Does this make me a "cafeteria Catholic"?

[PRmerger]

The first recorded use of the word Trinity was 140 years after Jesus died, and surely it took some time for it to cover the globe. Are you suggesting that ALL of the early Christians had a “deficient” understanding of Jesus?

I think you are operating under the misapprehension that the dogma of the Trinity was not proclaimed from the very beginning.

The Catholic faith was whole and entire before a single word of the NT was ever put to writ.

There are many uninformed folks who like to argue that the Church, for example, “made up” the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854.

However, what was solemnly pronounced, declared and defined a certain point of time is not an indication that it only came to be believed at that point.

Again, the Catholic faith was delivered once for all to the saints.

 

[PRmerger]

There’s been a bit of a debate regarding the death penalty and what the Catechism says about it. According to one poster, the Catechism has led some Catholics to be anti-death penalty, whereas, according to him/her, the death penalty is not only allowed, but its use is sometimes the duty of the state.

The CCC has maintained exactly what the poster has proferred.

And one need only look to the Catechism to see what the teaching is, and those who are consonant with the teaching are, by definition, orthodox in their view And to the degree that Catholics disagree with the CCC on this is the degree to which they are embracing heterodoxy.

 

[socialcath101]

As an atheist in RCIA, I’m glad to see this question asked. It’s a tough one to get an answer to, as it’s so much more nuanced than a distinction between “questioning” and “doubting.” We’re dealing with pretty complex material, here, after all, and a God who, according to the Catechism, is quite mysterious.

Good luck on your journey Jocko

 

[Julia_Mae]

Not sure what you mean by the quote about treating others well and everything else being commentary. Who said that?

It’s a rather famous story about a Rabbi from before the Incarnation who was hauled up before a pagan king who said if he could explain his religion standing on one foot, he would convert. If he put his foot down before he was done, the king would kill him. The Rabbi said,

“Treat others as you wish to be treated. All the rest is commentary.”

then he put his foot down and the king converted. So we know how extensive are the arguments and explications of Hebraic Law, yet, it all came down to understanding the most basic Truth. All the rest is how that truth applies.

 

[PRmerger]

It’s a rather famous story about a Rabbi from before the Incarnation who was hauled up before a pagan king who said if he could explain his religion standing on one foot, he would convert. If he put his foot down before he was done, the king would kill him. The Rabbi said,

“Treat others as you wish to be treated. All the rest is commentary.”

then he put his foot down and the king converted. So we know how extensive are the arguments and explications of Hebraic Law, yet, it all came down to understanding the most basic Truth. All the rest is how that truth applies.

Again, its curious that the above comment was made (or reiterated) by a Christian. It comes from, as you say, a rabbi. Who had not the revelation of the Incarnation.

“All the rest is commentary” is dismissive of, really, the only important thing that ever happened.

Jesus did not come to teach us about the Golden Rule. Every morally sane person already knew that.

He came to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Jesus did not come to teach us about the Golden Rule. .

I think it’s exactly what He, a Jew they called “rabbi,” came to teach us. But that’s probably a topic for another thread, so to protect this one, I’ll say shalom to you for now.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Incidentally, the “rest is commentary” paradigm is rather curious, coming from a Christian. It would appear to be rather dismissive of the atoning death of Christ. That’s merely commentary? Really?

That’s a very good point.

It depends on what part of the Body you are.

If you’re the brain, you need to understand these things.

If you’re the heart, then the golden rule is sufficient to ensure proper operation. But it doesn’t have to be taught; it is made that way. The heart doesn’t even have to know of the existence of God to desire and affect acts of mercy, much less the mechanics of salvation.

If you’re the foot, you’ll obey the mind and report back with touch sensor information and pain signals and all you need to know is how to put one foot in front of the other. Still no need to have knowledge of God.

If you’re the lymph system, you purify the whole Body. But you don’t have to know why it works or where it came from, you just sit there and be yourself, and your chemical makeup will do all the work. So the lymph system doesn’t have to know anything; it just has to be.

If you’re the tibia, then you don’t need to know any more than a wooden plank does.

Problem is, we are schooled to think it’s all about the brain, and that the brain cannot function until all of the other Body parts rewire themselves so they only work right to the degree that the brain understands things it can never fully understand. For example, the brain, under the influence of ego, loves to second guess anything the heart points to and tries unsuccessfully to micromanage it.

Maybe I want to be the ego. That way everybody else’s job will be to fix me or destroy me.

Alan

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I think it’s exactly what He, a Jew they called “rabbi,” came to teach us. But that’s probably a topic for another thread, so to protect this one, I’ll say shalom to you for now.

Actually I think it is very much on topic.

For me, spiritual development can be brought about entirely by observing the only two REAL “absolutes,” and that would be, of course, the two Great Commands.

Rom 13:8-9
8 Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, (namely) “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

So really, the Beatles’ theology of “love is all you need” matches what St. Paul tells us. If we do that, we don’t have to even know any of the other rules because true love implies conformance with all the other commandments. So if you think we need to know all of this in order to be a “good” Christian, then please tell me how you can hold that position in the Light of Rom 13?

But the problem is everybody has a different idea of what “love” would do in any given situation, because they all have different opinions. So we argue and fret and fume.

This isn’t a problem for somebody who doesn’t think things through. A mother knows how to feed and protect her child with no religious knowledge whatsoever. She doesn’t even need a human brain, unless she’s a human.

But why is it that animals seem happier than us? Because the way we are brought up, our brain does things that are worse than useless; they are destructive, and they emanate from the false self which is kind of like the ego I think. So they go on living for today while we worry about what clothes and food we will have tomorrow. So we can build medicine to extend our lives, but the same brain that gave us that knowledge squelched our heart’s longings … so we live longer, but with greater anxiety as society gets “smarter and smarter.”

Matt 6:
25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat (or drink), or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
26 Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?
27 Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?
28 Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin.
29 But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.
30 If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?
31 So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’
32 All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
33 But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.
34 Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.

Little children are another example. They aren’t smart enough yet to second-guess what their hearts tell them. They have to learn from grown ups how to do that, and the tools we use for their early formation accomplish it. By the time a child is 7, he no longer thinks with his own mind or feels with his own heart (to borrow from an Einstein quote) and needs to be fixed.

So what to do if we’re over 7 and our mind has already taken over heart functions?

The answer is to observe the “Golden Rule,” which is painfully obvious to the heart, but is kryptonite to the carnal mind. As long as we keep the golden rule intellectual, our actions will be influenced by our human reasoning, because the brain, being influenced by many other factors than the heart (fear, anger, confidence level, security/comfort, power/control, affection/esteem for example). These factors are introduced by our false selves which society has constructed and our minds gleefully protect.

Meanwhile the heart looks up and says “pullleeeeze just trust me!!! I don’t tell you how to design a bridge; don’t go spank the child when I tell you she just needs a hug! OMG, you did it anyway! Maybe a hug NOW?”

Oh well, one more child needs an antidote for its upbringing.

Alan

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I think you are operating under the misapprehension that the dogma of the Trinity was not proclaimed from the very beginning.

OK, well then do you have a better number? I got mine from Wikipedia.

The Catholic faith was whole and entire before a single word of the NT was ever put to writ.

What do you mean by “whole and entire?” Do you mean that’s when it quit accepting new revelation?

I was thinking about this “full truth” thing. If you take every single document the Catholic Church has promulgated, they could be stored in computer memory we can go buy at Wal-Mart. If you take all the computer memory in the world, and take every possible combination of letters, numbers, and punctuation possible, that would not be sufficient to represent truth. God is not simple enough to be described and specified completely by computer memory, or we could design God. And God is Truth, right? How can any institution produce and maintain an infinite amount of information? All these words and still we can’t get a handle on God without love, which cannot be deterministically described by any number of human words, even an infinite number. Problem is, words were invented by humans to exchange ideas with each other, so human languages can use any number of words and not even come close to describing God, whose native language is silence.

Actually, if we could get a breakthrough, maybe we could download God and store Him on computer. That way we could edit Him and amputate some of His more troubling parts, such as turning the other cheek, and regarding anger and insult against a brother as a sin tantamount to murder.

There are many uninformed folks who like to argue that the Church, for example, “made up” the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854.

However, what was solemnly pronounced, declared and defined a certain point of time is not an indication that it only came to be believed at that point.

That doesn’t particularly bother me. Time is really a construct anyway, that He spoke for the benefit of His mortal creatures. Past, present, or future isn’t really important. He doesn’t even need to travel in time; He transcends it and defines it. For example, when Jesus died and rose, He saved Mary before He was born. So sequencing might be important to scholars, but it isn’t particularly important to me.

Alan

 

[JRKH]

Do you know how many threads have been sustained by those who interpret the CCC differently from one another? It’s not exhaustive, it’s a precis. And that isn’t the definition of “orthodoxy.” Although it is one definition. Also, “one’s” definition.

People who believe they are interpreting correctly think they are orthodox and those who interpret differently are heterodox. Everyone chooses what to believe regardless of the source.

The thing to remember is that there CAN be latitude within the orthodox view. Catholics have long debated specifics on various matters. Such debate and discussion often leads to some further development of doctrine and as such can be a good thing.

The Catechism, as well as other documents, do not always use clearly definitive terms and statements. Instead they try to convey teaching in a way that “informs” rather than commands. The teaching is intended to make one think, consider, and to become better informed of the underlying principles of a given teaching.

Everyone’s journey is slightly different because they are individuals and have varying characters and life experiences…Because of these, they might read things - and/or understand and/or express things differently. Indeed this can and does lead to discussion and debate. So long as such discussion remains charitable and founded upon the texts and the underlying principles of the texts (which always goes to Love) then such debate can be a good thing.

This is quite different than the person who flatly rejects some defined and declared teaching of the Church while wishing to maintain that they are “Catholic”…
Questions and such are fine. Debate is fine. Even doubts are OK, but outright rejection is not fine.

All of this said…I really don’t care for such imprecise terms as “Cafeteria Catholic”. In a very limited sense, used perhaps as a literary devise within an article, it might have use, but as a “label”, used independently of a clean supporting definition, it quickly becomes useless as people put their own spin on it and it becomes an invective and as such totally useless.

Debate within the Church is fine…But The Church is who we need to listen to. (Mt 18:15-18 and Acts 15)
Peace
James

 

[JRKH]

Jesus did not come to teach us about the Golden Rule. Every morally sane person already knew that.

Not wishing to get too deeply into the argument of how much is “commentary” I feel the need to comment on the above.

Perhaps every “morally sane person” could recite the Golden Rule…But that is something different than every morally sane person knowing it. That is - embracing it and putting it into practice.

Jesus himself said that He did not come to call the righteous, but to call sinners. So it seems that His mission was to those who did not, know and embrace and act on, the Golden Rule.
Further, Jesus summed up all of the Law and Prophets in two commandments. Love of God and Love of neighbor. So we could reduce the core of our faith even down to one word…Agape…Love…Which our dear St John says IS God (1 John 4:8)

That said, PR, I agree that “all the rest is commentary” sounds a bit too dismissive. Perhaps it is better to say that all the rest “builds on” this fundamental Truth as revealed by our Lord and King.

Peace
James

 

[PRmerger]

I think it’s exactly what He, a Jew they called “rabbi,” came to teach us. But that’s probably a topic for another thread, so to protect this one, I’ll say shalom to you for now.

:sad_bye:

 

[PRmerger]

That’s a very good point.

It depends on what part of the Body you are.

If you’re the brain, you need to understand these things.

If you’re the heart, then the golden rule is sufficient to ensure proper operation. But it doesn’t have to be taught; it is made that way. The heart doesn’t even have to know of the existence of God to desire and affect acts of mercy, much less the mechanics of salvation.

If you’re the foot, you’ll obey the mind and report back with touch sensor information and pain signals and all you need to know is how to put one foot in front of the other. Still no need to have knowledge of God.

If you’re the lymph system, you purify the whole Body. But you don’t have to know why it works or where it came from, you just sit there and be yourself, and your chemical makeup will do all the work. So the lymph system doesn’t have to know anything; it just has to be.

If you’re the tibia, then you don’t need to know any more than a wooden plank does.

Problem is, we are schooled to think it’s all about the brain, and that the brain cannot function until all of the other Body parts rewire themselves so they only work right to the degree that the brain understands things it can never fully understand. For example, the brain, under the influence of ego, loves to second guess anything the heart points to and tries unsuccessfully to micromanage it.

Maybe I want to be the ego. That way everybody else’s job will be to fix me or destroy me.

Alan

There isn’t a post on this thread that I disagree with more than this one.

We are called to love God with our entire heart, soul, strength and MIND, Alan.

We do not only attempt to apprehend God if we are the “brain”, and only to love if we are the “heart.”

'nuff said.

 

[PRmerger]

OK, well then do you have a better number? I got mine from Wikipedia.

How about from Genesis? So from “the beginning”.

What do you mean by “whole and entire?” Do you mean that’s when it quit accepting new revelation?

The entire divine deposit of faith was delivered, once for all, to the Church. It comes from Jesus, through the teachings of the Apostles. It was whole and entire from the very beginnings of the paradosis.

Now, this is different from saying that doctrine doesn’t develop. It certainly does.

 

[PRmerger]

I was thinking about this “full truth” thing.

Just to tweak a bit: Catholicism has the fullness of revealed truth.

She does not pretend to proclaim the Infinite Truth.

 

[PRmerger]

Hey! When did I become a Forum Master?!! I don’t think I was one last night… :yeah_me:

 

[JRKH]

Hey! When did I become a Forum Master?!! I don’t think I was one last night… :yeah_me:

I think it occurs when you hit 12,000 posts.

Peace
James

 

[PRmerger]

All of this said…I really don’t care for such imprecise terms as “Cafeteria Catholic”.

Me, too.

However, I return to my previous concept regarding Catholics who, upon examining the Church’s teachings, do not conform to them, but rather attempt to find a church (Catholic or otherwise) that conforms to their views.

That, IMHO, is the essence of creating a god in one’s own image.

If you can’t say that you have changed your views based on something that the Church has proclaimed, then I daresay that you are indeed trying to create a god who is modeled after the almighty self.

For what god is it that has apparently all the same viewpoints as the creature?

Calls to mind a different dialogue I had with pagans on a (now closed) thread here: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=8569252#post8569252
in which I noted that it was rather curious that the pagan deities always seemed to have the same moral imperatives as the pagans themselves. Thus, if the pagan was a lesbian, the gods seemed to never proclaim lesbian liasons illicit. A rather curious paradigm indeed!

 

[JRKH]

Me, too.

However, I return to my previous concept regarding Catholics who, upon examining the Church’s teachings, do not conform to them, but rather attempt to find a church (Catholic or otherwise) that conforms to their views.

That, IMHO, is the essence of creating a god in one’s own image.

If you can’t say that you have changed your views based on something that the Church has proclaimed, then I daresay that you are indeed trying to create a god who is modeled after the almighty self.

In a normative sense I agree with this. However I don’t believe it is necessarily an absolute.
If a child is raised in a thoroughly devout and Catholic family, and if the child is born with a strong spirit of love in their heart, they may never have to, “change (their) views based on something that the Church has proclaimed”, for a) they are already predisposed to belief and b) the training and example of family is one in full conformity to the Church.

I would offer St Therese of Lisieux as an example of such a one.

That said, such persons are indeed rare and so I agree with your statement in a normative sense.

Peace
James

 

[PRmerger]

I would offer St Therese of Lisieux as an example of such a one.

Indeed.