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Difficulties with difference in Catholic & Orthodox theology (possible convert)
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pneuma07
Guest
Dear Shamati,
you may want to assess those parts of post 46 to 52 dealing specifically with the statement above, which, by analogy with the expression “Sola Scriptura” , I dared to baptize “Solis Septem Conciliis”.( By seven Councils alone ).
God bless you.
P7
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Shamati
Guest
From my catholic prayerbook issued 2012:
1: “Often reflect on the meaning of your life. You te created by God to learn to know, love and serve him an thereby get to Heaven”
2: “to serve God and reach your goal you must believe all that God teaches us through his church, keep His and the churches commandments and use its means of grace. In other words to be a Catholic Christian”
These points seems to condemn all non catholics to eternal hellfire. I have one family Member that I believe is the most righteous man i ever met. He Loves God and his fellow man. He obeys the 10 commandments of God. But he stays far away from any religion because he considers much of its yielded fruit rotten. How can men know who God considers righteous?
How does the church explain the spelling of indulgences which was the last drop before the reformation? Considering its protection from teaching error?
1: “Often reflect on the meaning of your life. You te created by God to learn to know, love and serve him an thereby get to Heaven”
2: “to serve God and reach your goal you must believe all that God teaches us through his church, keep His and the churches commandments and use its means of grace. In other words to be a Catholic Christian”
These points seems to condemn all non catholics to eternal hellfire. I have one family Member that I believe is the most righteous man i ever met. He Loves God and his fellow man. He obeys the 10 commandments of God. But he stays far away from any religion because he considers much of its yielded fruit rotten. How can men know who God considers righteous?
How does the church explain the spelling of indulgences which was the last drop before the reformation? Considering its protection from teaching error?
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Shamati
Guest
Well the dilemma is that by considering the Catholic Church as the only true church one must consider the faith held by the Holy Men of the seventh ecumenical council to be wrong. Otherwise they would have established all of todays existing roman dogmas at these councils.
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Shamati
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I think you have misubderstood apophatic theology. It never considers positive statements “wrong” or “anathemizes” them. Theology in catholicism is a completely intellectual discipline. In orthodoxy there is no “theologian” that had not himself seen the uncreated light of God. Negative theology seeks to rid the human intellect of our own conception of what god is. Not by stating that everything is wrong, but by pointing out that we can not know anything about God because we simply lack the understanding. This all goes back to Moses on the mountain where God said to him “No one can see me and live”. Meaning that we can not keep our human ideas about reality and acquire an understandingn of the ultimate reality that is God. We have tor empty ourselves of all ideas and presuppositions first. This is what Moses is said to have done when he could see “the back of God”. It never anathemizes catholic dogmas and beliefs (except the papal infallability) but only recognizes that the dogmas serve bo useful purpose in helping man achieve theosis, but the opposite.
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pneuma07
Guest
Dear Shamati,
I cannot identify the text you mention.
You see there however a description of ordinary means to serve God, which the Church proposes.
The best option is adhering to God’s words and receiving the means of Grace which are offered.
That does not entail any Feeney-like understanding of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus.
I am glad to quote the relevant passage of the CCC again here:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.-Catechism of the Catholic Church,N.847
The position of those who would say that people like your family member cannot attain salvation has been explicitly condemned by the Church.
Be assured that the belief in the possibility of attaining eternal life for those outside the visible folk of the Catholic Church is not a Vatican II novelty.
For an Orthodox view:
holy-trinity-church.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=65&Itemid=75
But also
antiochian.org/content/what-about-non-orthodox-exclusive-claims-church
IMHO we can see a similar attitude in Catholic teaching and the above Orthodox positions combined:
- The obeying path of the believer within the Church as ordinary proposed option.
- No a priori exclusion for those visibly outside.
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pneuma07
Guest
As for indulgences, start, as always, with the CCC:
INDULGENCES
1471 The doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the sacrament of Penance.
What is an indulgence?
"An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints."81
"An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin."82 The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead.83
The punishments of sin
1472 To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the “temporal punishment” of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.84
1473 The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the “old man” and to put on the "new man."85
In the Communion of Saints
1474 The Christian who seeks to purify himself of his sin and to become holy with the help of God’s grace is not alone. "The life of each of God’s children is joined in Christ and through Christ in a wonderful way to the life of all the other Christian brethren in the supernatural unity of the Mystical Body of Christ, as in a single mystical person."86
1475 In the communion of saints, "a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth. between them there is, too, an abundant exchange of all good things."87 In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin.
1476 We also call these spiritual goods of the communion of saints the Church’s treasury, which is "not the sum total of the material goods which have accumulated during the course of the centuries. On the contrary the ‘treasury of the Church’ is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ’s merits have before God. They were offered so that the whole of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father. In Christ, the Redeemer himself, the satisfactions and merits of his Redemption exist and find their efficacy."88
1477 "This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission in the unity of the Mystical Body."89
Obtaining indulgence from God through the Church
1478 An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins. Thus the Church does not want simply to come to the aid of these Christians, but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity.90
1479 Since the faithful departed now being purified are also members of the same communion of saints, one way we can help them is to obtain indulgences for them, so that the temporal punishments due for their sins may be remitted.
The first thing one has to get about indulgences, is that they have nothing to do with absolution.
TBC
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pneuma07
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In order to have such a dilemma, we should have the Seventh Council pronouncing the dogma that after it there will never be any further doctrinal settlement, and that the Seven Councils are a closed Canon.
Does the Second Council of Nicea dogmatize that ?
Otherwise, where do we get this doctrine ?
The participation of the Eastern Church to the Ferrara-Florence Council in 1438-1439, tells us that this doctrine ( which could be defined as “Solis Septem Conciliis” ) is a novelty, unknown in the XV century.
OTOH, of course you do not have to believe Solis Septem Conciliis to be an Eastern Orthodox today. As you know, eg, some in our time regard the Constatinople Council of 1341-1351 as Ecumenical.
As a final and basic observation, you can easily recognize that having an Ecumenical Council number (N + 1) does in no way mean that
“one must consider the faith held by the Holy Men *of the previous * ecumenical councils to be wrong”.
That proposition would be self-refuting for the Seven Council themselves seen as a unitary Corpus, in the first place.
I hope this can help
P7
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Shamati
Guest
The florence council can not be counted as legitimate because thee unity sought at that time was not out of faith but for military purposes and the western church dragged out the council on purpose to get the eastern churhc to accept all of its dogmas as correct, which it did but which the people rejected.In order to have such a dilemma, we should have the Seventh Council pronouncing the dogma that after it there will never be any further doctrinal settlement, and that the Seven Councils are a closed Canon.
Does the Second Council of Nicea dogmatize that ?
Otherwise, where do we get this doctrine ?
The participation of the Eastern Church to the Ferrara-Florence Council in 1438-1439, tells us that this doctrine ( which could be defined as “Solis Septem Conciliis” ) is a novelty, unknown in the XV century.
OTOH, of course you do not have to believe Solis Septem Conciliis to be an Eastern Orthodox today. As you know, eg, some in our time regard the Constatinople Council of 1341-1351 as Ecumenical.
As a final and basic observation, you can easily recognize that having an Ecumenical Council number (N + 1) does in no way mean that
“one must consider the faith held by the Holy Men *of the previous * ecumenical councils to be wrong”.
That proposition would be self-refuting for the Seven Council themselves seen as a unitary Corpus, in the first place.
I hope this can help
P7
The problem is that the western church says all their dogmas and teachings are infalliable and unrefutable because they are to be held as divine revelation from God.
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LilyM
Guest
The problem with this sort of thinking is that it can equally be applied to those Holy Men of the first six (or five, four, three or two) councils who did not hold or would not have held to all that was proposed by the seventh. Their faith is clearly equally wrong.
Why is the line drawn in the sand after the seventh council? Each council of the first seven produced its ructions and splinter groups who thought, as you do, that the previous councils and they alone adequately and properly summed up the faith, and that there was no need to accept the declarations of the particular Council with which they took issue.
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Cavaradossi
Guest
If that were true, then it would completely call the legitimacy of Second Nicaea into question, as the Second Council of Nicaea claims that it represents the correct understanding of the apostolic faith, against the iconoclasts who likewise rested their legitimacy upon the same claim.
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pneuma07
Guest
Dear Shamati,
- you are not observing that Florence is not an Ecumenical Council just because it took place after Second Nicea. One thing is protesting against the conclusions, another one is maintaining that there could not be, a priori, a new Ecumenical Council.
Which is precisely what we are dealing with now.
You simply do not see IMHO the Solis Septem Conciliis doctrine at work then.
Which is one of the reasons not to believe it.
You may however want to share the earliest quotations affirming the Solis Septem Conciliis doctrine.
- Any Church maintains that dogmas, as such, are definitive, and expressions of the revealed deposit of the faith. Or do you maintain that the Seven Councils can be rejected ? I understand you don’t.
(OTOH of course not all teachings are definitive.)
Just because the Catholic Church maintains that dogmas are definitive, she rejects nothing of the definitions of the Seven Councils. She has not the power to change them.
I hope this can help
P7
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Cat_Herder
Guest
But there’s a lot more to the Immaculate Conception than just Mary’s freedom from sin. It is also a necessary condition for Jesus to be the Christ as set down in Genesis 3:15.
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Shamati
Guest
Why is it “necessary”? I judt think it seems lika an overcomplication of things and IF original Sin had not been viewed as essentially corrupting Human flesh by its Nature, it would be unecessary as it is in the east.
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Shamati
Guest
The Western doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is seen by the Orthodox as separating the Mother of God from the rest of the human race. If true, this would have made it impossible for Christ to become truly man, because Mary would therefore not be subject to the same conditions of humanity as those for whom Christ had become incarnate in order to save. Mary is human, and through her, God became fully human as well.
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Anthony86
Guest
This seems wrong. Your position implies that original sin is an essential part of the human condition that Christ would have to assume in order for God to become fully human. Are you saying the human nature of Christ was tainted with original sin? If not, than neither would it be soteriologically problematic for Mary to be free from original sin - for original sin wouldn’t need to be transmitted to Christ.
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Shamati
Guest
Hi,
The above describtion is the Orthodox position as defined by the Antiochian Archdiocece of US
They also say:
We are tempted by sin and we become guilty of it through committing our own personal sins. We therefore suffer and we die. This is the orthodox understanding of original sin. It is not something that we are guilty of personally, but an action whose consequences have affected our lives as humans. As humans we sin, and our own guilt is because of our own personal sin.
In the light of this, the Western Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is redundant.
In Orthodox eyes, there is simply no original guilt for Mary to be made innocent of. Which is also why we have no Limbo for infants who die unbaptised, which was also at one time the usual teaching of the Western Catholic Church.
Many of these theologians held to a view that by special grace the Mother of God did not commit any personal sins. Others asserted that Mary was sanctified through her response to Archangel Gabriel at the annunciation, “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
No I am saying that Humans are not “guaranteed” to sin. Original Sin as defined by the western church all the way up until now is that Original Sin is inherited from previous generation by conception & that the “flesh” is sinful.
Original Sin as understood in the west has caused great agony and sadness for many people & has eventually led to this great apostasy we see today from all christianity of the west. Because the individual soul feels liberated after he understands that he has no guilt or is not stained by original sin, but only separated from communion with God which is self evident to most people
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GaryTaylor
Guest
Guilt has zip to do with the conversation and is stated in the CCC.
Ridiculous. Man fell and death took mankind hostage. God is not subject to death or His withdrawal of Grace from man, therefore He either could have preserved Mary and chose not to, Or he wasn’t able to.
The Creed in not resolved, the East doesn’t have any more knowledge on the Trinity than the West has. In fact there’s a thread right now in Non Catholic and you can clearly see what the East and West do not know. The defined Trinity is a “yet”. Its a mystery still and the Easts position is no better than the West. In fact it presents more problems than the West.
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Shiranui117
Guest
So does this mean that the Catholics have finally repudiated the “guilt of original sin” business?
But the funny part is, Jesus experienced both at the crucifixion.
TBH, I don’t understand why Mary would have NEEDED to be preserved from conception.
And how do you reckon that?
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