a person who is an Anglican (and I think homosexual - in all seriousness, I'm not joking at all - though I don't know why I found that relevant) today asked me "what religion are you today?" and I told him that I'd always been a Christian but that I had joined the Roman Catholic Church. He asked why and I responded that studying history and some theology swayed me. He then asked me what the Anglican Church was and I told him it was formed when Henry VIII broke communion with Rome and that the Church of England eventually adopted Protestant views. That was it.
But I immediately regretted this opportunity and wished for the 'balls' Chesterton had.
When he was asked why he was becoming Roman Catholic he replied:
"to get my sins forgiven"
I don't think I have the courage in today's relativistic world to give that response, but maybe one day I will like the apostle of common sense, 'make the good confession'.
Showing posts with label G.K. Chesterton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label G.K. Chesterton. Show all posts
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
Theological Idiot
I realize as I try to read through Aquinas on concupiscence, nature and grace, etc I am totally idiotic. All the Reformed people post mocking Protestant converts to Catholicism like me who read similar "fools" like Steve Ray and Dave Armstrong, etc.
My Aristotelian Moral Philosophy class in University has given me a bit of mileage in understanding Aquinas, but it as all so systematic and complex that I doubt I will ever fully have a systematic Catholic theology. My anti-systematic theology Mennonite ancestors might be proud of that. But I guess that's ok.
"We are fools for Christ's sake" (KJV) Saint Paul says in 1 Cor 4:10. I have an icon of St. Francis of Assisi that my friend Lance gave me, and an "action figure" or him my mom bought for me in Assisi when they went to Italy. I have it as a little shrine in my bathroom with a candle and matches which I have to hide when Protestant company comes to visit. I never really liked St. Francis as much as others I knew because he seemed so theologically lacking, but now as I realize I too am a fool, I feel more akin to the saint.
And as much as I think St. Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition is extremely brilliant, I tend to like Pope Benedict's patristic and biblical Augustinian approach. I think it's because I know the bible the best out of all these sources which I seem to barely know at all. I also like reading people who are in touch with the realities of life. Aristotle, Plato and Aquinas are brilliant men, but I always feel like they lacked the normalcy and everyday reality of ministers and priests.
I love reading Chesterton because he's a man with no formal education but is a genius as well. He had such common sense and wit that I find his defenses of Catholicism, while maybe overly simplistic, to be very effective.
My Aristotelian Moral Philosophy class in University has given me a bit of mileage in understanding Aquinas, but it as all so systematic and complex that I doubt I will ever fully have a systematic Catholic theology. My anti-systematic theology Mennonite ancestors might be proud of that. But I guess that's ok.
"We are fools for Christ's sake" (KJV) Saint Paul says in 1 Cor 4:10. I have an icon of St. Francis of Assisi that my friend Lance gave me, and an "action figure" or him my mom bought for me in Assisi when they went to Italy. I have it as a little shrine in my bathroom with a candle and matches which I have to hide when Protestant company comes to visit. I never really liked St. Francis as much as others I knew because he seemed so theologically lacking, but now as I realize I too am a fool, I feel more akin to the saint.
And as much as I think St. Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition is extremely brilliant, I tend to like Pope Benedict's patristic and biblical Augustinian approach. I think it's because I know the bible the best out of all these sources which I seem to barely know at all. I also like reading people who are in touch with the realities of life. Aristotle, Plato and Aquinas are brilliant men, but I always feel like they lacked the normalcy and everyday reality of ministers and priests.
I love reading Chesterton because he's a man with no formal education but is a genius as well. He had such common sense and wit that I find his defenses of Catholicism, while maybe overly simplistic, to be very effective.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Religious Tolerance
"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions." - G.K. Chesterton
I've been trying to figure out whether it is a virtue or not, or rather, I always knew it wasn't a virtue, but whether it was necessary or not. Obviously if someone is right, then the freedom to choose wrongly is not a virtue (see Plato's Republic). But I live in a democracy-high people. So should we have equal choice? Hmmm. I think it's also a factor that the Roman Church has not been tolerated in England or America and so it makes me want tolerance, because it allows my beliefs to be tolerated. But, ideally, would I be for a country with church and state union if the church was correct.
I think there are other considerations. I lived in England and worked in the Church of England. The merger of Church and State destroyed the Church. But if Anglicanism was completely correct, then why not enforce it on everyone? We force democracy on people, so why not religion? I guess in an ideal sense the perfect state with the perfect religion would go well together, but we haven't been able to find practitioners of either, and in the words of Hamlet, "ay, there's the rub"
I've been trying to figure out whether it is a virtue or not, or rather, I always knew it wasn't a virtue, but whether it was necessary or not. Obviously if someone is right, then the freedom to choose wrongly is not a virtue (see Plato's Republic). But I live in a democracy-high people. So should we have equal choice? Hmmm. I think it's also a factor that the Roman Church has not been tolerated in England or America and so it makes me want tolerance, because it allows my beliefs to be tolerated. But, ideally, would I be for a country with church and state union if the church was correct.
I think there are other considerations. I lived in England and worked in the Church of England. The merger of Church and State destroyed the Church. But if Anglicanism was completely correct, then why not enforce it on everyone? We force democracy on people, so why not religion? I guess in an ideal sense the perfect state with the perfect religion would go well together, but we haven't been able to find practitioners of either, and in the words of Hamlet, "ay, there's the rub"
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Chesterton on Saints
"The saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint is often a martyr; he is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age. Yet each generation seeks its saint by instinct; and he is not what the people want, but rather what the people need. . . . Therefore it is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most."
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Funny and Good Chesterton quotes I've encountered so far.
" The nineteenth-century neglect of tradition and mania for mere documents were altogether nonsensical. They amounted to saying that men always tell lies to children but men never make mistakes in books." (On Sola Scriptura)
"A young man will suddenly become a Catholic priest, or even a Catholic monk, because he has a spontaneous and even impatient personal enthusiasm for the doctrine of Virginity as it appeared to St. Catherine or St. Clare. But how many men become Baptist ministers because they have a personal horror of the idea of an innocent infant coming unconsciously to Christ? How many honest Presbyterian ministers in Scotland really want to go back to John Knox, as a Catholic mystic might want to go back to John of the Cross?"
"What is any man who has been in the real outer world, for instance, to make of the everlasting cry that Catholic traditions are condemned by the Bible? It indicates a jumble of topsy-turvy tests and tail-foremost arguments, of which I never could at any time see the sense. The ordinary sensible sceptic or pagan is standing in the street (in the supreme character of the man in the street) and he sees a procession go by of the priests of some strange cult, carrying their object of worship under a canopy, some of them wearing high head-dresses and carrying symbolical staffs, others carrying scrolls and sacred records, others carrying sacred images and lighted candles before them, others sacred relics in caskets or cases, and so on. I can understand the spectator saying, "This is all hocus-pocus"; I can even understand him, in moments of irritation, breaking up the procession, throwing down the images, tearing up the scrolls, dancing on the priests and anything else that might express that general view. I can understand his saying, "Your croziers are bosh, your candles are bosh, your statues and scrolls and relics and all the rest of it are bosh." But in what conceivable frame of mind does he rush in to select one particular scroll of the scriptures of this one particular group (a scroll which had always belonged to them and been a part of their hocus-pocus, if it was hocus-pocus); why in the world should the man in the street say that one particular scroll was not bosh, but was the one and only truth by which all the other things were to be condemned? Why should it not be as superstitious to worship the scrolls as the statues, of that one particular procession? Why should it not be as reasonable to preserve the statues as the scrolls, by the tenets of that particular creed? To say to the priests, "Your statues and scrolls are condemned by our common sense," is sensible. To say, "Your statues are condemned by your scrolls, and we are going to worship one part of your procession and wreck the rest," is not sensible from any standpoint, least of all that of the man in the street."
"A young man will suddenly become a Catholic priest, or even a Catholic monk, because he has a spontaneous and even impatient personal enthusiasm for the doctrine of Virginity as it appeared to St. Catherine or St. Clare. But how many men become Baptist ministers because they have a personal horror of the idea of an innocent infant coming unconsciously to Christ? How many honest Presbyterian ministers in Scotland really want to go back to John Knox, as a Catholic mystic might want to go back to John of the Cross?"
"What is any man who has been in the real outer world, for instance, to make of the everlasting cry that Catholic traditions are condemned by the Bible? It indicates a jumble of topsy-turvy tests and tail-foremost arguments, of which I never could at any time see the sense. The ordinary sensible sceptic or pagan is standing in the street (in the supreme character of the man in the street) and he sees a procession go by of the priests of some strange cult, carrying their object of worship under a canopy, some of them wearing high head-dresses and carrying symbolical staffs, others carrying scrolls and sacred records, others carrying sacred images and lighted candles before them, others sacred relics in caskets or cases, and so on. I can understand the spectator saying, "This is all hocus-pocus"; I can even understand him, in moments of irritation, breaking up the procession, throwing down the images, tearing up the scrolls, dancing on the priests and anything else that might express that general view. I can understand his saying, "Your croziers are bosh, your candles are bosh, your statues and scrolls and relics and all the rest of it are bosh." But in what conceivable frame of mind does he rush in to select one particular scroll of the scriptures of this one particular group (a scroll which had always belonged to them and been a part of their hocus-pocus, if it was hocus-pocus); why in the world should the man in the street say that one particular scroll was not bosh, but was the one and only truth by which all the other things were to be condemned? Why should it not be as superstitious to worship the scrolls as the statues, of that one particular procession? Why should it not be as reasonable to preserve the statues as the scrolls, by the tenets of that particular creed? To say to the priests, "Your statues and scrolls are condemned by our common sense," is sensible. To say, "Your statues are condemned by your scrolls, and we are going to worship one part of your procession and wreck the rest," is not sensible from any standpoint, least of all that of the man in the street."
Monday, September 1, 2008
Pope as Anti-Christ or the Church as God's Instrument?
"Surely anybody's commonsense would tell him that enthusiasts who only met through their common enthusiasm for a leader whom they loved, would not instantly rush away to establish everything that he hated." - G.K. Chesterton on the History of the Catholic Church (critique of Evangelical theory of the universal apostasy of the Church)
"Be not deceived, my brethren: If anyone follows a maker of schism [i.e., is a schismatic], he does not inherit the kingdom of God; if anyone walks in strange doctrine [i.e., is a heretic], he has no part in the passion [of Christ]. Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of his blood; one altar, as there is one bishop, with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons" - St. Ignatius of Antioch (Letter to the Philadelphians 3:3–4:1 [A.D. 110]).
"The authority of these [ecumenical] councils in the decision of all points of controversy was supreme and final. Their doctrinal decisions were early invested with infallibility; the promises of the Lord respecting the indestructibleness of his church, his own perpetual presence with the ministry, and the guidance of the Spirit of truth, being applied in the full sense to those councils, as representing the whole church. After the example of the apostolic council, the usual formula for a decree was: Visum est Sprirtui Sancto et nobis. Constantine the Great, in a circular letter to the churches, styles the decrees of the Nicene council a divine command; a phrase, however, in reference to which the abuse of the word divine, in the language of the Byzantine despots, must not be forgotten. Athanasius says, with reference to the doctrine of the divinity of Christ: "What God has spoken by the council of Nice, abides forever." The council of Chalcedon pronounced the decrees of the Nicene fathers unalterable statutes, since God himself had spoken through them. The council of Ephesus, in the sentence of deposition against Nestorius, uses the formula: "The Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has blasphemed, determines through this most holy council." Pope Leo speaks of an "irretractabilis consensus" of the council of Chalcedon upon the doctrine of the person of Christ. Pope Gregory the Great even placed the first four councils, which refuted and destroyed respectively the heresies and impieties of Arius, Macedonius, Nestorius, and Eutyches, on a level with the four canonical Gospels. In like manner Justinian puts the dogmas of the first four councils on the same footing with the Holy Scriptures, and their canons by the side of laws of the realm." - Philip Schaff endorsing conciliar infallibility (History of the Christian Church, Vol. III: Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity: A.D. 311-600, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974, from the revised fifth edition of 1910, 340-342
"With a false bishop appointed for themselves by heretics, they dare even to set sail and carry letters from schismatics and blasphemers to the chair of Peter and to the principal Church [at Rome], in which sacerdotal unity has its source; nor did they take thought that these are Romans, whose faith was praised by the preaching Apostle, and among whom it is not possible for perfidy [error] to have entrance." (Cyprian, Letter 59 (55), 14 to Cornelius of Rome, c. AD 252)
Many Protestants accuse the Roman Catholic (and every other rite of the Catholic Church) Church of giving the Pope 'too much power' and as "Anti-Christ" for he usurps the position of Christ. However what if Christ GAVE St. Peter this role. What if Christ said "On this rock will I build my Church", what if Christ said "Peter feed my Lambs", what if Christ gave him authority to forgive sins (Jn 20:23), to lead and teach the Church (acts 2)... He did say and do those things. So to put up a dichotemy between Christ and the Roman Catholic Church is impossible, he promised both of them would work together.
The Church Fathers taught and died for the Church, the ONE Church, the Catholic faith. How on earth can I desert that just because John Calvin came along and thought the Church read Romans wrong? What kind of logic is that?
Let me end with this:
"In the Church God has placed apostles, prophets, teachers, and every other working of the Spirit, of whom none of those are sharers who do not conform to the Church, but who defraud themselves of life by an evil mind and even worse way of acting. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace" -St. Irenaeus(Against Heresies 3:24:1 [A.D. 189]).
So is the Catholic Church usurping Christ's role to distribute all grace? or are Calvinist's denying Christ's claim to establish a Church which distributes all grace? The Fathers side with Catholicism.
"Be not deceived, my brethren: If anyone follows a maker of schism [i.e., is a schismatic], he does not inherit the kingdom of God; if anyone walks in strange doctrine [i.e., is a heretic], he has no part in the passion [of Christ]. Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of his blood; one altar, as there is one bishop, with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons" - St. Ignatius of Antioch (Letter to the Philadelphians 3:3–4:1 [A.D. 110]).
"The authority of these [ecumenical] councils in the decision of all points of controversy was supreme and final. Their doctrinal decisions were early invested with infallibility; the promises of the Lord respecting the indestructibleness of his church, his own perpetual presence with the ministry, and the guidance of the Spirit of truth, being applied in the full sense to those councils, as representing the whole church. After the example of the apostolic council, the usual formula for a decree was: Visum est Sprirtui Sancto et nobis. Constantine the Great, in a circular letter to the churches, styles the decrees of the Nicene council a divine command; a phrase, however, in reference to which the abuse of the word divine, in the language of the Byzantine despots, must not be forgotten. Athanasius says, with reference to the doctrine of the divinity of Christ: "What God has spoken by the council of Nice, abides forever." The council of Chalcedon pronounced the decrees of the Nicene fathers unalterable statutes, since God himself had spoken through them. The council of Ephesus, in the sentence of deposition against Nestorius, uses the formula: "The Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has blasphemed, determines through this most holy council." Pope Leo speaks of an "irretractabilis consensus" of the council of Chalcedon upon the doctrine of the person of Christ. Pope Gregory the Great even placed the first four councils, which refuted and destroyed respectively the heresies and impieties of Arius, Macedonius, Nestorius, and Eutyches, on a level with the four canonical Gospels. In like manner Justinian puts the dogmas of the first four councils on the same footing with the Holy Scriptures, and their canons by the side of laws of the realm." - Philip Schaff endorsing conciliar infallibility (History of the Christian Church, Vol. III: Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity: A.D. 311-600, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974, from the revised fifth edition of 1910, 340-342
"With a false bishop appointed for themselves by heretics, they dare even to set sail and carry letters from schismatics and blasphemers to the chair of Peter and to the principal Church [at Rome], in which sacerdotal unity has its source; nor did they take thought that these are Romans, whose faith was praised by the preaching Apostle, and among whom it is not possible for perfidy [error] to have entrance." (Cyprian, Letter 59 (55), 14 to Cornelius of Rome, c. AD 252)
Many Protestants accuse the Roman Catholic (and every other rite of the Catholic Church) Church of giving the Pope 'too much power' and as "Anti-Christ" for he usurps the position of Christ. However what if Christ GAVE St. Peter this role. What if Christ said "On this rock will I build my Church", what if Christ said "Peter feed my Lambs", what if Christ gave him authority to forgive sins (Jn 20:23), to lead and teach the Church (acts 2)... He did say and do those things. So to put up a dichotemy between Christ and the Roman Catholic Church is impossible, he promised both of them would work together.
The Church Fathers taught and died for the Church, the ONE Church, the Catholic faith. How on earth can I desert that just because John Calvin came along and thought the Church read Romans wrong? What kind of logic is that?
Let me end with this:
"In the Church God has placed apostles, prophets, teachers, and every other working of the Spirit, of whom none of those are sharers who do not conform to the Church, but who defraud themselves of life by an evil mind and even worse way of acting. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace" -St. Irenaeus(Against Heresies 3:24:1 [A.D. 189]).
So is the Catholic Church usurping Christ's role to distribute all grace? or are Calvinist's denying Christ's claim to establish a Church which distributes all grace? The Fathers side with Catholicism.
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