C
Contarini
Guest
What way of thinking? And where does God “warn” us to do this?
I don’t get that.
Is eternal life conditioned?
Isn’t it union with the infinite–and thus unconditioned–God?
Edwin
- Status
Is eternal life conditioned?
Isn’t it union with the infinite–and thus unconditioned–God?
Edwin
C
Contarini
Guest
It depends on what rinnie means by “divine assistance.”
Aquinas certainly thought that everything–including existence–is the result of divine action. We exist–and certainly we know–because God is acting in us.
However, he believed that God establishes and works through natural laws, and as you say he believed that a great deal is knowable through these natural means that God has established.
Aquinas rejected the view held by Augustine and many of the earlier scholastics (such as Bonaventure) that knowledge of any kind is possible only through direct “divine illumination” in which you know the divine “idea” of the created thing in question.
Like you, I initially concluded that rinnie was adopting something more like the “Augustinian” rather than the “Thomistic” view. But as I said the language she used is capable of several interpretations, and of course this is a fairly abstruse philosophical/theological issue.
What does need to be clarified–because a lot of people get this wrong about Thomism–is that no knowledge of any kind, indeed nothing of any kind, is possible apart from God. Natural law and natural knowledge do not exist independently of God, but rather are a created order that God has established and pervades from moment to moment. They exist only by participating in God.
One other note: the meaning of the term “supernatural” is one of the major “hot spots” in Catholic theology of the past half-century or so. It remains an issue on which much work needs to be done. Henri de Lubac challenged the standard “Thomist” understanding (including whether this understanding was really that of St. Thomas) in 1946, and the debate still continues. In many ways I’d say that this rather abstruse issue lies behind a lot of the more obviously “hot-button” issues debated within Catholicism.
Edwin
R
rinnie
Guest
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Contarini
Guest
Please don’t pick up the bad habit of fundamentalist Protestants of throwing Scriptural references around without comment.
Please provide an argument saying: “here’s what these Scripture passages say, and here’s how they prove my point.”
How exactly do these passages argue against pursuing the “unconditioned”?
Edwin
R
rinnie
Guest
How? They reject eternal life. I don’t understand much of any of their teaching. I am not sure if they truly do either.
Its like they over analyze every little thing and make a huge mountain out of it.
Its like I went for a walk and got stung by a bee. So what. But they bring so much into crazy things.
Like I really wanted to get stung by the bee thats why I didn’t wear my shoes. Or the bee sting was a spiritual awakening. Heck yeah it was, it HURT!
I know its not exactly that way, but thats what most of their teaching’s seem like to me. Its like they over think every single little thing.
We know there is eternal life, we know if we are justified we can become one with Christ in heaven.
While there is alot to the Catholic faith and you never quit learning it makes sense. it lines up with life today the same as yesterday.
V
Vouthon
Guest
Contarini, brother all I can say is
to “Please don’t pick up the bad habit of fundamentalist Protestants”…
R
rinnie
Guest
Lets start with eternal life, they reject it. Is eternal life conditioned? Depends how you look at it.
How you define conditioned. IMO eternal life is conditioned if you are asking are there conditions in obtaining it.
You must Obey the ten commandments, confess your sins, Believe in God etc. But that is not what you must do to have eternal life, its what you must do to have eternal life with GOD.
If you reject God you have eternal life in the fires of hell.
They claim they don’t pray. But they meditate. What good does it do to meditate if you are not one with God when you do. I just don’t get it. Thats all:shrug:
They claim they don’t follow Buddha but they do. They do what he teaches.
C
Contarini
Guest
Do they? Defined how?
They speak of Nirvana as bliss. Sounds like eternal life to me.
They reject an eternal life that is simply an endless continuation of what we now call “life.” But I don’t think that’s the orthodox Christian concept of eternal life.
It’s a bit presumptuous, isn’t it, to assume that fairly casual discussion on an Internet forum is enough to enable you to evaluate a tradition that is older than Christianity and encompasses many cultures?
In other words, it’s a rich, complex tradition just like your own.
From the inside, Catholicism makes sense.
So does Buddhism.
That doesn’t say anything about whether it is true or false, just that criticizing it for “overanalyzing every little thing” is rather frivolous.
Edwin
C
Contarini
Guest
Do they? In what sense?
Indeed. And thus whether Buddhists reject it depends on the same thing.
Right. This is a good example of how quickly you are jumping to conclusions and judging Buddhism based on misunderstandings that you could have avoided with very little trouble.
That is not what Buddhists mean by “unconditioned” at all–at least not Theravada Buddhists.
Unconditioned means simply that it has no limits, thus you can’t describe it.
The apparent conflict with Christianity here is in the fact that Christians understand eternal life to be personal union with God.
But it’s tricky, because traditional Christian theology also says that God is indescribable and so is eternal life. God is not one person but three, and that itself points beyond the “conditions” that we normally attach to terms like “person.”
It changes you.
Which prayer also does.
If Christianity is true, as you and I believe, then Buddhist meditation may well be connecting with God even if that’s not how they describe it.
Edwin
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Bakmoon
Guest
My response in post 439 gives the full context of what I was trying to say. In reiteration, I was pointing out that he was arguing that a Catholic can learn nothing of value from Buddhism due to the fact that Buddhism rejects a belief in God. This objection doesn’t make sense if it is talking about natural revelation, because natural truths can be known apart from a belief in God and still be useful to Catholics (e.g. Aristotelian philosophy) so it must have been talking about supernatural revelation (Supernatural revelation referring here to revelation that does not occur as part of the natural world.)
B
Bakmoon
Guest
- It leads to happiness. From a Catholic perspective, what is wrong with believing that Buddhist meditation can lead to natural happiness?
- What do you mean we don’t claim to follow the Buddha? We do claim to follow the Buddha; we just don’t worship him, that’s all.
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rinnie
Guest
When I ask others they say they do not follow anyone.
But if you follow Buddha are you not putting him as a god?
R
rinnie
Guest
From a Catholic perspective all happiness comes from God. Buddhist meditation is not praying. Praying is praying to God, knowing that all good things come from God.
In our faith it is impossible to find happiness without God. God is the center of prayer. God should be the center of our every word, thought, etc.
R
rinnie
Guest
See I guess we are at odds here, because I don’t believe any truth can be revealed without God,
Rather people admit God of reject God it does not change truth. Rather natural as you put it or Supernatural.
Bakmoon from what I have read you indeed reject eternal life. Anotherwards life after death, Is this not true?
C
Contarini
Guest
But that’s a vague statement.See I guess we are at odds here, because I don’t believe any truth can be revealed without God,
Nothing at all exists without God.
But people who do not explicitly believe in God can know a lot of true things, and we can learn from them.
Edwin
C
Contarini
Guest
That doesn’t make any sense. “Follow” can mean a lot of things.When I ask others they say they do not follow anyone.
But if you follow Buddha are you not putting him as a god?
It particularly doesn’t make sense coming from a Catholic who believes in “dulia.”
Following someone’s teachings doesn’t make that person a god.
Even venerating the person doesn’t make them a god.
A Catholic ought to know this!
Edwin
But buddhism doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ so how can it be a favourite of yours?Welcome! Buddhism is my third favorite religion, behind Catholic and Orthodox Christian.
B
Bakmoon
Guest
When I mean natural happiness, I don’t mean happiness that has a cause that is not ultimately from God. I mean happiness that is not the direct result of divine grace. For example, among those Catholics who have believed in the Limbo of the Infants (an area in Hell which holds unbaptized infants) have often held that its inhabitants can enjoy natural happiness, but are denied the beatific vision. I am merely proposing that Buddhist meditation can lead to natural happiness. I don’t see how this contradicts Catholic teaching.
And I seriously cannot understand your objection that following someone means that you worship them as God. Would that mean that those who follow a particular philosopher or theologian are also worshiping them as God?
R
rinnie
Guest
Yes, you got me there Edwin. But they are following him in order to be enlightened. When we meditate, pray etc we are told to keep our minds on God at all times.
So their minds are supposed to be, if I am understanding this correctly on an inner self of some sort. There you go, who are they going to, to find something, rather it be inner peace, etc. Themself!! So the god is the inner god of themself. They are replacing god with themself, in a sense then are their own god.
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Bakmoon
Guest
I am merely making a distinction between natural revelation and supernatural revelation (I think they are sometimes also referred to as general and special revelation.)See I guess we are at odds here, because I don’t believe any truth can be revealed without God,
Here is a quote I found online about it:
“As the name implies, general revelation is the information and truths which God has revealed via ordinary means. Because human beings have a spiritual soul made in the image of God, we are capable of love, understanding and choice. With this, we are able to determine certain things about God by observing the world around us and contemplating the natural law which all men are endowed with.”
Source:
catholicbasictraining.com/apologetics/coursetexts/1i.htm
I am only saying that a Catholic may find parts of Buddhism to be natural truths (i.e. part of general revelation, or natural revelation.)
Do you accept such a distinction?
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