How Could EO and the CC reunite?

[Marybeloved]

They are tolerated in the Catholic Church as well…

We just don’t have the same penchant for loopholes.

Right. You’d rather just outrightly contradict Jesus and the Fathers, than pretend then? How brave!

 

[Marybeloved]

They are tolerated in the Catholic Church as well…

IN the Catholic Church? Sure! By the Catholic Church? :nope:

.

We just don’t have the same penchant for loopholes.

You’d rather just openly do away with any pretence to obedience of the teaching of Christ and the Fathers then? How brave! I’ll take our “penchant for loopholes” any day, though.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I do know plenty of divorcees regularly receiving the Holy Eucharist in the Catholic Church.

I think he was talking about the legal wrangling that enables people who shouldn’t get an annulment to get an annulment.

 

[ByzCathCantor]

I think he was talking about the legal wrangling that enables people who shouldn’t get an annulment to get an annulment.

Yes - my comment was not really directed to Nine_Two, but in support of his response.

That said, I would not have gone so far as to have suggested a “penchant for loopholes”, but acknowledge that as an unfortunate and understandable perception, which gets to your point as well.

 

[Marybeloved]

Yes - my comment was not really directed to Nine_Two, but in support of his response.

That said, I would not have gone so far as to have suggested a “penchant for loopholes”, but acknowledge that as an unfortunate and understandable perception, which gets to your point as well.

I meant “ecclessiastical divorces” or the idea of an actual dissolution of a sacramental marriage other than by death.

 

[Julia_Mae]

I have a few questions, if you don’t mind. First, about the thread title:

Why would anyone want them to reunite? I am asking what’s in it for everyone? I assume we will stop killing each other, I hope, but why should the churches unite? They actually are united in the only place that matters, so what’s the big deal with the earthly union?

And (I am asking for Cliffs, not treatises) about these:

jrtrent posted:
items that Roman Catholics must repudiate and reject (not merely brush aside or theologize around):

development of doctrine what about it?

original sin understood as guilt transmitted via “propagation” What’s the Orthodox understanding?

the immaculate conception of Mary The Orthodox do not believe she was conceived without sin?

absolute divine simplicity Brief definition?

merit and satisfaction soteriologySame as above

purgatory and indulgences Do the Orthodox reject the exchange of spiritual goods?

created grace Not sure what this means, either.

accept:
the essence/energies distinction I read this, it seems to me we really believe the same thing using different words. Would someone correct me, please?

 

[Marybeloved]

at Julia mae

absolute divine simplicity Brief definition?

-God is not made of parts, he’s not the whole of many constituent parts (like cells making up a body, atoms making up a molecule etc). It means he is indivisibly one. It’s a Latin, thomistic formulation to express this truth.

created grace Not sure what this means, either.

-It means the temporal acts (acts with a beginning) by which God grants grace, as opposed to uncreated grace which means the grace itself granted which is God himself (eternal, without a beginning). It’s a Latin expression.

accept:
the essence/energies distinction I read this, it seems to me we really believe the same thing using different words. Would someone correct me, please?

-Depends on who you are talking to. I have not read anything official by the Orthodox Church on it, so I don’t know how representative some of these opinions represented at CAF are. It can be said in a manner that is unorthodox and ends up violating the non-composite nature of God, and it can be said in a manner that does not do this.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Julia mae

absolute divine simplicity Brief definition?

-God is not made of parts, he’s not the whole of many constituent parts (like cells making up a body, atoms making up a molecule etc). It means he is indivisibly one.

That’s what we believe. Is that wrong in Orthodox theology?

created grace Not sure what this means, either.

-It means the temporal acts (acts with a beginning) by which God grants grace, as opposed to uncreated grace which means the grace itself granted which is God himself (eternal, without a beginning)

Hmmm. Maybe we need a definition of “grace” then. Or, do you mean Sacraments?

 

[Marybeloved]

That’s what we believe. Is that wrong in Orthodox theology??

Again, depends on who you’re talking to. Some’s explanations of the essence-energies distinction seem to directly contradict this though they will not openly say that God is made of parts. Others have other ways of saying it that does not necessitate this contradiction.

Hmmm. Maybe we need a definition of “grace” then. Or, do you mean Sacraments?

No, I mean sanctifying Grace- The life of God that is born in the soul of the baptized, shared with creatures. Latins say created grace because they consider the act of giving this grace to the soul to be a grace in itself, though it is not eternal. The life of God in the soul is eternal though, which they distinguish by calling uncreated grace. It’s just terminology.

 

[Cavaradossi]

at Julia mae

absolute divine simplicity Brief definition?

-God is not made of parts, he’s not the whole of many constituent parts (like cells making up a body, atoms making up a molecule etc). It means he is indivisibly one. It’s a Latin, thomistic formulation to express this truth.

created grace Not sure what this means, either.

-It means the temporal acts (acts with a beginning) by which God grants grace, as opposed to uncreated grace which means the grace itself granted which is God himself (eternal, without a beginning). It’s a Latin expression.

accept:
the essence/energies distinction I read this, it seems to me we really believe the same thing using different words. Would someone correct me, please?

-Depends on who you are talking to. I have not read anything official by the Orthodox Church on it, so I don’t know how representative some of these opinions represented at CAF are. It can be said in a manner that is unorthodox and ends up violating the non-composite nature of God, and it can be said in a manner that does not do this.

To say that the essence-energies distinction violates divine simplicity comes with a presupposition that the Thomist and Aristotelian understanding of God as pure act is the only way to understand simplicity. The idea that perfect and simple things have both an inner act, the essence, and an outward manifestation, energy, can also be found articulated in the thought of many philosophers, like among some of the Neoplatonists.

 

[Marybeloved]

To say that the essence-energies distinction violates divine simplicity comes with a presupposition that the Thomist and Aristotelian understanding of God as pure act is the only way to understand simplicity. The idea that perfect and simple things have both an inner act, the essence, and an outward manifestation, energy, can also be found articulated in the thought of many philosophers, like among some of the Neoplatonists.

I said certain explanations of the distinction do, they end up saying God has two parts, one less divine nature than the other. How do you get from that that I said that the distinction itself violates the simplicity? It does not matter what philosophical constructs one uses, Aristotelian or platonist. That God is not made of parts is simple enough a truth for me.

 

[dzheremi]

This thread makes me glad I am not in communion with either of you.

But seriously, I agree with Nine_Two that the Chalcedonian schism is the one that all serious Christians should be looking into and working to solve. Let Rome worry about receiving her spiritual children, the Protestants, as they come from within her philosophical and spiritual traditions. I would think that problem with Catholic and Orthodox (either EO or OO) dialogue would be more one of ontology than anything else, but I’ve been down that road enough times to know that most people on this messageboard don’t know what that means/think it’s voodoo/think it’s something I’m making up to justify schism. This is why I feel infinitely more comfortable talking with EO, even though some can get rather nasty about certain saints of my communion (e.g., St. Dioscoros, St. Severus), or persist in calling us “monophysites”, despite the fact that that’s never been appropriate. Away from such polemics (which, yes, exist to varying degrees on the non-Chalcedonian side, too), we’re probably the two closest communions that are not yet in communion. I know it’s anecdotal, but even my very much anti-Chalcedonian (the council, not the people) priest will occasionally reference the Romanian Orthodox or the Russian Orthodox positively in conversation. The Roman Catholic Church comes up far less often, simply because even though we’re surrounded by them (this is New Mexico, after all…very close to “old Mexico”), they’re not quite on our radar as far as recognizing essential similarities. We do not at all speak the same language, if you will, and we do not live the same or have the same guiding principles when it comes to what the faith is and how it should be lived out. I would think that the EO would say similar things regarding themselves and the RCC. So yeah, it’s gonna be a long road…you might want to periodically stop for coffee. :compcoff:

 

[Nine_Two]

IN the Catholic Church? Sure! By the Catholic Church? :nope:

.You’d rather just openly do away with any pretence to obedience of the teaching of Christ and the Fathers then? How brave! I’ll take our “penchant for loopholes” any day, though.

Take your loopholes, just don’t go around telling us how great you are for obeying the Fathers.

 

[Marybeloved]

Take your loopholes, just don’t go around telling us how great you are for obeying the Fathers.

Oh right! Catholics do this, not the EO! No, dont you go round telling US how great you are at following the fathers. Your ecclessiastical divorces and second marriages and contraceptive allowance say you are not. And we are following the fathers, thank you very very much. Dont even need Nine-two’s permission to say it, too.

 

[Cavaradossi]

Oh right! Catholics do this, not the EO! No, dont you go round telling US how great you are at following the fathers. Your ecclessiastical divorces and second marriages and contraceptive allowance say you are not. And we are following the fathers, thank you very very much. Dont even need Nine-two’s permission to say it, too.

We could also list many things in which your Church no longer follows the Fathers, but as a guest, I do not feel that I should participate in such savagery. All I will say is that your Church tends to view divine law as an end unto itself, whereas we view the commandments as being directed towards an end. Yet another difference which probably cannot be reconciled.

 

[Contarini]

We could also list many things in which your Church no longer follows the Fathers, but as a guest, I do not feel that I should participate in such savagery. All I will say is that your Church tends to view divine law as an end unto itself, whereas we view the commandments as being directed towards an end. Yet another difference which probably cannot be reconciled.

What is your source for the idea that Catholicism regards divine law as an end unto itself?

It depends on what you mean by divine law.

Commandments certainly have a telos and are not ends in themselves–but law is more than commandments in the Thomist tradition. It’s participation in the divine reason by which the world is ordered.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I have a few questions, if you don’t mind. First, about the thread title:

Why would anyone want them to reunite? I am asking what’s in it for everyone? I assume we will stop killing each other, I hope, but why should the churches unite? They actually are united in the only place that matters, so what’s the big deal with the earthly union?

Earth matters. Hence the Incarnation.

Visible unity matters. We are not Gnostics.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I know they are not freely accessible, that’s not the point. But they are tolerated in circumstances that the CC teaches they cannot be so tolerated. How “hard” or “easy” they make it does not take away from the fact they are tolerated in circumstances where the CC teaches that they can never be, by Divine Law.

But this isn’t a doctrinal issue per se. It’s a matter of “economia”–it’s a pastoral approach.

Certainly there are big-picture theological assumptions behind the different approaches, as Cavaradossi has suggested. But paradoxically, I think that when you get to the scale he’s alluding too the issues are too big to be truly divisive. What I mean is that they are broad, general sets of assumptions about matters that are fundamentally mysterious.

I have no doubt that the divine law both is and is not an end in itself, depending on how you consider it. We need the Eastern reminder that the commandments are not ends in themselves, and the Western reminder that law is more than commandments.

Edwin

 

[Julia_Mae]

We could also list many things in which your Church no longer follows the Fathers, but as a guest, I do not feel that I should participate in such savagery.

I’d like to know. Why should it be savage? Just information with references would be fine.

 

[dzheremi]

It is different for a guest of another faith tradition to be approaching this kind of topic here. We know where we are.

One good example, however, would be the extremely weakened fasting in the Roman Catholic Church. I know that fasting is encouraged, and that makes me very happy, but it is not kept as in the days of your fathers, and is rather commonly expedited via other means or ignored altogether. Many, many Fathers (the Desert Fathers, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephrem the Syrian, etc.) have said and written much on the subject, and none have proposed alternatives such that the Roman Catholic Church has, where fasting might be substituted with prayer or works of charity (see the apostolic constitution “Paenitemini”, 1966, and then ask yourself how most RCs apply it). For the Fathers, as for the Orthodox Church, it is fasting and prayer that shapes the Christian life, not one or the other. That the Western Church in general has foregone the tradition of fasting is to its great detriment.

There are many more examples that could be brought, but this is probably the least controversial. No Roman Catholic who is honest with themselves can look at the practice of their Church and those of the ancient Christians and say that they are the same, but Orthodox Christians can (EO, as far as I know, fast about half the year; OO for even longer).