Are non-Christian religions acceptable?

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This initially regional synod took the holy and sacred Ecumenical creed of Nicea and not only changed and amended it but placed it into general circulation throughout Asia Minor and the east, though both Rome and Alexandria used the unaltered original creed of Nicea for many decades.

Now where did Constantinople I in its inception obtain the authority to alter the creed of Nicea? Was it arrogant presumption on the part of Sts. Meletius of Antioch and Gregory the Theologian?

OR was this creed a fuller and more complete exposition of the faith in reaction to the Pneumatomachoi and the Millenarians?

Obviously it was an attempt to counter heresy by the addition not of one or two syllables but of entire clauses, indeed of a paragraph. And initiated as a purely regional council, did I mention that?

Now, to whom did they turn for the ratification of this council? Pope St. Damasus. And he granted it his approbation.

Now if this is a perfectly acceptable action for an ostensibly regional synod to take in its hands, we have to come to a clearer understanding of what the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus was talking about when it ratified the creed of Nicea-

Canon 7

“When these things had been read, the holy Synod decreed that it is unlawful for any man to bring forward, or to write, or to compose a different Faith as a rival to that established by the holy Fathers assembled with the Holy Ghost in Nicæa. But those who shall dare to compose a different faith, or to introduce or offer it to persons desiring to turn to the acknowledgment of the truth, whether from Heathenism or from Judaism, or from any heresy whatsoever, shall be deposed, if they be bishops or clergymen; bishops from the episcopate and clergymen from the clergy; and if they be laymen, they shall be anathematized. And in like manner, if any, whether bishops, clergymen, or laymen, should be discovered to hold or teach the doctrines contained in the Exposition introduced by the Presbyter Charisius concerning the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten Son of God, or the abominable and profane doctrines of Nestorius, which are subjoined, they shall be subjected to the sentence of this holy and ecumenical Synod. So that, if it be a bishop, he shall be removed from his bishopric and degraded; if it be a clergyman, he shall likewise be stricken from the clergy; and if it be a layman, he shall be anathematized, as has been afore said.”
 
So if what is being objected to here by Ephesus is any and every addition to the creed of Nicea Constantinople I is condemned for impiety and blasphemy.

But that wasn’t the case, for that council was formally ratified at Chalcedon in canon 28, after which we see a more general usage arise.

No, what is being condemned here is the composition or alteration of the creed to reflect a different FAITH, not the bare alteration of the creed at ALL. To hold to such an understanding is to end up condemning the second Ecumenical council, which took quite awhile to be recognized.

So-

If all this is acceptable…

On what basis can you offer ANY condemnation toward the west for altering four syllables of the creed? Not on the basis of Ephesus, which demonstrates in canon 7 that the issue was a substantial alteration of the content of the faith! Not merely adding or subtracting individual words.

No, you have to show that filioque is actually opposed to faith without violating the consensus of the Latin Fathers, AND taking the Eastern ones into account who clearly allude to the son playing a mediator role in the holy spirits Hypostatic procession from eternity.

In other words- you have to prove from the fathers, as your own standard, that my previous explanation was heretical.

Have at it.
 
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StAugustine said:
Have at it.
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There is nothing more to add except what I already observed in post 624 (I think that is the correct number). Apparently you accept the change in teaching with regard to the filioque and you accept the novelty of limbo, both of which are considered novelties and changes not accepted by hundreds of millions of Orthodox Christians. It appears that you see nothing wrong with accepting those two changes in teaching. Since that is so, a precedent has been set to accept changes in teachings and to see that acceptance as completely justified if it has the approval and authorization of the Church.
 
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Ah, you missed it.

The filioque is no more a change than the creed of Constantinople is.

It’s actually in scripture. You’re of course aware that the Holy Spirit is reffered to as the fount of life in the psalms if you listen to Orthros- “For with you is the fount of life, and in your light we shall see light” from the great doxology.

What does the scripture say? Revelation 22:1

“And he showed me the river of the water of life, shining like crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

Note the Holy Spirit, the river of life, proceeds from the throne of the Father and the Lamb as a single stream.

I would rather welcome an engagement with the theology of the fathers who held the filioque who are YOUR fathers too. Men Like St. Ambrose of Milan and St. Hilary of Poitiers, to say nothing of St. Isidore of Seville and St. Leo and St. Gregory the Dialogist.

These are no heretics and their consensus with the Greek Fathers is certainly not novelty. Are you aware St. Maximos the Confessor defends the doctrine of the filioque to his peers in Constantinople?

This is the entire problem with Orthodox patristics- the idea of unanimity is abandoned for really a selective reading that is CALLED unanimity but doesn’t really take all the saints seriously. That’s the flaw.

So again, in a few words, what is the nature of the heresy of the filioque? Why is it bad? What are it’s implications? Where does it lead?

I invite explanations and examples.

We will get to the fate of unbaptized infants later. Suffice to say the canons of your own Church and their commentary by Nikodemos the Hagiorite fully and totally support the view that infants are truly baptized for the remission of sins, so that they can have washed away what they inherit from Adam, NOT just to be made members of the Church.
 
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I really look forward to your future (name removed by moderator)ut. Care to share your objections to the filioque?
 
StAugustine said:
Care to share your objections to the filioque?
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Catholic Bible: Douay-Rheims Bible
But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall give testimony of me.
Orthodox wiki: “Its inclusion in the Creed is a violation of the canons of the Third Ecumenical Council in 431, which forbade and anathematized any additions to the Creed, a prohibition which was reiterated at the Eighth Ecumenical Council in 879-880. This word [filioque] was not included by the Council of Nicea nor of Constantinople.”
“The description of the filioque as a heresy was iterated most clearly and definitively by the great Father and Pillar of the Church, St. Photius the Great, in his On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit.”
Also Orthodox do not believe in limbo.
“Will unbaptized children go to hell if they die?
No. The Orthodox Church does not believe that children are born guilty of Adam’s sin and that unless freed of that guilt through baptism and communion they will die without God’s mercy. Such a notion is pernicious both for its barbarism and for its distortion of God.”
http://ww1.antiochian.org/content/infant-baptism-what-church-believes
 
Well, I was hoping you would either provide a new argument against the filioque or a rebuttal, given the flawed nature of Photius’ argument, but okay.

Regarding the reason for why infants are baptized in Orthodoxy- this is from the Pedalion, the Rudder. You know what that is? It’s a book of all the canons of Orthodoxy with commentary on them by one of your saints, Nikodemos the Hagiorite. Is therefore universally authoritative, given that every bishop owns a copy and guides his flock by its contents.

So, what shall we see pertains to the heresy of the Pelagians…

CANON CXXI (121)

“ It has pleased the Synod to decree that whosoever denies the little ones newly born from the wombs of their mothers when they are being baptized, or asserts that they are baptized for the remission of sins, but that they have inherited no propatorical sin from Adam obliging them to be purified in the bath of renaissance (whence it follows that in these persons the form of baptism for the remission of sins is not true, but is to be regarded as factitious), let him be anathema; for no other meaning ought to be attached to what the Apostle has said, viz., “Sin entered the world through one human being” (Rom. 5:12), and thus it passed over into all human beings; wherefore all of them have sinned, than that which the catholic Church diffused and spread abroad every where has ever understood those words to mean.For it is on account of this Canon of the faith that even the little ones too, who are as yet incapable of committing any sin of their own to render them guilty of any offense, are truly baptized for the remission of sins, in order that what sin they inherited from the primordial birth may be purified in them through the process of renaissance.”
 
Interpretation

“This view too was a product of the heretical insanity of the Pelagians this refers to their saying that newly begotten infants are not baptized for the remission of sins, as the Orthodox Church believes and maintains, but, instead, if anyone say that they are baptized for the remission of sins, yet the infants themselves have not incurred any taint from the original (or primordial) sin of Adam,74 such as to require to be removed by means of baptism (since, as we have said, those men believed that this original sin is not begotten with the human being, simply because this was not any offense of nature, but a mischoice of the free and independent will). So the Synod in the present Canon anathematizes the heretics who say this: First, because the form of the baptism for the remission of sins which is given to infants is not true according to them, but false and factitious, since, according to them, those infants have no sins to be pardoned. Secondly, because the Apostle in what he says makes it plain that sin entered the world through a single human being, namely, Adam, and that death entered through sin, and thus death passed into all human beings, since all of them have sinned just like Adam. This passage, I say, cannot be taken to mean anything else than what the Catholic Church of the Orthodox has understood and believed it to mean, to wit, that even the newborn infants, notwithstanding the fact that they have not sinned by reason of any exercise of their own free and independent will, have nevertheless entailed upon themselves the propatorical sin from Adam; wherefore they need to be purified through baptism necessarily from that sin: hence they are truly, and not fictitiously, being baptized for the remission of sins.”

So, according to the Holy canons, infants are truly baptized for the remission of the primordial sin which they have inherited from Adam.
 
StAugustine said:
So, according to the Holy canons, infants are truly baptized for the remission of the primordial sin which they have inherited from Adam.
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OK, but the question is whether or not unbaptized infants go to a place in hell called limbo. Was there a limbo in the first four hundred years of the church or is it a novelty which comes from the teaching of St. Augustine?
 
Limbo is NOT currently taught by the Church, so that difference between Catholics and Orthodox is moot.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
Serious question here, not looking for an argument. I understand this is the Catholic position regarding homosexuality, and it is also the (Orthodox) Jewish position. However, didn’t Jesus say something to the effect of adultery in the heart is similar to the deed itself? If so, wouldn’t this apply as well to homosexual attraction?
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As far as I know they haven’t found a gay gene. So gays can’t claim God made them that way. Therefore, They have to live by all the rules everyone else has to live by.
 
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deMontfort said:
Limbo is NOT currently taught by the Church, so that difference between Catholics and Orthodox is moot.
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The question was directed to the poster “St. Augustine” and the question is why does the poster “St. Augustine” believe that unbaptized infants will go to hell. (At least that is what I thought he said?)
 
Pup7 said:
Well, the Vatican itself states it was indeed a teaching. Actually, in the very document you posted earlier. So yes, it was indeed a teaching of the Catholic Church at one time. Just not dogma.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...aith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

It’s all over that article, actually. And no, this isn’t meant as pedantism.
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Yes it was not dogma, but it was theological theory.

"It is clear that the traditional teaching on this topic has concentrated on the theory of limbo, understood as a state which includes the souls of infants who die subject to original sin and without baptism, and who, therefore, neither merit the beatific vision, nor yet are subjected to any punishment, because they are not guilty of any personal sin. This theory, elaborated by theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium, even if that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up until the Second Vatican Council. It remains therefore a possible theological hypothesis. However, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), the theory of limbo is not mentioned…

Doctrines don’t come and go.
 
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Pup7 said:
No one said it wasn’t a theory.

But it was clearly taught.
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I read the whole article and I would say it backs you up. It was taught for centuries. It makes me shiver to think of all the unfortunate parents who suffered undue anguish that probably lasted a lifetime.
 
My dad was a cradle Catholic. I can remember him saying he never bought it - that there’s no way God would do that to a literally innocent soul. I agree with you.
 
Define “acceptable”

For what purpose are other religions? We have been given the Name of Christ by Which we are saved. All others have some comfort in this short, transient life, but what then?

All religions have truth in them - some have much truth. But, only one has all revealed truth in one sacred deposit of faith.
 
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