S
Sy_Noe
Guest
This ^
- Status
P
pnewton
Guest
I found the comparison between moral theology, or even psychology, and objective physical science rather dubious. Besides, sodomy is not exactly a new discovery in human sexuality. Rather what is at work in the Episcopal Church is redefining moral truth to fit human behavior. There will always be a split between the search for divine revelation and the search for moral excuses. We all do this on a personal level. When a Church allows for personal perception to guide doctrine, we have as many possible denominations as we have personal perceptions.
This will not be the last Episcopal split.
R
Reuben_J
Guest
Oh no, I hope King Hank was not resposible for same sex marriage and female bishops too.
T
Thorolfr
Guest
I don’t understand this comment. Slavery is also not a new discovery, but we have certainly redefined as a society and in our interpretations of religious texts whether we think that it is moral to own or whip slaves. So have we just redefined moral truth in this case when in fact there is nothing wrong with owning slaves or whipping them when they are disobedient?
P
pnewton
Guest
No. That Catholic Church never said there is nothing wrong with owning slaves or whipping them when they are disobedient. Interesting you bring up slavery. As a society, we have become more civilized in this area, as oppose to less civilized, being a slave to animal passions and desires. You try to use an example moving in the opposite moral direction. This only makes sense if you follow the posts back to the one about astronomy.
When people try to justify their sin, it gets weird.
J
JRRTFAN
Guest
From Fr. Dwight Longenecker (former Anglican priest):
patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2016/01/seven-ways-the-episcopalians-will-react-to-suspension.html
patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2016/01/seven-ways-the-episcopalians-will-react-to-suspension.html
G
GKC
Guest
Fr. L is right. Not necessarily on point 7.
P
Peter_J
Guest
Likewise, I think we have come to the point of seeing that it is wrong to imprison or execute someone for homosexual acts (well, in most of the Christian world anyhow) just as it is wrong to imprison or execute someone for adultery.
But the thing is, that doesn’t mean that homosexual acts are morally licit, just as it doesn’t mean that adultery is morally licit.
P
Peter_J
Guest
Once Anglican Always Anglican?
C
commenter
Guest
Slavery has always been wrong. It was there before Christianity. The thrust of Christianity has been, sometimes inconsistently, very gradually, to reduce it, make it less cruel, then eliminate it. (I am tempted to denounce my Christian predecessors for dragging their feet on this, except they appear to have been attentive to things that I tend to drag my feet on). The important thing is that there was, and is, an absolute standard that slavery was evil. The absolute standard that slavery was evil was just as authoritative when slavery was popular, as it is now, when slavery is (for the moment) unpopular.
I’m a little troubled by the theme “we have certainly redefined as a society…”, with the expectation that morality is based on the current redefinition by society, not an absolute standard. Germany was doing things to Jews in the 1940s that Germans would never have done a few decades earlier (even though anti-Semitism was present). To put it another way, in the 1930s and 40s Germany gradually put aside reliance on absolute standards for morality, and now relied on societal redefinitions; that is, the up-to-date societal insight and understanding in WW2 was that Jews were inhuman, just like the enlightened, compassionate societal understanding of unborn children, today).
Suppose in 100 years society redefines slavery as acceptable. (This seems unlikely, but not as unlikely as what happened in Germany - or USA). It will still be evil. But by then, only those who still recognize absolute standards of dogma and morality will be able to discern it to be evil. The majority will assume it to be ok, based on society’s current redefinition.
T
Thorolfr
Guest
Why do you think that as a society we have become more civilized in recognizing that slavery is wrong but think that we have become less civilized in recognizing that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality? Maybe we have become more civilized in both cases. Your attempt to distinguish between the two as being different is totally arbitrary.
S
Sy_Noe
Guest
P
pnewton
Guest
I am totally arbitrary??? Are you serious? This thought started with (remember I said you needed to go to the start) a comparison between changing sexual morals and changing astronomical knowledge. At least I stuck with two moral issues.
No, my comparison was not arbitrary. It was Catholic. Anglicans, Episcopalian, Lutherans, etc. do not get that sticking with authoritative, apostolic, divine guidance is not arbitrary, but quite the opposite. Both in American and across the internet, this Protestant idea that one opinion, interpretation, understanding is as good as another is incompatible here. I do not judge those tempted by this sin, but I darn sure will say it is a sin and giving into any sin, then institutionalizing this sin as normal, is less civilized.
T
Thorolfr
Guest
You say that slavery has always been considered wrong by the Church and that this is authoritative. What do you mean by something being authoritative? Isn’t the statement by St. Augustine authoritative that God allows you to whip “your slave living badly” and indeed is “angry” if you don’t? He was, after all, a “Doctor of the Church.” Can you show me statements from many Catholic contemporaries of his of equal stature or from official Church teaching from his time that proves that the Church did not agree with his statement?
St. Augustine wrote, “if you see your slave living badly, what other punishment will you curb him with, if not the lash? Use it: do. God allows it. In fact he is angered if you don’t. But do it in a loving rather than a vindictive spirit.”
Servumque ipsum tuum, si male viventem videris, non poena aliqua, non verberibus refrenabis? fiat hoc, fiat : admittit deus, imo reprehendit, si no fiat ; sed animo dilectionis fac : non animo ultionis.
From Corpus christianoruam, series Latina (Turnhout, 1953-), 40: 1464-6
P
Peter_J
Guest
Did St. Augustine bind other Christians to agree with said statement?
Now I observe that, whereas the Vatican Council has determined that the Pope is infallible only when he speaks ex cathedra, and that, in order to speak ex cathedra, he must at least speak “as exercising the office of Pastor and Doctor of all Christians, defining, by virtue of his Apostolical authority, a doctrine whether of faith or of morals for the acceptance of the universal Church” {316} (though Mr. Gladstone strangely says, p. 34, “There is no established or accepted definition of the phrase ex cathedra”), from this Pontifical and dogmatic explanation of the phrase it follows, that, whatever Honorius said in answer to Sergius, and whatever he held, his words were not ex cathedra, and therefore did not proceed from his infallibility.
I say so first, because he could not fulfil the above conditions of an ex cathedra utterance, if he did not actually mean to fulfil them. The question is unlike the question about the Sacraments; external and positive acts, whether material actions or formal words, speak for themselves. Teaching on the other hand has no sacramental visible signs; it is an opus operantis, and mainly a question of intention. Who would say that the architriclinus at the wedding-feast who said, “Thou hast kept the good wine until now,” was teaching the Christian world, though the words have a great ethical and evangelical sense? What is the worth of a signature, if a man does not consider he is signing? The Pope cannot address his people East and West, North and South, without meaning it, as if his very voice, the sounds from his lips, could literally be heard from pole to pole; nor can he exert his “Apostolical authority” without knowing he is doing so; nor can he draw up a form of words and use care and make an effort in doing so accurately, without intention to do so; and, therefore, no words of Honorius proceeded from his prerogative of infallible teaching, which were not accompanied with the intention of exercising that prerogative; and who will dream of saying, be he Anglican, Protestant, unbeliever, or on {317} the other hand Catholic, that Honorius on the occasion in question did actually intend to exert that infallible teaching voice which is heard so distinctly in the Quanta cura and the Pastor Æternus?
- from Newman’s letter to the Duke of Norfolk
P
Picky_Picky
Guest
It is not always easy for non-Catholics to understand when a Catholic truth has been authoritatively stated, and when not (Gladstone was not untypical).
Commenter says slavery has always been authoritatively evil - presumably that means the Church has from the earliest times declared it so. Can we get a grip on the authoritative statement that declared this?
Commenter says slavery has always been authoritatively evil - presumably that means the Church has from the earliest times declared it so. Can we get a grip on the authoritative statement that declared this?
C
commenter
Guest
Slavery, like homosexual activity, or abortion, was wrong long before the Church existed; not wrong because the Church says so, but wrong because it goes against an absolute standard. The Episcopal Church long did recognize that some truths of dogma and morality are absolutely, and permanently applicable. It recognized that sometimes contemporary secular mores do happen to coincide with what is true. (In 2016, current “understanding” and societal “insight”, for the moment, agree with the absolute standard that slavery is wrong. But slavery was wrong (against the absolute standard) when it was popular, and will be wrong in the future when it is popular again.
The Episcopal Church now has moved to a new position, where it rejects the authority of the absolute standard of true and right; it accepts that standard only when it agrees with what is, at the moment, popular in the culture. The current culture is their new guide to interpreting Scripture, Tradition, and morality. How the AC responds to the TEC will reflect how much the AC itself is shaped by the Absolute standard of truth, and how much by secular culture of the moment.
P
Picky_Picky
Guest
And the Leviticus problem?
P
Peter_J
Guest
See commenter.
P
Picky_Picky
Guest
I would do — if commenter had addressed that point.See commenter.
- Status