Dear Mark,
Well, no, I agree wholeheartedly that worldliness and the placing of the creation over the Creator is a general characteristic of fallen man.
But, please don’t tell me that Luther lived like modern apostates, that the Orthodox did when they split, that Muhammed and his followers did. Good Muslims, Orthodox, and Protestants are/have been VERY MUCH CONCERNED about following the True God. Devout Muslims, Orthodox, and Protestants do NOT live for worldly gain. They live exclusively for God and to do His Will, not their own. Even deists seek the Divine Will, except they don’t think they need help from God to do it. But at least they seek to live in natural virtue.
I agree. The beast is not able to act instantaneously, either. It takes time for “the beast” to implement its plan. It was done in stages if you will (probably oversimplified since this implies more organization than likely exists). The protestant revolution was one such stage, but protestants did not lose all faith. they were deceived into taking an action which eventually led to their further degradation (i.e., into “thousands” of seperate groups, etc.). To seek is one thing, to actually do is another. Protestants and others are trying to do witout a priesthood or sacraments, and are thus likely more easily deceived.
So I really don’t understand what you are saying? This world, which I absolutely agree lives fully apostate in Europe and its spinoff civs, lives for only vain things, they either do not believe in God or do not CARE whether or not God exists.
This is the ultimate goal, and is more effectively achieved in Eurpoe and some western civ’s. It is being fully embraced in China, and India is struggling with it (it is still in the marketing stages there, but many have accepted it).
But I never learned a history in which the persons that attacked the Church prior to the modern age had that type of attitude. IN FACT, is not modern irreligiosity partly due to the fact that in all previous ages to the Enlightenment, beginning from Islam, people cared so much what was true about religion, that they KILLED one another over these things. That’s not apostate as far as I’m concerned. It’s twisted and wrong, but it’s not apostate. Today’s people indeed (except terrorists) do not kill in the name of religion, but neither are they ready to die for it either, because they have no religion other than materialism.
Again, it was a development. It take s a lot to make entire civilizations lose faith. First an Orthodox split, then a protestant “reformation”, next put science over Scripture (i.e., geocentrism, evolution), next intorduce the enlightenment (masonry, deism, rationalism, etc.), nerxt romanticism, throw in wars and terrorize civilizations, propose “democracy” as the answer, then modernism, and post-modernism. Give people Nietzche, create a Hitler and a Stalin, communism, atheistic materialism, throw in the sexual revolution, and some other ingredients, and you end up where we are.
Also, I don’t think the beast is limited to the Church age. The beast in its ultimate representation is a symbol of the fallen nature of man in general, which has exerted itself six primary times in human history, the current on being the seventh. The False Prophet then simply becomes the essence of the lie spoken by the dragon in the beginning, the same lie that has been believed seven primary times in salvation history, when we include the modern situation.
What then, is the beast, in Sungenis’ opinion, if he sees it more specific than man’s fallen nature?
The beast acts in the Church age because Satan (the dragon) is bound. Before being bouing Satan could accuse man of sins directly to God, and God because of honor listened. That is why the OT saints had to wait in Hades (Abraham’s Bosom) until the cross, at which time Satan was bound, i.e., no longer able to directly effect man’s salvation. At the cross, Christ was able to bring the OT saints to heaven, finally. Now the rest of the plan is unfolding, and the beast is the proxy agent of bound Satan. So the beast, though perhaps existing in principle prior, is an Apocalypse specific image related to the binding of Satan- i.e., before being bound Satan did have followers, which you could say was at least like the beast. But the beast, as I speak of it, is specifically an Apocalypse concept.
I will have to think more about your comments which follow, because I do not necassarily see a direct connection between contemplative methodology and the Apocalypse, though it is an interesting idea (and I cannot say without merit). Do you have any explicit patristic support for the idea?
Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
