I've just picked 6 random things to discuss concerning the Christian Tradition that I've thought about recently. I could write for pages and pages about them, but I'll try to sum up the thoughts as briefly as possible.
Vulgate
Bible translations are in general deceptive. The Vulgate and the NIV are the 2 archetypal mistranslations I can think of that SEEM (note this word) to be translated solely for the purpose of deceiving people about the bible. It horrifies me to know how much Mariology was based on the Vulgate's rendering of Genesis 3:15 which makes it appear that Mary not Jesus would crush Satan. The issue is of course, how much Latin Mariology has to do with this passage, as the Greek's seem to have given Mary similar titles like "mediatrix". This brings me to my next point.
Mary and Mediation
While the Greeks also teach ALOT more about Mariology than Protestants would like to admit, they've still not reached Rome. It seems like from the 10th to 12th century (this is all according to Pelikan's book I haven't read alot here) there is this native Mariology that is intrinsically tied to Christology. As a former Protestant it boggles my mind as there is always a dichotemy between Mary and Christ, and just when I see these proto-protestant descriptions by St. Bernard of Christ's righteousness as being our righteousness, and justification being his remission of our sins alone, there it is! an entire book with the title abbreviated as (De Laud. Virg.) Now my one year of Latin reminds me that the verb Laudo Laudere Laudatum Laudatavi or something like that means to worship. So obviously this isn't a secret protestantism if he's worshipping Mary by his own word choice. But I just find it annoying how Catholicism while it allows you to seek mediation solely through Christ, it always encourages you to seek saintly mediation. It always tries to shove as many people in line as possible. Now this doesn't mean they're wrong or whatever, and Catholic apologists have answers to each of these issues, but at the same time, I have to add an amen to N.T Wright who says:
"(after saying that saintly intercession is not in the New Testament or in "the earliest Fathers" he writes) ... we should be very suspicious of the medieval idea that the saints can function as friends at court so that while we might be shy of approaching the King ourselves, we know someone who is, as it were, one of us, to whom we can talk freely and who will maybe put in a good word for us. The practice seems to me to call into question, and even actually to deny by implication, the immediacy of access to God through Jesus Christ and in the Spirit, which is promised again and again in the New Testament...you have a royal welcome awaiting you in the throne room...why would you bother hanging around the outer lobby trying to persuade someone there, however distinguished, to go in and ask for you? To question this, even by implication, is to challenge one of the central blessings and privileges of the gospel." - Bp. N.T. Wright "Surprised By Hope" p. 172 (Purgatory, Paradise, Hell)
I read the exact same critique of C.S. Lewis in his book "Letters to Malcolm" -who even though he believes in Purgatory - denies any purpose to praying to saints. Even Maccabbees only has praying for the dead, not asking saints to pray for us.
Development of Doctrine
Are the Eastern Theologians correct in attacking the development of doctrine. The Protestant argument only makes sense - as the Catholic argument only makes sense, if we hold to the development of doctrine. The Easterners kind of deny it or at least set a point which it cannot move past. I'm not decided on this issue yet, but it's an interesting point. Penal Substitution / Substitutionary Atonement models of Calvin and other Reformed theologians I see as a development of Anselmic Satisfaction doctrines, and the penitential system of Catholicism is a development from the general principle of repentance and temporal punishment for sin. The Orthodox seem to have ended doctrinal development with 1054, and this may be a result of their fracture and disunity, but it might be an interesting opposing theory to the idea that doctrine develops.
Works
It was Anglican Divine Richard Hooker who finally showed me how there is no such thing as a doctrine of salvation by faith and works. If you attach works as necessary for salvation, you are teaching salvation by works. This seems to go against Romans 4:5... But I still think James 2 teaches it. St. Augustine teaches it. All the Fathers teach it. So really the Protestants may be right that we all (Orthodox and Catholics) teach salvation by works, but the question then becomes, does the bible? This of course leads to other issues and questions about the defectibility of the Church, tradition, etc. But it's still a valid issue I have to think more about, and whether there is a Pauline vs. Augustinian (and even Patristic) issue here.
Communion in both kinds
I hate that the Latins don't do communion in both kinds. It's pretty stupid, and I didn't realize they did it when I started, because when I was confirmed I was allowed to partake of the cup and I assumed I'd always have that privilege. The Orthodox are clearly more faithful to the command "take this all of you and drink from it"
Unity
But in spite of all else, I am constantly reminded of the Patristic and early medieval doctrine of Church Unity. St. Augustine says that there is never, any, just reason for schism. Never.... so was he wrong? (as well as Eph. 4 one bread, one faith, one body, one Lord, etc) The invisible Church thing is just B.S. to me right now, he started a visible Church.
Tradition
I think Tradition is important to the point of being beyond important, I think whatever your doctrines of Soteriology and Sacraments, they cannot alienate the majority of the Church throughout the ages. As long as the canon issue is unresolved, the authority of Tradition remains.
Showing posts with label Communion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Communion. Show all posts
Monday, July 27, 2009
Thursday, September 11, 2008
The Sacraments: Are They A Lie?
I think that the Reformation initially retained a Sacramental Piety, however I've come to realize once more how important the Sacraments are in the discussion of theology. If the sacraments are means of communicating grace (Catholicism) or if they are superstitious and empty rituals.
This is also not so much a Catholic - Protestant issue, as it is a more specific Calvinist & Zwinglian versus Catholic and to a lesser extent Lutheran and Anglican.
The question is not simply one of whether there are 7 Sacraments: Baptism, Communion, Confirmation, Penance, Marriage, Extreme Unction, and Holy Orders, or just the first 2. It is also a question of what do the sacraments do? what is their purpose. The question after that though is one of the very character of God. Does God care about the outward and physical or is he only concerned with the inner and spiritual.
The problem is that our Christian Ethics are Ontological rather than Teleological - they are based on the motive of the doer, rather than just the outcome. Was it T.S. Eliot who said the greatest sin was doing the right thing for the wrong reason? (if not it was some other British poet). SO one has to question why God would imbue special powers to actions.
The Calvinist position as I understand it is that God works effectually outside the sacraments in that the baptism which forgives you is the baptism of the Holy Spirit which occurs at the moment of saving faith. The infant baptism is just a covenantal sign, but ultimately it has no purpose other than marking the visible from the invisible church, but since in Calvinistic Ecclesiology (doctrine of the Church) the 'true' church is always the invisible church anyway, so there really isn't any point in being in the 'visible' church.
The Catholic position as I've argued before is that the sacraments have power. They actually are objective means of receiving grace. Every time you receive the Eucharist you are recieving the physical body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ (I don't know how one receives his soul if it's his body, but there is probably something about it in Aquinas or a Scholastic, so I won't argue it...maybe I got it wrong by including his soul, nevermind). Likewise when you are absolved and forgiven of your sins by a priest you are forgiven by God Himself.
There are many biblical and historical arguments I've already listed in favour of a literal interpretation of Christ's words about the Holy Communion, and the Sacrament of Confession/Penance, and an argument for regenerative baptism (it forgives your sins). If you wish to see more just check out one of these sites: http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2007/10/topical-index-pages.html, or http://www.phatmass.com/directory/
The basic question though is why God would promise such Power to the Church? Why would he give frail men the ability to bind and loose, why would he give the keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter and allow men to determine who enters the Kingdom of Heaven. In all honesty, it gives me two thoughts:
1) God has stupidly given too much power to the Church
2) The Bible must be written by the Church as a means to claim supernatural power
The third option of course is that the Sacraments actually do have power and are efficatious, that God does care about physical actions. As C.S. Lewis put it in his defense of grace through the sacraments in Mere Christianity, God has no problem with matter, he created it, and it's no use trying to be more spiritual than God.
I was thinking the other day about Rob Bell's "The gods aren't angry" and how he proposes that none of the Israelite offerings in the Old Covenent satisfied God as he didn't 'need' blood. He also asked the question "Does your God need to hurt someone so that he can love?" it sounds like a great atheistic question and I've finally come to believe (as all Christians holding to either Calvin's Substitution or St. Anselm's Satisfaction theology of Atonement should) that yes God does have to hurt so that he can Love. But in essence he hurts himself, in Christ, he provides the sacrifice, which becomes an eternal part of his nature (Christ's eternal sacrifice).
I also remembered the 2 stories of God's anger towards violations of his covenants. The Second is of course 1 Corinthians 11 where St. Paul writes that those who partook of the Eucharist in an unworthy manner 'drank God's wrath against themselves' and 'were guilty of the body and blood of our Lord' and that this misuse resulted in illness and death. The first however is more obscure, I read about it in Exodus 4 at Capernwray Bible School and it was a blessing to be 'forced' to read the whole bible so that now I am more aware of all these extra stories.
The story is about Moses going into Egypt after receiving his mission from God in the Burning Bush, Zipporah and Moses are travelling with their son when we hear this:
"On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the Lord met him and tried to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it, and said, ‘Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ So he let him alone. It was then she said, ‘A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.’ "" - Exodus 4:24-26
It seems odd to us that God would plan on killing Moses for not performing this outward circumcision rite. We are constantly taught in the New Testament that "circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything" (Gal 5) and likewise by St. Stephen the Martyr that we are to have 'circumcised hearts' not dead rituals. However it seems that in this story God disagrees, not in a way contradictory to the New Testament but in a way contradictory to my former interpretation. What if God really does care about the Sacraments about his Covenantal signs and realities. It isn't all bad though, it's also a huge gift, for maybe God really does work through the sacraments. Maybe that is why the Eucharist means 'the Good Gift' (or at least that's what someone told me).
The real question then is why no angel killed Zwingli? but I guess 'where sin abounded grace abounded all the more' (Rm 5.20)
An interesting book on this topic which I hope to buy soon is Dr. Scott Hahn's "Swear to God: God's Promise and Power of the Sacraments" http://www.amazon.com/Swear-God-Promise-Power-Sacraments/dp/0385509316/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221099823&sr=1-11.
This is also not so much a Catholic - Protestant issue, as it is a more specific Calvinist & Zwinglian versus Catholic and to a lesser extent Lutheran and Anglican.
The question is not simply one of whether there are 7 Sacraments: Baptism, Communion, Confirmation, Penance, Marriage, Extreme Unction, and Holy Orders, or just the first 2. It is also a question of what do the sacraments do? what is their purpose. The question after that though is one of the very character of God. Does God care about the outward and physical or is he only concerned with the inner and spiritual.
The problem is that our Christian Ethics are Ontological rather than Teleological - they are based on the motive of the doer, rather than just the outcome. Was it T.S. Eliot who said the greatest sin was doing the right thing for the wrong reason? (if not it was some other British poet). SO one has to question why God would imbue special powers to actions.
The Calvinist position as I understand it is that God works effectually outside the sacraments in that the baptism which forgives you is the baptism of the Holy Spirit which occurs at the moment of saving faith. The infant baptism is just a covenantal sign, but ultimately it has no purpose other than marking the visible from the invisible church, but since in Calvinistic Ecclesiology (doctrine of the Church) the 'true' church is always the invisible church anyway, so there really isn't any point in being in the 'visible' church.
The Catholic position as I've argued before is that the sacraments have power. They actually are objective means of receiving grace. Every time you receive the Eucharist you are recieving the physical body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ (I don't know how one receives his soul if it's his body, but there is probably something about it in Aquinas or a Scholastic, so I won't argue it...maybe I got it wrong by including his soul, nevermind). Likewise when you are absolved and forgiven of your sins by a priest you are forgiven by God Himself.
There are many biblical and historical arguments I've already listed in favour of a literal interpretation of Christ's words about the Holy Communion, and the Sacrament of Confession/Penance, and an argument for regenerative baptism (it forgives your sins). If you wish to see more just check out one of these sites: http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2007/10/topical-index-pages.html, or http://www.phatmass.com/directory/
The basic question though is why God would promise such Power to the Church? Why would he give frail men the ability to bind and loose, why would he give the keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter and allow men to determine who enters the Kingdom of Heaven. In all honesty, it gives me two thoughts:
1) God has stupidly given too much power to the Church
2) The Bible must be written by the Church as a means to claim supernatural power
The third option of course is that the Sacraments actually do have power and are efficatious, that God does care about physical actions. As C.S. Lewis put it in his defense of grace through the sacraments in Mere Christianity, God has no problem with matter, he created it, and it's no use trying to be more spiritual than God.
I was thinking the other day about Rob Bell's "The gods aren't angry" and how he proposes that none of the Israelite offerings in the Old Covenent satisfied God as he didn't 'need' blood. He also asked the question "Does your God need to hurt someone so that he can love?" it sounds like a great atheistic question and I've finally come to believe (as all Christians holding to either Calvin's Substitution or St. Anselm's Satisfaction theology of Atonement should) that yes God does have to hurt so that he can Love. But in essence he hurts himself, in Christ, he provides the sacrifice, which becomes an eternal part of his nature (Christ's eternal sacrifice).
I also remembered the 2 stories of God's anger towards violations of his covenants. The Second is of course 1 Corinthians 11 where St. Paul writes that those who partook of the Eucharist in an unworthy manner 'drank God's wrath against themselves' and 'were guilty of the body and blood of our Lord' and that this misuse resulted in illness and death. The first however is more obscure, I read about it in Exodus 4 at Capernwray Bible School and it was a blessing to be 'forced' to read the whole bible so that now I am more aware of all these extra stories.
The story is about Moses going into Egypt after receiving his mission from God in the Burning Bush, Zipporah and Moses are travelling with their son when we hear this:
"On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the Lord met him and tried to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it, and said, ‘Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ So he let him alone. It was then she said, ‘A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.’ "" - Exodus 4:24-26
It seems odd to us that God would plan on killing Moses for not performing this outward circumcision rite. We are constantly taught in the New Testament that "circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything" (Gal 5) and likewise by St. Stephen the Martyr that we are to have 'circumcised hearts' not dead rituals. However it seems that in this story God disagrees, not in a way contradictory to the New Testament but in a way contradictory to my former interpretation. What if God really does care about the Sacraments about his Covenantal signs and realities. It isn't all bad though, it's also a huge gift, for maybe God really does work through the sacraments. Maybe that is why the Eucharist means 'the Good Gift' (or at least that's what someone told me).
The real question then is why no angel killed Zwingli? but I guess 'where sin abounded grace abounded all the more' (Rm 5.20)
An interesting book on this topic which I hope to buy soon is Dr. Scott Hahn's "Swear to God: God's Promise and Power of the Sacraments" http://www.amazon.com/Swear-God-Promise-Power-Sacraments/dp/0385509316/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221099823&sr=1-11.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The Good Gift
Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the Good Gift, is extremely important. For example, Christ says of it 'this is my body - this is my blood' and in John 6 Jesus says:
To me the most amazing thing is that St. Paul or any other NT epistle rarely ever quotes Christ, there is probably only a handful of phrases St. Paul even knew from Jesus, he most likely did not ever read the gospels (maybe mark - which I don't think includes these phrases). This means that the early church had such a high view of the Eucharist that it passed on the exact or near exact words of Jesus. St. Paul says he received it from the Lord (does this mean in his vision? maybe). All in all, it goes to show me that the early christians were very reverent when it came to communion - or rather were not, and thus invoked the wrath of St. Paul.
"Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink."As well, I read this passage the other day and was astonished again, it's St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 discussing the abuses of the Eucharist (to Protestants, no this does not mean the Corinthians weren't using Welch's Grape Juice and Goldfish crackers, and to the Catholics no this does not mean they were using a priest from SSPX)
"For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgement against
themselves. For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some
have died."
To me the most amazing thing is that St. Paul or any other NT epistle rarely ever quotes Christ, there is probably only a handful of phrases St. Paul even knew from Jesus, he most likely did not ever read the gospels (maybe mark - which I don't think includes these phrases). This means that the early church had such a high view of the Eucharist that it passed on the exact or near exact words of Jesus. St. Paul says he received it from the Lord (does this mean in his vision? maybe). All in all, it goes to show me that the early christians were very reverent when it came to communion - or rather were not, and thus invoked the wrath of St. Paul.
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