Is My Phylactery Showing?

Nearly Done

2011-12-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

I am nearing completion of the last course (aside from my directed research) for the MA in theology program at Holy Apostles. I have a paper to submit this evening (after my wife has a chance to give it a once over), and a final next Friday. Then on to the thesis!

I'm posting some of the papers I've written this semester (but not this week's assignment). I suspect I will be posting a lot more when my reading will call for more personal reflection. I'm looking forward to finishing this program and moving on to the next big thing (diaconal ordination) and then the next big thing after that (Ph.D.).

And someday, I might just be able to teach again.

Relations of Distinction

2011-12-10T15:31:00.001-07:00

By human reason, we can come to know God’s existence, can recognize His external acts, and can deduce His attributes. Outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the pagan Greek philosophers had already deduced the oneness of God (in contradistinction to their own pantheon) as well as many of His perfections as the source of all being.[1] The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that it is within mankind’s natural gifts to come to knowledge of God’s existence (CCC 35; also Denizinger 1785, 1806), and our theological traditions attest to this truth. Yet this knowledge of God comes from observation and reflection on this material world. It can only address the effects of God and the necessary powers to induce those effects. What our reflection cannot penetrate is the inner life of God. For that we require a testimony. For that, we require revelation.

Catholic theology tells us that there are three absolute mysteries of our faith: the Trinity, the Incarnation, and divine grace.[2] They are called absolute mysteries because no created intellect can comprehend them, not even the angels or souls in beatitude. We know of these mysteries only because God has chosen, in His goodness, to reveal Himself through scripture, through the words of His prophets, and finally, through the Incarnation of the Word in Jesus Christ. Through the words of Christ as reported by the evangelists and the teachings of the Apostle Paul, we see allusions to the mystery of the Trinity. In the two infancy accounts from Matthew and Luke, each gospel points toward the personal in God in the unusual circumstances of Jesus’ conception and birth. However, our first glimpse into the relational life of the Trinity is given to us in the unanimous witness in all four gospels of the account of Jesus’ baptism. In the three synoptic gospels, the evangelists relate that the heavens open, Jesus sees the Holy Spirit descending on Him in the form of a dove, and He hears the Father speaking the words of affirmation. In the Gospel of John, the evangelist relates what is more of an eyewitness account by John the Baptist:

“I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him, I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and born witness that this is the Son of God.” (1:32–34, RSV).

The final verses of the Gospel according to Matthew also attest to three persons: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (28:19). St. Paul, too, attests to the persons of the Father and the Son (Romans 8:32) and also to the Holy Spirit given to us as gift (Romans 5:5). Scripture, then, gives one sufficient witness of the Persons in God, yet still there is little to explain how One is Three.

Much of the early doctrine on the Trinity comes by way of the works of the Cappadocian Fathers, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and St. Augustine.[3] The early councils of the Church and their resulting creeds teach two processions within God (Denzinger 86). The work of the early Church Father mentioned above help the faithful to understand that these processions correspond to the two internal activities of God, thinking and willing. In respect to these processions, St. Augustine wrote, “For the mind cannot love itself, except also it know itself; for how can it love what it does not know?” (9, 3, 3) This first procession, that of knowing, is called generation, and the second, that of willing or loving, spiration. The result of each procession is a Person, yet a Person sharing the same Divine nature as the origin and subsisting in that nature. What does this mean for a Person to subsist in the Divine nature?

As St. Thomas notes in Summa Theologica, a person as defined by Boethius is “an individual substance of a rational nature” (I. 29. 1). One typically thinks of an individual substance as a discrete being, and in creatures this identification would be correct. However, in God, being or nature is not discrete but communal and possessed by three Hypostases. Thus,

[B]ecause subsistence in a rational nature is of high dignity, therefore every individual of the rational nature is called a “person.” Now the dignity of the divine nature excels every other dignity; and thus the name “person” pre-eminently belongs to God. (I.29.3)

These persons in the Divine Being are not distinct by nature, but only by way of the relation each has to the origin. Ott explains that relation indicates an ordination or ordering of one thing to another and describes three elements in a relation: principle (origin), aim (term), and the basis of the relation (fundamentum).[4] The Father is the origin. The Son is generated from the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and Son. These Persons, then, are said to signify relations in God, or as St. Thomas averred, “Therefore a divine person signifies a relation as subsisting” (I.29.4).

We count three Persons in the Trinity, yet the Church teaches four real relations in the Trinity. To understand this teaching, one must go back to the notion of the processions. Two processions result from the two activities in God. The first is called generation. Fr. Kenneth Baker describes generation as “the origin of a living being from another living being, both having the same nature.”[5] In the Divine generation, the intellect of God knows Itself, and this knowledge of self produces a perfect image, the Word. In this generation, there is a principle, the Father, and a term, the Son. As two Persons result, they exist in relation to one another. As the Father generates the Son, His relation to Son is called paternity. This relation is the action of the principle toward the Son. St. Thomas notes, citing Augustine, that real relation in God can only be based on action because there is no quantity in God (I.28.4). From this action moving from origin to term, two relations result. The first, paternity, identifies the origin as Father. The second relation is referred to as filiation because the term of generation (the Son) is a Person of the same nature as the Father. As the Angelic Doctor explains, “two opposite relations arise; one of which is the relation of the person proceeding from the principle; the other is the relation of the principle Himself” (I.28.4).

The next procession results from an act of will, specifically an act of mutual love between Father and Son.[6] The Father is the origin, but the action takes part on behalf of both Father and Son. The term of the action is the Holy Spirit. While the scriptural basis for this teaching is clear, it was nonetheless a source of controversy in the ninth century, when a patriarch, Photius, rejected the teaching as heretical.[7] Yet scripture states that all that the Father has, He has given the Son (John 16:16) and that the Son (John 15:26, 16:7) sends the Holy Spirit who has proceeded from the Father. If the Father has given the Son everything, then He has given the procession of the Holy Spirit as well. Hence, this action moves from the Father and Son as a single principle,[8] and results in the Holy Spirit as term. Again, as with the first procession, two real relations result. First, is the action of the Father and Son as a single principle, which has come to be known as spiration,[9] as it results in a term, the Holy Spirit. In this process, the action is referred to as the relation of active spiration, while the term or recipient of action is called the relation of passive spiration. All together, we have four real relations in God: Father to Son, Son to Father, Father and Son to Holy Spirit, and Holy Spirit to Father and Son.[10]

At this point, one can acknowledge four relations, but within a single being, how are these relations real rather than just logical relations—that is, actual relations or just a means by which we think about and compare two things? St. Thomas points out that when something proceeds from a principle of the same nature, the relation is not simply logical but real (I.28.1). Thus in the Trinity are four real relations. Yet, if there are four real relations, why is God triune rather than quadruple? The answer to this question lies in the nature of the relations. Relations imply distinction, and in the Godhead, there exist principles and terms in opposition to each other. In the first procession (generation), Father is opposed to Son in that one (the principle) is active, and the other (Son), passive. In the second procession (spiration), the Father and Son are active as one principle, and the passive spiration of the Holy Spirit is opposed to them. Active spiration is opposed to passive spiration but not to the Father and the Son. Thus it is not distinct from them.[11] So while the real relation of active spiration exists, it does not result in a person distinct from the other Persons of the Trinity.

By reason, we can know God, but only through revelation can we know of His internal life. Through the Incarnation, we come to know three Divine Persons, the Unbegotten, the Begotten, and the Love between them: three Persons from four real relations in One Divine Being.

1. “Aristotle,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. October 21, 2005. http://www.iep.utm.edu/
aristotl/ (accessed November 7, 2011); also Carl Huffman, “Pythgoreanism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/pythagoreanism/ (accessed November 7, 2011).

2. Kenneth Baker, Fundamentals of Catholicism, (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1983) 79.

3. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, (Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1974) 68.

4. Ott, 67–68.

5. Baker, 93.

6. Ott, 66.

7. Ibid., 62–63.

8. Ibid.

9. Baker, 98

10. Ibid., 101.

11. Ibid., 102.

Works Cited

Aquinas, Thomas. “Summa Theologica, Prima Pars.” New Advent. 2000. http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1027.htm (accessed October 6, 2011).

“Aristotle.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. October 21, 2005. http://www.iep.utm.edu/aristotl/ (accessed November 7, 2011).

Augustine. “On the Trinity.” New Advent. Edited by Phillip Schaff. 1887. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/130104.htm (accessed October 7, 2011).

Baker, Kenneth. Fundamentals of Catholicism. San Francisco: Ignatius, 1983.

Catechism of the Catholic Church. Washington D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1997.

Denzinger, Henry. The Sources of Catholic Dogma. Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire: Loreto Publications, 1954.

Huffman, Carl. “Pythgoreanism.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Summer 2010. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/
entries/pythagoreanism/ (accessed November 7, 2011).

Ott, Ludwig. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1974.

Intellect and Will: Two Divine Processions

2011-12-10T15:20:00.001-07:00

In 879, a council in Constantinople under the Patriarch Photius rejected the Filioque (the statement concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son) as heretical. The Synod of Toledo in 447 had added the words “and the Son” to the Nicene-Constantinople Creed to signify the procession of the Holy Spirit in one spiration from a single principle, an expression of doctrine that was held or confirmed by councils, synods, doctors, and popes in the four centuries preceding Photius’s condemnation.[1] Did Photius have a point? Did anything in the history of the Church justify a schism on such grounds? Did Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition point to a different expression of the divine processions? What exactly was the perpetual teaching of the Church regarding the processions of Son and Holy Spirit?

The Church has proclaimed the procession of Son and Holy Spirit from the Father in its creeds going back to the Council of Constantinople in 381 (Denzinger 86). As Fr. Kenneth Baker summarizes,

The Church teaches in this matter that in God there are two internal divine processions. By ‘procession’ is meant to origin of one from another…. [C]reatures proceed from God by external procession, but the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed by an immanent act of the Most Holy Trinity, since they belong to the internal life of God.[2]

The Church’s proclamation of this truth, of course, did not stand on a single pronouncement but upon the living tradition of the faith as expressed in its scripture and tradition, and attested to in the liturgy of the Church and the words of the Church Fathers and Doctors. While both processions originate in the Father, they differ in act and relation. While the Son is begotten and proceeds by generation, the Holy Spirit proceeds by spiration. In the developing theology concerning these processions, which both Latin and Greek churches accepted and to which they attested, two different views arose and expressed differing emphases, which were later the seeds of misinterpretation leading to the Photian schism.

The oneness of the Trinity had been long affirmed by the creeds, and the doctrine concerning the procession of the Son had developed during the Christological debates of the fourth century. Specifically, the Nicene-Constantinople Creed states the following concerning the second Person of the Trinity:

[We believe in] one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made…. (Denzinger 86, bracketed content added)

The Son is unique in His relationship with the Father as the only begotten. Begetting is the procession proper to the Son and is also referred to as generation. St. Thomas describes this unique procession in Summa Theologica as that kind of generation which involves “what proceeds by way of similitude in the same specific nature” (I, 27, 2). While there is generation of a kind in which an effect proceeds from a cause, as Arius took Jesus’ procession to be (ST I, 27, 1), such a procession does not necessarily entail a procession by way of similitude. The Council of Nicea ended speculation along such lines by declaring the Son homoousious or consubstantial with the Father. As such, His procession can only be by way of similitude, as St. Thomas describes in Question 27, Article 2.

This generation of similitude is well attested in scripture. First, there is the literal claim of generation of Jesus in the annunciation narrative of Luke: “And the angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God’” (1:35). In the Gospel according to John, Jesus frequently alludes to His relationship with the Father: “But the testimony which I have is greater than that of John; for the works which the Father has granted me to accomplish, these very works which I am doing, bear me witness that the Father has sent me” (5:36), or again in 8:54: “Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God.” Finally, perhaps the most oft quoted of all gospel passages speaks directly to Jesus as One Who is sent: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (3:14). In the book of Hebrews, the author interprets Psalm 2:7 in light of Christ’s revelation of Himself as Son: “For to what angel did God ever say, ‘Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee’?” (1:5).

That He proceeds from the Father, then, is clear in revelation. The question, then, becomes how He proceeds. How does His identity as the Word point to the nature of this procession? We understand His procession to be by way of generation as one like the Father of the same essence. In the Gospel According to John, we hear of the Word being with God and also God (1:1). John employs the Greek word λογος (logos), which carries with it more than the mere notion of the spoken word but of word as concept or idea. In On the Trinity, St. Augustine establishes a foundational notion of Son as the knowledge God (as mind) has of Himself: “For the mind cannot love itself, except also it know itself; for how can it love what it does not know?” (9, 3, 3) St. Thomas develops this idea further, noting that the Son proceeds by way of generation: “He proceeds by way of intelligible action, which is a vital operation:—from a conjoined principle (as above described):—by way of similitude, inasmuch as the concept of the intellect is a likeness of the object conceived” (ST I, 27, A2). The Son’s procession, then, is an act of intellect. He is the thought of God in God’s mind, the perfect Imago Dei possessing all that the Father has.

While the Son proceeds by generation, the Holy Spirit does not. There cannot be two different words of God or two distinct intellectual acts of self recognition in the Father. The Holy Spirit’s name alludes to the form of His procession. The word “spirit” comes from Latin spirare, which means to breathe or blow. In Genesis 1:2 is the first image of the Holy Spirit, the ruah (spirit or breath in Hebrew) that “moves over the face of the waters.” He is the Spirit of the Father (Matthew 10:20) and is spoken of in Matthew 28:19 as equal to the Father. In John 15:26, Jesus speaks of the Spirit as being sent by and proceeding from the Father. Yet He is also the Spirit of the Son (Galatians 4:6) and the Spirit of God and Christ (Romans 8:9).

Unlike the Word, an act of intellection by the Father, the Spirit proceeds by way of an act of the will. St. Augustine is first credited with the notion of the Spirit's procession as an act of the Divine Will[4] and also as the Love of God.[5] St. Thomas develops this notion of Spirit as an act of will in Summa Theologica: “Thus the procession of the intellect is by way of similitude, and is called generation, because every generator begets its own like; whereas the procession of the will is not by way of similitude, but rather by way of impulse and movement towards an object” (I, 27, 4). This willful impulse is the intense love between Father and Son, which manifests itself in this third Person of the Trinity.

While the procession of the Son is by generation, the Church teaches that the procession of the Holy Spirit occurs by spiration. Described in scripture as both the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, sent also by Father and Son (John 15:26, 16:7), it follows that the Spirit proceeds from Father and Son, the very point disputed by Photius, as mentioned above. St. Augustine notes the visible sign of this procession in John 20:22: “For that bodily breathing, proceeding from the body with the feeling of bodily touching, was not the substance of the Holy Spirit, but a declaration by a fitting sign, that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from the Father, but also from the Son” (4, 20, 29). Ott affirms, citing John 16:15, this procession of the Holy Spirit from Father and Son as from a single principle and a single spiration and notes the testimony of both Greek and Latin Fathers, as well the affirmation in various creeds and by synods and councils from the fifth century and up to the Council of Lyons in 1274.[6] While the Latin Fathers preferred the expression “from the Father and the Son,” the Greek Fathers employed a more subordinating expression, “from the Father through the Son.”[7] Yet these two formulations in no way contradict each other but express different theological understandings of the very same operation.

While the question of the Filioque still stands as one of the primary points of disagreement between the Catholic and Orthodox churches, we can see in the writing of the early Church Fathers a clear understanding of two processions: one by generation and the other by spiration. From the testimony of scripture, we can discern the double procession of Spirit from Father and Son (whether expressed in coordination or subordination). From the works of Augustine and St. Thomas, we come to understand the processions as acts of Divine Intellect and Divine Will: two processions, three Persons, One God.

1. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, (Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1974), 62–63.

2. Kenneth Baker, Fundamentals of Catholicism (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1983), 90.

3. J. Lebreton, (1910). The Logos. Retrieved October 7, 2011, from The Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09328a.htm.

4. George Joyce, “The Blessed Trinity,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm (accessed October 2, 2011).

5. Augustine, “Of Faith and the Creed,” New Advent, Phillip Shaff ed, 1887, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1304.htm (accessed October 8, 2011).

6. Ott, 62–64.

7. Ibid.

Works Cited

Aquinas, Thomas. “Summa Theologica, Prima Pars.” New Advent. 2000. http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1027.htm (accessed October 6, 2011).

Augustine. “Of Faith and the Creed.” New Advent. Edited by Phillip Shaff. 1887. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1304.htm (accessed October 8, 2011).

—. “On the Trinity.” New Advent. Edited by Phillip Schaff. 1887. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/130104.htm (accessed October 7, 2011).

Baker, Kenneth. Fundamentals of Catholicism. San Francisco: Ignatius, 1983.

Denzinger, Henry. The Sources of Catholic Dogma. Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire: Loreto Publications, 1954.

Joyce, George. “The Blessed Trinity.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. 1912. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm (accessed October 2, 2011).

Lebreton, Jules. “The Logos.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. 1910. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09328a.htm (accessed October 7, 2011).

Ott, Ludwig. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1974.

The Household of God: a Six-Week Bulletin Series

2011-08-24T21:22:00.031-06:00

NOTE: I'm still tweaking the layout to mimic the hardcopy. Blogger isn't exactly uniform in its use of CSS. Please forgive the odd spacing and alignment.

INTRODUCTION

How often have you heard the term “Household of God” in sermons or scripture readings? Do you think of a big church with a massive altar and ethereal lighting?

Is this what you think of when you hear the words “Household of God”? It could be much simpler and much greater than that.
Jesus, in the Gospel according to John, says, “In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (14:2) We understand the Father’s House to be Heaven. But what if the Household of God isn’t only something we wait to see but also where we live right now?

As Catholic Christians, we believe that we have been adopted into God’s family. St. Paul writes frequently of our status as children of God, “no longer a slave, but a son [or daughter], and if a son, then an heir” (Galatians 4:7). Jesus Himself frequently uses parables about family relationships to explain how God cares for us, forgives us, gives His gifts to us, and gives His own Son to die for us. So we, right now, as God’s adopted children are part of this Household of God—one Divine family.

Over the next few weeks, we are going to explore what it means to be part of the family of God and how it is expressed in our church, particularly in how the Apostle Paul reveals to us how we are to live as sons and daughters of God the Father, as brothers and sisters of Jesus, and as a truly Christian family.

BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM

Paul talks about the relationship between Jesus and the Church much like the relationship between a man and woman in marriage.

Does our love for Christ seem like the love for a betrothed? Christ’s love for us is like that.

This image is not new in Christianity. The People of Israel were often depicted as the bride of God throughout scripture, most notably in Song of Songs, but also in the works of prophets like Isaiah and Hosea. However, the People of Israel were frequently not a faithful bride, so the image of God as bridegroom was one of constancy in the face of rejection.

Jesus also used the image of a bridegroom in parables to speak of Himself: as one for whom the wise and foolish virgins wait in Matthew 25; as the Son of a king who has prepared a wedding feast in Matthew 22; and as a bridegroom with whom His followers celebrate in Matthew 9:15 and Mark 2:18. However, the letters of Paul really develop this image of Jesus and what His sacrifice means for the faithful.
In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul speaks of the church of Corinth as if he were a jealous father guarding his betrothed daughter: “I feel a divine jealously for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her husband” (11:2). Paul wanted to give the Corinthian church completely to Christ and wanted their commitment to the gospel to match his fervor.

In Ephesians, Paul compares a husband’s commitment to his wife to that of Christ to His Church: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her” (5:25–26). A husband’s love for his wife is supposed to be self-sacrificial, just as Christ sacrificed Himself for His Church. This, Paul says, is a mystery, that two shall become one (5:31–32).

In Colossians 3:18, we see the often misunderstood exhortation that wives be subject to their husbands. But the same exhortation occurs in Ephesians in a different context. Couples are to submit to each other mutually (Ephesians 6:21). So marriage is not about one having power over another, but of a mutual self giving. The relationship between Christ and Church should be the same. Christ empties Himself out for us, so we should empty ourselves out and be filled by Him.

CHURCH AS GOD’S HOUSE

We talk about the Church as God’s household, and we sometimes refer to our individual chapels as “God’s house.” However, the Greek word ekklesia, which we translate as “church,” actually means “assembly.” Still, Paul talks about the Church as if it were a building project—something we construct as a community together.

As Raymond Collins notes in “The Power of Images in Paul,” Paul writes in both 1 Corinthians and Romans about laying foundations on which others build. “For no other foundation can anyone lay,” Paul writes, “than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11). And in Ephesians, Paul writes that those in the Church are “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:19–21).

Paul’s words allude to passages in Hebrew scripture that prophesy Christ’s coming. In Isaiah, the prophet writes, “therefore thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: 'He who believes will not be in haste’” (Isaiah 28:16). And again in Zechariah, the prophet writes, “Out of them [the house of Judah] shall come the cornerstone, out of them the tent peg, out of them the battle bow, out of them every ruler” (Zechariah 10:4). The Lord says, of these people, “I will bring them back because I have compassion on them, and they shall be as though I had not rejected them” (10:6).

Jesus is the cornerstone of the foundation built on the apostles and prophets, and we are the bricks that make up walks, the timbers that support the roof, the tiles that keep out sun and rain. But we’re also the builders, constructing the house where God lives and comes to us.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS

Adelphoi—this Greek word means “brothers” or “brethren” and is usually now translated as “brothers and sisters.” It is hands down one of the most common ways that Paul refers to the faithful throughout his letters. In fact, the word adelphoi occurs 18 times in the “Letter of Paul to the Romans” alone!

Everyone has their place in a family, and each person plays a part in making a home. As Christians and Catholics, we need to value each other as family, each of us playing a different part.
One of the hallmarks of early Christianity was the devotion that members of the community exhibited to each other, as if all were members of an extended family. In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells His apostles that people will know them by their love for one another (John 13:35). Tertullian, a third-century father of the early Church, made mention of the reactions of the non-Christian gentiles to Christian communities in his writings: “‘See,’ they say, ‘how they love one another,’ for themselves are animated by mutual hatred”

Raymond Collins notes how often Paul relies on kinship language in his letters to convey the attitude Christians should have toward one another. We are brothers and sisters in Christ! We need to act like it and love one another!

Sometimes Catholics and Christians act a little too much like brothers and sisters.

In the opening of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul stresses kinship bonds: “I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1:10). Paul is saying what should be obvious to all of us. Brothers and sisters should be building each other up and supporting each other, not tearing each other down.

Without love, we are merely noisy gongs or clanging cymbals (1 Corinthians 13:1). To Paul, this brotherly love is the essence of Christian life, and the kind of love that our Savior showed for us in life and death.

HOUSE RULES

What would your house look like if it operated with no rules? It would be a bit chaotic, wouldn’t it?

Every home has rules of one kind or another, and Paul most definitely had some opinions about what kinds of rules a Christian home should have. In fact, he has two separate lists of rules that have been given a special name by scripture scholars: Haustafel, which means “household code” in German. (1 Peter 2–3 also has one such list.)

We’ve already talked about some of these rules and how they relate to husbands and wives. Paul stresses mutual self-giving and sacrifice: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21). Of course, Paul talks about the obligations children: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (6:1). But he also talks about the obligation of fathers to rule the home justly: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in discipline and instruction of the Lord” (6:4). He even adds a word about how slaves and slave owners should act toward one another. (Keep in mind that slavery was very common and accepted in Paul’s time.) Every person in the house has obligations toward every other person. We also have obligations to work as if we’re serving God (Colossians 3:23). Our work should always be an offering to our Lord.
Paul knew, as the Church today knows, that charity begins at home. The Church sees the family as the fundamental place where Christian living is modeled and taught. It even refers to the family as the Ecclesia domestica or “domestic church” (CCC 1655).

Our house rules are one way that we can teach the values that our faith preaches. We learn to act lovingly in a loving home. From there, we need to go out and be Christ’s love to the world.

Our house rules don’t put up barriers between us. They make it so that we can live together in peace and harmony.

IT’S A BIG, BIG HOUSE…

“In my Father’s house there are many rooms” (John 14:2). When we hear this verse, I think many of us often conjure up an image of a sprawling mansion with manicured gardens and lawns. But Jesus was also giving as an image of community and inclusivity.

How do you picture the Father’s house? A castle? A country cottage? What does our image say about what we value?

For Paul, this sense of Christian community was paramount. One of the problems he seems to be responding to in 1 Corinthians 11 is that the people were making distinctions based on wealth or social rank, and that some members of the church weren’t sharing table fellowship with those of other social classes during meals held before the liturgy. “[D]o you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” he writes (11:22). To Paul, such divisions were a desecration of the Eucharistic celebration.

In other letters such as 2 Thessalonians, Paul is concerned with false teachings that set up divisions among Christians, or in factionalism caused by Judaizers (Galatians) or by spiritual elitism (1 Corinthians 1:11–13). Paul frequently reminded the churches he founded that there is only one gospel and one body of Christ. All members need to work together for the good of the whole.

Sadly, internal division hasn’t gone away in our own time. Too often our Church is divided by disagreements about doctrinal orthodoxy, social teaching, or proper liturgical practice. Disagreements may be inevitable, but we need to accept each other where we are and continue to help each other on the road to salvation—like one big family. We should always teach the truth but do so with love.

There’s room for everyone at the table, but we need to mind our manners and act with love.

The word “Catholic” comes from the Greek word katholicos, which means “universal.” That word reflects the many cultures, rites, and expressions found in the Church today. God’s house, the Church, is big and all embracing. There is room for all of us here.

WORKS CITED

Catechism of the Catholic Church. Washington D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1997.
Collins, Raymond F. The Power of Images in Paul. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2008.
Horton, Fred L., Kenneth G. Hoglund and Mary F. Foskett. A Basic Vocabulary of Biblical Studies For Beginning Students: A Work in Progress. 2011. 6 August 2011 .
Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Writings of the New Testament. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999.
“Lexical Concordance.” The Apostolic Bible Polyglot. First Edition. Newport: The Apostolic Press, 2006.
Tertullian. “Apologeticum.” 1 June 2005. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 5 August 2011 .

Galatia: A Celtic Island in the Anatolian Desert

2011-08-14T12:04:00.002-06:00

This essay was for an assignment for New Testament Letters. I'm finished with the course work and now just have to take the final. Then two more classes, and all course work will be finished!
----------

About 13 years after his conversion experience on the road to Damascus, Paul left Syrian Antioch and began what would be the first of three missionary journeys. To say that Paul’s journey was difficult is an understatement. Driven out of Iconium by a Jewish mob (Acts 13:50) and stoned by another in Lystra (Acts 14: 19), the Apostle certainly had what most of us would consider “enough.” Yet it is during this time that he established some of the first Gentile Christian communities among the cities of Galatia. Paul says very little about the Galatians except in regard to their gracious reception of him and their early acceptance of the faith. In his references to their lack of knowledge of God (Gal. 4:8), one can assume that the Galatians were pagan prior to their conversion. He praises them for their hospitality in receiving him in his illness (Gal. 4:12–14), but very little else is offered of the inhabitants of this region. Acts likewise has very little to say about this intriguing Celtic people who lived in the rough, desolate land of central Anatolia.[i]

During the time of the Roman occupation of Asia Minor and Judea, Galatia extended from the coastal regions of Bithynia and Pontus in the north nearly to the southern Mediterranean coast of Anatolia.[ii] It included parts of Phrygia, Lyconia, Pisidia (including Pisidian Antioch, which was sometimes considered part of Phrygia)[iii], and parts of other surrounding regions. The Galatia of Paul’s time corresponded with this larger political entity and included many of the cities where Paul preached: Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, to name a few (Acts 13–14). The central region of Galatia was bleak and barren, with harsh, cold winters and hot, dry summers. The inhabitants eked out a living producing wool, carving tombstone, and vintaging wine. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor suggests that wine may have made life in such harsh climes a bit more bearable for the Galatians but contributed little to the economy.[iv]

The Roman province of Galatia took its name from the earlier region settled by Gaulish migrants called Galatai[v] or Keltoi by the Greeks or Galli by the Romans,[vi] while in modern parlance, they would be called Celts. The Gauls had been pushing east for some time and had made contact with the empire of Alexander the Great by 335 B.C. but made no serious incursions into Greece until well after his death, sometime around 281, when an army led by Bolgios defeated King Ptolemy Ceraunas of Macedonia.[vii] following this victory, internal squabbles led to the fragmentation of the army. One part, led by leaders Brennus and Acichorios, decided to take their game to Delphi and loot the shrines there, but they were defeated decisively.[viii] The original army led by Bolgios was defeated in Thrace. A third branch led by Leonorius and Lutarius chose a different route, passing through Thrace, but crossing over to Asia Minor at the invitation of Nicomedes of Bithynia.[ix]

One could certainly question the thinking of Nicomedes in this instance. After all, the Galatai had already separated Ptolemy’s kingly head from the rest of him and had also gone on to wreak terror among the Greeks in Delphi. However, Nicomedes had his own concerns. His brother Zipoetes had been causing him problems at home, and his neighbor to the southeast, Antiochus I of Seleucia, also had designs on his territory. Negotiating through Antigonus of Macedonia, he hired 10,000 Galatai mercenaries (with 10,000 additional camp followers).[x] While the Galatai solved Nicomedes’ short-term problem, they also created a long-term headache for all of the surrounding kingdoms in Asia Minor. After they were defeated by Antiochus I, Mithridates of Pontus settled the Galatians on Seleucid land, and the Celts proved very difficult to remove.[xi] As Simon James notes, they had a penchant for wealth, especially when it belonged to others, and also had other less attractive qualities:

They periodically burst out of their territories on plundering raids, bringing back prisoners as well as goods; and in the third century Galatia became a centre for trading slaves and holding prisoners for ransom. Surrounding states raised special taxes to free those taken. The Galatians inspired widespread terror, especially since they had a reputation for sacrificing prisoners.[xii]

The Celts raided cities to the west and demanded tribute from many of them. They would continue to be a thorn in the side of many of the surrounding kingdoms until Attalus I of Pergamum defeated them for good in 232 B.C. The surrounding Hellenist kingdoms recognized the area settled by the Galatians as a state of its own, concentrated around Ancyra and the city of Pessinus, the latter of which would be the location of Paul’s missionary work among the Galatians of the first century A.D.[xiii] Peter Berresford Ellis notes, however, that the Galatai preferred to live in the surrounding areas rather than in the cities, in duns or hill forts.

During this period, Rome began to exert its power over the ever weakening Hellenist states in the region. The Galatians, who seemed to have a penchant for siding with the wrong parties, allied themselves first with Antiochus III, and suffered a devastating loss to the Romans in 190.[xiv] They became vassals to different kingdoms at different times, but all under Roman rule. They managed to push their boundaries to include parts of Phrygia and Lycaonia.[xv] During this period, the Galatai never really unified but were more of a loose confederation of three tribes: the Trocmi, the Tolistobogii, and the Textosages. While they eschewed centralized authority, they were not without some governmental structure, as James notes:

Each tribe was divided into four “septs” or clans, probably with distinct territories. Each sept was ruled by a chief called a tetrarch (from Greek, tetra-, ‘four’; archos, ‘chief’). He was assisted by a general, two deputy generals and a judge.[xvi]

One chieftain, Ortiagon, attempted unsuccessfully to unify the clans into a single nation. Not until a treacherous king of Pontus, Mithridates V, massacred a large delegation of Galatian chiefs did the tribes unify around one remaining chieftain, Deiotaros. After a prolonged struggle, the Galatians managed to secure their land from the threat of Pontus, with the help of a powerful ally. Rome soon recognized Deiotaros as the ruler over all of the Galatians.[xvii] However, the Galatians chose sides poorly again, first with Pompey against Julius Caesar, and later with Mark Antony against Augustus. By 25 B.C., Galatia was firmly under Roman control.[xix]

Culturally, the Galatians appear to have held onto much of their Gaulish heritage. While they spoke Greek and intermarried with the local population,[xx] they still maintained their cultural identity. St. Jerome, in his commentary on Paul’s letter to the Galatians, notes that even in the fourth century A.D., the inhabitants of this region spoke Celtic.[xxi] They would have been quite distinct from the local populace in their appearance, with lighter skin and red or blonde hair. By Paul’s time, some mixing of genetic stocks would have occurred, perhaps making the Galatians less physically distinct. However, it seems likely that they would still look considerably different than people of the neighboring regions. They wore bracae or breeches (which the Romans considered effeminate and barbaric) and striped or checked shirts and coats (much like a tartan) that were fastened over the shoulder with a buckle.[xxii] Classical references to the Galatians are not particularly flattering. Livy referred to the Galatians and their Phrygian neighbors as a “degenerate, mongrel race.”[xxiii] Murphy-O’Connor describes the general opinion thus: “The Galatians for their part were considered to be large, unpredictable simpletons, ferocious and highly dangerous when angry, but without stamina and easy to trick.”[xxiv]

However, they were not impervious to the influence of the neighboring peoples. This influence is particularly notable in the area of religion. Simon James notes that the Galatai brought with them their practice of human sacrifice and created a central shrine, Drunemeton (oak-sanctuary), which seems to hint fleetingly at some Druidic practice.[xxv] However, while Sts. Clement and Cyril of Alexandria and Stephanus of Byzantium each claim that the Galatians had a Druidic class,[xxvi] James indicates that there is no firm evidence that the Galatai maintained Druidic practices in Asia Minor.[xxvii] Like the Greeks and Romans, the Galatai were polytheistic, but James indicates that they did not conceive of gods in human shape until late in the Iron Age.[xxviii] In their new homeland, they adopted the gods of their Phrygian neighbors and even became members of the priesthood in Pessinus, which had been the religious center for the Phrygians.[xxix]

Murphy-O’Connor notes that the status of Pessinus as the shrine of Cybele may explain why Paul stayed on after recovering from his illness. As a major center of worship and trade, Pessinus would attract vistors, and Paul’s message could be carried away to other towns in the province.[xxx] Galatia was a unique intersection of cultures, which made it fertile ground for a new message, the good news of our Lord.

Works Cited
"Antioch, of Pisidia." 1915. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Ed. James Orr. 28 June 2011 .
Ellis, Peter Berresford. The Celtic Empire: The First Millennium of Celtic History, c1000 BC–51 AD. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1990.
"Galatia." 1916. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Ed. James Orr. 28 June 2011 .
James, Simon. The World of the Celts. London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd., 1993.
Jerome. "Galatians." 13 July 2005. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 2 July 2011 .
Murphy-O'Connor, Jerome. Paul: A Critical Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Endnotes
i. Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, Paul: A Critical Life, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 192.
ii. “Galatia,” 1916, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Ed. James Orr, 28 June 2011 .
iii. “Antioch, of Pisidia,” 1915, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Ed. James Orr, 28 June 2011 .
iv. Murphy-O'Connor, 191.
v. “Galatia.” .
vi. Simon James, The World of the Celts (London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd., 1993), 12.
vii. Ibid., 37.
viii. Ibid., 39.
ix. “Galatia.” .
x. Peter Berresford Ellis, The Celtic Empire: The First Millennium of Celtic History, c1000 BC–51 AD (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1990), 92–93.
xi. James, 40.
xii. Ibid., 41.
xiii. Murphy-O'Connor, 186–189. Also, Ellis, 97.
xiv. Ibid., 94
xv. James, 41.
xvi. Ellis, 102.
xvii. James, 41.
xviii. Ellis, 105.
xix. Ibid., 106.
xx. Murphy-O'Connor, 188.
xxi. Jerome, "Galatians," 13 July 2005, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2 July 2011 .
xxii. James, 65.
xxiii. Murphy-O'Connor, 190.
xxiv. Ibid., 189–190.
xxv. Ibid., 41.
xxvi. Ellis, 95.
xxvii. James, 41.
xxviii. Ibid., 89.
xxix. Ellis, 94.
xxx. Murphy-O'Connor, 193.

Dan Lord: A Thug No More

2011-08-01T10:41:00.003-06:00

It wasn’t the content of the pledge that was the catalyst, though it is tempting to assume that. The catalyst was that I referred to God at all, that I took a part of my life and said without reserve: “This is yours—you can have it back. Sorry I broke it. I won’t screw with it again, I promise.”

Dan shares the story of how God ruined his life as a punk rocker.

When you're done with that, check out his story on how he made friends with the devil.

Did I mention that these are conversion stories?

Extraordinary Minister of Baptism? Another story from my Catholic youth.

2011-07-09T17:34:00.007-06:00

I'm currently working with a team of people at my parish to reform our parish's baptism preparation class. This work started off as an individual effort to develop a more rigorous curriculum but has evolved to included team building and possibly some interparish collaboration. The course is shaping up well, and we have some great people engaging with the program.

One of the points mentioned in the course is the minimal requirements for a valid sacrament. In Catholic sacramental theology courses, we get a framework for sacramental validity. A sacrament must have a valid minister, a valid recipient, proper form, and proper matter. For the Sacrament of Baptism, anyone with any exposure to Christian practices knows that baptism involves water, which is the valid matter required for the sacrament. Fewer know that there is a proper form (the Trinitarian form instituted by Christ in Matthew 28:19) or that the recipient has to consent (or be represented by guardians who consent) and intend to receive what the sacrament confers. And yet fewer know that a valid minister can be anyone who performs the sacrament with the proper intention.

That's right. Anyone who has the proper intention. As the lecturer in my Sacraments class (Marcellino D'Ambrosio) indicated, an atheist who intends to do what the Church requires can validly baptize someone.

Now, of course, we're not talking about the Rite of Baptism but the Sacrament of Baptism (which is part of the rite and the heart and purpose of it). The Rite of Baptism is performed by an ordained minister. However, in an emergency, if someone wishes to receive baptism and only an atheist is on hand but wishes to do what the requester asks, the atheist can baptize. Imagine a doctor delivering a baby who will most not likely survive, and a parent requests baptism. If the atheist doctor desires to confer the sacrament for this child and uses water and the proper formula (I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit), that baptism is considered valid.

We added this information because I believe that all Catholics should know this and be able to perform a valid baptism in an emergency situation. However, during a baptism preparation class, we also have to add that the rite includes more than just the sacrament and that the minimal form is only something to do in emergencies.

Unfortunately (or not), that last part of the norm wasn't really explained to me when I was a child.

When I was young, I was a fervent Catholic and firm believer. My mother had been involved with the charismatic movement, and she instilled in us a sense of the faith as well as she was able. I attended CCD and Mass on Sundays, fulfilled all the obligations of the faith, and otherwise practiced as well as I could at that age. And I got some of that old-time catecheses. We hadn't yet reached the era of kinder, gentler Catholic faith formation (in which the realities of the last things were watered down and the need for a Messiah was largely replaced with the need for a really nice friend). I sometimes like to say that, as a Catholic growing up on a military base, I got all the guilt but little of the culture. (More on my Catholic childhood here and here) Anyway, at eight years old, I probably understood more about the basics of the faith than many adults these days.

And part of that teaching was basic instruction on the sacraments, including the Sacrament of Baptism. Somewhere in all that catecheses must've been the minimal requirements for baptism, and certainly I had witnessed a few baptisms by that time and heard the three-part formula. All of this information was cached away in my memory for use at a later time.

My mother was also very connected with other Christians on base, many of them non-Catholic and very evangelical in spirit. They loved to talk about Jesus, and they held bible studies, and they encouraged their children to do the same. I can honestly say that I knew very few kids on base who did not believe in God and who were not Christian (with the exception of some Mormon neighbors* and one Hindu family). And many of my friends were also Catholic, also not a surpise given that Catholics tend to be overrepresented in the military.

So I wore my faith on my shirtsleeve, so to speak (or on my loincloth, as the case may have been). I was happy to talk about Jesus and my faith. Anti-Catholic sentiment wasn't particularly common on base (although I did experience it more when we moved to nearby Medical Lake). I had no reason not to evangelize, and so I did.

We lived in the officer housing area on Fairchild AFB. That sounds a bit classist, but it was pretty typical of most military bases (and perhaps still is). However, while the housing was intended to be assigned to officers, there were often enlisted people with families who lived there (perhaps noncoms). One year, a family moved in across the street. They were atypical—much younger than the other familes in the neighborhood.

There were two children, a boy and a girl. I don't remember their names. They had blond hair and brown eyes. They mainly kept to themselves, never leaving the yard. They were in trouble and on restriction a lot. And naturally, I was happy to introduce myself to them, being both gregarious and clownish. They looked like they needed cheering up, and I was happy to oblige.

Over the few weeks that I knew them, I got small glimpses of what must have been a pretty horrific life. They couldn't leave the yard, so I always went to them. They sometimes had wounds (gouges) on their arms which they said came from their parents as punishment. I don't remember seeing any other children playing with them, and they certainly didn't wander the neighborhood looking for playmates.

I don't know how the topic arose, how I phrased the question, how I was prompted to ask, but for some reason, I must have asked if they went to church. They didn't. I must've followed up. Do they believe in God? In Jesus? Did they know that Jesus died so they could go to heaven?

I don't recall how we engaged the subject, but what came out was that they had not been baptized, but yes, they wanted to go to heaven. That was good enough for me. And I must have shared with them what Jesus had done, and what He meant, and the means He gave us to come to Him. And I must have retrieved that bit of information from my memory cache.

For some reason, the garden hose in their back yard was on. Just a bit. A trickle. Enough to do the job.

I asked them, "Do you want to be baptized?"

They said, "Yes."

And so, I had both of them lie down, one after the other. And I took the hose in my left hand, pouring the water into my right, and I poured the water over their foreheads and said, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

Proper participants with proper intent, valid matter, valid form.

I'm actually weeping a little as I finish this post, because I wonder if this small act (but possibly one of infinite grace) may have had an impact on their lives. Every once in a while, when I remember, I pray for these two friends of mine, and I hope that they freed themselves from the cycle of abuse they were in, and I hope that the grace of God touched them and moved them in mysterious ways.

The Ironic Catholic: Want to win the new "Felon Blames 1970s Church Arc...

2011-06-24T09:22:00.000-06:00

Ironic Catholic has a new ebook out, and I'm her unpaid shill!

The Ironic Catholic: Want to win the new "Felon Blames 1970s Church Arc...: "...All you need to do is become my unpaid advertising agency! Or, to sound slightly less crass and ratchet up the whimsy (thanks for that ..."

Aggie Catholics: Fr. Corapi - Come Back To the Priesthood

2011-06-22T11:45:00.000-06:00

Here's video from St. Joseph Communications posted at Aggie Catholics. I have listened to Fr. Corapi since my reversion to the faith. One thing that strikes me is how out of character all of this seems. That's not to say that we always saw the real face of Fr. Corapi, but he certainly seemed to be the real thing. I also can't help but wonder of the many physical ailments and resulting legal issues he's endured over the last few years have also played a part here. In any case, this post is the last I will mention the matter. He's in my daily intercessory requests.

Aggie Catholics: Fr. Corapi - Come Back To the Priesthood: "A passionate call to Fr. Corapi to come back to his vocation of the priesthood. This will be the last post on the Corapi situation, unless ..."

Shameless Popery: How the "Robber Council" Establishes the Papacy

2011-06-20T14:32:00.000-06:00

Here's an excellent discussion of the dependency of ecumenical councils on the authority of the papacy.

Shameless Popery: How the "Robber Council" Establishes the Papacy: "At least three groups of Christians - Eastern Orthodox, traditional Protestants, and liberal Catholics - assail the papacy by arguing that t..."

Pentecost in the Cenacle

2011-06-12T12:11:00.007-06:00

Two years ago today, I sat in the upper room, the Cenacle in Old Jerusalem (pictured above), and prayed my evening hour. I chose to be there specifically because of the day: Pentecost. To say prayers in the Cenacle on Pentecost was, to me, like celebrating a birthday with the whole Church in the place where the Church came to be. To the left and right in the image, you can see stair railings. The one to the left led to an "upper" upper room. On that day, it was open. I was told that the room had not been opened in years. I was blessed to be able to go in and see the additional rooms. It looked out over the courtyard above the traditional Tomb of David (which was actually an early Judeo-Christian synagogue).*

The night before, I had shared a Shabbat meal with a friend and coworker and her family in Rehovot. That evening meal, celebrated after evening prayers in the local synagogue, underscored to me just how much we shared in our heritage with Judaism. I think of all four trips to Israel that I have made, this one was the most special to me because of these small graces.

Pentecost is relevant to both Christians and Jews. For Christians, of course, it is the 50th day (roughly speaking) after Easter and the day on which we commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles in the upper room (Acts 2). It is rightly called in the Latin Church, for this reason, the birthday of the Church.**

For Jews, Pentecost (which is Shavuot) is a harvest festival, as commonly noted. The meaning is "Festival of Weeks" (Chag ha-Shavuo't) and occurs seven weeks after Passover. However, aside from the connection with harvest, it marks another important event: the day G-d*** gave the Torah to the People of Israel at Mount Sinai. What does it signify, then, that Christians celebrate this feast on the same day that commemorates the giving of the Law to the people of Israel?

From Deuteronomy 6:4–6 come the words of the Shema, which Christ echoes in Matthew22:37: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart[.]" Of course, Deuteronomy, the second Law, is what was given to the People of Israel after the original Mosaic covenant was made, and some 430 years after the Abrahamic covenant was made (as Paul notes in Galatians 3:17).

Yet, the prophets still comment on the hard-heartedness of the People of Israel. In Jeremiah 31:33, the prophet says of the people in exile, "I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts." This is the day when the Lord will make a new covenant with them (Jer. 31:31). But how do you write upon a hard heart? In Ezekiel 36:26–27, we get our answer: "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances."

For Christians, the Feast of Pentecost celebrates the day on which the Law of Freedom was written on the hearts of the faithful by the Holy Spirit. From that day on, the Apostles preached a New Covenant because the Paraclete promised by Christ had come to teach them all things and to dwell in them (John 14:16, 26).

*The original building of the Cenacle was replaced long ago, so the room itself is not the exact same as the upper room of the gospels and Acts. Yet, it is believed to be on the same location.

**The Orthodox Churches consider the Church to be existent before the creation of the world so do not consider Pentecost the birthday of the Church.

***Because I've included the Jewish terms here, I use this convention out of respect for any of our Jewish brethren that happen to come upon this page. See this article for details.

How nature says, "Don't touch."

2011-05-22T21:17:00.007-06:00

Another doc update - prayers requested

2011-05-06T13:07:00.002-06:00

My father went in today for his second big round of chemo. He'll have six hours today, then start a 24-30 hour long session tomorrow. They will then be preparing him for a bone-marrow transplant to restore the stem cells damaged during chemo. After surgery, he'll have a couple of weeks in the hospital. Please keep him in your prayers. All of this has to be rather hard on a 75-year old.

What's up (with) Doc?

2011-04-16T22:24:00.003-06:00

I recently requested prayers for my father, who has had a recurrence of the cancer he had a few years ago. Given that he's 75, we're all a little concerned. However, the fact that this is a recurrence rather than a new cancer is reassuring. Then there's the plain fact that Doc is not going down without a fight. He's almost annoyingly chipper, and it's only annoying that the treatments he's undergoing would make most of use whimper and whine.

Let's start with his test 10 days ago. They (those people who determine such things) decided that they needed to check Doc's bone marrow to determine if it might be helpful in his upcoming treatment. They took a sample, and ran a number of their tests. Doc went home, took a short nap, and scurried off to work. This week, he had an MRI, a spinal tap, and some other testing. I called him in the evening to see how he was doing. He was not only fine; he was downright perky.

Yesterday I stopped by to see him in the hospital as he started his first round of chemotherapy. He seems to think he's geting a spa treatment: loves the food, thinks he's being pampered, berates the nurses and CNAs (kindly, of course). Doctors don't often know how to be sick, but my dad takes that truism in the opposite direction. He's an ideal patient.

So I'm not posting to tell you that you don't need to pray for him but to tell you to pray all the more. It's obviously working.

Grace and peace to you all.

The cancer is back.

2011-04-08T14:07:00.004-06:00

If you've been following this blog for a while, you may recall that my father had a bout with cancer a few years ago. Thankfully, he was able to address it with surgery and a round of chemotherapy.

Unfortunately, the cancer seems to be back. He has some more testing to do before his oncologist can determine a course of action. Dad still has a lot of life left in him. After a morning of some fairly invasive testing, he took a short nap, then zipped off to work. However, he's 75 and dealing with diabetes, cancer, and the normal effects of age. Please keep him and all of us in your prayers.

The Latest Furor

2011-03-21T11:08:00.002-06:00

Mark Shea, Elizabeth Scalia, Fr. Z., and others have written sensible words of caution concerning the allegations about Fr. Corapi. (Sadly, a few of the usual suspects have taken the opportunity to slap Fr. Corapi while he's down, but that's how these ugly scenes go.) I will be very sorry if the accusations prove to be true, but it will not affect my faith one iota, for the simple reason that I expect that good people will fall and that some who seem good will be exposed. We need to pray for everyone and do our best not to be stumbling blocks for others.

Anyway, one of the books I'm reading this Lent is The Imitation of Christ. I'm trying to take it in small pieces to avoid overloading and missing something important. Today's reading seems apropos, particularly the last sentence in Book I, chapter 13, section 1: "Nobody can reach to such heights of sanctity that he is never tempted; there is no such thing as being above temptation altogether."

I Done Gone West

2011-03-01T14:32:00.000-07:00

I just returned with my friend Patrick from the Go West Catholic Men's Conference in Pendleton, Oregon. This event was the third annual conference, and the last that Bishop Vasa, formerly of the Diocese of Baker, will probably attend. I did have a chance to chat with him briefly and remind him of a gift my wife and I sent to him a few years ago (a ball cap with the message, "My other hat is a biretta."). He's a very engaging person, and we'll miss having him in a neighboring diocese. He gave an excellent talk on courage today.

Also visiting was Cardinal Raymond Burke, the Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. He celebrated to masses with us, and he also chatted briefly with people while he was there. I didn't get a chance to introduce myself, unfortunately. In addition to his two homilies, he spoke on the subject of martyrdom as love in action.

I took some photos from my phone, but they didn't turn out so well, despite the fact that I was only about 20 feet away.

Music was provided by the choir of the Wyoming Catholic College and was fantastic. In addition to the two liturgies of the Eucharist, we said the Stations of the Cross on Friday night, an international rosary on Saturday morning, and had Adoration and Exposition, followed by Benediction on Saturday afternoon.

We met some great people (even some from our own diocese). I'll look forward to attending again next year.

Prayers for Anthony and...

2011-03-01T10:24:00.004-07:00

Ironic Catholic has been doing her part to publicize the wonderful efforts of the people at Reece's Rainbow, a foundation that seeks to find homes for children with Down Syndrome and other disabilities. These children often come from Eastern Europe or China and are considered unadoptable.

IC has been writing a lot lately about this boy, Anthony, who has CP and a number of other secondary medical problems. He is nearing the age where he will be moved from the "baby house" to a mental institution. I have been thinking a lot about Anthony, and praying as well, for God to help us discern how we should respond to this boy's needs. I'm still not certain what that response should be. But this morning, as I was returning from the Y (after leading an early morning fitness class), I was turning over in mind the challenges of raising a child with profound disabilities. I tossed up one of my typical, spontaneous prayers for guidance, adding, "Our lives would be dramatically altered if we adopted this boy."

An answer came back clear as a bell: "So would his."

Please pray for us to discern God's will here, and pray that a family (maybe ours) will step up to adopt Anthony soon.

Novels and Jobs and Retreats, oh my!

2011-02-24T21:49:00.000-07:00

1. I accepted a position working in my career field, as narrow as that niche is. The conditions aren't ideal, but it's a field I love. In this economy, that is gold.

2. My friend Patrick and I are heading to Pendleton, Oregon tomorrow to take part in an annual retreat with Bishop Vasa and Cdnl. Raymond Burke. I'm a long-time fan of Bsp. V. and an admirer of Cdnl. Burke. I don't do retreats often, but I think I really needed this one. The roads are likely to be nasty, so please pray for our safe travel.

3. I have an idea for a series of novels. I have a tendency to think of big ideas and then let them fade away. (For example, I thought of the bark-off 17 years ago. If I had a patent, I'd be rich!) Anyway, please pray for me to persist with these inspirations.

Seventeen Years Ago Tonight

2011-02-17T20:16:00.005-07:00

We celebrated a special event tonight: my daughter Kellina's seventeenth birthday. It's a somewhat melancholy time for me since it looks more and more like she will be my only child, and my active parenting days will soon be over. Every stage up to now has brought some great and small joys, and there is always a small tug at the heart when I remember those little events and idiosyncrasies of her childhood.

We had dinner at a local Chinese restaurant where we've gone for years. The owners remember us by sight, particularly Kellina, who used to love dumping chili sauce on her tofu and rice. My parents, wife, brother, and aunt were there, along with Kellina's three step siblings and their children, and Kellina's mother and best friend—quite a large party for a Thursday evening in this restaurant. I had been looking forward to this evening for many years and was actually both excited and a little sad that it had already come. I had been holding onto something for seventeen years, and tonight it would be given away.

We all ordered our favorite dishes, which in my case violated all my regular dietary norms. The owners, always very good with young children, plied the two toddlers with broken fortune cookies. Finally, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Kellina and started the ritual gift giving. My family area a generous bunch, so there were some nice items and gift cards (always a favorite for adolescents).

She came to the last two gifts, the ones I had settled on for her. The first came enclosed in a small jewelry carrier.

The carrier itself was a hit, but in it was one small ring. "That ring was your great-grandmother's high-school class ring," I explained. My parents were both rather surprised because neither had ever recalled it. I had found it among my grandmother's things after she had passed away, when we had been told to take any mementos we wanted. The ring was so tiny, and I could barely imagine it fitting her finger. Of course, it fit Kellina perfectly.

In the last gift bag were a set of make-up bags with items tucked inside. One contained a photo of me (with a much more full head of hair) holding a three-week old infant. Everyone enjoyed cooing over the photo.

As she began to pull the item from the second make-up bag, I said, "This will take some explanation."

She looked quizzically at the item, and I went on. "17 years ago almost to the hour, you came into this world. That was the shirt I was wearing at that time." (Her mom jokingly added that one of the sleeves was much longer than the other.)

"It was my favorite shirt. I put it away many years ago with the intention of giving it to you on your seventeenth birthday. I almost gave in early and gave it to you because it seemed like it would be forever. But now that day is here, and it seems far too soon."

Our children have no idea just how much they change our lives merely by their existence. I believe that people must experience parenthood in some form (actual, adopted, or spiritual) before they ever truly become an adult. Granted, there are many parents who even then don't gain maturity, but unless one passes through that stage and learns to step out of one's own experience to recognize and assume responsibility for an other's vulnerability, one never gets out of the center of one's own frame of reference. My daughter changed me forever seventeen years ago, and I am so grateful for it.

Interviewing

2011-02-16T14:34:00.003-07:00

Greetings. Long time no see. I have been job hunting and doing a little contracting since my long-time contract expired two weeks ago. As an XML business analyst, my work is so specialized, I don't even know what I do. (Okay, not true. You can go here for details.) Anyway, while I don't have a lot of opportunities, I have a few very hot ones.

Please keep me in your prayers as I seek new employment. I'm the sole breadwinner for the family right now and am supporting two households. I'm hoping not to be out of work for much longer.

Christological Hearsay: Three Heresies in Summa Contra Gentiles

2010-12-18T11:51:00.004-07:00

It is sadly not uncommon for the average Catholic to encounter Christological heresy, whether it is of the New-Age, Gnostic sort (that Jesus was an ascended being that realized the godhead available to all of us) or of that materialistic type that denies any divinity to Him at all. As with the poor, history shows that we will always have these heresies with us. While certainly it would be an overstatement to claim that every Christological heresy has roots in the old, one can certainly find the familiar taint of the modernist skeptic in the heresiarchs of old. St. Thomas describes many of these early Christological heresies in Book 4 of Summa Contra Gentiles. Of these, three in particular had a tremendous impact on the early Church: Valentinianism, Arianism, and Nestorianism. In striving against these heresies, the early Church defined much of its Christological thought.

Valentinus was a Gnostic of the early second century. According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, he was reputed to be a student of Theudas, a follower of St. Paul. Both Tertullian and Ireneus of Lyons wrote extensively on the false teachings of Valentinus and his followers.[i] St. Thomas, in Book IV of Summa Contra Gentiles, addresses primarily the errors in Valentinus’ understanding of the Incarnation. Despite the clear teaching of the Church that Christ became man, Valentinus taught (as did the Manicheans) that Christ only became man in appearance: “For he said that Christ did not have an earthly body, but brought one from heaven; that He received nothing from the Virgin Mother, but passed through her as through an aqueduct.” The Angelic Doctor addresses the same issue in Question 5, article 2 of Summa Theologica, part III. The root of the problem with Valentinus, as with the Manicheans, is their mistaken identity of the material world as a work of the devil (SCG 4, 30, 2).

He outlines several passages from scripture used by Valentinus to support this belief on the Incarnation, particularly John 3:13 and 1 Corinthians 15:47. Yet the Valentinian position leads to numerous contradictions. First is the direct conflict with scripture. Christ Himself says in Luke 24:39, “[F]or a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Likewise, in the letters of St. Paul, Christ is said to be born of the seed of David (Romans 1:3) and to have taken flesh from a woman (Galatians 4:4). Yet, if Christ did not have an earthly body, it could not be a body of flesh and bone like ours, in direct contradiction to scripture (SCG 4, 30, 3), nor would a heavenly body be passible and susceptible to suffering (ST III, 5, 2). By making Christ only appear to be man, Valentinus detracts from God’s truthfulness by seeming to be rather than actually being man, and we cannot be legitimately called His brethren (SCG 4, 30, 8). Clearly, Valentinus’ non-Apostolic positions caused the shipwreck of the faith of many.

A little over a century later, an Alexandrian priest by the name of Arius would spark a controversy that split the Church. Arius, a follower of Paul of Samasota, Bishop of Antioch, taught that the Logos was less than God but more than man[ii] and not of the same substance as God (animoios).[iii] The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that while the Gnostic heresies such as Valentinus never really had much influence in the West, Arianism had much more broad exposure and came about at a time when the technical language of Greek philosophy was being adopted more and more for the fine distinctions being developed in orthodox doctrine.[iv] The heresy spread so quickly that, in the words of St. Jerome, “The whole world groaned and marveled to find itself Arian.”[v]

Unlike the Valentinians, Arius taught that Christ was a creature. Rather than denying Christ’s human body, Arius denied that Christ had a soul and that the Word (Logos) took the place of the soul, a position he held in common with Apollinaris. As St. Thomas explains,

[H]e wanted to maintain that the Son of God was a creature and less than the Father, and so for his proof he picked up those scriptural passages which show human infirmity in Christ. And to keep anyone from refuting him by saying that the passages he picked referred to Christ not in His divine, but in His human, nature, he evilly removed the soul from Christ to this purpose[.] (SCG 4, 32, 2)

He challenges this doctrine on both philosophical and theological grounds. First, St. Thomas notes that, because the soul is the form of the body, that the Divine cannot replace the soul in a human nature (SCG 4, 32, 3). What’s more, to deprive a man of a soul would be to change his nature: “Take away… what is of the essence of man, and no true man can be” (SCG 4, 32, 5). Just as Christ could not be man without true flesh, He could not be true man without a human soul. St. Thomas continues to note that scripture includes specific references to Christ’s throughout the gospels and also speaks of Christ feeling emotions and bodily appetites, all of which belong to the sensitive soul.

Arius’s primary concern was with preserving the unity of God, as Jaroslav Pelikan notes: “The point at which the Arian understanding of God called forth a controversy was, then, not in the doctrine of God as such, but in the doctrine of the relation between God and the divine in Christ.”[vi] Arius attempted to make the Logos that divine element in the man Christ, but clearly as St. Thomas demonstrates, such an arrangement would not do. One has to hold that the soul of Christ and His Divinity are two distinct things (SCG 4, 32, 9) and the Divinity of Christ to be consubstantial with the Father, the position affirmed by the Council of Nicaea.

Not long after the dust had settled on the Arian question, another controversy arose stemming again from the school of Antioch. Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, espoused a teaching taught by two anti-Arian bishops, Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopuestia.[vii] What really seems to have brought this errant Christology to the forefront were Nestorius’ sermons concerning the title Theotokos given to the Mother of God.[viii] However, this aspect of his teaching was symptomatic of other severe distortions of Christian doctrine.

Whereas the earlier Christological heresies focused on whether Christ was God or man in nature, Nestorianism denied neither of these but addressed the union of natures in Christ. St. Thomas describes this proposed union as the indwelling of God in a true human body with a true human soul. Yet the problem with this notion of indwelling is that it is meant in precisely the same way as God’s indwelling in all holy men by grace (SCG 4, 34, 2). In this indwelling, Theodore and Nestorius saw an affective union between man and God. Yet, the Person of the Son of God and the person of the man Christ were two coincidentally.[ix]

St. Thomas makes note of numerous texts that make Nestorian Christology plainly unscriptural. First, he notes that the words of the gospel and the words of Christ Himself nullify the possibility of two distinct supposita in Christ (SCG 4, 34, 5–6). Clearly, if “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), the simple meaning of the text does not support indwelling. Likewise, St. Thomas adds,

“[T]he man called Jesus says about Himself: ‘Before Abraham was made, I am,’ and ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 8:58; 10:30), and several other things which clearly pertain to the divinity of the Word. Therefore, the person and hypostasis of the man speaking is plainly the very person of the Word of God.” (SCG 4, 34, 6)

The Angelic Doctor continues on to address the matter of predication of titles and actions to one or the other nature, which he also addresses in Summa Theologica part III, Question 16. Whereas the Nestorians posited that human and Divine activities could only be attributed to the human or Divine natures discretely, St. Thomas affirmed that to Christ must be attributed both Divine and human activities, which is the teaching of the Council of Ephesus (reaffirmed at Chalcedon) also known as the communication of idioms. It follows that Mary could be truthfully titled Theotokos and the Mother of God, rather than the Mother of Christ as the Nestorians would have it. Sadly, this heresy was to result in one of the earliest major schisms of the Catholic Church.

Today, we still see remnants of these heresies among various denominations and movements. The fascination with Gnostic Christianity is evident enough if one turns on the History Channel[x] or peruses the stacks of New Age books at the local bookstore. Arianism has influenced numerous sects, including Islam, Unitarianism, the Christadelphians, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the Assyrian Church of the East we see the legacy of Theodore of Mopuestia and Nestorius. There are few new heresies, but rather restatements of the old. Even the best of us are occasionally tempted to respond as St. Nicholas of Myra is reputed to have done to Arius at Nicaea. Yet each of these controversies when reborn gives us an opportunity to witness to the truth and to clarify the teachings of the Church. As the Holy Father has demonstrated in the last few years, sometimes what is needed most is a frank discussion of the Truth rather than a “false irenicism” that papers over real differences.

Works Cited

Aquinas, T. (2009). Summa Contra Gentiles, Book Four: Salvation. (C. J. O'Neil, Trans.) Notre Dame, Indiana, USA: University of Notre Dame Press.

Aquinas, T. (2000). Summa Theologica, Tertia Pars. Retrieved September 18, 2010, from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4.htm.

Barry, W. (1907). Arianism. Retrieved December 10, 2010, from The Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01707c.htm.

Chapman, J. (1911). Nestorius and Nestorianism. Retrieved December 11, 2010, from The Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10755a.htm.

Healy, P. (1912). Valentinus and Valentinians. Retrieved December 10, 2010, from The Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15256a.htm.

Pelikan, J. (1971). The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition: The Christian Tradition (Vol. 1). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

i. Patrick Healy, (1912), Valentinus and Valentinians, retrieved December 10, 2010, from The Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15256a.htm
ii. Jaroslav Pelikan, (1971), The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition: The Christian Tradition, Vol. 1 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press), p. 198.
iii. William Barry, (1907), Arianism, Retrieved December 10, 2010, from The Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01707c.htm.
iv. Ibid.
v. Ibid.
vi. Pelikan, p. 195.
vii. John Chapman, (1911), Nestorius and Nestorianism, retrieved December 11, 2010, from The Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10755a.htm.
viii. Ibid.
ix. Pelikan, p. 252.
x. I often refer to it as the Heresy Channel.

When Idioms Speak: Communication of Properties

2010-12-18T11:07:00.002-07:00

In the early days of the Church, the Fathers knew well the importance of fine care in the choice of language and terminology. Perhaps nothing made the statement more clearly on the difference an iota (or a jot or a tittle) could make than the early Arian and Semi-Arian controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries, when the immense metaphysical gulf between homoousios and homoiousios threatened to capsize the barque of Peter. The question facing them, one that still plagues us today, is how to put the ineffable mysteries of God into language that communicates the Truth. While morphology took center stage in the earliest controversies, semiology became the focus during later debates—in particular, how we speak about Christ and His Divinity and what can be predicated to His two natures.

Primarily, when we speak about Christ’s two natures and what can be predicated to each of them, we are referring to the theological concept “communication of idioms” or “communication of properties.” Secondarily, we can include implications drawn from this communication. The teaching of the Church on these matters was established initially at the Council of Ephesus[i] and later clarified and confirmed at the Council of Chalcedon. The majority of these pronouncements addressed what has come to be known as the Hypostatic Union.[ii] Aside from the basic teaching about the dual natures of Christ, the Fathers of the council definitively stated that because one Person subsists in two natures, activities and properties that could be predicated of either nature could rightly be predicated of the Person. Thus, the council defended the use of the title Theotokos, the God-Bearer, for the Blessed Mother, stressing that Mary was the mother of the Person of Christ, Who is God.[iii]

The understanding of how to put these realities into words developed over centuries. According to Ocáriz et al, the first person to set down rules on such Christological language was Leontius of Byzantium. However, St. Thomas is known as the primary source for the main rules on the “exchange of properties” (yet another phrase for the same concept).[iv] This general principle has been formulated in numerous ways. Kenneth Baker writes “that human things can be asserted to the Son of God and Divine things to the Son of Man.”[v] While this description is certainly true, it does not aspire to the level of precision detailed by St. Thomas. The argument, as presented by the council Fathers, is essentially that properties and activities are typically ascribed to a Person rather than to his or her nature. In this sense, one can say that God, in the Person of the Son, was born of a Virgin and was crucified.
Thus, whatever can be said of one of the natures of Christ can be attributed to the Person of Christ. The key in speaking of Christ, then, is precision in predication of actions and properties to natures or to the Person. Anthony Maas suggests three considerations in applying this principle.[vi] This paper will discuss these three considerations in applying the principle of communication of idioms.[vii]

The first consideration is that those statements interchanging Divine and human properties are generally correct, so long as both subject and predicate are stated in concrete terms.[viii] In the most basic sense, we can say that God is man, if we mean this statement in the sense that God assumed a human nature and a body. St. Thomas points out, though, that the Manicheans used this statement in an elliptical way, to mean that God was a fictitious man rather than man in the flesh (III, 16, 1). He notes that both subject and predicate refer to the suppositum, and in this sense, it is true that God is man, and likewise that man is God. In this category, too, fall all of those utterances that pertain to the Person of Christ in His hypostasis or suppositum. When a property belongs to a nature, it can be attributed to the Person, so while Christ suffered in His human nature, His Person suffered. In this sense, God suffered. Inversely, as Ocáriz et al point out, we can say that the Son of David is almighty.[ix]

When we speak of the Person of God, we can speak objectively about a concrete entity. However, as Maas notes, we have to do so with caution. Some utterances, such as “man became God,” suggest that man subsisted in human nature prior to Christ’s assumption of that nature, which is false.[x] In addition, when a concrete term is used with reduplication, for example in “Christ as Man is God,” the emphasis is on the nature rather than the suppositum, as St. Thomas notes, so the clause in this instance is taken to be false (III, 16, 11). In such cases, one must take care not to attribute to one nature that which belongs to the other. If we say that “Christ as Man is a creature” (III, 16, 8), we are referring to His created human nature, but if we say “Christ as Man is God,” we are attributing divinity to His human nature. On the other hand, when demonstrative constructions are used, we are speaking clearly of the suppositum rather than the nature. To say “This Man, Christ…” is to point at the eternal Person of the Son of God since He subsisted first in His Divine nature. Anything, then, predicated to suppositum must take this fact into consideration. If we say, “This Man, Christ, came to be,” we can only say so truthfully with qualification—that He came to be in His humanity (III, 16, 9).

Maas’ second consideration addresses the use of abstract terms, which generally respect one or the other nature. Statements concerning Divine and human properties of Christ are, in general, incorrect if either subject, predicate, or both are abstract.[xi] For example, we cannot say that Christ’s humanity is omnipotence or that His Divinity was humanized. However, some exchange of abstract is acceptable, and we can predicate abstract names of the Divine nature of concrete names of the human nature: for example, this Man, Christ, is the Omnipotence.[xii] There is less danger when we begin talking specifically about the Second Person of the Trinity since abstract properties of either nature can be attributed to Him as the Person of the Son of God. Yet again, this does not mean that the abstract properties of one nature can be attributed to the other. We cannot, without error, say that “The Word is the humanity” or “the Word is the soul or the body of Christ.”[xiii]

St. Thomas addresses the use of abstractions specifically in part III, question 16, articles 3 and 5. In article 3, he discusses the predication of the terms God and Lord denominatively. While we call the Son of God Lord, we cannot call Him “lordly Man” since to do so would derogate the truth about the union of natures in the Person of Christ. In article 5, he writes of the predication of properties of the human nature of the Divine nature, which likewise is errant. So while we can attribute human properties to the Person of Christ, we cannot attribute them to the Godhead. We can say that Christ suffered and died. We cannot say that the Godhead suffered and died or suggest that the Godhead is passible or corruptible.

The third consideration is that statements must be used with care to avoid destroying the properties of one or the other nature.[xiv] Such statements would include those that speak to Christ’s humanity in such a way that His Divinity is put into question. For example, one can say the God was made man without inferring anything about Christ contrary to either nature. However, if the terms are traded and one says “man was made God,” an incorrect impression is given that man subsisted in his human nature prior to being assumed by the Second Person of the Trinity (III, 16, 7). In the same sense it would be incorrect to say that “Christ began to be” without qualifying the statement further: for example, “this Man, Christ, began to be in His humanity” (III, 16, 9).

Maas notes that negative sentences can sometimes be used in such a way that one or the other nature is denied. While it might be true in one sense that the Son of God did not die (in His Divine nature), one cannot say “the Son of God did not die” without implicitly denying His human nature. One might also (errantly) speak restrictively in a way that denies one or the other nature: for example, that Christ was not passible or that Christ was a creature (III, 16, 8). Again, while these statements can be true of one or other of the natures of Christ, they cannot be said to be true of the Person of Christ without denial of either His Divinity or His humanity.

Some theologians say that heresy is the emphasis of one truth to the exclusion or detriment of others. The Arians, not wanting to make Christ the equal of God, emphasized His humanity to the detriment of His Divinity. The Nestorians, not wishing to reduce His Divinity, weakened the union of natures in the Person of the Son. Still later, the Monophysites emphasized the union to such a degree as to destroy the distinction between the two natures. Along the way, simple lack of precision played a part in advancing error (for example, when Euthyches and his adherents misinterpreted St. Cyril’s writings about the union of natures in the Person[xv]). For this reason, theologians must take great pains for clarity in their use of Christological language, particularly in the area of communication of idioms. As the author of Hebrews wrote, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever” (13:8). Yet Jesus was born of a virgin, suffered, and died. We hold many truths in tension, and so our words we must choose with clear intention.

Works Cited

Aquinas, T. (2000). Summa Theologica, Tertia Pars. Retrieved September 18, 2010, from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4.htm

Baker, K. (1983). Fundamentals of Catholicism (Vol. 2). San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

Maas, A. (1908). Communicatio Idiomatum. Retrieved November 7, 2010, from New Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04169a.htm

Mosey, R. D. (2006). "Patristics: Lecture 3." International Catholic University. Catholic Educational Television, Inc.

Ocáriz, F., Mateo-Seco, L. F., & Riestra, J. A. (2008). The Mystery of Jesus Christ. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

Ott, L. (1974). Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers.

i. Ludwig Ott, (1974), Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, (Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers), p. 144.
ii. Douglas Mosey, (2006), “Patristics: Lecture 3,” International Catholic University. Catholic Educational Television, Inc.
iii. Ibid.
iv. F. Ocáriz, L. F. Mateo-Seco, & J. A. Riestra, (2008), The Mystery of Jesus Christ, (Dublin: Four Courts Press), p.135.
v. Kenneth Baker, (1983), Fundamentals of Catholicism (Vol. 2), (San Francisco: Ignatius Press), p. 241.
vi. Anthony Maas, (1908), Communicatio Idiomatum, Retrieved November 7, 2010, from New Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04169a.htm.
vii. Ocáriz et al have a more complex breakdown that also treats the subject well, but the author has chosen Maas’ more basic approach for simplicity’s sake.
viii. Maas, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04169a.htm.
ix. Ocáriz, p. 134.
x. Maas, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04169a.htm.
xi. Maas, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04169a.htm.
xii. Ocáriz, p. 135.
xiii. Maas, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04169a.htm.
xiv. Ibid.
xv. Ott, p. 146.

Grace and Glory: the Threefold Grace of Christ

2010-12-18T10:51:00.002-07:00

Here's what happens when you overprepare for a short paper.

================

In the Gospel according to John, the evangelist writes, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (1:14, RSV). He continues that we have received from His fullness “grace upon grace” (1:16) and that “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (1:17). In these few verses, the evangelist highlights the threefold grace of Christ: the grace of union, the fullness of habitual grace that resided in Him as flesh, and the fullness that He pours out upon us as the Head of the Church. Ocáriz, Mateo-Seco, and Riestra describe this fullness in Christ the man:

When discussing Christ’s holiness, we are referring exclusively to Jesus Christ as man, that is, we are dealing with the divinization of his human nature…. A triple grace is to be found in Christ—the grace of union (that is, the hypostatic union viewed as a gift or grace to the humanity of Jesus), habitual grace (so-called sanctifying grace), and capital grace, that is, the grace he has as head of the human race.[i]

The grace of union, according to the authors, is the source of Christ’s holiness and also what makes Him our mediator, sanctifying us and giving us life.[ii] St. Thomas Aquinas, in Summa Theologica, Part III, Questions 7 and 8, reflects on this threefold grace and the essence of each.

“O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”[iii] These words from “The Exsultet” underscore the character of the Incarnation as gift. St. Thomas contrasts this pre-eminent grace in our Redeemer, called the grace of union in Summa Theologica (III, 2, 12), with that grace by which the saints are joined to God (III, 2, 10). This grace is unique to Christ, belonging to Him and no one else, and divinizing His human nature:

[H]uman nature is lifted up to God in two ways: first, by operation, as the saints know and love God; secondly, by personal being, and this mode belongs exclusively to Christ, in Whom human nature is assumed so as to be in the Person of the Son of God. (III, 2, 10)

Through this grace of union, according to Kenneth Baker, it is reasonable to say that Christ’s humanity is “endowed with substantial sanctity or holiness.”[iv] He continues, “[I]t is impossible to have a more intimate union between a creature and God than the Hypostatic Union in Jesus Christ.”[v] Ocáriz et al note that this substantial holiness is also referred to by the early Father as “anointing” or “unction.”[vi] They add that, according to the Thomists, grace of union sanctifies Christ formally (formaliter), and not only radically (radicaliter), as was believed by the Scotists.[vii] This grace is the source of Christ’s impeccability.[viii]

This union, St. Thomas explains, occurs by grace in two ways: first, through bestowal by the will of God; second, as a free gift unpreceded by any merit (III, 2, 10). While the grace of union with Christ the man could not be considered “natural” in regard to an essential property of His human nature (III, 2, 12, ad. 3), it was natural in that it occurred by the power of His Divine nature (III, 2, 12, ad. 1 and 2).

The second of the tripartite graces of Christ (in their common order of reference) is habitual or sanctifying grace. This accidental grace initially or formally justifies the human soul (Denzinger, Syst. Ind. Xf, 799) and enables it by operation to know and love God (III, 2, 10). Ocáriz et al highlight that habitual grace and grace of union are closely linked: “[T]he grace of union (which makes Christ’s humanity ‘substantially holy’) involves the need for habitual grace (which sanctifies accidentally) and for glory as the ultimate perfection of operative union with God.”[ix] As with human persons, the operations of the soul to know and love God require this habitual grace (III, 7, 1 ad. 2). Despite the fact that grace of union granted substantial holiness to Christ’s human nature, His soul still required habitual grace to be divinized. St. Thomas writes, “Yet because together with unity of person there remains distinction of natures… the soul of Christ is not essentially Divine. Hence, it behooves it to be Divine by participation, which is by grace” (III, 7, 1, ad. 1.)

Linked to this accidental grace are the infused virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit. St. Thomas defends against the objection that Christ needed no virtues, pointing out that “as grace regards the essence of the soul, so does virtue regard its power. Hence it is necessary that as the powers of the soul flow from its essence, so do the virtues flow from grace” (III, 7, 2). Yet in Christ, not all virtues are present. Because He held the beatific vision through the Hypostatic Union, He had no need for the theological virtues of faith and hope. The Angelic Doctor writes,

As it is of the nature of faith that one assents to what one sees not, so is it of the nature of hope that one expects what as yet one has not; and as faith, forasmuch as it is a theological virtue, does not regard everything unseen, but only God; so likewise hope, as a theological virtue, has God Himself for its object, the fruition of Whom man chiefly expects by virtue of hope[.] (III, 7, 4)

As faith and hope have as their object God Himself, Christ needed them not. However, as Ocáriz et al point out, “any element of perfection which is found in [faith and hope] is found in Him, raised to a higher level of perfection.”[x] Another result of sanctification is the infusion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Ludwig Ott examines the differences between the infused gifts and the infused virtues, noting that the “motivating principles of the virtues are the supernaturally endowed faculties of the soul, whereas the motivating principle of the gifts is the Holy Spirit immediately.”[xi] In Christ, according to St. Thomas, “the gifts were in a pre-eminent degree.” (III, 7, 5).

Finally, Christ possessed uniquely what theologians call captis gratia or capital grace:[xii] grace as the Head of the Church, His Mystical Body. This grace He possesses by virtue of His nearness to God and His perfection in the fullness of all graces (III, 8, 1). Pius XII, in “Mystici Corporis Christi,” writes, “It is He who, through His heavenly grace, is the principle of every supernatural act in all parts of the Body.”[xiii] St. Thomas explains the fitness of the metaphor of Christ as Head and His likeness to the human head in order, perfection, and power (III, 8, 1). In order, the head guides and directs the other members of the body, so does Christ influence both body (secondarily) and soul (primarily) (III, 8, 2). In perfection, the head is the seat of the senses. As Ott says, “from Christ, the Head, grace continuously streams to the limbs of His Mystical Body, by means of which He supernaturally enlightens and sanctifies them.”[xiv] Ocáriz et al note that this capital grace finds its source in the habitual grace of Christ.[xv] This personal grace by which Christ is sanctified, St. Thomas indicates, is the same as that grace which He, as Head of the Church, justifies mankind (III, 8, 5).

In Christ is the fullness of grace (III, 7, 9), finite in that it is a created being, but infinite in that He possesses everything pertaining to grace without limitations (III, 7, 11).[xvi] By His grace, we are brought into participation with His Mystical Body and in the Divine Mystery. The early Church Fathers spoke of this participation as adopted sonship in the Divine Nature.[xvii] St. Clement of Alexandria, writing on the sacrament of baptism, describes the effect of this outpouring of grace on the person: “Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are made immortal.”[xviii] Through Christ’s grace, we have life and have it abundantly.

Works Cited

Aquinas, T. (2000). Summa Theologica, Tertia Pars. Retrieved September 18, 2010, from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4.htm.

Baker, K. (1983). Fundamentals of Catholicism (Vol. 2). San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

Denziger, H. (2007). Sources of Catholic Dogma. Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire: Loretto Publications.

Gassner, J. (2010). The Exsultet. Retrieved October 8, 2010, from Catholic Culture: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=6341.

Mosey, R. D. (2006). Patristics: Lecture 4. International Catholic University. Catholic Educational Television, Inc.

Ocáriz, F., Mateo-Seco, L. F., & Riestra, J. A. (2008). The Mystery of Jesus Christ. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

Ott, L. (1974). Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers.

Pelikan, J. (1971). The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition: The Christian Tradition (Vol. 1). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Pius XII. (1943, June 29). Mystici Corporis Christi. Retrieved October 8, 2010, from Vatican the Holy See: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/
encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi_en.html.

i. Ocáriz, F., Mateo-Seco, L. F., & Riestra, J. A., (2008), The Mystery of Jesus Christ, (Dublin: Four Courts Press), p. 177.
ii. Ibid.
iii. Gassner, J., (2010), The Exsultet, retrieved October 8, 2010, from Catholic Culture: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=6341.
iv. Baker, K., (1983), Fundamentals of Catholicism (Vol. 2), (San Francisco: Ignatius Press), p. 260.
v. Ibid., 260–261.
vi. Ocáriz et al, p. 179.
vii. Ibid., 180. Also Ott, L., (1974), Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. (Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers), p. 170.
viii. Ibid., 181.
ix. Ibid., 180.
x. Ibid., 183.
xi. Ott, 261.
xii. Ocáriz, 184.
xiii. Pius XII, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi_en.html.
xiv. Ott, 293.
xv. Ocáriz, 185.
xvi. Ibid., 186.
xvii. Mosey, R. D., (2006), “Patristics: Lecture 4,” International Catholic University. Catholic Educational Television, Inc.
xviii. Pelikan, J., (1971), The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition: The Christian Tradition,Vol. 1, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press), p. 164.

What is really cool about the Catholic blogosphere...

2010-12-02T10:43:00.005-07:00

is how you can run across a blogger with shared interests in the faith and find out you're distant cousins.

This happened to me just recently. A post on Mark Shea's blog mentioned Wade St. Onge, a Stuebenville graduate and blogger at The Longsuffering Writer. Having a paternal grandmother with that maiden name, I was intrigued, and I have to agree that St. Onge is a cool last name. Alas, I get "Burns," which is sort of the "Smith" of Irish and Scottish surnames.

Anyway, he mentioned that he had his family's lineage back to the mid-1600s. I checked with my father, who also just happened to have picked up the lineage from his cousin (another St. Onge), and we found we have a common great grandfather. With a little more poking, I found the next generation back, a François Payan dit St. Onge and his wife, Madeleine Cantin. They were the generation just prior to the branch that migrated to Quebec from St. Columbe, Saintonge, France.

Now, if I could only find the lineage for Burns. I understand Irish recordkeeping was not as meticulous.

Drop by and give Wade a hearty welcome!

χάρις και ειρηνη

2010-11-25T11:14:00.003-07:00

Grace an peace to you on this Thanksgiving. I wish you all the best.

Update: Hey, did you know that Squanto was Catholic? Neither did I! Taylor Smith has the scoop.

Some Happy Catholics Goin' On

2010-11-20T21:17:00.003-07:00

I spent last week in Plano, Texas where I was doing some training for a client. Since I knew that a certain Happy Catholic lived in the area, I shot Julie D. a message and asked if she and her husband Tom would like to meet up.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

We missed our initial meeting as my flight out of Boise left almost two hours late. However, we rescheduled for the evening just before I left. Julie sent me directions to an out-of-the-way eatery deep in the heart of Dallas, with the instruction that I to make sure no one followed. "Oh yes," she added, "have a newspaper under your left arm, and wear an Aggies ballcap so we can recognize you."

After a long week of work, I was feeling a little punchy anyway, so cruising the back streets of Dallas did little to improve my spirits. I found the diner, an odd little Tex-Mex joint with a broken neon sign that blinked "Jo s ats." I entered and was seated at a booth in a corner. I ordered a beer and waited a good 20 minutes before I noticed that written on the coaster in ink were the words, "Flip over." On the backside, was a note: "Go out the back, and we'll pick you up in the alley."

I finished my beer and made my way to the rear exit. As I did, a set of headlights flicked on, a Buick sedan glided up, and a door opened. "Get in."

I looked up and down the alley, then ducked in just, my foot just barely leaving the pavement before the vehicle pulled off.

"Did anyone see you leave?"

"No," I said, "Hey, what's this all about?"

"Too much to explain right now. Are you packing any heat?"

"No, unless you're talking about the Icy Hot I use for my strained back."

"You're a smart guy. Smart guys don't live long in this neck of the woods."

Tom drove. I noticed that the panel under the steering column had been ripped out, and some wires were spliced together haphazardly. Julie handed back something heavy and cold.

"You'll probably need this. Aim carefully. That's all the ammo you have."

"So what's up? I thought we were just getting together for a nice meal and some chat."

"Yeah, well, that was until we got this new job, you see? It was supposed to be simple... a little marketing piece with some product listings, four colors, a slam dunk in InDesign. And then, the scope creep. A tweak to the margins here, an extra column to a table there, and now we're looking at a 2500-page monstrosity with nested tables, custom layouts on every page, and a ransom-letter type style. I snapped. There's no going back."

...

Okay, I might be exaggerating a bit.

Okay, maybe a lot.

Actually, we had a great time, and it didn't involve Berettas, Buick's, or neon signs. We talked a bit of shop, since we're in related fields, and we shared a bit about family and dogs and faith. We talked for a good two hours and never even got around to books, movies, music, football, food, or Pope Benedict. I'm very much looking forward to seeing Tom and Julie the next time I'm in Dallas. They're actually the first Catholic bloggers I've met outside the Boise area, and it was so great putting faces to names. A note for Mike Lee and Brent Brown: Julie really misses your pod casts. When your lives are less hectic, I think we all hope you'll resume them.

Thanks for a nice evening, Tom and Julie!

And Julie also said some nice things here about our visit.

Prayer Request for Injured Soldier

2010-11-10T18:55:00.002-07:00

A member of our young-adult ministry team posted a request for prayers for his high-school friend, Trey Humphries, who today was injured in an IED blast in Afghanistan and lost his leg. He was transported to Germany (most likely Landstuhl). I will post relevant information about his rank and branch of service when I can, in case anyone has connections with Soldiers' Angels and would like to help out.

Please pray for Trey's healing and recovery and for his family to be comforted.

Barcelona Photoblog Comments

2010-11-08T22:31:00.002-07:00

Hello!

This entry is for anyone coming over from Barcelona Photoblog (a blog which I, by the way, love for its beautiful images) wants to lambaste me for my comments in support of the institutional Church and its charitable works. I will respond to any of your comment as updates to this post. Any posts with vulgar and abusive language will be deleted, and I will be the sole judge on whether a comment is sufficiently vulgar or abusive. I have a moderate tolerance for the former and a low tolerance of the latter. In any case, welcome and God bless you, whether you wish it or not.

Trepidation

2010-11-04T19:11:00.005-06:00

I have a special intention regarding... well, I can't really say just yet. I've been given hints that I'm going to get some unpleasant news tomorrow. However, there are so many different directions it could go. So please pray that God's will for me will be done and that my family will be supported regardless of the outcome.

Thanks to you all.

UPDATE: As I suspected, my contract is being terminated early. My manager dug in his heels for as long as he could, but the definitive word came down. I have work until the end of January. After that, I'll need to have some new contracts or land a full-time position somewhere. If you know anyone who is trying to get into the XML/XSL and content-management space, please send them my way, or send me their way. And your prayers are greatly appreciated.

Here's my company web site: http://www.verbumcomm.com/

Defects of human nature assumed by Christ

2010-11-04T18:47:00.003-06:00

These summaries address Summa Theologica part III, Q14 and 15 respectively.

Q14. Defects of body assumed by Christ

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Cor. 13:9

A1. Christ came to satisfy for the sin of mankind. The only way to do this was to take on the punishment due to sin, of which the bodily defects are part. So this did not hinder the Incarnation but was useful toward this end. Also, for people to believe in the Incarnation, Christ had to become fully human. A human being who doesn’t appear to suffer like others would not seem to be a real man, and indeed some early heresies (the Manicheans and Docetists) proposed just this sort of belief. Finally, by suffering Christ teaches us patience and fortitude.

A2. In considering whether Christ was subject to bodily defects by necessity, we have to consider necessity as both something imposed externally by another person against our nature and will and as something that is imposed by the very nature of a thing. It is the nature of flesh to be subject to hunger, thirst, sorrow, pain, and death. In this sense, Christ was subject to the defects of the body by necessity. However, while He willed His body to suffer these defects with both His Divine and human wills, the natural instinct of His human will would be against these defects. In this way, He was subject to bodily defects by necessity.

A3. The cause of death, hunger, illness, thirst, and other bodily defects is sin. In this sense, as all men except Christ are subject to sin, all men contract these defects. (In this, St. Thomas differed from the faithful in that he did not believe that the Blessed Mother was conceived without original sin but was sanctified after animation. See III, Q27.) However, in Christ, the cause (original sin) did not exist. While He had the defects attributed as an effect of sin in mankind, He assumed them willingly rather than had them thrust upon Him, knowing that through these weaknesses He would conquer sin.

A4. Christ assumed what was necessary to make satisfaction for sin. To do so, He needed the fullness of grace that His soul possessed. However, He did not assume those defects that would’ve been incompatible with perfection of knowledge and grace. In addition, other defects are caused by external factors due to the overall corruptibility of the body rather than as a direct result of sin (for example, bodily ailments or by defects during gestation). These are secondary defects rather than the primary defects of corruptibility and passibility. Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and endowed with every natural perfection. Those defects He assumed were those that are the condition of mankind due to sin, although in Him not caused by sin.

Q15. Defects of the soul assumed by Christ

A1. Christ assumed those defects that aided Him in proving the truth of His human nature and for providing and example of virtue. Sin would be a hindrance in both of these efforts since it impedes satisfaction of penalties for sin. In addition, sin is not natural to the human soul, so sin does not prove Christ’s humanity. Finally, sin itself is opposed to virtue, so it adds no value as an example except as an example for further sin.

A2. The moral virtues make the irrational parts of the soul subject to reason The more perfect the virtue, the more subject are the irrational aspects of the soul, of which concupiscence is part. While concupiscence is, according to Hardon, a “movement of the sensitive appetites” toward things one sees as pleasures and away from thing one sees as painful, it can also include inordinate desires, which here are called the “fomes of sin.” These are inclinations that are contrary to reason. Strong virtue weakens the influence of the fomes of sin, so it only makes sense that Christ, who had the virtues perfectly, would have no fomes of sin in Him. So while Christ had concupiscence to a degree (ad 2), He had it within right reason.

A3. We know from questions 9–12 that Christ had fullness of knowledge, and from question 7, the fullness of grace and virtue. While virtue excluded the possibility of fomes of sin, fullness of knowledge excludes the possibility of sin. Just as the fullness of virtue excludes the fomes of sin from Christ, so the fullness of knowledge excludes ignorance.

A4. A soul can be affected by both bodily and animal passions. The former refers to those aspects that disturb both body and soul, given that soul is the form of the body. Since Christ’s body was passible, it follows likewise that His soul was passible. In the animal passions, all of the sensitive appetites are properly considered passions of the soul, so Christ had these as well, just as He had all things pertaining to human nature. However, whereas these passions can become unruly and contrary to reason, in Christ this wasn’t so. He had the bodily and animal passions but always held them in check by way of reason.

A5. Christ possessed all of the qualities natural to a human nature, both in body and soul. Christ’s body was able to hurt since it was passible and mortal and since He possessed a human soul with all of its powers, so was able to suffer as the form suffers with the body. Thus He experienced true pain.

A6. Divine dispensation prevented the joy of the beatific vision from overwhelming the sensitive powers and reducing pain. Likewise, it prevented other effects of the sensitive appetites such as sorrow to be suppressed. Unlike pain, which affects the physical senses, sorrow addresses things that can be hurtful or evil interiorly as understood by reason or imagination. So just as He could suffer true pain, He could suffer true sorrow.

A7. There are two kinds of fear. One is an irrational fear of the unknown. The other is a reasonable fear of something that will likely cause pain. When the pain is imminent, then fear gives way to sorrow. When the threat of pain is still future and possibly avoidable, fear is a reasonable response. In this latter sense, Christ felt fear.

A8. We can wonder in different ways. If we wonder about causes we do not see or understand, we wonder due to our ignorance. However, we can also wonder in a speculative fashion about our experiences in order to draw deeper meaning from them. In this latter sense, Christ had the ability to wonder, even if to model for us how we should reflect on our experiences and come to greater understanding through them.

A9. Anger is a passion that arises from sorrow and a desire for revenge. Sometimes that desire for revenge can be irrational, which is sinful. Such a desire doesn’t exist in Christ. However, sometimes this desire for revenge is for due justice. In this sense, Christ did have this desire, as mentioned in John 2:17 and elsewhere. Since Christ also had sorrow, so together, Christ would have anger in Him. Anger motivated by a desire for justice is righteous or zealous anger and not sinful.

A10. Perfect beatitude pertains to both body and soul. It is clear that Christ’s mind had the beatific vision (called the science of vision by Ocáriz et al). Yet His body, which was passible and mortal, did not yet posses this. So in regards His soul, He was a comprehensor in all that was proper to it, but regarding the rest of His human nature, He was a wayfarer.

STIII, Q13

2010-10-27T22:34:00.003-06:00

My regular weekly installment of summaries for Christology. I plan to post something on the "AI Wars," an episode aired on National Geographics' channel tonight. I'm hoping I can lure Jimmy Akin to responding on that post since he seems to speculate quite a bit on such things.

But for now, it's all Aquinas... all the time.

A1. The Divine nature is unbounded and from it flows active power to all things that have the nature being. Clearly, since the principle of human nature is the Divine power, human nature (in Christ’s soul) cannot itself be omnipresent. However, as ad 1 notes, by the communication of idioms (also called the communication of properties by Ocaríz et al), the man Christ can be said to be omnipotent since His human nature is in union with His Divine nature in the Person of the Word.

A2. St. Thomas identifies three ways in which transmutation of creatures occurs. Transmutation can be brought about by an agent naturally or by means of the miraculous. For example, naturally we can bring about changes in other creatures through the use of practical knowledge. Supernaturally, we can be an instrument of God in bringing about some transmutation (such as miraculous healings attributed to saints, conversions brought about by witness, and so on). Finally, something’s existence can be brought to nothing. The power of Christ’s soul can be viewed in respect to proper nature and its power of grace or as the instrument of the Word. In the former case, Christ’s soul had the power proper to its nature, including its ability to enlighten other rational creatures in a way appropriate to another rational creature. As an instrument of the Word, it could be used in a way to effect miraculous transmutations. In both these senses, His soul had the same capacity as other human souls but He had them in perfection while we do not. Of the final mode of transmutation—of bringing something’s existence to nothing—only God has this capacity. The final mode, then, cannot be seen as simply the ability to destroy another creation but to actually make an existent cease to exist.

A3. While Adam in his prelapsarian state may have had the ability to keep himself from harm, Christ took on the penalties mankind’s separation. Christ’s soul, in its natural power, was incapable of preventing the natural workings of natural bodies, including His own. As an instrument of the Word, He was able to do so, but it would be attributable not to His soul but to the Word of God. Thus, Christ’s soul was not omnipotent in regard to His body.

A4. Christ, having two wills, willed in two ways. First, He willed those things which were in the power of His human nature to do. Second, He willed those things that could be brought about by Divine power. The first could only extend as far as His own capabilities and influence. Compelling other human wills was not within His natural power as a man. The second extends to His use as an instrument of the Word: miracles deeds and His own bodily resurrection.

That's my girl

2010-10-26T22:48:00.003-06:00

Last week, I was fortunate to attend my daughter's first orchestral concert of the year. This week (tonight, in fact), I was able to attend her first choral concert. I'm pleased on both accounts. In last week's concert, she conducted one of the pieces. This week, she sang in the a Capella and treble choirs. She will be playing with the chamber orchestra in November, and I'm hoping my travel schedule doesn't conflict. I could brag more about her cello playing, but that wasn't the intent of this post. I'll save it for later.

Tonight's concert, though, I was particularly pleased. This was the first time I had seen her sing since she was in the All City choir in fourth grade. I saw back when she was six and singing along with pop tunes (matching their technique) that she could not only carry a tune but do it artfully. Somewhere along the line, something happened: one or more of her peers made cutting remarks, maybe I said something that she took the wrong way, whatever. She lost confidence, and she lost interest.

So this year, when she threw caution and a clear-cut path to graduation to the wind and took four music classes, I was a little concerned. Yet, she auditioned for three ensembles and made all three. I took too few risks. She took a small one this year, and I'm proud of her for doing it.

There was also another very nice surprise. The director put together a 100-minute program including nine religious pieces, most of which came from the Catholic tradition. I was pleased enough to hear religious music being performed so beautifully by a high-school choir. The director explained that this was all in preparation for a section they're doing on Renaissance music. She then added that most of these pieces came from the Catholic Church.

Now, from junior high on, my daughter's teachers have included both religious and secular pieces in their programs, which is to their credit. The bulk of our musical heritage comes from religious works or popular devotional works. However, I was quite frankly stunned that she would even bring this fact to the audience's attention. And I'm gratified that she did. Music seems to be, in a sense, a last bastion of Catholic tradition in our schools. If it disappears from there, what will we have left?

So I was gratified by the program. As a side, I would mention that only one or two of the pieces I recognized to be from the Renaissance. Most seemed to be Baroque or early classical. Perhaps the director was being a bit subversive. If so, I'm in cahoots with her completely.

Infused and Acquired Knowledge in Christ

2010-10-21T19:09:00.002-06:00

It seems that last week's marathon was bit of a fluke. I'm still sticking with an abbreviated summary of the questions.

Q11
A1. St. Thomas distinguishes between two passive powers in the soul: the active intellect, which operates by natural reason, and the obediential potency [Hardon] which is reduced to act through Divine revelation. Through the first, we can know through empirical knowledge and reason. Through the latter, we know by way of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In Christ, both these powers were reduced to act by Divinely infused knowledge. However, both of these are proper to the human soul and limited. Thus, the Essence of God was not known by this knowledge by the beatific vision.

A2. Christ was both wayfarer and comprehensor. While we as wayfarers can only know via mental images and sense data, the blessed are able to understand without resorting to mental images. As wayfarer, He could also make use of sense data and mental images.

A3. Knowledge can be collative or discursive in two distinct ways. First, we can process from a known to an unknown or from cause to effects. In this way, Christ’s knowledge was not discursive. However, it can also be discursive in how it is used—that is, by using reason not in order to learn but to demonstrate movement from cause to effect for whatever reason. In this sense, Christ’s knowledge could be collative or discursive.

A4. The knowledge imprinted on Christ’s soul, which flowed directly from Divine essence, exceeds that of the angels in both quantity and in certitude because of its source. The knowledge in the soul of Christ pertaining to its natural operation by way of mental images, sense data, comparison, and discursion was less than the knowledge of the angels.

A5. Human knowledge is naturally both actual and habitual. Habit is the means by which potential becomes actual and can be employed at will. So Christ’s imprinted knowledge was habitual, and He chose to make it actual as He willed.

A6. The knowledge imprinted in Christ’s soul was befitting to human nature. Human souls receive knowledge naturally by lesser abstraction than do angels, so it knows different natures by relating to different classes of species. Because there are different classes of things to know, human natures have different habits of knowledge. So know things in a fully human way, Christ must have had diverse habits of knowledge.

Q12
A1. Christ’s soul possesses acquired knowledge by the action of the active intellect, which works to make things intelligible. In His infused knowledge, Christ’s soul knows all that is in potential for perfection of His passive intellect. Thus, He must be able to reduce that knowledge and everything that could be known to act in His active intellect.

A2. One can grow in knowledge in essence (as if one increases their own habit of knowledge) or in effect (as if one used a habit of knowledge in increasingly greater ways in the act of proof). In the second way, Christ clearly advanced in knowledge, age, and grace because He continually performed greater acts and demonstrated greater knowledge. His habit of infused knowledge could not increase since He possessed it from the beginning. The only knowledge that could be increased was that habit that grows by abstraction from experience of intelligible things, for example, the way by which one abstracts from mental images.

A3. We know from III, Q8 that Christ is both Head of the Church and Head of all men. Through Him comes grace but also the fullness of the Truth which is in the Church. He questioned as a mode of instruction, but His role was as our master and teacher, not as one to be taught.

A4. Human souls, being between both spiritual and physical things, are perfected from both sensible things and by that knowledge imprinted on their souls through Divine revelation. Christ’s human soul, likewise, was perfected in this way. Thus there was no need for Him to receive knowledge of the angels having received infused knowledge from the highest source. In addition, these angels received their knowledge from Christ in the beginning, so it would be unfitting for them to be the source of his knowledge.

Finally... a bacon latte!

2010-10-20T23:09:00.002-06:00

I knew it was only a matter of time.

Questions about God's and Christ's Knowledge

2010-10-19T21:50:00.002-06:00

For all my non-Catholic friends, the title should not suggest that we Catholics don't believe that Christ was God. We absolutely believe in His divinity. However, these questions treat God's knowledge in the Divine nature, and Christ's knowledge in human nature. It's a rather interesting exercise that St. Thomas puts us through.

III Q9
A1. Possessing a human soul (a rational soul), Christ possessed created knowledge. A perfect human soul has potential to know intelligible things. To be perfect it must know what is intelligible. If Christ had had an intellect, it would have been to no purpose if He had not used it to know that which was intelligible. Created knowledge belongs to the human soul by nature. Since nothing was wanting in Christ, He did not want created knowledge.

A2. Man has the knowledge of the blessed in potentiality. Men are brought to this beatitude through Christ’s humanity. So this knowledge had to belong to Christ pre-eminently since cause must be more efficacious than the effect. Christ must have what He gives to others.

A3. Everything potentially is imperfect unless it is reduced to act. The passive intellect of man is potential until it is reduced to act in intelligible species, which are its completed form. The Word imprinted upon the soul of Christ all things that are potential in the human intellect. Christ knows the Word, and all things in the Word, and all things in their proper nature as they make sense to the human mind.

A4. Christ’s human nature lacked nothing that our nature has, so Christ had both a passive and an active intellect as we do, and it functioned in the same fashion in relation to objective experience and “intelligible species.” Thus, Christ acquired knowledge by the action of His active intellect.

III Q10
A1. In the Incarnation, the Divine and human natures remain unconfused or intermingled. So the uncreated remained as it was, and the created was still limited by its nature. It’s impossible for a finite creature to comprehend the Divine Essence, which is infinite (that is, finite cannot comprehend the simply infinite).

A2. All things (to an extent) belong to Christ as the creator and judge, and any created intellect knows more perfectly in the Word what they knew before being beatified. All beatified intellects know whatever pertains to themselves. So the soul of Christ, being both beatified and being Christ, would know everything existing in time that the Word knows. Some things are in Divine power alone and cannot be known by the soul of Christ (for example, potentialities in God that are never actualized). However, anything potential in created being would have been known by the soul of Christ.

A3. Knowledge regards being, which is said either to be in act or in potential. Things are known primarily as they are in act rather than in potential, which is known secondarily by way of the one in whose power it could exist. In regard to the first, Christ cannot know the infinite because there are not an infinite number in act regardless of how many acts may take place since they are all temporally bound. In the second sense, Christ does know the infinite because He knows the power in the creature, which is infinite even though its acts are not.

A4. While the blessed see the Divine Essence, the soul of Christ is more closely joined to the Word than any other creature, so it receives the full illumination in which God is seen by the Word Himself, more so than any other creature. So more perfectly than all other creatures does the soul of Christ see the First Truth, which is the Essence of God.

I Q14
A1. Intelligent beings have their own form but also the forms other things as ideas, a thing known in one who knows. Forms approach, in their immateriality, a kind of infinity. God possesses the highest degree of immateriality (I,7,1), so He occupies also the highest place of knowledge.

A2. God understands Himself through Himself. Some operations are internal in the operator, having the object of term within. When we know of an object within, we know that which is intelligible through our intellect in act. Each can be in potential, but the object is known by the intellect in operation or act. In God, there is no potential of intellect or object, and intellect and object are the same. The intelligible species in God is the Divine intellect. God does not have knowledge, but is knowledge.

A3. A thing is comprehended when the end of knowledge about it has been attained, that is, when it is known as perfectly as it can be known. God knows Himself perfectly, and He is knowable according to His own mode of actuality. The power of God in knowledge is as great as His actuality in existence, which is pure act and free from any potentiality. So He is supremely knowable and knows Himself supremely. Hence, He comprehends Himself.

A4. If God’s act of understanding were something different than His substance, then something other than His substance would be the act and perfection of His substance, which would mean that His substance was related as potentiality to the act of understanding, and this we know is not possible since He is pure act, and the act of understanding is the perfection of the one who understands. In addition, to understand is not something extrinsic to the one understanding but remains in the one understanding and is the perfection of the one understanding, just as existence is the perfection of the one who exists. Since God’s existence is His essence, His essence is also His intelligible species, so His act of understanding, His intellect, is the same as His essence and existence.

A5. God necessarily knows things other than Himself. He perfectly understands Himself. If He knows Himself perfectly, He knows His power perfectly. Since His power extends to other things as He is their First Cause, He necessarily knows things other than Himself. Otherwise He would not know the extent of His own power. So all things that pre-exist in God must be within His act of understanding. Yet as He sees Himself through Himself, He also sees other things not in themselves but in Himself.

A6. To know a thing in general and not in particular is to know it imperfectly. If God knows things only in general, His understanding would not be perfect. So God must have proper knowledge of this, both that which is general and common to all and that which distinguishes one from another. Any perfection that exists in any creature, pre-exists in God, hence, must be known in proper ratio.

A7. We know things discursively in two ways: successively and by causality. However, many things that we could understand in succession we can also understand simultaneously, as parts of a composite. God, however, sees all things in Himself, which is one thing, so He sees them immediately rather than sequentially. In the second case, one who proceeds from cause to effect moves from principles to conclusions rather than both at once, or from what is known to what is unknown. But God sees effects in Himself as the cause, so He does not see discursively.

A8. The knowledge of God to all things is likened to the knowledge of a craftsman to the things he makes. The knowledge of the latter is the cause of the things he makes since he works by his own intellect, so the form of intellect must be the principle of action (the cause). To an intelligible form in an intellect, though, must also be added the will of the craftsman. So likewise is God’s knowledge, when joined to His will, the cause of things.

A9. God knows all things in whatever way they exist. Some things that do not have actual existence can be in terms of being possible in God’s power. They can exist in thought or imagination. Anything that can be made, thought, or said by a creature are known by God, even though they have no other material existence. However, such things are known not by vision but by simple intelligence.

A10. To know a thing perfectly, one must know everything accidental to it. Some good things can be corrupted by evil accidentally. Thus God could not know good things perfectly unless He also knew evil things. A thing is knowable to the degree in which it exists. Since evil is a privation of good, God knows evil in that He knows what is good and what can be lacking in it.

A11. All perfections found in creatures pre-exist in God in a higher way. To know singular things is part of our perfection, so God must likewise know singular things since what is known to us must also be known to God. Although we might know abstractions and singular things separately, God knows them both by His simple intellect. As mentioned in Q14 A4, since God is the cause of all this by His knowledge and His knowledge extends as far as His causality extends, He extends not only to forms but to the matter in which they inhere and are individualized. Thus He knows singular things.

A12. God knows all that is actual but also all that is possible to Himself or created things. Thus He must also know infinite things. The knowledge of a knower is measured by the mode of the form, which is the principle of knowledge. Now when we know something by sense, we know only of the immediate individual. However, when we know its nature, we can know infinite individuals that participate in that nature. So in some ways, we know the infinite, not as distinct individuals but in the principles of that species. However, the Divine essence is a likeness of all things that are or can be, not merely in universals but also in proper ratio top each individual. Thus His knowledge extends to infinite things.

A13. God knows all things, not only actual things but also things possible to Him and creatures. Since some of these are future contingent to us, it follows that God knows future contingent things. A contingent thing can be considered in itself, in which case it is not future but exists now in act (that is, an image of what will be). It can also be considered contingent in its cause, and in this way it is a future thing. Since God knows causes and effects simultaneously, He knows the contingent cause of a contingent effect together. So He knows the contingent future thing, which is future in relation to its cause.

A14. It is in our power to form enunciations, and God knows of all things in His power or those of His creatures. It follows that He knows enunciable things. He knows them not in the same manner as human intellects do, as if division or composition existed in His intellect, but by understanding the essentials of each thing, as well as all that is accidental to them.

A15. God’s knowledge is His substance, which is immutable. Thus, His knowledge is immutable

A16. Knowledge can be called speculative in three ways: first, on the part of things that are known but are not operable by the knower (for example, man’s knowledge of natural or divine things); second, in the manner of knowing (for example, as one considers what is necessary for a composition in general); and thirdly, as one considers different ways that a thing could be made without actually making it. Of Himself, God has only speculative knowledge since He in Himself is not operable. Otherwise, He has both speculative and practical knowledge because He can consider both what He can make and does not, as well as those things which He can make and does. So if He knows something in itself, it is speculative knowledge. If He knows something that is directed toward an end, it is practical.

In case you weren't sure what the sponsors of 10:10 think of dissenting views...

2010-10-01T18:18:00.002-06:00

They make it plain and simple. Don't watch if you're squeamish.

When I first saw this, I thought it was a satire of how some climate-change advocates view the opposition.

The mode of union in the Person of the Word

2010-09-18T11:54:00.001-06:00

In article 1, St. Thomas addresses three objections to the question of whether it befits a Divine Person to assume: first, that a perfect Person cannot add to Himself; second, that in assuming something, He communicates something of Himself to what is assumed; and third, that its repugnant for something constituted to assume its constituent because effect does not act on cause. On the contrary, he notes citing Fulgentius, that the only-Begotten of God assumed a nature, and the only-Begotten is a Person, so it’s fitting. He adds, in this case, that in this assumption the Person is both principle and terminus, since the union took place in the Person. He agrees that on cannot add to perfection, but that in union, the Divine perfects man. He clarifies that a Divine Person isn’t communicable in the sense of being predicated of several supposita. However, he notes that nothing prevents several things to be predicated of a Person, so that even in a created person several natures may concur accidentally (for example, quality and quantity). In the Divine Person, who is eternal, it’s fitting for there to be a conjunction of natures in subsistence. To the third objection, he responds that the Divine Person is not constituted a person by human nature but is constituted man by that assumption.

In article 2, St. Thomas addresses three objections concerning whether the Divine Nature assumes. First, he addresses the notion that the Divine Nature did not assume since the union did not occur in the nature. He notes that the Divine Nature is not a distinct suppositum, but that “taking to Oneself” refers back to the suppositum, of which the Divine Nature cannot be separated. Objection 2 poses whether assumption is befitting to all three Persons of the Trinity Who share the Divine Nature, to which the Angelic Doctor responds that to assume is befitting only to the Person of the Word given that the Word assumed. The third objection distinguishes between what acts and how it acts and claims that acting befits a Person not a nature. St. Thomas points out that what acts and how it acts, in God, are one and the same in the Divine Nature. He accedes the propriety of saying that the Person assumes, yet he adds that Divine Nature is the principle of assumption, so it is by no means unfitting to say that the Nature assumes.

In article 3, St. Thomas addresses the question of whether the Nature abstracted from Personality could be said to assume. In objection 1, which posits that Nature only assumes by reason of the Personhood to which it belongs, he responds that all attributes of Nature, which are rational, would still subsist and be a Person and could still assume. Objection 2 suggest abstracting the Person would leave no terminus, but clearly, if the response to objection 1 is true, it follows that there still remains a terminus. Objection 3 posits that nothing remains when Personality is abstracted, leaving no-thing to assume. St. Thomas replies that all of the essential attributes of God still remain, subsist, and hence, are a suppositum that can assume. Even without the relationality of the Persons, there is still rational Nature and all other essential attributes that subsist as a Person.

In article 4, St. Thomas addresses whether one Person can assume without the others. In response to objection 1, which posits that the works of the Trinity are inseparable so precluding the possibility that one can assume without the others, he responds that the action of assumption pertains to all three Persons, the term pertains to the Son only. Objection 2 concludes that since the Divine Nature is common to all three Persons, so the assumption is befitting of all three Persons. To the contrary, St. Thomas responds that Divine Nature assumes by reason of the Person of the Son, and is thus befitting to the one Person alone. The third objection likens the assumption of human nature by Christ to the assumption of all men to God through grace. He responds that the assumption by grace of adoption is terminated in the three Persons, but the terminus of assumption of human nature is Christ, although the principle of each is the three Persons. In conclusion, St. Thomas underscores again that what has to do with the action is common, but what has to do with the term is unique to the Person of the Word.

In article 5, three objections are given to the notion that only the Son could be the term of the assumption: first, that to be otherwise would confuse the distinctions among the Divine Persons; second, that sonship by adoption is a participation in likeness to the natural sonship of the Son, which doesn’t belong to Father or Holy Spirit; and third, that the Father is innascible, incapable of becoming incarnate. St. Thomas notes that while the Father is eternally innascible, temporal birth would not change this. To the contrary, he says that what the Son can do, so can the other two Persons. Otherwise, their powers would be different. The principle of the act of assumption is the Divine power, which is common to all three Persons. The term is the Person of Christ. However, it could’ve been any one of the Persons.

In article 6, St. Thomas addresses whether several Divine persons can assume one human nature.

As an aside, I would say that I like the creativity of the objections in this article, and it’s to his credit that he responds so deftly. I have to wonder, though, whether these are his own manufactured objections or if these disputes were floating around in his day. Perhaps one of our philosophy colleagues could comment.

Anyway, proposed as objections are the following: that several Divine Persons could not assume one human nature because either several gods would result or because one person would result, confusing the distinction of Divine Persons; next, that because assumption terminates in unity of Person, and the Divine Persons are not one person, they could not assume one human nature; and finally, that what can be predicated of one Person to the man would be predicable to the Persons as well, which would allow for something proper only to the Father (such as begetting the Son) to be predicated of the Son. First he notes that “one man” does not equal unity of person, only unity of human nature. Second, he states that the unity occurs in regards the nature to the Persons and would mirror the unity of the Divine nature with each Person. Third, he clarifies that the Person communicates to the human nature, but those distinctions are not communicated from Person to Person. In all, he distinguishes between unity in hypostases versus unity in Person. Just as the Incarnate Person subsists in two natures and the three Persons subsist in one, all three can assume one.

In article 7, St. Thomas addresses the question of whether one Divine Person can assume two human natures. He provides three objections: first, that a Divine Person assuming two human natures would result in a single suppositum composing two natures of one species, which would be a contradiction since one species is multiplied by distinct supposita; second, that an Incarnate Person having assumed two human natures could not be said to be one man, nor two; and third, that two human natures could not be united, because the uniting of human bodies and souls would result in a confusion of Divine Persons. St. Thomas appears to be using the trump card of omnipotence here: God cannot be limited be created things, or He would be limited in power. To the objections, he replies as follows: first, the Incarnation doesn’t result a new supposita, so neither would another assumed nature; second, that unity of nature does not imply unity of suppositum; and third, that unity between one human nature and the Divine Persons would not imply a unity of the two human natures, so there could still be a uniformity in assumption among the Divine Persons without any union between the assumed natures.

In article 8, St. Thomas addresses whether it was more fitting for another of the Divine Persons to become incarnate. First, one objection posits that if the Father had become incarnate, there would be less occasion for error to come into man’s thinking. St. Thomas counters, citing Romans 2:4, that man would still be capable of error in this case. In objection 2, the Father is seen as more fitting since He brought about the first creation. In reply, the doctor notes that the first creation was brought about by the Father through the Word. Finally, because the Incarnation was ordered toward the remission of sins, the Holy Spirit should have become incarnate since remission of sins is a gift of the Holy Spirit. St. Thomas responds that it is proper for the Holy Spirit to be the gift of Father and Son, hence more fitting that the Son become incarnate to bestow this gift upon us. He notes that it is fitting for the Son, Whose concept is the exemplar likeness of the created, to restore mankind, much in the way that a craftsman restores a work that has been damaged or ruined. In addition, he adds that the Son’s natural sonship makes Him the fitting Person to bring mankind into adopted sonship. And finally, the Incarnation is a remedy for mankind’s overweening desire for knowledge, making it fitting that the Word of true knowledge might lead mankind back to God.

Today

2010-09-11T23:19:00.002-06:00

Oddly enough, I can't be completely negative about this date. Nine years ago today, I first met the woman who is now my wife.

The mode of union of the Word Incarnate

2010-09-11T21:33:00.002-06:00

This is my second batch of summaries for Christology. Fire away! I can use all the help I can get in sharpening my understanding of St. Thomas.

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In article 1, St. Thomas dispenses with the Monophysite argument that the union of the word took place in the nature. The first objection, he notes, is based on a selective reading of St. Cyril. The second objection, he notes, is essentially a false analogy. The third objection, he notes, confuses two natures being changed as opposed to two natures being joined and that the Divine nature cannot actually be the form of a body but is simply joined to the flesh. He goes on to explain that nature has two senses: one, which deals with the begetting of things (birth) and a second, which deals with that which is essential to a thing (its quiddity). Union couldn’t then, be accidental, as with a composition of different elements; nor could it be a mixture of elements, which would result in nature neither Divine nor human. Nor could two natures be combined as two imperfect things, like members of a body, since each is perfectly complete or “has its specific perfection.”

This second article appears to be geared toward the opposite position at the Council of Chalcedon—that taken by Nestorius—that the union did not take place in the Person of the Word of God. In response to the first objection, St. Thomas notes that in God, nature and Person are not distinct (owing to God’s simplicity), but that the words “nature” and “person” do not mean the same thing. However, human nature is united to the Person of the Word without changing the Divine nature. In response to the second, he notes that human nature has greater dignity because it exists in the Person of the Word. In response to the third objection, he points out that the human nature assumed by Christ does not have its own personality because it did not exist apart from the Person of Christ. He then notes that while in the Divine Person, nature and essence are the same, that in created things, nature and person are not the same because other things adhere to the person that are not essential. Yet the suppositum is taken as whole, regardless of whether what is joined to it is essential or accidental. Hence, the human nature of the Word, which doesn’t belong to the Divine nature, is united in the Person of the Word.

In article 3, the Angelic Doctor addresses whether the union of natures in Christ took place in the suppositum or hypostasis. In response to objection 1 that Augustine and Pope Leo both refer to an “other” or to the Word and man as distinct, St. Thomas notes that they referred to His natures, and not to distinct hypostasis. To objection 2, he responds that a hypostasis includes those things in union to a substance and not only the substance itself. In objection 3, he explains that a thing is placed in a genus or species not based on individuating elements but by nature or essence. He sums up by noting that a person is simply a suppositum or hypostasis with a rational nature. To attribute a thing to a person is the same as to attribute it to their hypostasis. He points out that the Second Council of Constantinople and the First Council of Ephesus both condemned the position that two subsistences resulted from the Incarnation and anathematized anyone who denied that the Word was united to flesh in subsistence.

In Article 4, St. Thomas addresses the question of whether the Person of Christ was composite after the Incarnation. The first objection, St. Thomas addresses in the main body of his presentation as it is the primary consideration. In the second, St. Thomas notes that composition is not solely in parts but also in number. In the third, explains that not all composition requires homogeneous parts since animals are composed of soul and body, neither of which by itself is an animal. The first objection adheres to a view of the person of Christ prior to the Incarnation, as the Nature of the Word only. But following the Incarnation, Christ subsists in two natures: one subsistent being but different aspects of subsistence. So Christ is, after the Incarnation, a composite being.

In article 5, St. Thomas notes that the essence of a human being is for soul to be united in body. To objection 1, he points out that union of soul and body result in a person since they exist in themselves, but in Christ, they are joined to an existing person, so a new person need not result. In his response to objection 2, he notes that the human nature He assumed was of an individual, which isn’t common in the sense of something generalized and purely abstract, nor was the Damascene talking about a nature that came about after the union of human and Divine natures. Finally, he distinguishes between the effective principle of life (the Word) and the formal principle (the soul) and adds that the former cannot be the form of the body. As the essence of being human requires a soul to be united to a body, it could be no less in Christ. To claim such would be to diminish the humanity of Christ and lapse into heresy.

In article 6, St. Thomas addresses whether human nature was united to the Word accidentally. He responds to the objection that St. Paul referred Christ as being “in the habit found as a man” (Phillipians 2:7), and that habits are accidents. To this he replies that examples need not (and in fact should not) be similar in every way. Oddly, he doesn’t refer to his own argument on habits (II, 51, 1) in which he quite clearly says that some habits accrue to nature and not ass accidents (for example, knowledge as an operation of intellect). In the second objection, St. Thomas notes that something that is assumed into a complete subject is accidental only if it is not assumed into the same being. In response to the third objection, he notes that accident is divided against (distinct from?) substance and that substance can be either the nature or the hypostasis. A union taking place in a hypostasis, then, wouldn’t be an accidental union. Pointing out that this accidental union was part of the error of Nestorius and Theodore of Mopuestia, he points out that union by accident of various kinds was condemned by the second Council of Constantinople and that they confessed a union of the Word with flesh in one subsistence.

In article 7, St. Thomas addresses whether the union was created. In response to the first objection that nothing in God can change, he notes that the union is really more in our way of thinking since the creature is united to God with no change to God. To the second objection that the union should be judged in reference to the dignity of the Divine Person, he states that the union exists only in a created nature, hence, is a created being. To the third, that Man is called Creator is on account of the terminus being the Divine Person, not in the union itself. He states simply that the union came to exist in time rather than existing from all eternity and that it represents a change in relation between God and creature rather than a change in the Creator.

In article 8, St. Thomas deals with the question of whether union is the same as assumption. He dispenses fairly quickly with each objection: first, that union and assumption have different relations to the terminus or end, union addressing relation while assumption addresses action; second, that action and patient differ between assumption and union; and third, that assumption implies patient and agent, so is logically different from union or Incarnation. His answer clarifies that the Son of God assumes human nature, while God the Father unites the Son with human nature. So while the relationship is the same, the agency is clearly identified by the word “assumption” but not by “union.”

In article 9, St. Thomas deals with the question of whether the union of two natures in Christ is the greatest of all unions. He dispenses with the objections by noting that the unity of the Divine Person is greater than mere numerical unity due to the fact that it is uncreated and self-subsisting, and that it is the union in the Divine Person which gives the union pre-eminence over other unions. Each objection and reply essentially addresses this aspect.

In article 10, St. Thomas points out that accidental grace is a likeness of the Divinity in which men participate. However, in the Incarnation is no participation in likeness but is actual union, which is greater. Also, while habitual grace is in the soul only, the grace of being united to the Divine Person belongs body and soul to the whole human nature. Grace, he notes, can be understood as God bestowing something gratuitously but also as a free gift. Both ways can be seen in operation in the Incarnation: first, that God willed the Incarnation gratuitously and second, that the union was a free gift that was not preceded by any merits.

St. Thomas points out in article 11 that holy men could not have merited the Incarnation condignly as if it were something they justly deserved but only congruously because their love and devotion elicited such a response from God. In addition, he notes that Incarnation is the principle (agency) of grace, which is the principle of merit. Referring to Titus 3:5, he notes that we are not saved by our own works but by Christ’s mercy and through baptism.

In the final article of this question, St. Thomas notes that something can be termed natural in two ways: first, it can be from the essential, or second, it can be with a man from birth. While the grace of union was not natural in the first sense, it most certainly was natural in the second sense in that it came to Him by way of His Divine Nature from the moment of His conception.

Summa Theologia pt. III, Question 1

2010-09-04T11:03:00.003-06:00

This is my first summary of St. Thomas Aquinas for my Christology class. Feel free to offer corrections. Some of the objections and responses are less than clear to me.

In Article 1, St. Thomas deals with whether it was fitting that God become incarnate. Addressing first the objection, he responds that immutable God is not changed in state from this unity, but that the mutable creature is changed. While man is not naturally endowed with this dignity (Obj. 2), God’s goodness made this unity fitting for our salvation. St. Thomas notes the confusion with which objection 3 treats the matter of evil, returning to the distinction he makes in PI, Q48, A5 between evil of pain and evil of fault. Finally, he underscores that God is not great in material terms but in terms of might or power (potentia). He notes that the end of the material world is itself to make known “the invisible things of God” and that it is most fitting for God, who is goodness itself, to communicate that goodness to man, whose nature is reasonable, in a means that befits the highest manner of the creature (which would be reason or logos).

In Article 2. St. Thomas first responds is to the definition of “necessary,” that the Incarnation was not exclusively necessary but suitably necessary in that it accomplished what needed to be done and did so for the “furtherance of our good”—that is, as Augustine noted in De Trinitate xiii, it demonstrated God’s love for us by condescending to share our lot. Through the Incarnation, He instills in us faith and hope, and through His demonstration of love, gains our love in return. In addition, He gives us an example to be followed and, by uniting Himself to flesh, divinizes humanity, as the Early Fathers would say. In addition to this “furtherance of good” is a withdrawal from evil, in which, being united to God, we understand our true dignity, not as some merit of ours but as a gift from God.

St. Thomas acknowledges in Article 3 a diversity of opinion on the question of whether God would have become incarnate had man not sinned, he comes down on the side of those who say He would not have become incarnate. He notes in response to objection 1 that all causes assigned in article 2 (the previous article) pertained to remedies for sin, and in response to objection 2 that all that is required for the perfection of nature is that creatures be ordered toward God as their natural ends. While St. Thomas agrees that God certainly could have become incarnate in any case, none of the objections necessitate that God become incarnate in such case. However, scripture makes clear that the purpose of the Incarnation was the redemption of man from sin, as the author notes in Luke 19:10 and Ephesians 5:32.

As sin came into the world through one man, one man would defeat sin through His action. St. Thomas notes in Article 4 that the Lamb comes to absolve the sins of the world. While this undoubtedly includes actual sins, it must primarily address the first cause of sin, the original fall. As Paul notes in Romans, many died through one man’s sin, but many more have “the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many” (5:15, RSV). One of the distinctions the Angelic Doctor makes in this article is between intensive and extensive greatness of sin, the former which is hereditary and the latter, voluntary (II, 81, 1). While actual sin may be more grievous in a personal sense, its effects are limited in scope to the individual, while the effects of original are more extensive, applying to all humanity.

In Article 5, St. Thomas addresses objections that charity, effectiveness, and perfection of grace would all have been better served had God become incarnate at the beginning of the human race. He counters that God in His Divine wisdom knew best when and where the Incarnation was needed and would be most effective for the perfection of human nature. Because the Incarnation was provided as a remedy for sin, it was only fitting for the Incarnation to come after the fall. He also points out the root of Adam’s fall in pride and the need to bring us to humility to recognize our need for grace. Come too soon, and man would fail to recognize his need for a liberator. The furtherance of our good required the spiritual man to follow the “earthy” man (adamah). In addition, Christ’s dignity necessitated that He be preceded by heralds who went before Him. Finally, so that the fervor of those coming to faith did not grow cold toward the end of time, it was fitting that God become Incarnate when he did, and not at the beginning of the human race.

In Article 6, St. Thomas points out that the Incarnation is both perfect Himself and also our means of perfection. In this sense perfection both precedes our imperfection, but in terms of our nature, follows imperfection. By coming when He did, He found us in our imperfection, when we most needed His grace and when we would be most likely to respond. Had he come at the end, memory and reverence of Him may have been forgotten, along with the natural law and morality. By coming neither at the beginning of the human nor at the end of the world, God saves through faith in past, present, and future events.

Mullets on Parade

2010-08-27T16:22:00.003-06:00

I posted some old band photos on Facebook from the last two decades. It was an amusing visit to the past. I'm sure my old bandmates are thrilled with being tagged on them.

See the parade of bad haircuts here.

Sen. Coburn on Life

2010-08-23T11:28:00.003-06:00

"We now record fetal heartbeats at 14 days post-conception. Re record fetal brainwaves at 39 days post-conception. And I don't expect you to answer this, but I do expect you to pay attention to it as you contemplate these big issues. We have this schizophrenic rule of law where we have defined death as the absence of those, but we refuse to define life as the presence of those."

Coburn makes an excellent point here, but as others have put it, since we do not know when life begins, we should deal with such matters with caution. Conception results in a unique human being—genetically and spiritually. Disimissing that fact is what leads to such schizophrenic rules of law.

HT to Julie D.

Fr. Barron responds to Anne Rice

2010-08-06T23:48:00.003-06:00

I've been reading with some sadness many of the rather tart if not caustic comments about what Anne Rice recently wrote concerning Christianity and her rejection of the label Christian. It saddens me because I saw someone who truly wanted to come back but perhaps was seeing through a glass darkly. I reviewed Ms. Rice's two books on the early life of Jesus here, both of which I enjoyed, and she was kind enough to drop by and comment. I truly believe she wants to find the truth, and I also believe the Church is the place she will find it. However, it seemed to me that she was responding less to the teachings of the Church and more to personal attacks on her struggles with those teachings. The responses just proved her point. Christians, and particularly Catholic Christians, can be an uncharitable lot. I'm not saying anyone should discard the truth for a lie, but we should speak the truth in love. When we don't, we look like the caricature she has in her mind of us. How do we say that we don't support homosexual activity, abortion, and contraception because we love, then we turn around and act hateful? We have to act on love in our insistence of the truth about the teachings of the Church.

Fr. Robert Barron of the Word on Fire ministry posted what I think is the only really compassionate response I've seen, which is why I haven't posted anything myself. At the end, he posts, "Come back, Anne. We need you!" To which I agree. We need all the members of the Body of Christ and their gifts. And also importantly, come back, Anne, because you need the Church.

Michael Totten in Israel

2010-08-05T14:51:00.002-06:00

Michael Totten, a blogging photojournalist who works extensively in the Middle East, is currently in Israel. He posts this very interesting interview with an Israeli friend on how different the perspective on Israel is from the inside. Something he notes that many people are blissfully unaware of is that 70% of Jewish Israelis emigrated against their will: that is, they were either run out of Europe before, during, or after World War II, or run out of other Middle Eastern countries after the partition. One of my colleagues there had a family who had lived in Damascus who finally had to leave during the 70s because of the persecution of Jews there.

Streets of Tel Aviv

2010-07-26T18:31:00.015-06:00

I noted in my previous post my stop at the Etzel House and my walk around Tel Aviv. I'm always struck, when I go to Israel, by the contrasts as I move from block to block. Tel Aviv-Yafo appears, in some places, like a cosmopolitan metropolis and in other places, like a third-world slum. Keep in mind that Tel Aviv is younger than Boise, Idaho. It was established in 1909 as a settlement for Jews outside of the city of Jaffa (or Yafo, the Hebrew name). Yet it's a world city, and a place where cultures and markets meet rather than collide. It has almost twice Boise's population with more than twice its density (that is, twice the population on less space).

Tel Aviv is sometimes not much to look at, especially in the areas close to Jaffa. There's a lot of construction, and many of the buildings are run down. Graffiti is everywhere.

I asked a coworker about the graffiti, and he indicated that people just didn't have the energy to keep up with it. He recounted an experience he had when the local authorities had required him to rebuild a wall on the boundary of his property. Within hours of it being completed, he caught a couple of kids painting on it.

Amid all the old townhouses is new construction, and since the town houses are owned by multiple parties, the upkeep is sometimes a little uneven. Here's a place in Neve Tzedek that caught my eye. While the doors downstairs are quite stunning, the balconies are falling apart.

Right across the street was this beautiful house.

You'll often see two apartment complexes, one next to the other, identical in design, but one looking rather shabby and the other pristine. In a way, it sounds a bit like the Boise north end.

As I was wandering around Neve Tzedek looking for a restaurant, I walked past this compound. If anyone of my readers knows Hebrew, feel free to add a translation. Sorry for the poor quality.

It's really easy to get hung up on differences in other locales. In Sant Cugat and Barcelona, it was the poor sewer ventilation. In Israel, it's trash collection. I got momentarily lost in Neve Tzedek and walked past this street. In Boise, the trash collection contractor would leave a nastygram on this pile.

All of this contrast, but so much charm as well. On my last full evening in Tel Aviv, I took these shots of Neve Tzedek, a neighborhood close to the hotel. You can see how densely packed the houses are. There's something compelling about these warrens

The street along the left is Yitzak Eichmann, which leads up to Shalom Tower, the beige high rise on the left. It was the first high rise in Tel Aviv. The most visible street in the image below is Pines Avenue, which runs right across Shabazzi. There are some good restaurants on Shabazzi.

Finally, on my last evening in Tel Aviv, I visited Carmel Market to get a shot of the market after hours. I don't know just how garbage collection works in Tel Aviv, but I wouldn't want to have to clean out the market place after hours.

My last day on the ground I spent hitting some other museums and walking around Jerusalem. I'll post those photos soon.

*As it turns out, I hear Masada is miserable at this time of year. Perhaps I lucked out.

H.P. Lovecraft?

2010-07-26T08:28:00.000-06:00

Apparently...

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Why obedience?

2010-07-25T12:23:00.003-06:00

Last Wednesday evening, I had dinner with a former coworker of mine and her husband in Yafo. It took us a little while to settle on a restaurant because I had had some trouble locating a strictly kosher restaurant in the area. Neve Tzedek seemed to cater more to the secular crowd. I finally asked the concierge, who must not have understood my question. Fortunately, Ian figured I might need a little help, and he booked a reservation at a restaurant close to my hotel. The food was excellent, and I had a very nice conversation with Jo and Ian.

I asked about their daughters, and they gave me a good report on the events of their lives. The younger finished her military service within the last year. The elder was pursuing graduate studies and seeking work as a part-time editor. She also informed me with clearly visible relief that the elder daughter had returned to religious observance. At its very basic, religious observance involves keeping Shabbat, praying three times a day (or four on holidays), observing rituals that accompany various activities (such as prayers before and after meals), observing the high holy days, and observing Kashrut or the dietary laws as well as other purity laws. The basic law is outlined in the Torah in the 613 mitzvot or commandments, the Decalogue being an overarching set of categorical commandments underwhich the remaining commandments fall. This description is a simplification the law, but I think it captures the essence.

Many Christians consider these observances to be the "legalism" that Christ condemned in the gospel accounts, but Jesus was an obersvant Jew. His beef was not with the Law of Moses but with the interpretation given to these laws by various rabbis and scribes during and before His life—those laws that added to the burden of others or allowed one to avoid the spirit of the Law while fulfilling the letter. However, to look at the Law only as a set of restrictions is missing the point of obedience to the commandments. As one rabbi put it, each mitzvah performed was an act of love given to God. If they understand, they obey out of love.

This point is also lost on many Christians (Catholic and non-). We think of the moral teachings in scripture to be voluntary or matters solely of "personal conscience," which, in fact, is mere personal preference. Or worse, we judge them to be artifacts of a culture having little relevance to our times now. Adhering to ritual or moral obligation is condemned as legalistic or Pharisaical. These people miss the point of following moral teaching. First and foremost, it should be motivated by a love for God and a desire to please Him. He is a forgiving, merciful God, but that is no reason to disregard the Law. It is a reason to follow it.

We must look at obedience to God as part of having a right relationship with God. Just as we respect our parents' wishes out of love, we do as God has revealed in scripture and tradition because we want to remain in relationship with Him. When we sin and "miss the mark" (hamartia), we turn even if only slightly away from that relationship... as if we're looking at God askance, distracted by something else to the left or right, or even behind us. Enough of these turns, and we are moving away from God, not toward Him.

Are their consequences to disobedience? Absolutely, just as there are natural consequences when we break relationship with anyone in our lives. Why would we expect to have a good relationship with someone if we constantly do things to injure that person? Sin results from our selfish tendencies, our concupiscience, and the consequences of sin is separation and isolation. We see this principle operate in human relationships all the time. Our human relationships, being analogous to our relationship with the Father, exemplify the effects of sin and obedience. Just as we honor father and mother by showing them obedience appropriate to our stage in life, we do the same when we obey God and the Church He founded.

Back in the USA

2010-07-25T09:28:00.002-06:00

Greetings, all. I arrived back in Boise around 3:30 PM GMT. My last day, as usual, began around 7:00 AM in Tel Aviv, with checkout at 8:30, followed by a trip to the Palmach and Eretz Israel Museums in Ramat Aviv. I can heartily recommend the first (an experiential museum following the lives of seven recruits as they train to serve in the elite commando unit) but did not have time to adequately appreciate the second. From there, I caught a taxi to the Arlozorov bus terminal, a secondary terminal in Tel Aviv. I took 480 into Jerusalem and spent a little time visiting some landmarks in the city (the King David Hotel and the YMCA), walked across the western end of the Valley of Hinnom to the Old City. (The valley might not quite start at that spot but is just a few kilometers from it.) I zipped back to the hotel to make sure I didn't miss the last bus before Shabbat, then walked from the Arlozorov back to my hotel down Rothschild Boulevard, arriving back around 6:00 PM. I left for my 11:50 PM at 8:15 so I had ample time to clear security. (They recommend arriving three hours in advance.) I took my middle seat on an 11-hour flight and settled in for 11 hours of tossing, movie watching, reading. It was a long flight. I had two layovers. No wonder I started to crash hard by 7:00. Anyway, I will have some pictures up this week. It's good to be home.

Tel Aviv-Yafo

2010-07-22T12:17:00.017-06:00

Aside my commutes to the work site in Rehovot, I have pretty much been in Tel Aviv for my entire stay here in Israel this time. My first night was simply a struggle to stay awake until after Mass. I had dinner at a restaurant in Old Jaffa in the square close to the plaza in front of St. Peter's Church. I took this photo of a minnaret from my table in the restaurant. If you look at some of my earlier photos, you'll see other perspectives on this tower.

Here is a shot of the same minnaret with the beaches of Tel Aviv in the background.

While I waited for Mass, the folk choir practiced in the plaza. The Mass I attended is usually attended by the Filipino Catholics in Jaffa. They tend toward a more worship charismatic style, but they are quite conservative. They hand out shawls to women who approach the Eucharist with bare shoulders or clothing they consider to be insufficiently modest. Many of the hymns they sang were in Tagalog, although the priest celebrated Mass in English.

I had scheduled a day tour to the Dead Sea and Masada, but the tour company (which will remain nameless) didn't get my reservation (even though it was five days prior to the tour through their web site). I understand, though, that Masada is absurdly hot at this time of year (40-45 C). Most people go very early in the day. My colleagues suggested I go during the winter months. So instead of running off to Masada and bathing in the Dead Sea, I took a four-hour walk in central Tel Aviv.

The first notable sites just outside of my hotel are related to the conflicts here. Across from the hotel on the beach is the Dolphinarium. I've posted about this club and the bombing that shut it down. The victims were mostly teen-aged immigrants from the former Soviet Union. It's still unchanged from what I can tell.

The Hassan Bek mosque is across the street. No picture, but I've posted that one before. My colleague here told me the back story about the person who built the mosque, a former police chief from Jaffa (Yafo) who had a less than stellar reputation.

I walked south toward Old Jaffa to see the Etzel House, a small museum dedicated to the IZL, an early defensive organization sort of like a militia. It was also known as the Irgun. It took part in some actions that were clearly terrorist (King David bombing), while others were bungled affairs that seem to have been exploited for propaganda (Deir Yassin). Menachem Begin was a leader in this organization at one time. The IZL was later folded into the IDF. The museum has some interesting stories about the War of Independence and the conflicts before. There's no pretty story to tell about Palestine prior to partition.

This building would've been on the outskirts of Jaffa in a no-man's land between Jaffa and Tel Aviv during the War of Independence.

I walked about two miles north and found another grim landmark. Mike's Place is a blues club just of the beach. It's notable for two reasons. First, it sits next door to a nondescript concrete building with no obvious markings which happens to be the US embassy. Second, it was the target of a bombing in 2003, just short of two years after the Dolphinarium bombing. My colleague tells me that some of his friends were injured in that attack.

One of the best things about launching out on an unstructured walking tour is that your come across oddities that catch your eye. As I was walking along HaYarkon street, I noticed this interesting stratification of the rock on the side of the road next to the sidewalk. All along the street, the earth looks this way. I can just imagine how long each strata took to be formed and how quickly the layers of ages were breached to build the road and sidewalk.

I made my way east and came across block after block with hedgerows of these flowering shrubs. Don't know what they are, but I like them.

Another interesting aspect of travel is seeing how differently societies deal with common threats. In the U.S., it's still common to see wooden utility poles. In Israel, the utility lines are held up by steel towers marked by very clear warnings.

About 10 feet up, these towers have a ring of length spikes that stick out and slightly downward. I think they're trying to discourage climbers, but I may be wrong.

I'm also struck by how different building standards are from country to country. Here's another image featuring a utility tower but of a scaffolding next to a condominium under construction. I don't think OSHA would ever let this project proceed.

By this time in my walk, I had circled around Carmel Market and HaKarmel heading back to the hotel. I saw this print, which I seem to recall seeing on previous visits.

Three blocks later, and I was back at the hotel with sore feet and a fairly good sunburn. Tel Aviv like most of Israel is an interesting study of juxtaposition--beauty next to decay; ancient grandeur next to modernity.

Prayer Request

2010-07-08T16:17:00.002-06:00

I received some disappointing news today. I won't share the particulars, but if you would keep me and my vocational discernment in your prayers, I would greatly appreciate it.

Wow

2010-06-28T22:23:00.002-06:00

I've had a dramatic increase of hits over the last few days. I'm not sure why since I haven't been posting much lately, but welcome to all of you. I have some things brewing in my brain that I will try to post soon.

Grace and peace to you all.

History of Pharmacology

2010-06-28T14:10:00.002-06:00

Mark Shea posted this brief history of medicine today:

===================

A Short History of Medicine

"Doctor, I have an earache."

2000 B.C. -- "Here, eat this root."

1000 A.D. -- "That root is heathen; say this prayer."

1850 A.D. -- "That prayer is superstition; drink this potion."

1940 A.D. -- "That potion is snake oil; swallow this pill."

1985 A.D. -- "That pill is ineffective; take this antibiotic."

2000 A.D. -- "That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root!"

On Plowing and Looking Back

2010-06-28T11:25:00.003-06:00

This Sunday's readings came from 1 Kings 19: 16b, 19-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-18; and Luke 9:51-62. The first and last each use the image of plowing, but each in what would seem to be opposing ways.

Our departing parochial vicar, Fr. Mariusz Majewksi gave a great homily focusing primarily on the gospel reading, but he also addressed all three readings on his blog.

I puzzled over the reading of 1 Kings myself, because I was struck by verse 19: "So he departed from there, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing, with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the twelfth" (RSV)

The NAB phrases it differently: "Elijah set out, and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat, as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen; he was following the twelfth."

The Septuagint translation from the Apostolic Bible Polyglot reads: "Twelve teams were before him, and he was among the twelve."

Jay Green's Hebrew/English interlinear reads: "twelve pairs before him, and he was with the twelfth."

Take note that he is not with twelve oxen, but with twelve yoke/teams of oxen, or in the Hebrew, 12 pair. That's a whole lot of oxen--at least 24. So we can see just what kind of investment such a number is and just why Elisha cannot turn back. He has destroyed any chance of return to his livelihood. Symbolically, what does this mean? Perhaps that he is taking up the mantle of a prophet. He is cutting himself off from the material concerns of the 12 tribes to put himself at the service of God, regardless of the cost. In any case, I find the wording interesting, particularly that he was "with the twelfth." The specificity here raises a flag and causes me to pause.

In Luke, Jesus uses a similar image in Luke 9:62 to talk about following God's will, evoking the scene between Elijah and Elisha: "Another said, 'I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.' Jesus said to him, 'No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.'"

Now in 1 Kings, Elisha was plowing. When he asks essentially the same question of Elijah and is rebuked, he responds by ending his plowing in the most dramatic way possible. However, Jesus uses a different image here. The Greek text actually uses the words "looking at the things behind." The difference in the usage is striking. Here, the work of following involves plowing the field, not rejecting labor and not merely being a prophetic voice, but preparing the world for the kingdom. Why otherwise would it matter for someone plowing to look back? Because you cannot plow a straight furrow is you are not looking forward. In a sense, Elisha is preparing himself to put his work before him as well, slaying whatever life he had before to follow God's will.

Moderation Casualties

2010-06-16T19:26:00.002-06:00

I had what appeared to be a great comment by someone named Steve concerning the temporal and spiritual effects of sexual immorality. Unfortunately, at the end of the comment was a link to a pharmaceutical site. That seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through to post a link. Anyway, Steve, if you're perplexed as to why I moderated your comment, that's why.

Comments, An Ony Mous, and Moderation

2010-06-10T12:12:00.002-06:00

I've been getting quite a bit of spam in my comments, particularly for old posts. So I have changed the comment settings to require a name and to moderate for posts that are over 14 days old. Sorry for the inconvenience.

What is the Communion of Saints?

2010-06-02T19:40:00.001-06:00

The communion of the saints, as described by Ashley, is all those who are or have followed the way of life—both those who have died and those of us who are still on earth.[i] We can also see this communion as the Body of Christ, joined together in communion, particularly as expressed in the Eucharist.[ii] This communion obligates us to love, as Christ commanded. In 1 John, the author reminds us of this obligation: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God” (4:7). Paul also exhorts us in 1 Corinthians, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (13:1). Communion is contingent on this love and cannot exist long without it.

The communion of saints is, if nothing else, a communion of persons. In the forward of her translation of Pinckaers’ The Source of Chirstian Ethics, Sr. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P., summarizes the author’s views of virtue-based morality, as opposed to casuistic legalism: “Father Pinckaers describes how the Christian develops connaturality with the true Good. This occurs only within a communion of persons where individuals are shaped by the truth of divine and evangelical law.”[iii] Virtue must be practiced in a community, and nowhere should it be more evident than in the communion of believers. We learn love by acting justly toward others. We learn hope by requesting intercession and praying for each other. We learn faith by learning through each others’ struggles.

The communion of saints is essentially a school for virtue. In those who have gone before us, we have models of faith and struggle, people who exemplify the virtues we seek to develop. In the Christian faithful on earth, we also have such models, but we also have the environment in which we need to develop the discipline and practice of virtue. Our life in the communion of saints, our living with each other allows us to live for each other and serve each other, “so that what each one does or suffers in and for Christ bears fruit for all” (CCC 961).

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 8b—Lesson Sixteen,” International Catholic University, 17 April 2010, .
ii. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition (Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vatican, 1997), 871.
iii. Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), xiii.

What is the relation of Christian spirituality to moral theology?

2010-06-02T19:37:00.001-06:00

In Deuteronomy, before he went to die on Mt. Nebo, Moses set before the people of Israel the way of life and the way of death (30:15). As the Jews came to understand it, the way of life was exemplified in the Decalogue and the teaching of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the 613 mitzvot of the Law. Minus the ritual and juridical law, what remains is the same moral teaching Christians practice today. However, the Christian way of understanding these laws involves an interiority that was missing from the Jewish understanding, or at least from the understanding of those Pharisees whom Jesus frequently castigated in the gospels. Some systems of moral theology, those which are volunteeristic or deontological and emphasize external obligation with little thought to consequences,[i] neglect the interiority of moral behavior. It was against such approaches that many people began to rebel following Vatican II, seeking a spirituality apart from the moral law.

Some people invoke the phrase “spiritual but not religious” to describe themselves. It is not uncommon to find this kind of thinking among new-age practitioners or westerners who dabble in eastern meditative practices. As Ashley points out, though, these people have missed the great riches of Christian spiritual practice.[ii] They have also emptied moral law of its life-giving aspects, focusing solely on the external observance rather than their connection with love of God and neighbor. However, spirituality is intimately tied with the way of life. Spirituality is, in a sense, the individual path we take toward God, our personal expression of the way of life. It involves our relationship directly with our maker, and as such, is the expression of our life in Christ. It is intimately tied to how we put into action the theological and cardinal virtues. All the moral law is tied to love of God and love of neighbor,[iii] which is enlivened by faith and guided by prudence. That love impels us to treat others justly. Through hope, we find the disciplines that help us to control our passions—temperance and fortitude. These virtues foster in us this love of God and neighbor and put it into concrete form. As Christians, we must live our lives in community. Through the seven virtues, the Holy Spirit grants us the ability to do so.

i. Benedict Ashley, Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology, (Staten Island: St. Pauls, 1996), 126.
ii. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 8b—Lesson Sixteen,” International Catholic University, 17 April 2010, .
iii. Ibid.

What is “moral relativism?”

2010-06-01T17:55:00.003-06:00

Moral relativism is the denial of an objective, absolute standard upon which morality rests. It is, in Western European culture, a result of the Romanticist response to the Enlightenment. Because Enlightenment led to a rejection (in some circles) of Christian morality as a guide for behavior, a vacuum existed. Romanticism (and Transcendentalism in America) stepped in to fill that vacuum.[i] In a sense, these two related movements finished, in the moral sphere, the work that Descartes had unwittingly begun in the “turn to the subject.”[ii] They displaced the center of the moral compass from Divine revelation to human intuition. The problem is that in so doing, they rejected the foundation for all morality. As John Paul II put it, “Thus, giving himself over to relativism and scepticism… he goes off in search of an illusory freedom apart from truth itself” (Veritatis Splendor 1). What suffers first in moral relativism is an absolute sense of value, with the exception of an absolute value of freedom apart from natural law (VS 48).

Servais Pinckaers points out the beginning of this trend and its dangers in the work of Catholic ethicists of the mid-20th century. Prior to the Vatican II council, the Catholic ethicist taught a well-established set of principles in regards to moral standards and acting to a degree like an extension of the magisterium of the Church.[iii] However, with the new “openness to the world” following Vatican II, many ethicists began to use methods from the behavioral sciences, sometimes without regard to the moral foundation already present, or as Pinckaers calls it, the “irreducible character of moral knowledge.”[iv] Ethicists who do not recognize this character “will be limited to a ‘shifting morality’ adapted to the prevailing opinions of a given time or milieu.”[v] Proportionalism and consequentialism are two such moral systems, both of which were condemned by John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor 79. Ashley also notes the promise of assimilating the “results of modern science” provided that we rethink the results to remove “the distortions of Enlightenment philosophy.”[vi] Pope Benedict XVI has also spoken out numerous times about the “dictatorship of relativism,” which begins by promising freedom but ends as dogmatic and rigid as many people accuse the Church of being.

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 8a—Lesson Fifteen,” International Catholic University, 17 April 2010, .
ii. Benedict Ashley, “Philosophy for Theologians—Lesson 3: The Intellectual Ambiguities of Contemporary Culture,” International Catholic University, 28 February 2010, .
iii. Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 75.
iv. Ibid.
v. Ibid.
vi. Ashley, .

What was the Enlightenment? How is it still an influence today?

2010-06-01T17:48:00.002-06:00

The Enlightenment was a secular reaction to the religious controversies of the Reformation and Counterreformation, primarily to the authoritarian Puritanical morality of the Calvinists, but also to the traditional authority of the Catholic Church.[i] During this time, a substantial shift took place in philosophy, beginning with Descartes, a Catholic layman, who perhaps unwittingly introduced the notion of the turn to the subject in philosophical inquiry,[ii] as opposed to the traditional focus on the object in classical and medieval philosophy. This “turn to the subject” cast doubt upon the “external ‘objective’ world of the sense” and instead focused on “our own introspective knowledge of our thoughts,”[iii] summed up neatly in Descartes’ famous dictum, “Cogito, ergo sum.”

In reaction against Descartes’ idealism, the British empiricists swung to a materialist extreme.[iv] These two views, rationalist or idealist on one side and materialist on the other, responded dialogically into a more and more skeptical philosophical spirit until finally with Hume, we see even the notion of causality being called into question. What all of this skeptical philosophizing ultimately led to was a distrust of traditional institutions and morality, leading to a suspicion or outright rejection of external norms as the basis for morality.[v] As Ashley notes, this movement turned instead to modern science and technology as the solution to human problems, rejecting revelation from God as being of any use.[vi] While Renaissance humanism respected the accomplishments of religion, secular humanism essentially attempted to (and in some locales, did) supplant religious morality with a new order.[vii] However, because science is essentially value free, a new source had to be found to supply a system of values and morality. Ultimately, the source came to rest in the human “genius.”[viii]

What all of these strands do is to come together with a heightened sense of the individual as the source of authority or at least the “captain” of his own destiny. While I think Ashley paints with too broad a brush in his descriptions of conservatism and progressivism, he points out that each tends to emphasize certain aspects of libertarian thought to the detriment of Catholic teaching. On one extreme, there is a disregard for social solidarity in the economic sphere—the legitimate regulation of market practices. On the other extreme is the disregard of social solidarity in the “personal” moral sphere, the area of sexual morality and personal responsibility.[ix] I would also argue that each side demonstrates an extreme interpretation of the volunteerist morality of the late scholastic and Reformation eras, with each extreme responding in polar opposition—one holding rigidly to the letter of law while neglecting the spirit; the other, rejecting the letter while claiming to seek or express the spirit (often well outside of the clear moral norms of Catholic tradition). A truly Catholic approach, to me, seeks to hold letter and spirit in balance or in tension.

i. Bendict Ashley, Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology, (Staten Island: St. Pauls, 1996), 126.
ii. Benedict Ashley, “Philosophy for Theologians—Lesson 3: The Intellectual Ambiguities of Contemporary Culture,” International Catholic University, 28 February 2010, .
iii. Ibid.
iv. Ibid.
v. Ashley, 128.
vi. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 8a—Lesson Fifteen,” International Catholic University, 17 April 2010, .
vii. Ibid.
viii. Ibid.
ix. Ibid.

Why can there be no true love without true justice?

2010-05-28T21:36:00.003-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

Jesus says, in all three of the synoptic gospels, that the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor (Matt. 22:37–38; Mark 12:30–31; Luke 10:27). In Matthew 22:40, He adds, “On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets,” a statement very similar to what he makes in 7:12: “So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.” Love, then, is not simply an emotion or fine feeling one has toward others. It is in our actions, or as the once popular song by D.C. Talk says, “Love is a verb.” It is what one does, not merely what one feels. In addition, Christ equates these commandments to love with the whole of the Law and the Prophets, which as a whole, elucidated the commandments in terms of just behavior. The two greatest commandments reflect the two broad divisions of the Decalogue: those commandments pertaining to love and justice toward God and those pertaining to our neighbor, including those who gave us life.

True love demands that we desire what is best for the beloved, desiring their perfect happiness.[i] Their happiness, in part, depends on the respect we give to their rights. A right is something that is due to a person based on either their basic human needs (primary rights) or on their role in society (secondary rights).[ii] Ashley notes that the “formal object of justice is to render what is due to a person.”[iii] Each one of the Ten Commandments addresses something that is due to another, whether it is due to God, to our parents, or to our neighbor. When they are deprived of their rights unjustly, we deny them in part what they need for happiness. Unjust action, then, is directly contrary to the law of love. Justice is, itself, “in the service of love.”[iv]

Some Christians presume upon God’s mercy, neglecting the moral law out of a misunderstanding of the interrelation between mercy and justice. Without justice, there can be no mercy, which follows only from God’s love for us. However, likewise, without justice, there can be no true love. God’s love for us demands that we are allowed what we need for our perfect happiness. Justice requires that we give to each other what their rights demand.[v] Love goes beyond this basic requirement to give them even that to which “they have no just claims.”[vi] Justice, then, is a constituent of love.

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 7b—Lesson Fourteen,” International Catholic University, 17 April 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00314.htm.
ii. Bendict Ashley, Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology, (Staten Island: St. Pauls, 1996), 281.
iii. Ibid., 274.
iv. Ashley, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00314.htm.
v. Ashley, 272.
vi. Ibid., 274.

What is “subsidiarity”?

2010-05-28T21:30:00.004-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

Subsidiarity is a principle in Catholic social doctrine which holds that higher authorities should not intervene in local affairs except when those at the local level “cannot or will not make its own provisions for the welfare of its members.”[i] Subsidiarity goes hand in hand with the principle of solidarity, the notion that we are called to work and live in unity and cooperation for the common good and our shared interests.[ii] Subsidiarity recognizes the obligation of the state to seek the prosperity of the community and its members, to promote peace, morality, family life, justice and public works, as well as business, agriculture, and the arts.[iii] However, this obligation requires that the responsibility for addressing these interests directly be handled by those closest to the issue. The primary responsibility of the state, according to the Catechism, is to guarantee security “so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labors and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly” (2431).

Pius XI, in Quadragesimo Anno 80, referred to “subsidiary function” or the notion that the state should restrict itself to those functions which it alone can provide and allow subordinate authorities to address lesser matters and concerns. John Paul II reiterated this notion when warning about the over extension of state authority by intervening and depriving society of its responsibility, resulting in “a Social Assistance State.” Rather, he stated,

[A] community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good. (CA 48)

The power of the state, then, is to be distributed rather than centralized to allow for local management. However, there are times when the state must assist, coordinate, or even intervene when the common good is threatened or when the authorities at lower levels are unable or unwilling to respond appropriately.[iv] In some cases, such interventions are a response to society’s failure to seek the common good. Such interventions should be short term, lest authority be assumed solely for its own sake.[v] Subsidiarity, then, protects the right and obligation of the local community to seek the common good as it deems appropriate.

i. Bendict Ashley, Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology, (Staten Island: St. Pauls, 1996), 343.
ii. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, (Washington, D.C.: USCCB Publishing, 2005), 85.
iii. Ashley, 343.
iv. Ibid., 348.
v. Ibid., 291.

Why is God closer to us in the New than in the Old Testament?

2010-05-28T21:20:00.003-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

The early Old Testament, to some degree, seems to show a gradual distancing of mankind from God. While we once lived in intimacy with Him, as in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1–3, we gradually became alienated so that God only spoke on occasion to individuals such as Noah or Abraham. By the time we get to Moses, the people of Israel no longer even remember the God of their ancestors. However, God demonstrates His perpetual commitment to His covenant by speaking through intermediaries such as Moses, Samuel, and Nathan. Some books of scripture attest to this closeness. For example, the Psalms frequently attest the love of God for man and man for God, and The Song of Songs represents the relationship between God and humanity on the most intimate of human terms.[i] However, in all of this, God is completely other, Creator and Law-giver, of whom no image can be made, lest we create Him in our own image and commit idolatry. In addition, God’s ways are beyond us (Isaiah 55:8), unattainable by us under our own power. As St. Paul notes, “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do” (Romans 8:3). Paul speaks in Galatians 3:24 of the law being our custodian or our pedagogue until the coming of Christ, and the Catechism speaks of this divine pedagogy (CCC 53) as a gradual revelation of God to His people, Israel.

The New Testament is about God reaching down, in the Incarnation, to share in our humanity. In Christ, we have the full revelation of God the Word. As He takes on flesh, He bridges the distance between God and Man, uniting both Divine and human natures in one prosopon or hypostasis, the doctrine developed in part by the early Church Fathers, St. Cyril of Alexandria[ii] and Pope St. Leo,[iii] and later confirmed at the Council of Chalcedon[iv]—both consubstantial with the Father in His Divinity and consubstantial with us in His humanity.[v] In the New Testament, Jesus comes to share in the experience of humanity, to be like us in all things but sin, and to suffer with us. As Ashley notes, many people think that a loving God wouldn’t allow people to suffer as they do. Yet our God demonstrates His love in that He came to suffer with us.[vi]

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 7A—Lesson Thirteen,” International Catholic University, 17 April 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00313.htm.
ii. William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 3., (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1979), 230.
iii. Ibid., 268.
iv. Ibid., 270.
v. Ibid., 207.
vi. Benedict Ashley, “The Theological Virtues: Charity,” Moral Theology: Biblical Foundations, (Catholic Educational Television, 2006).

List different meanings of the word “love.” Is hate always contrary to love?

2010-05-28T21:12:00.002-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

The word “love” has several different meanings, each of which we can find reflected in the Greek words for these concepts. The notion of sexual love or desire is captured in the Greek word eros. While this captures a certain dimension of romantic love, it fails to account for love that truly seeks what is best for the beloved. It is less “love” in the sense of a desire for the good of the other than a desire for one’s own enjoyment, so it really doesn’t mean “love” in the Christian sense.[i] Also is the love of friendship—in Greek, philia. This love is that which people have for one another in a natural sense—that is, without the intervention of God’s grace. This love desires what is good for the other with or without a sense of self-interest, for example, the love of parent for children and vice versa, or the love between two people who share common interests and values. Just as eros can be expressed properly in Christian love, by itself, philia remains only a natural affinity for the other. Philia has limits and can come to an end if circumstances change.[ii]

In the New Testament, the concept of “love” is expressed in the Greek word agape. This kind of love is that which is a gift of self to the other—a generous, creative, and supernatural love only available to us through the Gift of the Holy Spirit and His grace.[iii] This kind of love goes beyond an appreciation of the values and qualities of the beloved or the filial love of parent, child, or relative, or the romantic love of husband and wife. It transcends these (while it can also incorporate them) and allows us to love by virtue of the beloved’s relationship to God or by virtue of the beloved being God (who should be the first and foremost object of our love). God’s love for us is agape love, and we in turn, by His grace, love Him and love those whom He has created, even those who wish to do us harm.[iv]

Hatred against God or neighbor is always contrary to love by definition, since God is love itself. We cannot truly love God if we do not love the image of God in His creation. So hatred of neighbor is hatred of God by proxy. Scripture also clearly states that he who says he loves God but hates his brother is a liar (1 John 4:20). However, we can hate sin and hate the sin in others. This is a righteous hatred in that it hates what harms the other. Sin, as a violation against self or other, expresses hatred toward self or other, so hatred of hatred is not contrary to love but expresses it.[v]

i. Benedict Ashley, “The Theological Virtues: Charity,” Moral Theology: Biblical Foundations, (Catholic Educational Television, 2006).
ii. Alexander Moseley, “Philosophy of Love,” 17 April 2001, The Interent Encyclopedia of Love, 17 April 2010, .
iii. Ashley, “The Theological Virtues: Charity.”
iv. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 7A—Lesson Thirteen,” International Catholic University, 17 April 2010, .
v. Bendict Ashley, Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology, (Staten Island: St. Pauls, 1996), 452.

God is No Delusion

2010-05-25T21:58:00.003-06:00

I have previously addressed my problems with Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion. You can follow my critique beginning here. It takes little exposure to logic to see the gaps in Dawkins' reasoning, but it takes a great deal of persistence for those not already in the new-athiest choir to finish the book. I understand this is pretty typically of these currently popular diatribes.

On a recommendation I picked up somewhere in the blogosphere (possible Fr. Philip Powell, who will celebrate his patron's memorial tomrrow), I ordered the work of a fellow Dominican, Thomas Crean, O.P., from Amazon. It also is a critique of Dawkins' book, entitled God is No Delusion.

I've never had any misconception of the weakness of Dawkins' argument (singular) and his many qualms with religion. However, in the few hours I've spent with this book, I have come to a whole new appreciation for Aquinas' 5 arguments for the existence of God, and this from a discussion that only includes the first and fifth argument.

I'd like to interrupt this diatribe to affirm the impressions of first readers concerning the nature of this blog. I'm a complete theology geek. I apologize if you were looking for something more entertaining, but it's the plain truth.

Anyway, Crean takes apart Dawkins in a new way, and he also manages to impart a clear notion of Divine simplicity, of the First Cause, and of the sophistry inherent in the arguments of the New Athiests. Check it out!

Did Jesus get angry?

2010-05-23T13:21:00.001-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

Jesus undoubtedly displayed anger, as scripture indicates on more than one occasion. We should not be surprised at this, although we see frequent passages warning us against uncontrolled anger. When we fail to use reason to moderate feelings of anger and revenge, we commit the capital sin of anger.[i] The reason this unmoderated emotion is sinful is because it can easily lead to other sins, St. Paul warns in Ephesians 4:26. Ashley notes that such anger is wrong because the motive is not justice but revenge, because the target of such anger may not warrant it, or because the response is not moderated by any sense of meekness or clemency.[ii]

However, not all anger constitutes this capital sin. One can also exhibit righteous anger. While anger uncontrolled and unmoderated through reason is sinful, anger that is controlled and expressed properly, for example, when a parent corrects a disobedient child, can be considered a kindness in that it expresses love and desire for the child to choose well, as in Proverbs 27:5: “Better is open rebuke than hidden love”; or in the more famous adage from Proverbs 13:24, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” In some cases, expressing anger is the best way to bring someone’s attention to wrongs they have committed or to unjust situations. Jesus’ expressions of anger fall into the latter category of righteous anger.

All four gospels recount the story of Jesus driving the vendors and moneychangers from the temple, each with a slightly different emphasis. Matthew 21:12–13 and Luke 19:45–46 share very similar, concise accounts that give just a hint of Jesus’ anger. Mark, however, adds a detail missing from the other accounts: “and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple” (11:16). While Jesus had clearly an unearthly authority, he was not a priest or Levite and had no human authority. Yet He essentially took over the temple. In John, He actually makes “a whip of chords,” (2:15) prompting His disciples to remember the passage from Psalms 69:9: “For zeal for thy house has consumed me.” These passages demonstrate a great degree of courage on Jesus’ part and show how righteous anger can prepare us with courage to fight or resist. Ashley notes that the virtue of courage uses anger as an instrument in such cases.[iii]

Another passage from Mark doesn’t just imply anger but notes it expressly. He asks the congregation in the synagogue (which we might assume to be Pharisees and scribes since they seek to accuse Him) whether it is lawful to do good or harm, to save life or kill on the Sabbath. They don’t respond. Mark tells us, “And he looked around them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart” (3:5). Jesus’ anger here comes not from an external defilement as in the temple, but at the unjust attitudes of the Pharisees—a defilement of the heart. Anger in such circumstances is virtuous if it compels us to act justly or courageously in defense of the faith, so long as we do not allow it to compel us to sin or to act rashly or disproportionally.

i. Benedict Ashley, Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology, (Staten Island: St. Pauls, 1996), 242.
ii. Ibid., 243.
iii. Ibid., 248.

Why is marriage good if celibacy is better?

2010-05-23T13:17:00.002-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

St. Paul recognizes the goodness of celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7:1–2, yet he notes that such restraint is not possible for some who may not be strong enough to resist temptation: “It is well for a man not to touch a woman. But because of temptation to immorality, each man should have his wife and each woman her own husband” and later in verse 9, “for it is better to marry than be aflame with passion.” At very least, then, we can acknowledge that Divine Revelation declares marriage to be good, at very least, for preventing immoral passions from being stirred. Celibacy is superior in that one renounces some temporal goods of this world, most namely marriage and the conjugal act, to focus one’s energy on the goods of the world to come. Marriage, though, is the very image of the Church and Christ’s love for us.

The Catechism states that “the entire Christian life bears the mark of the spousal love of Christ and the Church” (1617). Marriage itself is “an efficacious sign, the sacrament of the covenant of Christ and the Church.” The natural good of marriage sustains the Church on earth and puts the sexual appetite at its service to increase the Church. While marriage makes use of this appetite for good ends, it also creates an environment where husbands and wives must learn and practice all of the theological and cardinal virtues (CCC 1638, 1641) in the most basic social setting—the family, often called the Ecclesia domestica or “domestic church” (Lumen Gentium 11, CCC 1656). Ashley notes, too, that part of the sacramental grace is the ability to acquire the virtue of chastity, to which married people are called in a unique way. While unmarried people are called to abstinence, the married couple must practice temperance in their use of the conjugal gift.[i]

Celibacy, however, is a complementary gift to the Church. While marriage allows all to see the temporal goods of the world and how these are experienced as a sacrament (a visible means of God’s efficacious grace instituted by Christ), celibacy shows us how discipline aids us in seeing the greater goods in the next life, and how one can set aside the cares of this world to focus on the glory of eternal, resurrected life in the next,[ii] as St. Paul notes, again, in 1 Corinthians 7:32–34: “The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided.” These two ways of life are not opposed to each other but complementary, the good of one assisting and pointing to the good of the other. The value of celibacy is clearer because of its contrast to the goods in marriage.

i. Benedict Ashley, Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology, (Staten Island: St. Pauls, 1996), 245.
ii. Ibid., 433.

Did Jesus on the Cross despair when he cried out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me”?

2010-05-23T13:04:00.001-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

These words of Jesus are cited in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34. Both gospels are evoking the first verse of Psalm 22. Interestingly, the gospels of Luke and John do not quote the same verse, yet they too make reference to Psalm 22 (Luke 23:35; John 19:24). The words indeed seem to be a cry of despair, and Luke’s words indicate that those witnesses at the crucifixion even took them to be such and mocked him: “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” A reading of the text of the psalm suggests an internal struggle, alternating between cries of anguish and a sense of abandonment (“O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer”) and words of hope (“Yet thou art holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In thee our fathers trusted; they trusted and thou didst deliver them”).

A long section from verses 12 through 18 seems to show the suffering psalmist succumbing to despair, describing his torments in great and prescient detail. In a sense, we can see Jesus’ words in Matthew and Mark as his continuing attempt to reach out to the Jews as if to say, “I am the suffering servant. I am the one of whom the psalmist and Isaiah prophesied.” He is still interpreting the words of scripture to demonstrate who He is, even in His last moments. Yet the psalm moves past the recounting of His suffering to a theme of hope: “The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord!” (22:26) If despair is a sin against faith, as Ashley describes,[i] this psalm does not express despair but hope in God’s deliverance. It demonstrates the hope of the martyr who suffers and dies in the witness of truth.[ii] It relays the understanding of what Christ believed His death meant and what means today for us.[iii] Ultimately, Jesus’ words do not reveal despair but hope.

i. Benedict Ashley, Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology, (Staten Island: St. Pauls, 1996), 443.
ii. Ibid., 253.
iii. “The Psalms,” The Navarre Bible: The Psalms and the Song of Solomon. (New York: Scepter Publishing, Inc., 2003), 92.

Explain the first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer.

2010-05-21T23:16:00.002-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses the seven petitions made in the Our Father in light of their end: “The first three, more theological, draw us toward the glory of the Father; the last four, as ways toward him, commend our wretchedness to his grace” (2803). The first three petitions hallow God’s name, call for the establishment of His kingdom, and call for His will to be done on both earth and Heaven (2804). The Catechism notes the relationship of these three more theological petitions to the theological virtues:

It is characteristic of love to think first of the one whom we love. In none of the three petitions do we mention ourselves; the burning desire, even anguish, of the beloved Son for his Father's glory seizes us. . . . These three supplications were already answered in the saving sacrifice of Christ, but they are henceforth directed in hope toward their final fulfillment, for God is not yet all in all.

The first petition, “hallowed be thy name,” is meant as prayer and praise of God rather than as an action on our part, since we cannot hallow (or make holy) God. He alone is holy. However, by our hallowing his name, we demonstrate our love for Him, in a positive manner addressing the second commandment. The Catechism states that in hallowing His name, we are immersed in the mystery of the Godhead and drawn into the “drama of the salvation of our humanity” (2807).

The second and third petitions, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven” request the presence of God’s kingdom or of His reign here and now, and the enactment of His will now and in the future. God’s kingdom represents a return of the original justice of Eden and perfect relationship that humanity had with God. We have it in the here and now in that Christ has brought to us the renewal of our divine life in God. However, it is also not yet fully realized until Christ’s final coming (CCC 2816, 2818). It is both in our midst but not yet.

The third petition is God’s will to be fulfilled both on earth and in Heaven, and it is for this we hope—to see God’s mercy and His justice extended to all people, and to see all benefit from the gifts God has given us on earth. As Ashley notes, this desire is rightly expressed in Liberation Theology when purged of its Marxist elements.[i] While we Christians aim to do God’s will “on earth as it is in Heaven,” we often fall short of fully expressing his Divine mercy. One way in particular that we fail in is evangelization. In order for God’s will to be fully manifest, it must be communicated to all. Yet many of us (myself included) fail in this very basic of tasks of building God’s kingdom on earth.

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 6A—Lesson Eleven,” International Catholic University, 18 March 2010, .

Why must we love ourselves? How should we love ourselves?

2010-05-19T19:38:00.002-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

When Christ was asked what the greatest commandment was, He responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37–39). Implicit in these two commandments is that we also love ourselves. There are several reasons we should love ourselves. First, we are commanded to love God with all of our being. We are made in God’s image, so at very least, what we love in God is also reflected in ourselves. To love God properly, then, means that we also love His image in ourselves. Second, we are commanded to love our neighbor, again, because our neighbor is also made in the image of God. So what we love in God and ourselves is also present in our neighbor and merits this love. As St. Thomas put it, “As the object known is in the knower to the extent that it is known, so the beloved must be in the lover, as loved.” Proper love desires the highest good for the beloved, so if we love our neighbor and wish them the highest good, God, it is natural to wish this highest good for ourselves as well. In this love, we find the motivation to seek what is best in life.

Ashley notes that we are made so that we seek our own happiness.[i] Proper self-love does so without placing the self above God. Citing St. Thomas, he notes that God is always to be loved above all else and that we must love the bodily good of our neighbor more than our own external goods:[ii] “Now you love yourself suitably when you love God better than yourself. What then, you aim at in yourself you must aim at in your neighbor, namely that he may love God with a perfect affection.”[iii] So self-love is both proper and necessary, but always in the proper order and to the proper degree.

i. Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas’s Shorter Summa, (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2002) 41.
ii. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 5B—Lesson Ten,” International Catholic University, 18 March 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00310.htm.
iii. Benedict Ashley, Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology, (Staten Island: St. Pauls, 1996), 443.
iv. Ibid., 444.

What is an “informed conscience”?

2010-05-19T19:35:00.001-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

As with many important human endeavors, we have to educate ourselves against error and erroneous belief and inform our conscience about God’s law. As the Catechism states, “A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the Creator” (CCC 1783). An informed conscience is one that has been shaped by the moral doctrine of the new Law of Christ. While many people claim to be listening to their conscience when they dissent from Church teaching and engage in behavior the Church says is immoral, what they are really doing is listening to their preferences or predilections. Conscience is not the voice of your instincts telling you what you would like to be true but the informed voice one gains through instruction, teaching what you ought to do. Prudence helps us to understand where our own fallibility lies and urges us to seek guidance from the Church and from those wiser than us.[i] If we do not seek guidance through the Church, we can be led astray by the predominant opinion of the times or the whims of culture.

We as Christians are obligated to follow our consciences in all moral decisions. Going against our conscience, whether we do so for an erroneous reason or not, is sinful. However, we can be more or less culpable depending on whether our erroneous judgment is based on honest error or whether we have neglected to educate ourselves. If we make a moral error after a good-faith attempt to inform our conscience, we may be invincibly ignorant. However, if we neglect to study the moral teachings of the Church believing our conscience to be the supreme guide, and we then err morally, we can be culpably ignorant (CCC 1791). We are responsible because we neglected to follow the sure guidance of the Church. Failure to inform our conscience is itself sinful and can be a form of spiritual sloth or pride. The Navarre Bible commentary for the book of Sirach notes verse 18:19: “Before you speak, learn” and adds that this verse underscores the importance of formation before action.[ii]

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 5B—Lesson Ten,” International Catholic University, 18 March 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00310.htm.
ii. “Sirach,” The Navarre Bible: Wisdom Books, (New York: Scepter Publishers, Inc., 2004) 446.

What is the difference between Christian Faith and a “religious experience”?

2010-05-19T19:30:00.002-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

Christian faith involves an act of the intellect, as well as an act of the will. We must first discern, through our personal experience and our objective observations, as well as through the guidance of authoritative parties, that there is something in which to have faith, namely God and His promise to us. We next must invest ourselves in this knowledge—entrust ourselves to His care, to the Church which He established, and to the moral instruction it provides us. Our intellect perceives both material realities that evidence God’s existence, but also can deduce realities and be taught truths about God through the Church. In this intellectual knowledge, we gain the firm footing to will ourselves into commitment.[i]

The term “religious experience” is used frequently by Protestants to talk about an internal emotional or intuitive experience of God, often in Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit. Such experiences often bring people to conversion. However, such experiences are limited in several ways. First, they are subjective. They cannot present an objective basis for faith but can stir the emotions in a way that might help people seek objective confirmation. In that sense, a religious experience can be a motivator, but as a subjective experience, it only motivates the one who receives it. Second, a religious experience is largely a material or sensible experience. We know it happens because we feel it. While again such experiences can be motivators for faith, they are fleeting and unsustainable. If we constantly chase the emotions, we lose track of the complete experience of faith as an acceptance of an objective reality rather than merely a subjective experience. Finally, a religious experience might feel good, but it is no guide for moral living and could even be a hindrance if it is not tempered by intellect and sound doctrine.[4] Christian faith also requires an objective, public witness.

i. Benedict Ashley, “The Theological Virtues: Faith,” Moral Theology: Biblical Foundations, (Catholic Educational Television, 2006).
ii. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 5B—Lesson Ten,” International Catholic University, 18 March 2010 http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00310.htm.

Who is Lady Wisdom and who is Lady Folly in the Wisdom Literature?

2010-05-19T19:22:00.002-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

Lady Wisdom is the personification of the spirit of Wisdom—Hokmah in Hebrew, Sophia in Greek. According to Ashley, Lady Wisdom is presented as a beautiful mother, one who teaches her children how to live well. By contrast, Lady Folly is the prostitute, who teaches her children recklessness and shortsightedness.[i] We first encounter these two figures in Proverbs 1 and 2. Lady Wisdom speaks to warn sons away from the “loose woman” or “adventuress” whose “house sinks down to death and her paths to the shades” (2:16–18), where as the understanding that Lady Wisdom offers is like silver or hidden treasures (2:4). Lady Wisdom builds up her house, while Lady Folly tears her house down with her own hands (14:1). Each attempts to lure the simple on a different path, Lady Wisdom to the path of life, and Lady Folly to the path of destruction. Interestingly, when Wisdom speaks, it is from “the gates in front of the town, at the entrance to the portals” (Proverbs 8:3), place of judgment and counsel in ancient Israel. Folly speaks in the shadows and on the street corners (7:8–9), clearly associated with prostitution and clandestine evil.

The Navarre Bible commentary on Proverbs notes that the person of Wisdom in the New Testament is closely connected to Jesus.[ii] The Gospel According to John makes this connection most clearly in chapter 1, verses 1 through 3: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” These words seem to echo the words of Wisdom in Proverbs 8:22–30. The path of life and path of folly also find parallels in the life and death, blessing and curse in Deuteronomy 30:18. Wisdom, then, is connected with the Word and the Law, while folly, the negation of them.

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 5A—Lesson Nine,” International Catholic University, 18 March 2010 http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00309.htm.
ii. “Proverbs,” The Navarre Bible: Widsom Books, (New York: Scepter Publishers, Inc., 2004), 165.

Blessed Shavuot!

2010-05-17T23:18:00.002-06:00

I noticed that someone from Israel found my blog searching on the word Shavuot. For those of my Catholic and Christian bretheren who do not know, Shavuot is the Jewish holiday (yom tov), which in Greek is called Pentecost (fiftieth day). While the significance of Jews and Christians differs, the connection of both holidays to the passover highlight the connections between the heritage of the Jews (our elder brothers in faith) and our own history. We have many differences between us, and many painful sins and transgressions. We also have many commonalities and shared experiences. I prefer to honor the latter and do pennance for the former.

How can we be sure what Jesus taught about sexual behavior?

2010-05-17T09:57:00.003-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

First and foremost, we must remember that Jesus was a faithful Jew. As such, he accepted the teachings of the rabbis on the Law, except when it was clear that they were relying on casuistic arguments to twist the meaning of the Law.[i] Yet He still respected the authority of their teaching while disputing their behavior: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do” (Matthew 23:2–3). Ashley notes that Jesus carefully fulfills the Law but not always in the way expected by the Pharisees.[ii] In Jesus’ sermons, He goes beyond the letter of the Law and gets to the motivations behind sin, which invariably results in a strengthening of prohibitions rather than a weakening. One can see this process in particular with the prohibition against divorce.[iii] In this sense, He operates much in the same way as the Church when it defines moral teaching, typically strengthening it rather than relaxing it and “applying Gospel norms more consistently.”[iv]

Based on this presentation of Jesus, then, we should assume (if anything) He would also teach the same beliefs on sexual behavior as the Pharisees, with a small exception. While the Law focuses on behaviors, specifically condemning sexual actions rather than internal motivation,[iv] Jesus looks at motivations, for example, when He condemns lust in Matthew 5:28. Later in Matthew, He condemns the scribes and Pharisees not only for their actions but for the internal uncleanliness: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and rapacity” (23:25). Elsewhere in Matthew, Jesus states, “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man” (15:18–20). In this passage, fornication is presented as defiling someone from within, so Jesus clearly sees the internal inclination to desire fornication as sinful, and not merely the act. If He condemns the mere thought of such things, clearly He would also condemn the acts.

i. Benedict Ashley, Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology, (Staten Island: St. Pauls, 1996), 31.
ii. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 3A—Lesson Five,” International Catholic University, 6 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00305.htm.
iii. Ibid.
iv. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 4B—Lesson 8,” International Catholic Univsersity, 27 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00308.htm.
v. Robert Kugler and Patrick Hartin, An Introduction to the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009), 85.

Why has the Magisterium not infallibly defined all the moral norms?

2010-05-17T09:51:00.002-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

Most moral doctrines are simply part of Sacred Tradition and have been passed down from the early days of the Church. As such, they have been assumed to be true because they have always been held and taught universally and constitute the teaching of the ordinary universal Magisterium.[i] Some doctrine is not defined formally because it has never been seriously disputed. Typically, those doctrines requiring formal definition are those that have been questioned or are at the center of some dispute. As with the heresies that sparked the early controversies of the Church, challenges to long-held doctrines force the Church to refine teaching, to justify and clarify Her stance, and to affirm the details that need to be held by the faithful. St. Augustine even commented that heretics do us a kind of favor as they force the Church to think more deeply about the doctrines it passes on.[ii] However, there are also other teachings on faith and morals which are not taught as infallible teachings because they cannot be shown to be revealed or perpetually held by the Church. For example, teachings on capital punishment and slavery have developed over time. The former, while permitted in some rare cases, has become much more restricted, while the latter, which was once permitted by the Church, has become expressly forbidden. In both instances, the developments were guided by a clearer sense of the gospel message.

A teaching that has been held from the earliest days, has never been questioned, and has legitimate support in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition need not be defined since it is already part of revelation. This fact is lost on some theologians who seem to believe that anything not formally defined is fallible and can be contested. However, this is not the case, as any teachings handed on as part of Sacred Tradition and taught under the ordinary universal Magisterium are already considered irreformable, being revealed truth or closely tied to it.[iii] Aside from these factors, the obligation of the Catholic individual is to be guided by the teaching of the Church, not to simply decide the teachings by which one wishes to abide. We owe religious submission of will and intellect to all teachings of the Magisterium.[iv]

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 4B—Lesson 8,” International Catholic Univsersity, 27 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00308.htm.
ii. Rev. Douglas Mosey, “Patristics: Lecture 2,” International Catholic University, (Catholic Educational Television, Inc., 2006).
iii. Ashley, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00307.htm.
iv. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 4B—Lesson 8,” International Catholic Univsersity, 27 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00308.htm.

What is the role of the sensus fidelium in the development of moral doctrine? Why does Vatican II prefer the term sensus fidei?

2010-05-17T09:41:00.003-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

Much of what Catholics believe has been handed down as part of the lived tradition. In a Catholic cultural tradition, there comes to be a sense of what is of the faith (de fide) and what is not, and what conforms to the doctrines of the faith while not being specifically defined. The “sense of the faithful” is one of the factors guiding the college of bishops and the Holy Father when they attempt to define doctrine: what has been believed always, everywhere, and by everyone. Ashley points out that many dogmas are very clear to the faithful before ever being declared: for example, the dual natures (Divine and human) of Christ defined at the Council of Chalcedon.[i] While eminent theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas have been hesitant to accept beliefs such as the sinlessness of the Blessed Mother, the people’s devotion convinced the bishops and the Holy Father that this teaching had been held perpetually by the faithful. As with all teaching, according to the guarantee of Jesus in Matthew 29, the Counselor guides the Church in such matters to prevent her from going astray. The Vatican II constitution Lumen Gentium explains: “The whole body of the faithful who have an anointing that comes from the holy one… cannot err in matters of belief” (Lumen Gentium 12).

This is not to say that the faithful cannot be misled or that their sense of the faith cannot become distorted, particularly by the surrounding culture. While the prohibition on contraception has been consistent since the early days of the Church, the secular culture of Western Europe and North America in the 20th century inculcated a greater trust in science than in the Church, which turned many Catholics against the traditional teaching of the Church. When Humanae Vitae was promulgated in 1968 in the midst the sexual revolution, it came under widespread condemnation by many theologians in North America and Europe. The culture that informed the sense of the faithful, in this case, could hardly be described as Catholic, as it came not from the perpetual teaching of the Church but from modern secular culture. In fact, in a largely democratic sphere, the term sensus fidelium gives the impression of majority rule rather than a sense of unified faith—that what the faithful decide is correct for the time is somehow the truth. This belief, of course, is far from the true meaning of sensus fidelium and is more a symptom of Catholics in the West projecting their views on the whole Church.

Lumen Gentium employs the term sensus fidei because it more adequately captures the notion that it is the faith that unites us rather than our secular democratic culture. A citation in Lumen Gentium 12 defines the sensus fidei as “the instinctive sensitivity and discrimination which the members of the Church possess in matters of faith.” In order to have a true sensus fidei, there must be a common Catholic enculturation and faithful instruction in the teachings of the Church. Where this enculturation exists, a true sensus fidei resides.

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 4B—Lesson 8,” International Catholic University, 27 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00308.htm.

Why can the Church never change the moral teachings of Jesus and the Apostles?

2010-05-17T09:34:00.004-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

The moral teachings of Jesus and the Apostles would be those teachings considered so closely connected with revelation that they too would have to be infallible.[i] These teachings have been taught consistently since the beginning of the Church and have been held “always, everywhere, by everyone.” As such, and as perpetual teachings by the bishops of the Church, they represent teachings of the ordinary universal Magisterium.[ii] As infallible teachings, they fall into the category of those teachings proposed in a definitive way or taught universally and perpetually by the college of Bishops in communion with the Holy Father, while dogmatic teachings are those teachings that are de fide, the very basic beliefs required of Catholics and solemnly declared as revealed truth.[iii] Ashley points out that personal opinion cannot be offered as infallible. Such teachings can only come from the deposit of faith and must be clearly held by the whole Church.[iv]

While the Church can never change the moral teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, these teachings can be developed. This development happens when the Church’s understanding of the gospel message and Christ’s intent becomes clearer. One example of this development is the Church’s teaching on slavery. The Church had always taught that all people share a common human dignity and were commanded by Christ to love brother and enemy alike.[v] Yet the Church began in an era in which slavery was commonplace. In addition, St. Paul had mentioned slavery in the “Letter to Philemon” without overtly condemning it. However, as practiced, the institution of slavery clearly denied the slave equality in law, which pragmatically also meant inequality in terms of human dignity (in treatment, not in essence). To be consistent with the gospel message, the Church had to (and did) condemn the institution of slavery.

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 4A—Lesson 7,” International Catholic University, 27 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00307.htm.
ii. Ibid.
iii. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian,” 24 May 1990. EWTN Global Catholic Network, 28 February 2010, http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/
CDFTHEO.HTM.
iv. Benedict Ashley, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00307.htm.
v. Ibid.

Name some of the effects of “individualism” on morality and spirituality.

2010-05-14T15:41:00.003-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

Fr. Ashley notes that Nominalism, with highly prescriptive approach to morality and its “excessive emphasis on individual realities,”[i] diminished the sense of connectedness we share in the Body of Christ and the Communion of Saints. One can see immediately that this perspective tends to pit individuals against the rest of the world rather than helping them to see the cloud of witnesses they have urging them on to victory. In the Reformation theology of Luther, this subjective turn focused on the internal experience of the believer rather than the Communion of Saints or the community of the faithful.[ii] René Descartes would come along over half a century later and initiate a similar change in philosophy with his famous statement, “Cogito, ergo sum,” initiating a turn to the subject which would infect Enlightenment and modern philosophy and undermine the notion of objective reality.[iii] As Ashley notes, this individualism became very common in American culture, stemming primarily from this individualized Protestant spirituality.[iv]

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, National Socialism (Nazism) and Marxism would reject this notion of individualism and swing to the opposite extreme—a radical collectivism, where the individuals needs would be subservient ostensibly to the good of the people, although in practice the State benefited more than the collective people.[v] Along with a rejection of the individual as the highest good would be a suppression or rejection of faith in God with a redirection of that faith to the sovereign State or the Party.[vi]

Neither of these extremes conforms to a truly Christian morality. While individuals are responsible individually and equal in dignity to one another, we are also beings in community with one another who thrive or fail together. Living in community, individuals can meet their full potential spiritually, as well as emotionally and materially.[vii]

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 3B—Lesson 6,” International Catholic University, 27 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00306.htm.
ii. Ibid.
iii. Benedict Ashley, “Philosophy for Theologians—Lesson 3: The Intellectual Ambiguities of Contemporary Culture,” International Catholic University, 28 February 2010 http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c02803.htm.
iv. Ashley, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00306.htm.
v. Ibid.
vi. Peter Kreeft, “The Pillars of Unbelief - Karl Marx,” 1988, Catholic Education Resource Center, 28 February 2010 http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/civilization/cc0010.html.
vii. Ashley, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00306.htm.

What exactly does the term "ecumenism" mean?

2010-05-14T15:35:00.002-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

Ecumenism is the effort on the part of the Catholic Church and other churches and ecclesial communities on addressing the various differences in doctrine and governance in an attempt to find a path to unity in one visible Body of Christ. While there are ecumenical outreaches to other faith traditions as well, in the context of the Catholic Church and Christianity, the term is used in respect to fostering Christian community, as we are called to do by Christ’s command.[i] Our Holy Father John Paul II stressed in Ut Unum Sint the need for all Christians to “profess together the same truth about the Cross.”[ii] He saw it as imperative that Christians speak together and witness together the Truth of Christ. However, in this striving together, he saw it as critical that we do not gloss over the very real theological differences that exist between communions, to “avoid a false irenicism” or a sense that somehow we can agree to disagree on matters that we consider de fide that our Protestant brethren do not think essential. We must continue to “uphold a vision of unity which takes account of all the demands of revealed truth[.]”[iii]

Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have made ecumenical outreach to the Eastern churches and to Protestant communions of utmost importance. Yet both have had to work against an entrenched view of ecumenism that sought to set aside clear differences for an air of agreement. Louie Verrecchio, reporting for the Catholic News Agency, recently pointed out this tendency in Cardinal Kasper’s call for an “ecumenical catechism” developed in cooperation with Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist parties. Verrecchio cites Unitatis Redintegratio, pointing out the inconsistency of Cardinal Kaspar’s position with the teachings of Vatican II: “It is, of course, essential that the doctrine should be clearly presented in its entirety. Nothing is so foreign to the spirit of ecumenism as a false irenicism, in which the purity of Catholic doctrine suffers loss and its genuine and certain meaning is clouded” (UR 11).[iv] We cannot sacrifice the Truth for a cheaply bought reconciliation.

i. John Paul II, “Ut Unum Sint,” 25 May 1995, Vatican the Holy See, 27 February 2010 http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint_en.html.
ii. Ibid.
iii. Ibid.
iv. Louie Verrecchio, “‘Ecumenical Catechism’: A Jungle Book of an Idea,” 11 February 2010, Catholic News Agency, 27 February 2010, http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column.php?n=1120.

Why is the moral instruction of the New Testament so lacking in concrete norms compared with the Old Testament?

2010-05-14T15:31:00.004-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

As with much in tradition, certain aspects are settled matters. No one debates them anymore because most people have a common understanding. Jesus in the New Testament was not debating the basic moral precepts of the Old Covenant. However, he did enter into debates about the extent and interpretation of the moral law, not dispensing from it but reaching back to its origins.[i] Jesus assumed the validity of the moral precepts but attends to their broader interpretation.[ii] What Jesus did address were those interpretations which were in dispute at the time.[iii]

We also must look at the New Testament overall as an interpretation of the Old Testament, seeing the New Testament nascent in the old, and the Old Testament fulfilled in the new. Whereas the Writings and the Prophets put the Law into practice and reflect the Jewish understanding, the New Testament represents the fulfillment of the Law and its revelation.[iv] Jesus goes beyond the letter to reveal the heart of the commandments, to emphasize the words of the prophets, and to expand the covenant to include all of humanity.[v] However, because He was extending the Law beyond the Mosaic covenant, those elements that applied only to the People of Israel had to be addressed by the Apostles and reconsidered. St. Paul was the first to come up against the dramatic differences between Gentile and Jewish culture (although Peter also came to understand this early on as well).[vi]

In the letters of Paul and the Catholic epistles, we do see some discussion of morality, particularly in terms of what one owes to members of the family and community.[vii] However, Paul frequently makes reference to activities that may have been common among Pagans but were unacceptable to Christians as well as Jews—often detailing immoral behaviors that indicated that someone has not given their life over to God. For Paul, just as for Jesus, the moral law of the Old Testament is always binding on everyone, while the ritual and juridical law applies only to the people of the Old Covenant.

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 3A—Lesson Five,” International Catholic University, 6 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00305.htm.
ii. Benedict Ashley, Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology, (Staten Island: St. Pauls, 1996), 31.
iii. Ashley, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00305.htm.
iv. Ashley, 30.
v. Ashley, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00305.htm.
vi. Ibid.
vii. Ibid.

What became of the moral, ritual, and judicial precepts of the Old Law under the New Law?

2010-05-14T15:27:00.004-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

Jesus came to fulfill the Old Testament Law (Matthew 5:17), which means that He demonstrates its true meaning, rather than rendering it null and void. The Law presented in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy elaborates on the Decalogue, mostly in regard to the ritual and juridical precepts that set the People of Israel apart from all the surrounding tribes. These precepts apply to the Old Covenant and help the Hebrews to attune themselves to holiness.[i]

If we look at the center of the Law (the Decalogue), we can see that Jesus never set it aside. However, Jesus came to fulfill and perfect the Law and to establish a new covenant. He begins by revealing the depth of the Law in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5–7. In this action, He refocuses attention on the moral precepts of the Law, but He interprets it in such a way as to show the Father’s intention: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13). It is not sufficient to conform externally only; one must conform one’s heart to the Law. His focus is on the interior morality rather than simple external conformance.[ii] In Matthew 15:11, Jesus says that it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles man but what comes out, that which proceeds from man’s heart. Cleansing the exterior of the cup does no good if “inside they are full of extortion and rapacity” (Matt 23:25).

While the moral law of the Old Testament, which reflects natural law but is perfected in revelation, does not pass away, the juridical and ritual law is specific to the Old Covenant. Jesus, establishing the New Covenant, replaces the old ritual law with the Sacraments of the Church.[iii] The juridical authority represented by the Mosaic Law interpreted by the rabbis, then, gives way to the authority of binding and loosing given to Peter and later to the Apostles in Matthew. In this way, Jesus supplants those elements that do not apply to the Christian faithful while maintaining the moral law common to both Old and New Covenants.

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 2A—Lesson Three,” International Catholic University, 6 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00303.htm.
ii. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 3A—Lesson Five,” International Catholic University, 6 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00305.htm.
iii. Ibid.

What is a “morality of intention”?

2010-05-12T14:51:00.001-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

A morality of intention is a morality in which one does what is right (the law) for the correct reason (love of God and neighbor). We commonly hear about a distinction between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Typically, these phrases are invoked when an overly literal interpretation of the words in a legal structure are applied with little consideration for the intent or the circumstances. Our situation today is not much different from the time of Christ. However, the situation was compounded by the addition of an Oral Torah—not the original written Law, but the interpretation of that law by scribes and rabbis in the Mishnah and the two Talmudim. However, as Ashley notes, the point of abiding by the letter of the law rather than the spirit was often done with the intention of finding a loophole—an excuse for not fulfilling some other obligation. Perhaps the most direct accusation Jesus makes against the Pharisees is just this: tithing mint and neglecting weightier matters, or as He also puts it, straining the gnat and swallowing a camel (Matthew 23:24). In Mark 7:9–13, He accuses the Pharisees of ignoring the fourth commandment to keep tradition.

This is not to say that the letter of the law is not important. Jesus Himself says that He is the fulfillment of the law and that “not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:18). Yet his concern is with right law rightly practiced. He wants hearts of flesh, not hearts of stone (Ezekiel 36:26); mercy, not sacrifice (Matthew 9:13, 12:7; Hosea 6:6). As Murphy points out, “The basic thrust of the Torah places the commandments and statutes in the context of divine love.” Ashley, too, underscores this point: “One must intend always the true goal of life, love of God and neighbor, and to reach that goal choose only means that will really lead to it.”

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 2B—Lesson Four,” International Catholic University. 6 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00304.htm.
ii. Roland Murphy, 101 Questions & Answers on the Biblical Torah. (New York: Paulist Press, 1996), 9.
iii. Ashley, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00304.htm.
v. Murphy, 119.
Ashley, .

How do the Ten Commandments sum up all the rest of the moral Torah?

2010-05-12T14:46:00.001-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

The Torah is the center of the Tanakh (Jewish scripture), and it tells about the establishment of the covenant between God and the Hebrew people. Roland Murphy notes that these five books are foundational for the Jewish people and central to their identity. What is central to the Torah are the “ten sayings” (Aseret haDibrot) given to Moses as the basis for the Covenant, so the Ten Commandments are the center of the center. In the Ten Commandments, we have essentially two categories: those commandments pertaining to love of God (commandments one through three) and those pertaining to love of neighbor (commandments four through ten), as Jesus notes in Matthew 22:37–40. Jesus’ response to the Pharisees actually follows in a long line of tradition, first in alluding to the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4–9), then to Leviticus 18:18 (CCC 2055). The great Jewish rabbi Hillel also responded in similar fashion and added, “All the rest is commentary.” While the Ten Commandments give us the basics, the rest of the Torah goes into detail on the practical aspects in some 613 mitzvot addressing the Mosaic moral, ritual, and judicial law, but all these laws can be subsumed under one of the Ten Commandments.

Benedict Ashley notes that each group of laws—moral, judicial, and ritual—all serve to help the People of God conform themselves in virtue to God’s service, but that they also point forward to fulfillment in Jesus. In addition, throughout the historical, wisdom, and prophetic books, we can see how these laws are presented in context. In 2 Samuel 12, Nathan condemns the adulterous actions of David at God’s prompting. In Tobit 4, Tobit exhorts Tobias to charity and justice using precepts directly from Leviticus and Deuteronomy (for example, Lev. 19:13 and Deut. 15:11). Finally, in the synoptic gospels, Jesus clarifies the teachings of the Decalogue, explaining the extent to which each law goes: that looking at a woman with lust is adultery (Matthew 5:28); that calling your brother a fool is held as liable as if he committed murder (Matthew 5:22). So in a very real sense, all of scripture interprets the Torah, and the Torah instruction is itself an elaboration and explanation of the Decalogue.

i. Roland Murphy, 101 Questions & Answers on the Biblical Torah. (New York: Paulist Press, 1996), 9.
ii. “Aseret haDibrot,” 2008, Temple Emanu-El, 7 February 2010, http://www.templesanjose.org/JudaismInfo/Torah/tencommand.htm.
iii. “Hillel,” About.com: Judaism, 7 February 2010, http://judaism.about.com/library/2_history/leaders/bldef-p_hillel.htm.
iv. Tracey R. Rich, “A List of the 613 Mitzvot (Commandments),” 2007, Judaism 101, 7 February 2010, http://www.jewfaq.org/613.htm.
V. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 2A—Lesson Three,” International Catholic University, 6 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00303.htm.

Why must the Bible be read in the context of Sacred Tradition?

2010-05-12T14:41:00.003-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

The fundamental teaching of the Church regarding Divine revelation is that Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition ultimately come from the same source. As Dei Verbum states, “Sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out of the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal” (DV 9). We recognize that Christ, in scripture, did not guarantee that Sacred Scripture would be protected and guided by the Holy Spirit but that the Church would be (Matthew 16:18–19; John 14:16). Our trust in scripture arises through our trust in the Church and Sacred Tradition. St. Augustine himself said in his response Against the Epistle of Manichaeus called Fundamental: “For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.” The biblical canon as Christians know it is dependent upon the authority of the early Church, hence, upon Sacred Tradition. The development of the New Testament scripture depends upon the Apostolic Tradition if it is to have any authority whatsoever as the message persisted for the first twenty to thirty years with no written texts but by word of mouth. One of the notable elements of Raymond Brown’s text is his deference to the judgment of the Church where scripture is either silent or ambiguous.

In addition, the Church has taught consistently that sacred Scripture must be understood in light of its literal sense—that is, the sense in which its human author intended. In order to adequately understand the literal sense, one must understand the cultural context and language. For the New Testament, at very least, this context is the very sacred Tradition that gave rise to the text. In addition, these texts present the teachings of Christ in light of His authority over the Law as the fulfillment of it. The sacred Tradition to which we refer is the tradition that preserved this teaching and passed it on with the Magisterium as its servant (DV 10). To read scripture outside of tradition is to expose it to the vicissitudes of contemporary whim.

i. Augustine. “Against the Title of the Epistle of Manichæus Called Fundamental.” Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 8 February 2010 http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104.iv.viii.vi.html.
ii. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 1—Lesson Two,” International Catholic University, 5 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00302.htm.
ii. Raymond Brown, 101 Questions & Answers on the Bible, (New York: Paulist Press, 1990), 24–26.
iii. Pontifical Biblical Commission, “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” 23 April 1993. Catholic Resources for Bible, Liturgy, Art, and Theology, 21 January 2010, http://catholic-resources.org/ChurchDocs/
PBC_Interp.htm.
iv. Ashley, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00302.htm.

What is Canon Criticism and the hermeneutic circle?

2010-05-12T14:34:00.003-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

Canon criticism is the Catholic principle that scripture must be interpreted within the context of the whole canon of scripture. Specifically, we must avoid taking texts isolated from the rest of scripture in an attempt to formulate moral principles from them—a “proof text” approach to moral theology and interpretation. Instead, we must interpret parts of scripture by the whole and the whole by the parts. Scripture is, as Raymond Brown asserts, not a book but a library of books. In it, we find a variety of works of various types: poetry, instruction, parable, history (of a sort), and other types as well. Looking at any single book of scripture, one can get a very narrow understanding of a moral law. However, throughout the books of the bible, we can see the moral precepts being applied and interpreted. Indeed, while each book has one or more human authors, scripture as a whole has one divine Author, the Holy Spirit. Because of this continuity of inspiration, what we read in one part of scripture sheds light and interprets other parts of scripture.

Canon Criticism, then, is interpreting a text in light of the whole. This approach to scripture finds modern expression in the concept of the hermeneutical circle introduced by Benedict de Spinoza, developed by Martin Heidegger in the early 20th century, and elaborated by later philosophers such as Paul Ricoeur and Hans-Georg Gadamer. In this formulation, interpretation is a process of going from part of the text to the whole and back until one can gain a proper understanding. We can detect the germ of this notion in medieval thought, particularly in interpretation by the four senses of scripture, particularly the allegorical sense. In addition, the modern hermeneutics began to recognize the necessity of the historical and cultural context in this dialogue. For Catholics who view Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition as two streams from the same source, this approach follows quite naturally.

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 1—Lesson Two,” International Catholic University, 5 February 2010, .
ii. Raymond Brown, 101 Questions & Answers on the Bible, (New York: Paulist Press, 1990), 30–31.
iii. Ashley, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00302.htm.
iv. “Hermeneutics,” 9 November 2005, Stanford Encycolpedia of Philosophy, 6 February 2010, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics/.
Ibid., sect. 1.

Why must moral theology be based on the Bible?

2010-05-12T14:27:00.003-06:00

NOTE: This is one in a series of posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

While Catholics take their guidance from both Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, we see scripture as a privileged source. It is the norma normans non normata—the highest norm that itself is not “normed.” This long-held precept is not to downplay or dismiss the importance of Sacred Tradition but to highlight the essential unity of scripture and tradition in Catholic theology. For Catholic moral teaching to be truly universal, to be truly Catholic, it must come out of the revelation entrusted to the Church—through Sacred Scripture informed and interpreted in light of Sacred Tradition. Ashley notes that scripture is the root of guidance, and in a recent address to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the Holy Father referred to the Word of God as “the soul of theology.”

What cannot be doubted is that some precepts in scripture are materially the same as natural law. St. Thomas Aquinas noted as such. However, these precepts direct us not merely in pragmatic matters of living within human society but also in ordering ourselves toward God, which is not something we can know by reason but only by way of His revelation to us. In the Decalogue, we have principles that are more or less applied in other Levitical and Deuteronomic laws, and these in turn are fulfilled, clarified, and reinterpreted by Christ in His ministry as reported in the gospels. The meaning of Christ’s ministry comes to us through Sacred Scripture, interpreted by the early Church Fathers in light of Apostolic Tradition. While many specific applications or instances of moral teaching may be historically conditioned, the underlying precept applies in any human context. As Ashley notes, “we must always seek the moral principle that may be applied and not confuse it with the modern applications of that principle that may be quite different because of different circumstances.” Likewise, we must not attempt to apply these precepts as if the ancient contexts were still existent today.

i. Benedict Ashley, “Difficulties in Constructing a Biblical Moral Theology,” Moral Theology: Biblical Foundations, Vol. 1, (Notre Dame: International Catholic University, 2005).
ii. Benedict XVI, “Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Biblical Commission,” 23 April 2009, Vatican the Holy See, 6 February 2010.
iii. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 1—Lesson Two,” International Catholic University, 5 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00302.htm.
iv. Ashley, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00302.htm.

Why is a revision of moral theology necessary today?

2010-05-11T18:11:00.004-06:00

NOTE: This is the first of many posts from my moral theology assignments. They are intended to be brief responses. In many cases, the topics could be extensively explored, but that was not the intent of the assignment.

During the period prior to Vatican II, a certain legalism seemed to predominate, where strict adherence to the rules was encouraged while the motivation for obedience often was not clearly tied to the gospel message. Such was not the case in early Christian history, when the early Church Fathers and the fathers of the Monastic Period, when homiletics, polemics, and meditations drew from scripture for inspiration. Two factors contributed to the tendency toward legalism in the earlier part of the 20th century. First, the Nominalists of the Scholastic period (1100–1600) espoused a volunteerist morality, less about the goodness of an action but its adherence to the law imposed by God’s sovereign will—beneficial or not. By the time of the Reformation, much of the legalistic mindset of the Nominalists had imposed itself on Catholic thinking. In addition, because of the emphasis that Protestants put upon scripture, particularly with their doctrine sola scriptura, Catholics became more reserved in their reliance on Sacred Scripture as the guiding principle for their moral lives, focusing more on catechisms and readings of the lives of the saints to avoid the doctrinal conflicts that could result from literalistic personal interpretation. In Living the Truth in Love, Fr. Benedict Ashley, O.P., rightly warns against such fundamentalist readings.

Ashley also points out that some contemporary theologians consider the moral precepts of scripture to be so historically conditioned as to render any specific moral rules to be obsolete for us today. These theologians rely more on natural law and philosophical ethics with no scriptural foundation. Nonetheless, Vatican II stressed a return to the sources of Christian morality—scripture and tradition—noting in Dei Verbum that “[s]acred theology relies on the Written Word of God, taken together with sacred Tradition, as on a permanent foundation” (DV 24). Moral theology, a subset of sacred theology, must be grounded in revelation to provide the guidance necessary for Christians living in the relativistic secular culture of today’s western world.

i. Benedict Ashley, “Moral Theology: Lecture 1—Lesson Two,” International Catholic University, 5 February 2010, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00301.htm.
Ibid.
ii. Raymond Brown, 101 Questions & Answers on the Bible, (New York: Paulist Press, 1990), 43–48.
iii. Benedict Ashley, Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology, (Staten Island: St. Pauls, 1996), 8.
iv. Ibid., 10.
v. Ashley, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c00301.htm.

Historicity and Sacred Scripture

2010-05-01T08:30:00.006-06:00

One of the interesting things about the New Atheists is that they take essentially the same position as Biblical fundamentalists when they read scripture. They take it word for word as if it is meant to convey facts in a literalistic fashion. Their response, of course, is different from fundamentalists. While the latter accept it as a word for word account of what happened, the former compare it to their own world view and reject the whole thing.

I'm happy that as a Catholic I am not bound to such an impoverished perspective when I read and interpret scripture. I understand that the written scripture of the Old Testament developed over a period of time and that it is not all to be taken as literal history, nor is it to be confused with a scientific presentation of the ancient world. The New Testament gospels, unlike the older scripture, is largely historical, although not in the blow-by-blow narrative form we accept as history now days.

This understanding of scripture goes back to the early Church Fathers. St. Augustine wrote several incomplete works on the literal interpretation of Genesis and in another work noted that we shouldn't present the first chapters of Genesis as if they were a scientific presentation of the creation of the world. My favorite example to illustrate the problem with reading scripture like a science textbook comes from the Wisdom of Solomon 7:1-2:

I also am mortal, like all men, a descendant of the first-formed child of earth; and in the womb of a mother I was molded into flesh, within the period of ten months, compacted with blood, from the seed of a man and the pleasure of marriage.

Scientifically, there are obvious problems with this statement. It is not a medically precise description of conception and pregnancy. However, given the understanding at the time, anything other than this description would be anachronistic and would likely cause people to raise their eyebrows. Such precise scientific language would be inappropriate in that context.

Now, none of this is to say that we should dismiss any historical relevance of Hebrew scripture. Here's a case in point. In 1 Samuel 14:4-15, Saul and his son Jonathan are facing down the Philistines at Michmash, a town on the road to Jerusalem from the north. Jonathan grows restless and takes his armor bearer through a hidden pass and attacks the Philistine encampment from behind. The camp is thrown into chaos, and the remainder of Saul's army takes advantage, putting the Philistines to rout. It's one of those stories about the glory of Israel that may or may not be factual. Who knows? However, we are free to see it as historical if we wish, so long as we don't put it at odds with another teaching of the Church, and it certainly can teach us something regardless of whether it happened exactly as it occurred.

However, it is dangerous to claim that any story is devoid of any historical accuracy. In World War I, the British under General Allenby were facing off against the Ottoman at Michmash. Major Vivian Gilbert recalled the place name from scripture and went to 1 Samuel to recall what he had read there. Using the information from scripture, he found the hidden pass mentioned in 1 Samuel 14 and used it to out maneuver the Turks, and the British took Michmash.

So it's important, then, not to assume either extreme. There may very well be much that is historical in Hebrew scripture. However, if we insist on reading Hebrew scripture as history or science, we miss the point of it, which is often to tell an edifying or instructional story (mashal or pl. meshamlim). The narrative is there to instruct us about the truth God wants us to know. That may or may not involve the military history of ancient Israel. It very likely has to do with learning to put our trust in Him.

Prayers for Our Rector

2010-04-26T19:02:00.002-06:00

Just saw this status update on Facebook:

For my friends from St. Johns - just wanted to let you know I learned today that Father Henry was injured in a horse riding accident in Columbia. From what I've heard, he has a broken leg, his pelvis is broken, and he's had surgery to put pins in. He was scheduled to come home this week, but obviously, that's not going to happen.

Fr. Henry is our Columbian rector. He frequently travels to Cali to visit his family and to check on a number of charitable projects he sponsors there. Please keep him in your prayers.

Prayer Request

2010-04-13T19:36:00.002-06:00

Please pray for my daughter's friend, Jessie, who was in a car accident last Friday. She suffered an epidural hematoma. So far, she seems to be okay, but she's not completely out of the woods. Add to this the natural sense of immortality in youth that diminishes the seriousness of such issues, and you can probably understand why her parents are also concerned. If you could lift them all up in your prayers, I would be greatly thankful.

Response to Calvinist Claims: Part 2

2010-04-08T21:08:00.005-06:00

This is part 2 of my response to Dan Peterman, who posted on a friend's Facebook wall in response to some points of Catholic doctrine.

What follows is a clear exposition, by scripture, of the fallacy of the Catholic Church. Bill, you said that you have read them and that the Roman Catholic church does not believe in faith plus works.

I don't know where on earth you came to the notion that I denied that faith plus works were necessary for salvation. I have been saying just the opposite this entire time. What I did say was that grace is necessary to move us to either one. However, again, I fully believe that our response to that grace is a matter of free will. We are not compelled to respond to grace. Our dispute was whether St. Augustine held this view. I have several Protestant sources that see unequivocally that he did. They confirm that he was a limited monergist in terms of initial justification but a clear synergist when it came to sanctification. I would say that the two are intimately joined, which is what the Council of Trent decreed in response to the Protestant Reformers, who believed in (and still profess) a merely extrinsic justification, a one-time event. If my understanding of the reformed position is incorrect, please let me know.

The reason we believe that works are necessary is because sanctification continues the process of justification throughout life. We believe we are cleansed when we respond to grace in faith, but we continue in the process of sanctification, which is the growth of the Divine Life in us. Grace must move us to faith before any of this can happen.

You might want to scrape the scales off your eyes. Maybe, just read much slower. I have read the scriptur...es you sent me and they are speaking horizontally, that is, how man affects man. What we are talking about here is the vertical aspect of faith, how man relates to God

Please demonstrate which verses are speaking horizontally. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves, and John says that we cannot love God if we do not also love our neighbor (1 John 4:7–13). How we relate to each other speaks volumes about how we relate to God. So please explain what you mean. Speaking in generalities doesn't do us much good if we are trying to understand each other.

These are several of the doctrinal statements made on Justification at the council of Trent. After each Canon are scriptures that contradict that Canon. You will see the word "anathema" used many times by the Council. This means that those who disagree with the doctrines of this Council are cursed. In Gal. 1:8-9, the word "anathema" is used. The curse must come from God.

As I've indicated before, you need to understand what the language of conciliar decrees means. The phrase means "let him be anathema" or "let him be condemned/accursed." The phrase can be found in Galatians 1:8. (If it's good enough for Paul, it's good enough for the council fathers.) The use of the phrase "anathema sit" goes all the way back to the binding and loosing power of the rabbis, which Jesus handed over to the Apostles. The rabbis used the term herem.

Excommunication is a tool to prompt people to repentence. It does not "damn" anyone, as the Church cannot damn anyone. Only God has that power. The Church can only pronounce on a person's status within the Church. This was the formula in use to condemn a false doctrine or to excommunicate people who held or primulgated such doctrines. While excommunication is a regretable step, it's sometimes necessary for correction. However, excommunication is not intended to be permanent but to help people understand the severity of their error.

Therefore, we conclude that according to Roman Catholicism, anyone who disagrees with the following Canons are cursed of God.

No, they are excommunicated--no longer in communion with the Church. This assumes that they were in full communion with the Church to start. These apply to the formal heretics of the time--those explicitly rejecting Catholic doctrine.

In spite of what Catholicism states, the Bible speaks differently. Following each Canon is a list of appropriate scriptures countering the Catholic position.

It's a shame that you didn't read the rest of the council's document for the sixth session, since each of the chapters cite scripture for the teachings of the Church. Looking at the canons without reading the rest of the document is sort of like studying scripture as a bunch of disjointed and disconnected verses rather than letters, narratives, and pieces that tell a story.

CANON 9: "If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema."
"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin," (Rom. 3:20).
"Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus," (Rom. 3:24... followed by Rom. 3:28; Rom. 4:3; Rom. 5:1; Eph. 2:8; Titus 3:5).

As I noted before, you take these verses out of context without considering the words of James 2:20, 24, 26, the words of Paul in Romans 2:5-11, 11:22, Galatians 5:19-21, 1 Cor. 3:8, Col. 3:23-24, and so on. The initial act of justification comes with a response in faith by grace, but we must continue to respond. Justifiction, in Catholic doctrine, does not end with the acceptance of Christ in faith but continues. Hence, our response through works is necessary. In addition, Christ says repeatedly that we must follow the commandments and do works of mercy: "If you would enter life, keep the commandments" (Matt 19:17). "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my bretheren, you did it to me" (Matt 25:31-46). "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16). "For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done" (Matt. 16:27). He not only rewards those who do but condemns those who don't.

CANON 12: "If any one shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ's sake, or that it is that confidence alone by which we are justified ... let him be accursed"
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name," (John 1:12).
"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law," (Rom. 3:28).

Catholics hold that mere "belief" is not enough. As James says in 2:19, even demons believe—and shudder. The question is whether we surrender ourselves fully and put our trust in Christ. It is an intellectual assent and a movement of the will. We believe Christ (that is, what He says), believe in Him (that He is God), and believe upon Him (trust in His mercy and grace). We also must have faith working through love, as Paul states in 1 Cor. 13:3.

Canon 14: "If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema."
"For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness," (Rom. 4:3).
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," (Rom. 5:1).

We can certainly trust Christ's mercy, but again, this is not to say that we only have to believe. Faith is more than mere belief. Neither of these verses support the notion that faith by itself is all that is necessary. Abraham also circumcised his sons and followed the will of God. Faith was his first step.

Canon 23: "lf any one saith, that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he that falls and sins was never truly justified; or, on the other hand, that he is able, during his whole life, to avoid all sins, even those that are venial,- except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard of the Blessed Virgin; let him be anathema."
"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him," (John 3:36).
"And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day," (John 6:40)... John 10:28; Rom. 5:21; 1 John 2:19; 1 John 5:13.

So are you claiming to be without sin? That you do not sin ever even venially? You never call anyone a fool (or raca as Jesus says in Matt 5:22)? Doesn't 1 John 1:10 warn against such claims?

Canon 24: "If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema."
"O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? 2This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal. 3:1-3).
"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. 2Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. 3For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law," (Gal. 5:1-3).

You're equating all works (meaning works of Christian charity or love) with works of the Law, which is the exact phrasing above. He is speaking to Gentile converts who were being told by Judaizers that they need to abide by Jewish Law. This is the problem with prooftexts taken out of context. You need to juxtapose such statements with the exceedingly clear words of James 2, with Paul's own words in Ephesians 2:10: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them"; or in Galatians 5:6, "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love." See, again, Paul specifically mentions works of the Law here and contrasts them with "faith working through love."

Sanctification is the process of Christ's grace working in us and changing us. If you don't see a growth in faith and in Christian behavior in someone who is a believer, their conversion doesn't run very deep.

Canon 30: "If any one saith, that, after the grace of Justification has been received, to every penitent sinner the guilt is remitted, and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out in such wise, that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged either in this world, or in the next in Purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened (to him); let him be anathema."
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," (Rom. 5:1).
"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross," (Col. 2:13-14).

Yes, this is just common sense. You are absolved from sin, but there are temporal effects of sin. If you have sinful habits, you develop a taste for sin, and it warps you. The Church goes further to say that these temporal effects can still be present after death. 1 Cor. 3:14-15 talks about being saved "only as through fire." Christ talks of settling your accounts before going to the judge, lest you be thrown in jail: "you will never get out till you have paid the last penny" (Matt 5:26). The book of 2 Maccabees 12 shows the Maccabeans praying for the dead. The Jews still say the mourners kiddush for the dead. We do this because we believe that "nothing unclean shall enter it [heaven]" (Rev. 21:27). We pray for those who have died as a work of mercy towards others to assist them in the process of purgation.

The point of sanctification is that we grow closer to God and increase in sanctity. We believe justification begins a process of change in us. Sometimes we complete that change. Sometimes we have a bit further to go. Since nothing unclean can enter into God's presence, we must be made clean, and God makes that possible. All of it is due to his mercy and gratuitous grace. God provides for what we lack. We do not believe in extrinsic justification (a covering up of our sin) but in an eradication of our sin and eventually the sinful nature within us—through God's grace alone.

Canon 33: "If any one saith, that, by the Catholic doctrine touching Justification, by this holy Synod inset forth in this present decree, the glory of God, or the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ are in any way derogated from, and not rather that the truth of our faith, and the glory in fine of God and of Jesus Christ are rendered (more) illustrious; let him be anathema.

This council declares that if anyone disagrees with it, they are damned

Not cursed by God. It means "excommunicated" or not in communion with the Church. Again, only God can pass judgement on someone's soul. No priest or council can do so.

Here's another way to think of the faith/works connection. We can sin in two general ways: by doing something wrong (sin of commission) or by failing to do something right (sin of ommission). If we do those things that are right, we are persevering in our faith. Our habit of persevering in faith (through God's grace) engenders habitual virtues. We become more Christ-like because we live in imitation of Him. Someone who lives like this grows in faith, hope, and love. That is what sanctification is all about. It is not a single event but a lifetime of continual conversion.

Response to Calvinist claims: Part 1

2010-04-08T21:07:00.003-06:00

I am responding to a post by Dan Peterman to a thread posted on Facebook. I do not doubt Dan's desire to serve God, but I believe he is sadly misguided. I decided to post here due to the length of his comment and will be posting a link on Facebook on the wall of the original recipient.

I truly hope that unbelievers are watching. When evangelizing the idea is to indeed have an audience. That is perhaps the best thing about facebook. The thing is, I'm not here to win a medal, omnly to defend the truth.

I think what's more important in such dialogues is to seek the truth. When I err, I need to admit it, and vice versa. If you come in assuming you have it and are impervious to the words of others, you may be thwarting the Holy Spirit's intention on instructing you.

I vehemently stand against the Catholic church and I will say so at any forum, public or private. The idolatry, superstition and anti-biblical nature of the papacy causes a stench that can be smelt for miles by authentic Christians.

You are mistaken. If it were true, then the 1.2 billion Catholics and additional 400,00 Orthodox currently living would be in error, in contradiction to Christ's promise to Peter and the Apostles in Matthew 16:18. Essentially, you're saying that the Christians who lived for 1500 years prior to the Reformation are inauthentic. So where was the Church against which the gates of Hell wouldn't prevail? Your claims would make Jesus a liar, and I reject them.

Now Bill, first of all I want to make it painfully clear that we are comparing apples to oranges. As a Bible-believing Christian I just do not approach scripture the way you do. I come empty handed, trusting that Go has given me His Holy Word and my the leading of the Holy Spirit I will know what that Word is. In other words, I do not need the Pope to do my interpreting for me. I do not believe that men can be infallible.

If you come to scripture without the context in which it was given, then you do come empty handed, and perhaps doubly handicapped if you don't read scriptural Greek. God has given you scripture through the Church and not apart from it. You read your translation of scripture (twice removed), but interpret it in light of your culture and language (2000 years removed). If your doctrine were correct, the Protestant churches would be far less fragmented. Yet you insist that you are guided. Joe Protestant also insists that he is guided. Each of you interprets in ways that are diametrically opposed. Can the Holy Spirit be this divided against itself? "A house divided cannot stand" (Matt. 12:25). The Catholic Church stands after 2000 years despite the world's attempts to destroy it. Where is the church of John Calvin? Can you count its divisions?

In addition, I don't need the Pope to interpret scripture. I need the Sacred Tradition of the Church, of which the current Bishop of Rome is one factor. In addition, "infallibility" most likely doesn't mean what you believe it means. It does not mean "impeccability," which would be absence of personal sin or error. It merely means that the Holy Father, when elevated to the See of Peter, cannot err when teaching authoritatively on matters of faith and morals. This promise comes from Matt. 16:18, and it is bound to the Apostolic tradition. The bishops and Pope exercise this authority together, and it is always connected to the faith handed down through Apostolic succession. That means that no bishop or pope can declare a new doctrine but can only affirm what has always been held by the Church and the faithful.

I am opposed to including so-called "sacred tradition" along with scripture. So when I read a dead man's writings, and I come across something that is logical, makes sense, and is also in line with scripture, I get excited. I want to know more about that person. I am excited for that person and the journey he found in life. I am NOT inclined to take every singl e thing he said for absolute truth especially when he is out of line with scripture. I believe that ALL who are born again in Christ are saints immeditely and this only in te context that they are inb possession of eternal life.

So what you seem to be saying is that you will choose from among the writings you prefer which ones authentically represent the faith, and you make that decision based on your 21st century understanding of translated writings. Instead of a Magisterium guaranteed by Christ to the Church, you will assume a magisterium of your own. Can you tell me where scripture validates doctrines taken from personal interpretation?

No other word is sacred or infallible outside of the Holy Word of God.

I won't dispute that, as we hold that belief as well. What we disagree with is the limitation of the Word of God to the written scripture. Even St. Paul acknowledged this (1. Cor. 11:2; 2 Thess. 2:15; Tim. 3:15) as did Peter (2 Peter 1:20;3:16).

Catholics view things in exactly the opposite, or sideways with regards to saints. I am only interested in the point of Augustine's life when he became enamored with a predestinarian belief system which is the Gospel. The stetement Augustine made was false in that it was not true. It is no surprise how much he struggled as he was beset bythe harlot herself everyday, the Roman Catholic church.

So you are willing to accept St. Augustine's words (note that I do not say "views") when they agree with your 21st century Calvinist interpretation of scripture, but you are not willing to accept his views when they comport with the Catholic (that is Christian) Church of the time? Mind you, I'm not only speaking of whether or not Augustine held a monergistic view of jusitification, but whether he accepted the sacramental positions on the Eucharist, the priesthood, baptism, and whether he believed in monergism when it concerned salvation/sanctification (as opposed to justification). I'm prepared to show that Augustine might have been a monergist when it came to the initial act of justification, but fully a synergist when it comes to salvation.

So I am not going to waste my time looking p your precious church fathers. As for the sixteenth century vs. 2000 yrs. of church history once again your statement is highly flawed.

I've already pointed out why you will not venture into the dangers that are the early Church Fathers. It is for the same reason that John Henry Cdnl. Newnan found reason to cross the Tiber, and why Jaroslav Pelikan had to (as an honest historian) concede to the claims to the Apostolic churches. If you read the early Church Fathers, you will find them utterly Catholic. They are completely immersed in a sacramental Church that holds saints, particularly the Blessed Mother, in high esteem.

On my statement concerning church history, I request that you produce documentary evidence of my error. Please demonstrate using nondiscredited (that is, impartial) records that the Catholic began at the Council of Nicea or there abouts. Your sources will be only Protestant... or atheist.

Bill, you make the mistake of assuming too much. And you what they say happens when you assume. Buddy, we are both using the same Bible for the most part, except for those parts the Catholic church has changed and not too mention the fact they included the Apocrypha which was even rejected by the Jews.

I can demonstrate that the scriptural references made by Christ in the New Testament come from the Septuagint (the Greek translation that includes the so-called Apocrypha) and not from Hebrew scripture. I can also point to the fact that the Hebrew canon was fluid until at least late in the first century and that the Masoretic text stems from much later sources than the earlier sources of the Septuagint. In addition, Jews accept stories from the Septuagint for some of their own festivals (most notably Hanaukkah). So exactly how are these works suspect? In addition, I ask you to explain how any of the books of scripture have been identified as acceptable? In Sacred Tradition, the matter was determined by universal consent and constant usage. How do Protestants justify casting out the Deuterocanonical books in use for 1600 years by Eastern and Western Christians on such a whim?

The history of which you speak s the same history of which I speak. The Catholic church has decided to claim it and say they are the only church. We could have a lengthy debate on the fact that the Roman Catholic church came about arounfd the time of Conatantine. There was no Pope prior to this. You assume.

There is no debate for anyone who knows anything about history. While Orthodox Christians and Catholics might debate whether one or the other is *the Church*, Protestants aren't, as an institution, in the running. That doesn't mean that individual Protestants aren't part of the Church. Even the Council if Trent, in the midst of the Reformation, admitted that any one who was baptized with the same intention of the Church and under the proper form (Trinitarian) was joined to the Church.

Yes, that means that you are joined to the one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, whether you like it or not. While I might gloat to a small degree to your consternation (and that is my sin), I'm also gratitified, because I truly believe that you want to attain the truth and want others to find it as well.

The claim that the Roman Catholic Church came into existence at the time of Constantine runs up against a few inconvenient facts:

- The Roman Church clearly existed when St. Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, and clearly existed when both St. Paul and St. Peter were martyred in Rome in the 60s AD.

- St. Clement, the second or third successor of Peter as Bishop of Rome, wrote a letter to the Corinthians concerning authority and tradition.

- St. Ignatius wrote a letter to the Romans noting the authority of the Roman see based on the authority of Sts. Peter and Paul.

- That the Church has maintained a list of all the successors to St. Peter preceding the Council of Nicea. St. Ireneus actually recorded this list in the second century, long before the Council of Nicea.

So while I base my beliefs on documented history, YOU assume. I assume that documented history at least approaches the truth.

When it comes to Augstine, you also assume that one needs to read him as a dialogue. I hope that between this and my previous post on this thread that you can grasp what it is I am trying to explain to in regards to your argument. I do not need to read the dialogue. I can plainly see what he said. I told you that he wrote "A treatise on the Predestination of the Saints" after coming to grips with I Corinthians 4:7. He died a monergist. So your straw man was to tell me you were sad that I was reading him out of context, when I know full well where Augustine ended up standing on free will, which in factf was the context itself. Also, of course, in telling me I should read him as dialogue instead of monologue which is ridiculous as I have shown. Bill, the reason Protestants can appreciate Augustine is because he began to show signs of life as he was drawn up out of the mire of the Roman Catholic church and brought into the invisible church. I tried to tel someone else on hee that the word catholic isn't bad. I knoe I am a part of a ctholic church. It just means universal. But men have capitalized it and then paid homage to and worshipped it. Shame!...

If you were to tell St. Augustine that he wasn't Catholic, I suspect he would make the same retort. You take his writings piecemeal and make claims he would never make. This entire passage is a claim to your belief, not his. And when I say that you must read Agustine as a dialogue, I mean that he was responding to debates of his time. If you don't know what he was responding to, you don't really understand the whole point.

As I said earlier, I'm prepared to show that Augustine might have been a monergist when it came to the initial act of justification, but fully a synergist when it comes to salvation. And I will add that even non-Catholic sources agree with me.

I have said quite alot on here to youand others and it sems to just go in the one ear and out the other. I get tired of repeating myself only to never get a direct reply to a specific argument I have raised.

I share the same frustration with you.

I have clearly shown that Augustine became a firm believer in sound Biblical , predestinarian faith, but I'm sure you will still pussy foot around and never quite deal with teh issue. What is actually happening is you guys are bluffing your way through things. You always have as a church and you almays will. Thats what you have to do when you don't have a winning hand, or in this cse the Truth. I'm sorry man but I am going batty and I am well mawareyou are prepared to go at it until Christ comes. Just remember, eternity is a long time to be wrong. I would do a little more digging if I were you. I have taken the liberty of pulling of some canons and decrees again. I also have scripture along with them to clearly show that they contradict the Word of God. And for the guy who keeps saying that the Catholic church has renounced faith plus works and that Vatican II has renounced the Council of Trent, buddy I would give the Pope a call if I were you cuz you wrong!

Okay, you're changing targets initially in this passage to predestinarianism, which is a completely different point. I will address this later. However, I will point out that in the passage above, you have provided no proof for any of your claims, scriptural or other. In fact, your claims to proof have all been of the same quality. You can't even point to where scripture validates your claim. You can only say that you interpret those passages differently. Superb. Demonstrate your authority. I have none but the Church. You have none but...

Which reminds me of a great verse..... When the Sadducces were questioning Jesus hard on the issue of marrying and having your huband die and then marrying again and whose wife would she be and...... and then after they had presented their little riddle, I love what Christ said nd it fits so nicely here, he said, "YOU ARE WRONG, because you know neither the scriptures or the power of God.

Heh. And Catholics take Him at His word and outlaw divorce. How is the Calvinist position in support of Christ's word?

Good Friday—Times' Tone-Deaf Coverage Continues

2010-04-02T10:00:00.004-06:00

The NY Times' war on the Holy Father continues unabated, but parties on all sides are chiming in in his defense. We're hearing from some interesting corners, as well. Logia: a Journal of Lutheran Theology has this article from John Stephenson. An article in yesterday's Pravda (!) joins in with the condemnation of the Times' shoddy coverage.

Even the New York Daily News is pointing out the flaws in the Times' coverage.

Cardinal Levada, the Holy Father's successor as prefect of the CDF, has given a length reply to the Times' charges, revealing them to show how they demonstrate no understanding of the situation, or at least no desire to present the facts of the case impartially.

Jimmy Akin has compiled details of the case of Fr. Murphy, many of the facts that have been distorted by the Times, as well as links to a piece by Fr. Thomas Brundage, the Judicial Vicar who handled the original case of Fr. Murphy for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Apparently, the Times' never contacted him for details on the case.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker is calling for an email campaign aganst the Times. If you want to join in and voice your disgust with the Times' coverage, you can email Clark Hoyt at public@nytimes.com. I've also sent an email to the executive editor at executive-editor@nytimes.com. I would suggestion, though, that you read Fr. L's sensible guidelines before you fire away.