get you to sign off specifically on each and every defined doctrine, and not all of your individual reservations are necessarily going to disappear overnight. But it requires making an act of trust, of faith, an affirmation in the Church's doctrinal charism, and a commitment at least not openly to oppose or undermine in the Church's authority in teaching those doctrines with which one struggles to give full intellectual assent. I.e., not to make it a habit to prefer one's own opinions to the Church's core teaching, but rather to continue to leave oneself open to the possibility of being surprised by the truth.

That one bare minimum requirement is a big ask, of course - no doubt about that. But anyone who cannot do that - or would think it an impossible indignity to their own intellect to do so - would, it seems to me, almost certainly be deeply unhappy as a Catholic.

Chesterbelloc, I accept that you'll almost certainly disagree fundamentally with me on this, but I don't think the core commitment of a Christian is about "accepting - giving willing assent to - the idea that the Church is an authoritative teacher of faith and morals". Nor, and for the same reason, which I'll come to, is it about "making a decision to accept the Church's claim to be an authoritative teacher of faith and morals." This is a different facet of what I was trying to express a few weeks ago about Christian faith being something much more than and quite different from, a philosophy.

The Christian faith is about a personal commitment to Jesus Christ as Son of God and Lord, the New Testament equivalent of Joshua's charge 'choose you this day whom you shall serve, but as for me and my family, we will serve the LORD'. The Church is the society of those who have responded to that challenge and are trying to live it out. Although I accept that organisation is in practice necessary, being a Christian - whether a Catholic one, or some other, and as you would see it, some inferior sort of Christian - is a matter of personal fealty to a person, not commitment to an organisation, or even, for that matter, a collection of teachings or ethical propositions.

There is even, as I see it, quite a serious danger that if one places too strong an emphasis on either the structural obligations or the ideology one thinks derive from that commitment, they can come to replace it, to become a substitute for it, a way of evading it.

I'm not a Catholic. Back in the days before, and even just after the 2nd World War, the RCC did appear to outsiders often to present the Catholic faith, as distinct from non-Catholic faith rather in terms as though it was lived as a commitment to the organisation expressed through strenuous obedience to its structural and ideological obligations. However, I have got quite a strong impression that for much of my lifetime (certainly since the 1960s) the RCC has been trying very hard to wean those of its faithful who have a yen to be content with that sort of faith away from it, to impress upon them that it is something a great deal more.

To put it very simply, to be a Catholic is the recommended way of being a Christian, rather than to be a Christian is part of how to be a good Catholic.

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Russ
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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
anyone who cannot do that - or would think it an impossible indignity to their own intellect to do so - would, it seems to me, almost certainly be deeply unhappy as a Catholic.

Suppose for a moment that you're right about this.

What I'm saying is that what this means depends on whether you see the Catholic church as one liferaft among many (the original ark of salvation having fragmented long ago) or as the only seaworthy fragment amongst the wreckage.

If you believe it's one among many, then informing people's choice of vessel by telling them what type of people would be deeply unhappy aboard yours is a thoughtful and considerate act.

If you believe it's the only one that will stay afloat, then what you're saying is that we can come aboard and have our lives made miserable by you and those who think as you do, or we can drown, and you don't really care either way.

Monopoly makes a difference.

Which was part of the point of the analogy about golfers. Which my spellchecker or lack of digital dexterity rendered as "folders" - hope the intended meaning was clear.

Do you disagree with my conclusion about the rights and wrongs of inclusion or exclusion from golf (perhaps because you think that freedom of association is an absolute right ?) ?

Or agree in that particular example but think I'm mistaken in seeing a general principle therein (because you'd reach a different conclusion in different hypothetical situations ?) ?

Or agree that it's true as a general principle but claim the Catholic church as a special case where that principle doesn't apply ?

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Enoch
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
anyone who cannot do that - or would think it an impossible indignity to their own intellect to do so - would, it seems to me, almost certainly be deeply unhappy as a Catholic.

Suppose for a moment that you're right about this.

What I'm saying is that what this means depends on whether you see the Catholic church as one liferaft among many (the original ark of salvation having fragmented long ago) or as the only seaworthy fragment amongst the wreckage.

If you believe it's one among many, then informing people's choice of vessel by telling them what type of people would be deeply unhappy aboard yours is a thoughtful and considerate act.

If you believe it's the only one that will stay afloat, then what you're saying is that we can come aboard and have our lives made miserable by you and those who think as you do, or we can drown, and you don't really care either way. ...

That's rather a good analogy. It gets a [Overused]

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Chesterbelloc

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Obviously I do think that the Catholic Church should cease believing that it’s “the Church” in a way that the rest of us aren’t, because I think that claim is untrue. If I didn’t think it untrue, I’d become a Catholic.

That's fair enough, Eliab.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
If you think that membership of your church is an ordinary requirement* for salvation, then what you require as conditions of membership should be exactly coterminous with what you think it is usually necessary to do to be saved. If you ask for less, then you risk misleading your members, if you ask more, you are imposing a barrier to salvation where God did not. Both of these things are self-evidently bad.

It is, of course, open to you to say that the RCC does just that.

And I'm afraid that that is what I do claim.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
If I converted to Catholicism I’d have to declare that I accepted everything that the Church teaches. As there’s a lot that I can’t and don’t accept, that’s not a promise I can make.

Yes, not one by one, but simply to declare that you accept the authority of the Church to teach what the Church does teach, at the level it teaches it. But it does not require you specifically to forswear any particular one of your existing beliefs in detail or by name: just to place your personal opinions in general under the Church's doctrines when she teaches something definitively. It's not making a magic "press the button, now I believe!" decision, but rather to respect the Church's authority to teach what she does and not openly to oppose your opinion to it. In short, to admit that your opinion is fallible in the way the Church's definitive teaches are not.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Therefore unless the RCC thinks that all its controversial teachings are matters of salvation (and if so, the current Pope’s talk of pastoral accommodation sounds downright misleading and dangerous to me), it is in fact placing unwarranted obstacles in the way of my joining it..

It's not so much that each and every one of her teachings are separately salvation-issues, but that submitting to the Church's authority to teach is an "ordinary requirement" for salvation. As the Catechism puts it, "Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it."
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
But we can't make others agree with us, and if they are right we ARE just a club amongst others.
I don’t think I agree. I’m not a Catholic, but I don’t think you’re just a club. You’re the largest part of a Church that ought to be united – and arguably (the Orthodox differ) the most senior part. You’re the default expression of Christianity in much (most?) of the world. I don’t think any Christian should be indifferent to what the RCC teaches. You are “our religion” in an important sense, despite our divisions.
Well, I thank you for that frank expression of respect for the Catholic Church's position in the Christian world. Let me phrase it differently then: if we are wrong, then others are right that membership of the Catholic Church is not an "ordinary requirement" of salvation. And, if they really believe that, I don't understand why they would be concerned about their chances of salvation on that score.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Hold on - who's doing the "separating"? We think what we think about divorce/remarriages; others think differently. We believe we are right; we cannot make everyone else do so. So we are mutually separated by that lack of agreement.
[…]
Again, who's "dividing the Church" here?

Well obviously the side that says “we can’t be united unless you agree with me about X” is doing the separating and dividing.
That's a rather misleading way of putting it. The Church teaches what it teaches; it does so with a concern for the truth, and never with a concern to divide itself from others. Those already outside the Catholic Church who cannot accept what she teaches are not being "cut off" from the Church by anything she has done.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
There’s no inherent reason why Christians can’t be united despite disagreements – everyone disagrees with someone in their church about something. Mutual disagreement does not imply necessary separation:

Right, depending on your definition of united, of course. Given enough disagreements, there's unlikely to be full organic communion.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
the person who make X a criterion for membership or unity is doing something more than merely disagreeing about X. That’s a quite different question to “who is right about X?”..

What do you mean by that? It is clear that the Church disagrees with those outside her about what it is necessary to believe (ie., give assent to) to be a member of the Church that Jesus Christ founded - obviously. But such disagreements have implications and consequences. I don't see how that makes it "more than" a disagreement, though.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
I don't think Russ's analogy works.
Only because it’s obvious whether a person is playing golf, but not obvious whether they are part of a true church.
Precisely. And also because the Church doesn't try to stop other Christians from doing anything. Unless you already think Catholicism has authority over other Christians, why not just tell the Church politely to piss of and do your own thing - something which to them is just as much "golf" as what the Church plays? The vast majority of non-Catholics really don't seem to have a problem doing just that.

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mdijon
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
If you believe it's the only one that will stay afloat, then what you're saying is that we can come aboard and have our lives made miserable by you and those who think as you do, or we can drown, and you don't really care either way.

I think the RC would say it is the surest one to stay afloat, but in your analogy would say that complaining about not being let on board despite not wanting to follow all the rules is like arguing with the captain about putting out a cigarette before boarding the flammable hull, or refusing to take part on rowing with all the other passengers when the engines fail. The RC would say that the rules aren't some sort of arbitrary decision to make its hierarchy happy but an important part of a safe and successful voyage. So while they would like to have you aboard they reluctantly can't while you won't sign up to the package.

(Not my view of course but one has to try to be fair).

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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
If you believe it's the only one that will stay afloat, then what you're saying is that we can come aboard and have our lives made miserable by you and those who think as you do, or we can drown, and you don't really care either way.

I think the RC would say it is the surest one to stay afloat, but in your analogy would say that complaining about not being let on board despite not wanting to follow all the rules is like arguing with the captain about putting out a cigarette before boarding the flammable hull, or refusing to take part on rowing with all the other passengers when the engines fail. The RC would say that the rules aren't some sort of arbitrary decision to make its hierarchy happy but an important part of a safe and successful voyage. So while they would like to have you aboard they reluctantly can't while you won't sign up to the package.
This.

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
The Christian faith is about a personal commitment to Jesus Christ as Son of God and Lord, the New Testament equivalent of Joshua's charge 'choose you this day whom you shall serve, but as for me and my family, we will serve the LORD'. The Church is the society of those who have responded to that challenge and are trying to live it out. Although I accept that organisation is in practice necessary, being a Christian - whether a Catholic one, or some other, and as you would see it, some inferior sort of Christian - is a matter of personal fealty to a person, not commitment to an organisation, or even, for that matter, a collection of teachings or ethical propositions.

First, I think you're setting up a false dichotomy - certainly, for Catholics it will seem so. I was premising my remarks to moonlitdoor on the assumption that he had already nailed his colours to the banner of Christ - which is of course the basic requirement of being any kind of Christian. But we also have to work out how to follow Christ, and for Catholics it is by belonging to and following the teachings of the Church that He founded and guides - which the Holy Spirit is "leading into all truth". So Christ is the who/what/why and the Church is the how.
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
To put it very simply, to be a Catholic is the recommended way of being a Christian, rather than to be a Christian is part of how to be a good Catholic.

Naturally, I agree with you here entirely - as does (and always has) the Church.

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Monopoly makes a difference.

Only to those who think there really is a monopoly. And why the heck would non-Catholics who have rejected the Church's definition of herself believe that there was any such thing?

In your analogy of the one true golf course, the official golfers really do have a monopoly on golf because they have what everyone would have to accept as the only golf course - it's self-evident, because they're all working from the same definition of golf and golf course and it is empirically obvious that there is only one. And that's precisely where the analogy breaks down with the case of Catholics and non-Catholic Christians.

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Forthview
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Enoch - there is no reason for any Catholic to think that Christians who are not in full communion with the Holy See are 'inferior' to those who are.

Christians who are not in full communion with the Holy See are simply Christians who are not in communion with the Holy See .Full Stop.

Of course there may be Catholics who believe that those who are not Catholics are 'inferior'

But there will no doubt be Anglicans who believe that non-conformists are 'inferior' to Anglicans, as well as English people who believe that everyone who is not English is inferior to those who are. I hope that you belong to neither of these camps.

I read recently that there are actually not one, not two , not three , but indeed four Catholic Churches.

1. the community of Christians forming 17% of the world population, united in a common baptism, a common eucharist and a common belief in the Petrine primacy.

2. The Catholic Church as it sees itself fulfilling God's plan in preaching His word and celebrating His Sacraments.

3. The Catholic Church, as it actually is in everyday life with the same human limitations as the members of a golf club, carrying out acts of friendship and aid, as well as riven with jealousy ,envy , hate and sometime immorality.

4. The Catholic Church as it is seen and understood (often wrongly ) by outsiders, sometimes evoking admiration and at other times, despair and contestation and disbelief.

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moonlitdoor
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For me the problem with what mdijon said is that I don't see what one believes as quite the same thing as following the rules.

I can choose to follow rules that I don't agree with, and indeed have to do so every day at work. Choosing to agree with the rules is not the same thing.

Neither in being rescued by a boat nor in joining a church would I object to following its rules of behaviour.

I think Chesterbelloc is being a bit too binary
in suggesting that people are either Catholics or have definitively rejected all the Catholic church's claims. I believe at least that it represents more fully than any Protestant church ( in which I include Anglicans ) the continuation of the church founded by the apostles of Christ.

That alone is sufficient reason for feeling that it would be good to be in it regardless of its exact role in salvation.

However the reason I know I cannot is because I don't believe in the authoritative teaching without error. That is not because I think I am more likely to be right than the church. Temperamentally it is comfortable to form one's own opinions but intellectually I think a church that has been studying spiritual matters for centuries is more likely to get them right than me.

I don't believe it because I don't find the church's teaching to remain the same over time, so I don't see how it could all be right. For example I think that things which Pope Pius X
considered modernist heresy are considered acceptable by Pope Francis. I don't mean that to sound as though I am taking one side or the other, I just think their teachings are quite different.

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I don't think the core commitment of a Christian is about "accepting - giving willing assent to - the idea that the Church is an authoritative teacher of faith and morals". Nor, and for the same reason, which I'll come to, is it about "making a decision to accept the Church's claim to be an authoritative teacher of faith and morals." [...]

The Christian faith is about a personal commitment to Jesus Christ as Son of God and Lord, the New Testament equivalent of Joshua's charge 'choose you this day whom you shall serve, but as for me and my family, we will serve the LORD'. The Church is the society of those who have responded to that challenge and are trying to live it out. Although I accept that organisation is in practice necessary, being a Christian - whether a Catholic one, or some other, and as you would see it, some inferior sort of Christian - is a matter of personal fealty to a person, not commitment to an organisation, or even, for that matter, a collection of teachings or ethical propositions.

I don't entirely agree with your point here.

The Protestant belief is that salvation is in Christ, not in the Church, but to a considerable extent the great diversity of denominations exists precisely because Christians disagree about what 'a personal commitment to Christ' and 'serv[ing] the Lord' actually mean. We argue about moral behaviour because we have different understandings of how God is served or not served through particular behaviours.

Even the so-called broad church of the CofE has its creeds (although the vicar at the church I went to on Sunday evening preached that if it were up to her, the creeds wouldn't be recited because they fail to acknowledge the mystery at the heart of God. Perhaps there are many other Anglicans who would agree with her on that).

Denominations that deliberately do without creeds or doctrines are likely to be small and marginal, even though groups like the Quakers and the Unitarians are famous for their historical presence and activism.

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Enoch
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Svitlana, I'm not saying what I think you imagine I'm saying. I agree with having creeds etc. However, as I see it, they provide a framework within which to work out and live by the underlying personal commitment and fealty, not the essence to which we are actually committed.

When it comes to the divisions in the Protestant part of Christendom, quite a lot of them derive from people believing the part of the church they grew up in has become so complacent, so sclerotic that this is preventing them and others from living out that faith and serving God as they believe he wants to be served.

[ 27. May 2016, 22:05: Message edited by: Enoch ]

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
I don't believe it because I don't find the church's teaching to remain the same over time, so I don't see how it could all be right. For example I think that things which Pope Pius X
considered modernist heresy are considered acceptable by Pope Francis. I don't mean that to sound as though I am taking one side or the other, I just think their teachings are quite different.

And that that very appearance of difference is a scandal to those who might otherwise join the Church is a very grievous wrong which I think the Catholic Church must urgently address. I say appearance because, if you look at actual defintive teaching documents, as opposed to the non-definitive asseverations of individual popes and other bishops, that difference disappears. It is still clear what the Church actually teaches if one goes to the effort to search for it, but it is lamentable that one has to look so hard to discover it.

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Svitlana, I'm not saying what I think you imagine I'm saying. I agree with having creeds etc. However, as I see it, they provide a framework within which to work out and live by the underlying personal commitment and fealty, not the essence to which we are actually committed.

This is an interesting issue, because I think some Christians make less of a distinction between these two things than others appear to do.

In the mainstream Protestant churches we see the admirable figure of Jesus, our devotional focus, on the one hand, and all the difficult theological challenges of making the Bible relevant and meaningful in our modern, individualistic and secularised lives on the other.

However, I'm not convinced that all Christian denominations are so binary. I'd say that the Seventh Day Adventists, for example, see far less of a gap between Christ and Christian doctrine than this. In this approach, perhaps they're closer to the RCC than much of Protestantism is (although they deeply disapprove of the RCC).

As I think Chesterbelloc has said above, though, the RCC leadership has frequently failed at (or just been indifferent to) transmitting the 'essential' quality of some of its doctrines to its members, so when all is said and done I suppose it has to be pragmatic. In modern times this situation must be partly due to the chronic shortage of priests, but this surely couldn't have been the excuse in centuries past.

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leo
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I can't say that Chesterbelloc's vision he RCC is very missional -I have often thought of crossing the Tiber but I stop when I hear those sort or views which don't accept the provisionality of any claims to know Gosd.

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Russ
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# 120

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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Is it that you think that Jesus explicitly taught the "Catholic positions" on such cultural questions as being the will of God ?

Yes, sometimes directly. In the case of remarriage after divorce, for example.

As I understand it the current position of the Catholic church is that people cannot divorce, and that the church therefore judges their subsequent actions on the basis of them still being married to the original partner.

Whereas I believe that people should not divorce, that each individual's part in the death of a marriage is something that should be repented. But that once it has been repented and forgiven, what God requires of them is that they try to do better in whatever subsequent relationship they enter into.

I put it to you that an act of interpretation is required to get to either position from the recorded words of Jesus, and that neither was "explicitly taught" by Him.

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
people can make an idol of their own ideal of democracy every bit as much as people can and have made one of monarchy.

What does it mean to make an idol of monarchy ? What's the difference between that and merely thinking it the best system of government that humanity has so far come up with ?

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
why the heck would non-Catholics who have rejected the Church's definition of herself believe that there was any such thing?

You've said that you believe in a doctrine of authority. And that you see this doctrine as necessary (Christianity without it is pollarded) and sufficient (in that once you believe that the rest follows). I think what you're saying here is that this doctrine of authority is so central to Catholicism that anyone who rejects it (and you agree that there are people to whom this is so unpalatable that they would be deeply unhappy as part of an organisation run on this basis) has no serious or legitimate interest in the Catholic church. That they have already considered and rejected all that the church has to offer.

But it isn't so. I suggest that many non-convert Catholics would locate the centre of their faith elsewhere. In the eucharist, in prayer to Jesus and Mary, in being part of a tradition that stretches back to the earliest apostles.

So it is entirely possible to be attracted to Catholic faith, to see within the thicket a pearl of great price, without accepting the authority doctrine in the particular form in which you believe it.

What I was saying earlier, and saying badly, was that if the Catholic church comes to stand for authoritarian conservatism, instead of standing for Christ and only for Christ, then it will attract the sort of convert who is looking for certainty in a changing world. And such converts might well place a doctrine of authority at the centre... (probably still said badly...)

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
In your analogy of the one true golf course, the official golfers really do have a monopoly on golf because they have what everyone would have to accept as the only golf course - it's self-evident, because they're all working from the same definition of golf and golf course and it is empirically obvious that there is only one.

You're right that whether there is only one valid church is a matter of belief and not an observable fact.

But if the principle I'm putting forward - that monopoly creates an obligation to meet the needs of everyone - is right, then the obligation is on those who believe they have a monopoly.

Expanding the analogy to take in the aspect of belief, it is those members of the golf club committee who don't know about any secret underground golf course who are morally obliged to vote not to exclude anyone from what they believe to be the only course in the country.

If one of them finds out that there is a secret underground golf course, that lets him off the hook; he can then vote that the club should pick and choose who they want as their members (ie exercise their freedom of association) in the knowledge that there is another option available for everyone else.

--------------------
Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Is it that you think that Jesus explicitly taught the "Catholic positions" on such cultural questions as being the will of God ?

Yes, sometimes directly. In the case of remarriage after divorce, for example.

As I understand it the current position of the Catholic church is that people cannot divorce, and that the church therefore judges their subsequent actions on the basis of them still being married to the original partner.
People cannot dissolve their sacramentally valid marriages, no - but Catholics can (with permission from the Church) separate and divorce civilly whilst still being bound to continence and to respecting the bond of their marriage. If they think there are grounds for the marriage being declared null (i.e., to have suffered an impediment from the beginning) they can ask the Church to conduct annulment procedures.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I put it to you that an act of interpretation is required to get to either position from the recorded words of Jesus, and that neither was "explicitly taught" by Him.

The whole Catholic argument for this has been rehashed on the boards so many time previously that I'm not willing to go through it all again. As far as Catholics are concerned, whatever interpretive authority is required belongs to the Church - and I really don't think it takes any kind of stretch.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
people can make an idol of their own ideal of democracy every bit as much as people can and have made one of monarchy.

What does it mean to make an idol of monarchy ? What's the difference between that and merely thinking it the best system of government that humanity has so far come up with ?
People can become much to devoted to a particular form of government - of whatever type - on personal or ideological grounds, to the neglect of the purpose of government in the first place. Leo XIII upset quite a few French Catholic monarchists about this when he instructed the French Church to accept the legitimacy of the Third Republic.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
why the heck would non-Catholics who have rejected the Church's definition of herself believe that there was any such thing?

You've said that you believe in a doctrine of authority.
Yes - the doctrine that the Church has been given the authority to teach the faith.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
And that you see this doctrine as necessary (Christianity without it is pollarded) and sufficient (in that once you believe that the rest follows).

Well, what I'd say is that if you do not think that the Church has the legitimate authority to teach definitively on faith and morals, you couldn't accept the Church on her own terms.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I think what you're saying here is that this doctrine of authority is so central to Catholicism that anyone who rejects it (and you agree that there are people to whom this is so unpalatable that they would be deeply unhappy as part of an organisation run on this basis) has no serious or legitimate interest in the Catholic church. That they have already considered and rejected all that the church has to offer.

It's not so much an "authority" issue as it is a more basic thing - it's a basic identity issue. The Church is the body (His own Body) to whom Christ entrusted the teaching of the faith and the care of souls. That's what she IS. If you don't accept her as that, then you don't really accept her at all.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But it isn't so. I suggest that many non-convert Catholics would locate the centre of their faith elsewhere. In the eucharist, in prayer to Jesus and Mary, in being part of a tradition that stretches back to the earliest apostles.

So it is entirely possible to be attracted to Catholic faith, to see within the thicket a pearl of great price, without accepting the authority doctrine in the particular form in which you believe it.

So, if I rejected Islam's most central claims - that there is no God but Allah (as portrayed in the Qu'ran) and that Mohammad is his ultimate prophet - but really connected with Muslim meditative practice, the moral teachings, the aesthetic of Mosque worship and felt at home with other Muslims, could I really convert to Islam as such?

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
What I was saying earlier, and saying badly, was that if the Catholic church comes to stand for authoritarian conservatism, instead of standing for Christ and only for Christ, then it will attract the sort of convert who is looking for certainty in a changing world. And such converts might well place a doctrine of authority at the centre... (probably still said badly...)

Your "authoritarian conservatism" thing is a complete red herring. You could say the same of any body that had minimum entry requirements, of any religion that had minimum belief requirements - if they are presented as core teachings they too could be considered as authoritarian and conservative by the same token. It's just that you don't like some of the things the Church teaches consistently and authoritatively (words much less loaded than your "conservative" and "authoritarian"). And - once more for fun - no one has to believe them. Really - the Inquisition's not gonna getcha. Feel free to do your own thing.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But if the principle I'm putting forward - that monopoly creates an obligation to meet the needs of everyone - is right, then the obligation is on those who believe they have a monopoly.

The obligation those who think they have a monopoly on a given thing have is to offer everyone what they have - but they must offer what they have intact, the whole thing, not what lesser or distorted amendment of their thing they think most people will put up with. Because the monopoly the Church has is not her own - it is her Lord's and she daren't tamper with it, even if her very existence is at stake.

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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."

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Eliab
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# 9153

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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
If you think that membership of your church is an ordinary requirement* for salvation, then what you require as conditions of membership should be exactly coterminous with what you think it is usually necessary to do to be saved. […] It is, of course, open to you to say that the RCC does just that.

And I'm afraid that that is what I do claim.
I thought you might – and I can see a plausible argument for it. Christian salvation (which is the usual method for salvation that God has ordained – though I think neither of us are limiting what he can or might do) means trusting in the work and person of Jesus Christ, and trusting him implies at least some attempt to learn and obey his teachings, and those teachings are to be found most clearly in the Church he established: therefore faithful membership of the Church is, at least for those who understand that his teachings are to be found there, compulsory for those who would be saved.

I just don’t think it’s as simple as that in practice. Once you make assent to the teaching authority of the Church a salvation matter, any teaching that could potentially keep me out of the Church because I can’t accept it becomes a salvation matter – even if it is a relatively minor thing in itself – because it’s keeping me from (what you believe is) the primary source of God’s grace. That, I think (and I think Russ is arguing as well) ought to put some responsibility on the Church to ask, of all of its teachings, not just that whether you are sure that they are true, but whether you are sure that they are so vital to the faith that a convert is required to promise to accept them.

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
If I converted to Catholicism I’d have to declare that I accepted everything that the Church teaches. As there’s a lot that I can’t and don’t accept, that’s not a promise I can make.

Yes, not one by one, but simply to declare that you accept the authority of the Church to teach what the Church does teach, at the level it teaches it.
I think this shows a difference in personal approach. If I were serious asking whether I ought to become a Catholic (and I have) it would seem obvious to me that what I ought to do would be to acquire a copy of the Catechism and read it to see, in detail, one by one, all of the doctrines that I’d be signing up for (which is what I did). It wouldn’t occur to me to promise to accept the general authority of the Church before I’d done that.

Therefore the specific, individual teachings are certainly a barrier to my conversion to Catholicism. I couldn’t, for example, honestly promise to accept what the Church teaches if I knew that there’s a fair chance I might in the future make a wilful and untroubled choice to use contraception. That’s not because contraception is itself a big thing – it’s just that because on this relatively minor point I know that I certainly don’t accept what the Church teaches (I don’t believe it’s true as a matter of conviction, and I’m not going to live as if I did as a matter of discipline) I could not honestly make the promise that would be required of me if I sought membership.

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
It's not making a magic "press the button, now I believe!" decision, but rather to respect the Church's authority to teach what she does and not openly to oppose your opinion to it. In short, to admit that your opinion is fallible in the way the Church's definitive teaches are not.

OK, but I can’t simultaneously believe the Church to be both infallible and wrong. I know that I’m fallible – that’s not the issue – but if I know that the Church teaches one tiny thing that seems to me to be plainly erroneous, then that one tiny thing that I’m convinced is a error is enough to stop me from saying that I accept all that the Church teaches. And if Church membership is needed to save me, that tiny thing is what’s keeping me out.

That the RCC knows more about the faith than I do is, of course, a given, and it follows from that only as a rebuttable presumption that if the RCC and I disagree, the RCC is right. It doesn’t mean that the Church is infallible.

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
The Church teaches what it teaches; it does so with a concern for the truth, and never with a concern to divide itself from others. Those already outside the Catholic Church who cannot accept what she teaches are not being "cut off" from the Church by anything she has done.

OK. I’m not really wanting to ascribe blame for Christian division on this thread, and I’m quite willing to accept that the intent is not to be divisive. I’m more concerned to make the point from an outsider’s perspective that things like the remarriage issue, or contraception, or various Dead Horses, are real obstacles to unity, whether you mean them to be or not.

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Unless you already think Catholicism has authority over other Christians, why not just tell the Church politely to piss of and do your own thing - something which to them is just as much "golf" as what the Church plays? The vast majority of non-Catholics really don't seem to have a problem doing just that.

If so, the vast majority of non-Catholics are wrong.

I don’t think there’s a binary choice between “infallible” and “no authority”. The RCC, because it is numerically large, ancient, mostly faithful to tradition, intellectually rigorous, and home to innumerable saints, living and dead, in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, clearly has authority. It seems to me to be obvious that where Christians disagree, what the RCC says must be seriously considered as a strong option. The Catholic Church is highly unlikely to apostasise – what it teaches must at the very least be presumed to be consistent with Christian faith. The arguments Catholics put forward for the general authority of their Church have real merit.

And clearly I can say that and not accept that the RCC must be infallible. I can say that and still think on such-and-such an issue, an error has been crystallised into the Catholic tradition. And if I do think that, I can’t say I accept all that the Church teaches and therefore I can’t become a Catholic.

That’s the point. It’s not as easy as telling the Catholic Church to piss off.

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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

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moonlitdoor
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# 11707

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quote:

posed by Eliab

The RCC, because it is numerically large, ancient, mostly faithful to tradition, intellectually rigorous, and home to innumerable saints, living and dead, in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, clearly has authority.

That is my opinion too, and I think you expressed it well.

In addition to which, even the most Protestant of Protestants would do well to ask themselves what there would have to been to Reform if the Catholic and Orthodox churches had not witnessed to the Christian faith for 1500 years.

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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai

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SvitlanaV2
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Anglicans with Anglo-Catholic tendencies might be concerned, but I don't know if other Christians would necessarily be all that bothered about what the RCC teaches. Fostering positive ecumenical relations is more important on a local level, if your church is into that sort of thing.

If you're a student of End Time prophecies, or just follow current affairs, then the doings of the RCC are of interest, of course. But I always think it's a bit weird how non-RC national leaders and random celebrities want (and get) to have an audience with the Pope. It's PR - but which 'public' is meant to be impressed?

The current pope seems like a good man, but the vague assumption that he's become the world's priest, or that the RCC somehow has to satisfy the spiritual demands of the all world's Christians, or some other global audience that's not RC, strikes me as rather problematic.

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Christian salvation (which is the usual method for salvation that God has ordained – though I think neither of us are limiting what he can or might do) means trusting in the work and person of Jesus Christ, and trusting him implies at least some attempt to learn and obey his teachings, and those teachings are to be found most clearly in the Church he established: therefore faithful membership of the Church is, at least for those who understand that his teachings are to be found there, compulsory for those who would be saved.

Yes, this.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I just don’t think it’s as simple as that in practice. Once you make assent to the teaching authority of the Church a salvation matter, any teaching that could potentially keep me out of the Church because I can’t accept it becomes a salvation matter – even if it is a relatively minor thing in itself – because it’s keeping me from (what you believe is) the primary source of God’s grace. That, I think (and I think Russ is arguing as well) ought to put some responsibility on the Church to ask, of all of its teachings, not just that whether you are sure that they are true, but whether you are sure that they are so vital to the faith that a convert is required to promise to accept them.

Again, I think this is to get the idea the wrong way round. The "lexically prior" question is whether the Church enjoys both the authority of Christ to teach His people and in some circumstances to do so bindingly - often to settle disputed issues. That's got to come first. The alternative would be that every time the Church taught something definitively (and not every matter is settled in this way by a very long chalk) there'd have to be a protracted debate about about this settled matters bindingly for everyone. It was precisely in order to give this assurance to His people through the Church that they could avoid being led astray in faith and morals that Christ gave this authority to the Church (so we believe) in the first place.

The question then - and only then - becomes, "What does the Church definitively teach (if anything) about X?". And she either does teach with authority or she doesn't. The Church does not arbitrarily pick things to teach as it pleases her. Whatever is definitively taught will have been through the most rigorous and time-tested process of discernment and debate, sounded against the Apostolic deposit. After that, any Catholic is obliged to give due assent, no matter how much they personally have trouble reaching the same conclusion for themselves.

This does not mean that peolple who do not see why the Church is right about any particular matter, or who personally have reached a different conclusion, may not still become Catholics - it means only that to do so they must lay their own contrary opinions/actions to the side (to commit to not insisting upon them) so as not to let them be impediments to putting themselves in faith under the Church's teaching. It's a big ask, no doubt, but it is all that is asked.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I couldn’t, for example, honestly promise to accept what the Church teaches if I knew that there’s a fair chance I might in the future make a wilful and untroubled choice to use contraception. That’s not because contraception is itself a big thing – it’s just that because on this relatively minor point I know that I certainly don’t accept what the Church teaches (I don’t believe it’s true as a matter of conviction, and I’m not going to live as if I did as a matter of discipline) I could not honestly make the promise that would be required of me if I sought membership.

Well, that's honest and principled and shows a great deal of "good faith". In fact, what the Church would require of you, as I said above, is not to somehow invent a conviction that you don't have but always to leave open the possibilty of acquiring one whilst committing to try to live in this matter as the Church teaches you ought to. And, should that fail, to take it to the confessional before receiving the sacraments again. If this is not something that you cannot commit to, then it would indeed be an obstacle to your becoming a Catholic because you could not commit not to resisting her teaching.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
It's not making a magic "press the button, now I believe!" decision, but rather to respect the Church's authority to teach what she does and not openly to oppose your opinion to it. In short, to admit that your opinion is fallible in the way the Church's definitive teaches are not.

OK, but I can’t simultaneously believe the Church to be both infallible and wrong. I know that I’m fallible – that’s not the issue – but if I know that the Church teaches one tiny thing that seems to me to be plainly erroneous, then that one tiny thing that I’m convinced is a error is enough to stop me from saying that I accept all that the Church teaches. And if Church membership is needed to save me, that tiny thing is what’s keeping me out.
It's not so very tiny if you cannot agree that the Church is an authoritative teacher with regard to faith and morals. To believe that you know that the Church has got one of her definitive teachings wrong is to put your judgement before her doctrinal authority. In which case, why would you trust her on other things?
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
That the RCC knows more about the faith than I do is, of course, a given, and it follows from that only as a rebuttable presumption that if the RCC and I disagree, the RCC is right. It doesn’t mean that the Church is infallible.

She herself only claims to be so when she teaches definitively on matters of faith and morals, of course. By what criterion do you judge her to be wrong on a given issue? If you admit that she would be the better judge if her teaching differed from your own personal judgement, you're not so very far from believing in her authority to be what is commonly called infallible. But, again, denying outright that her judgements could in principle be infallible would put you beyond being able to be received as a Catholic.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
The Church teaches what it teaches; it does so with a concern for the truth, and never with a concern to divide itself from others. Those already outside the Catholic Church who cannot accept what she teaches are not being "cut off" from the Church by anything she has done.

OK. I’m not really wanting to ascribe blame for Christian division on this thread, and I’m quite willing to accept that the intent is not to be divisive. I’m more concerned to make the point from an outsider’s perspective that things like the remarriage issue, or contraception, or various Dead Horses, are real obstacles to unity, whether you mean them to be or not.
But they are not obstacles which the Catholic Church has erected (or which she believes are removable by her recanting them). They are mainly on issues about which almost all Christian bodies agreed until the day before yesterday. The Church can help to remove the obstacle by explaining the teaching and entering into dialogue with those who differ. But they are not hers to lay aside - they are out-workings of (her understanding of) the deposit of faith. [Remember that the Church has just spent the last couple of years wrangling over whether her own teaching about divorce, remarriage and communion could be nuanced or tweaked in any way whist still being true to the deposit of faith only to conclude (effectively) that it cannot.]
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Unless you already think Catholicism has authority over other Christians, why not just tell the Church politely to piss of and do your own thing - something which to them is just as much "golf" as what the Church plays? The vast majority of non-Catholics really don't seem to have a problem doing just that.

If so, the vast majority of non-Catholics are wrong.
I don’t think there’s a binary choice between “infallible” and “no authority”.

But there is a distiction between "always infallible in all her utterances and proclamations" and "enjoys the infallibility given her by Christ when teaching solemnly on matters of faith and morals". If she is not at least occasionally guaranteed to be right, I'm not sure the idea that she has divine authority means very much.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
The RCC, because it is numerically large, ancient, mostly faithful to tradition, intellectually rigorous, and home to innumerable saints, living and dead, in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, clearly has authority. It seems to me to be obvious that where Christians disagree, what the RCC says must be seriously considered as a strong option. The Catholic Church is highly unlikely to apostasise – what it teaches must at the very least be presumed to be consistent with Christian faith. The arguments Catholics put forward for the general authority of their Church have real merit.

Naturally, I agree. But I'm not sure most non-Catholics would - not by a long chalk.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
And clearly I can say that and not accept that the RCC must be infallible.

And when would you know that she was authoritatively right about something as opposed to authoritative but wrong about it?
I can say that and still think on such-and-such an issue, an error has been crystallised into the Catholic tradition.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
And if I do think that, I can’t say I accept all that the Church teaches and therefore I can’t become a Catholic.

If you think that an error about a serious matter of faith or morals has been not just committed but become a part of her then you clearly cannot do that.

--------------------
"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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The following sentence, which got itself muddled up with my deathless prose, is actually Eliab's:
quote:
I can say that and still think on such-and-such an issue, an error has been crystallised into the Catholic tradition.
Terribly sorry.

--------------------
"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."

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St Deird
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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Again, I think this is to get the idea the wrong way round. The "lexically prior" question is whether the Church enjoys both the authority of Christ to teach His people and in some circumstances to do so bindingly - often to settle disputed issues. That's got to come first. The alternative would be that every time the Church taught something definitively (and not every matter is settled in this way by a very long chalk) there'd have to be a protracted debate about about this settled matters bindingly for everyone. It was precisely in order to give this assurance to His people through the Church that they could avoid being led astray in faith and morals that Christ gave this authority to the Church (so we believe) in the first place.

The question then - and only then - becomes, "What does the Church definitively teach (if anything) about X?". And she either does teach with authority or she doesn't. The Church does not arbitrarily pick things to teach as it pleases her. Whatever is definitively taught will have been through the most rigorous and time-tested process of discernment and debate, sounded against the Apostolic deposit. After that, any Catholic is obliged to give due assent, no matter how much they personally have trouble reaching the same conclusion for themselves.

This does not mean that peolple who do not see why the Church is right about any particular matter, or who personally have reached a different conclusion, may not still become Catholics - it means only that to do so they must lay their own contrary opinions/actions to the side (to commit to not insisting upon them) so as not to let them be impediments to putting themselves in faith under the Church's teaching. It's a big ask, no doubt, but it is all that is asked.

This really does sound like "But the Catholic Church isn't asking for you to agree with a lot of things - they're ONLY asking for you to agree that they're correct on all matters of faith and morals. That's only ONE thing! So it's quite simple, really."

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They're not hobbies; they're a robust post-apocalyptic skill-set.

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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Given that I've been at pains to distinguish what is and is not required of those wishing to become Catholics, and that I have been quite clear that the former is not (usually) at all easy, I don't think the tone of your paraphrase of my position is entirely fair, St Deird.

--------------------
"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."

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St Deird
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You're right, Chesterbelloc. Apologies. I guess I'm a bit sensitive about this topic.

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They're not hobbies; they're a robust post-apocalyptic skill-set.

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Chesterbelloc

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Thanks, St Deird - it is indeed a neuralgic issue.

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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."

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PaulTH*
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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But they are not obstacles which the Catholic Church has erected (or which she believes are removable by her recanting them). They are mainly on issues about which almost all Christian bodies agreed until the day before yesterday. The Church can help to remove the obstacle by explaining the teaching and entering into dialogue with those who differ.

I would agree to the extent that before WW2 even in Britain most people went to church. Divorce was rarer than hen's teeth. Only "loose" people knew anything about contraception and being gay was universally regarded as aberrant. But don't forget that we were once involved in slavery and genocide. Go back further and we sacrificed animals. Go back even further and we sacrificed virgins and children for an "unstained" offering. In other words our understanding, as a society, evolves as prosperity evolves. I have little doubt that in extreme times, what we call civilisation would break down, and we would return to the savagery from whence we came.

Yet these moral issues which the Catholic Church still sees as "objectively" sinful, have for the rest of society, become part of our growing awareness that a compassionate understanding of the realities of peoples lives is infinitely more valuable than a set of rules used to exclude people from a complete relationship with God. If we are lucky, even our own consciousness as individual human beings can evolve. Now in my early 60's, I'm sometimes horrified when I think of some of the attitudes I held 40 years ago. Like people, enlightened societies move away from prejudice, exclusion and excessive moralistic judging.

The fact that most of our churches, along with the rest of our culture, have progressed from the position which the Catholic Church still holds, can only be positive for the people who live here.

--------------------
Yours in Christ
Paul

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Chesterbelloc

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# 3128

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Apart from the fact that I reject your "progressive", Whiggish view of human nature/history, Paul, your post is not relevant to the point I was making.

I was merely pointing out, in response to the idea that Catholic teachings on DH issues have created obstacles to unity with other Christians, that the obstacles were not of the Church's making. She continues to teach what she always did; others have "moved on" from that. Whoever is in the right, the differences are only obstacles because non-Catholic Christians have come to treat them as such.

[ 03. June 2016, 14:45: Message edited by: Chesterbelloc ]

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Russ
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# 120

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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
people can make an idol of their own ideal of democracy every bit as much as people can and have made one of monarchy.

What does it mean to make an idol of monarchy ? What's the difference between that and merely thinking it the best system of government that humanity has so far come up with ?
People can become much too devoted to a particular form of government... ...to the neglect of the purpose of government in the first place.
If I've understood you aright, you're answering my question by putting forward a general principle that attachment to a particular form or structure of government (and more generally to a particular way of doing things, a particular culture) becomes idolatrous at the point where it gets in the way of the original purpose of government (or the original purpose of doing things).

And that's an answer, a straight answer, and an answer I can see the sense of. So thank you.

So if the purpose of the Catholic church is to bring souls to Christ - the great commission - then the Catholic church's attachment to its own structures and culture and ways of doing things is idolatrous if and only if it gets in the way of evangelisation ?

But you're telling us of your doctrine of authority
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

anyone who cannot do that - or would think it an impossible indignity to their own intellect to do so - would, it seems to me, almost certainly be deeply unhappy as a Catholic.

Is that not getting in the way of the purpose of the Catholic church ?

If you hold two propositions, caricatured as

A="Jesus saves" &
B="the Vatican is always right"

then there are at least 4 groups of people:

- those can be persuaded to A and B (the good Catholics)
- those attracted to A and repelled by B (democratically-minded Christians everywhere)
- those attracted to B and not A (those desperately seeking certainty, who can come to accept A on Vatican authority)
- those who reject both A and B.

Now I don't have any problem with you choosing to hang out with the first group, and saying "feel free to do your own thing; you've rejected all we have to offer" to the last group. The difficulty is the middle two. Does the Catholic church stand for A or for B where there's a tension between them ?

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
what I'd say is that if you do not think that the Church has the legitimate authority to teach definitively on faith and morals, you couldn't accept the Church on her own terms.

I've heard a version of the "doctrine of authority" which says that when the Pope preaches the consensus of the faithful then this is authoritative (but when he just gives his own opinion, it isn't).

When the message from the Vatican and the general sense of the faithful are at odds, as seems to be the case on the matter of the church's treatment of remarried people, then I'd see it as a misuse of language to claim either position as being the definitive teaching of the Church. If the conflicting emphases can be resolved, a definitive teaching may perhaps emerge.

Stubborn refusal to countenance change is part of the conservative impulse in humankind. There's nothing Christian about it.

Jesus did not teach that we should be corporate yes-men, pretending to agree with whatever word comes down from head office regardless of our reservations. Christianity is supposed to be about speaking up for what is true and good, if necessary in opposition to those with institutional power and authority. Rendering to Caesar, and all that.

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Your "authoritarian conservatism" thing is a complete red herring.

No. I'm hearing what you're saying as gratifying those parts of the psyche which are conservative or authoritarian. And not as emerging from a concern for goodness and truth (i.e. God) or from love of neighbour.

Maybe it's a cultural barrier ? And no I'm not quite sure what one of those looks like.

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
it's a basic identity issue. The Church is the body (His own Body) to whom Christ entrusted the teaching of the faith and the care of souls. That's what she IS. If you don't accept her as that, then you don't really accept her at all.

The institution that is the Catholic church can claim organisational continuity with the early Church. But that is not the same as identity with the early Church. Do you not recognise the history of division as a falling-short from what Jesus wanted of his followers ?

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
So, if I rejected Islam's most central claims...

What I'm suggesting to you is that your doctrine of authority is not quite as central as that. The resurrection is central. Eucharist is central. Forgiveness is central...

quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
The obligation those who think they have a monopoly on a given thing have is to offer everyone what they have - but they must offer what they have intact, the whole thing

So the only golf club should say to the female wannabe-golfers something like "part of the experience of golf as we play it is the all-masculine atmosphere. We couldn't possibly offer you less than the whole experience intact. So get lost" ??

--------------------
Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas

Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320

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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Apart from the fact that I reject your "progressive", Whiggish view of human nature/history, Paul, your post is not relevant to the point I was making.

You are perfectly entitled to reject anything I say, but as you were talking about obstacles to unity, my post was perfectly relevant to that question. The biggest obstacle to unity is expecting all other Christians to believe exactly what you believe. The Orthodox are the worst for that, Catholics next. No one was expecting Pope Francis to say that the Church has been talking bollocks for hundreds of years, only to hope that he may have come up with a pastorally more sensitive way of doing things.

Making definitions and expecting everyone else to agree to the letter is the source of all division in the Church. Take the Eucharist. At its most basic level it's a thanksgiving in response to Christ's command "Do this in remembrance of me." The Catholic Church has added many layers to that. Orthodox and High Church Anglicans would assent to the Real Presence, but may stop short of the definition of the double miracle of transubstantiation. To insist that you can't be in communion with anyone who doesn't precisely share your complex definition is divisive on your part, not theirs, especially if they are quite willing to welcome you to the Lord's Table.

This may be another DH issue, but putting up barriers based on expecting everyone to completely agree with you is a violation of Christ's command that we be one. You took umbrage when St Deird said the same.

--------------------
Yours in Christ
Paul

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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967

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I can't see unity emerging from trying to grind church teachings down to the lowest common denominator. Most people would find that boring. In any case, there are already denominations devoted to being very broad. None of them is as large as the RCC.
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Forthview
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# 12376

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Catholics would, or should, never say 'The Vatican is always right' That is a travesty of Catholic belief.

In safeguarding the teachings of Christ the Church(not the Vatican ) has ,Catholics believe, certain guarantees
that it will not ,in Christ's name' teach error.

These essential teachings about love for God and love for our neighbour are what the Catholic Church , just like many other Christian and non-Christian groups aspires towards.

For faithful Catholics the teachings of the Church are not just 'our' teachings which can be traded up or down with other groups. They are attempts ( and sometimes inadequate attempts ) to explain what cannot always be explained.

This is where a Catholic, just as indeed any other religiously minded person, has ultimately to make what Catholics call 'an Act of Faith.' It is what Chesterbelloc is, I think, hinting at when he indicates that the profession of the Catholic faith is not a simple check list of dogmas to be believed, but ultimately a belief and trust in the Lord Jesus and a belief and trust that the Church has been commissioned to go into the whole world and preach the Gospel, Jesus being with her always.

As human beings with sometimes limited understanding ( and that includes also celibate or indeed also non-celibate churchmen ) we cannot always find it possible to understand, or to agree to follow the teachings of the Church but then we must try to come back to the core teachings of love of God and love of our neighbour. God, who has created us out of love and destined us for eternal happiness with Him will understand our imperfections.

If we don't believe in eternal life then Christianity ceases to be a religion and becomes a philosophy and that is a different kettle of fish.

Posts: 3444 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged



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