Pope Francis criticises ‘fundamentalist’ Catholics

[JimR-OCDS]

God actually didn’t write the bible ‘in His own hand’. The words were given to men who translated according to their ability. So while the bible is the inspired word of God… it isn’t Gods actual words. That would imply we have God limited to our concept of Him as a person with a pen and maybe a dictionary. I mean Adam and Eve were our first parents. That is true… but it’s obvious to modern man that the world couldn’t possibly have originated from one man and one woman so the word Adam and the word Eve while still validly used, mean something really different, even contradictory to humans original concept of Adam and Eve. Of course, fundamentalists may reject any possibility that it could mean something larger and maintain that the Truth is that there was only one individual man and one individual woman as per the belief of the first Old Testament people.

I agree especially with the prophets of the OT. However, Jesus is God and hence, the words of Jesus are God’s words.

Jim

 

[LongingSoul]

I agree especially with the prophets of the OT. However, Jesus is God and hence, the words of Jesus are God’s words.

Jim

Yes, true to a degree but Jesus was as canny as can be when getting the message out. The Truth that was quoted ie “God the Son is God” is not actually taken from Jesus direct words. In Matthew 16 this is how the conversation transpired…

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter,** and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[c] will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[d] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.**

Basically He gets others to articulate these truths using their vocabulary. He does that and also talks in parables which would certainly have annoyed a lot of people who just wanted some straight talk from the horses mouth. It would have made things so much easier, but the fact is that no one can possess those absolute Truths. We know they exist but can only express them to the limits of our human capacities.

 

[JimG]

It is said “God is the Son of God” but also that “The Son of God is God”. Is this not beyond human understanding? Or is it that Christ can be literally understood by man as both Father and Son of himself?

Where is this phrasing taught anywhere in Catholic theology?

 

[JimG]

Yes, true to a degree but Jesus was as canny as can be when getting the message out. The Truth that was quoted ie “God the Son is God” is not actually taken from Jesus direct words. In Matthew 16 this is how the conversation transpired…

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter,** and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[c] will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[d] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.**

Basically He gets others to articulate these truths using their vocabulary. He does that and also talks in parables which would certainly have annoyed a lot of people who just wanted some straight talk from the horses mouth. It would have made things so much easier, but the fact is that no one can possess those absolute Truths. We know they exist but can only express them to the limits of our human capacities. Surely Jesus was not praising Simon Peter for speaking an untruth, or for speaking something about him which should not be expressed. He was praising him precisely for speaking the truth: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

 

[LongingSoul]

Surely Jesus was not praising Simon Peter for speaking an untruth, or for speaking something about him which should not be expressed. He was praising him precisely for speaking the truth: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

But that isn’t the point. There is a difference between the quoted words Jesus spoke and the expressions of truth spoken by others. The way we understand Gods truths is experienced from within our own experience and affirmed by Church teaching and Scripture. In that verse Jesus finished by telling the Apostles not to tell anyone He was the Messiah. Why would that be? My understanding of this is that Truth is experienced from within and affirmed in a secondary way by the Church and Scripture. Pope Francis was talking about a phenomenon where some think they themselves, with the words, possess absolute truth and bind others by those words with a sense of authority that was actually given to the Church. So that sensation makes them predictably judgemental and hard hearted and hypocritical because they lack the humility to measure themselves in the depth of their being, the harsh way they measure others.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Yes, true to a degree but Jesus was as canny as can be when getting the message out. The Truth that was quoted ie “God the Son is God” is not actually taken from Jesus direct words. In Matthew 16 this is how the conversation transpired…

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter,** and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[c] will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[d] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.**

Basically He gets others to articulate these truths using their vocabulary. He does that and also talks in parables which would certainly have annoyed a lot of people who just wanted some straight talk from the horses mouth. It would have made things so much easier, but the fact is that no one can possess those absolute Truths. We know they exist but can only express them to the limits of our human capacities.

But in John’s Gospel. Jesus was more specific;

Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing; but it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ You do not know him, but I know him. And if I should say that I do not know him, I would be like you a liar. But I do know him and I keep his word. Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it* and was glad.So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?”* 58* Jesus said to them,i “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be,** I AM**

 

[JimG]

But that isn’t the point. There is a difference between the quoted words Jesus spoke and the expressions of truth spoken by others. The way we understand Gods truths is experienced from within our own experience and affirmed by Church teaching and Scripture. In that verse Jesus finished by telling the Apostles not to tell anyone He was the Messiah. Why would that be? My understanding of this is that Truth is experienced from within and affirmed in a secondary way by the Church and Scripture. Pope Francis was talking about a phenomenon where some think they themselves, with the words, possess absolute truth and bind others by those words with a sense of authority that was actually given to the Church. So that sensation makes them predictably judgemental and hard hearted and hypocritical because they lack the humility to measure themselves in the depth of their being, the harsh way they measure others.

Why did Jesus tell the Apostles not to tell anyone? It is sometimes called the “messianic secret.” He wasn’t ready for this proclamation to be made in full and to all, because it also involved the proclamation of his divinity. You are right that this truth must be experienced from within, revealed by the Holy Spirit. But then it is also affirmed from without, affirmed by Jesus to show the truth of Peter’s words.

There is not a division between spirituality and intellect. Both are means of knowing the truth. Spirituality does not eliminate theology. If it did, God could easily stop theologians from writing about him.

 

[LongingSoul]

But in John’s Gospel. Jesus was more specific;

I AM, the Jews knew exactly that he was saying He is God, as God told Moses, “Tell them, I AM,” has sent you.

Also. Jesus was convicted by the Sanhedrin of Blaspheme, making Himself God.

Then of course we can use the 1st Chapter of John’s Gospel to know that Jesus is the Word, who became flesh.

FYI, in reading Jesus of Nazareth, I’m seeing how Pope Benedict XVI had a favor for John’s Gospel for accuracy.

Anyway, the Catholic Church in fact holds that Jesus is God incarnate.

Jim

But when you say “the Jews knew exactly that he was saying He is God” we know that God wasn’t giving them a plain talking, straightforward answer even in their language. I AM who I AM is not really saying who He is really. It’s just expressing something inexpressible. God being all knowing and eternal could have easily have said I’m sending my Son in a thousand years or so and he’ll be a little carpenters son from Bethlehem. That could quite easily have been expressed to Moses in a way that would translate from age to age no problems.

That’s getting away from the point though because the thread is about what Pope Francis was referring to when he talked about fundamentalists believing they ‘possess’ the absolute truth. When someone takes words and says submit yourself to me as I own truth, it denies that both God and Jesus promoted knowledge of truth as something that can and should be known by each person within himself in relationship with the Church doctrines and Scripture, The light of those three sources is the closest we’ll get to knowing the fullness of absolute Truth.

 

[Thomas_White]

Why did Jesus tell the Apostles not to tell anyone? It is sometimes called the “messianic secret.” He wasn’t ready for this proclamation to be made in full and to all, because it also involved the proclamation of his divinity.

The “messianic secret” was an early 20th century theory not considered credible by most theologians.

 

[Thomas_White]

The phrase was inadvertenly misstated. ‘God the Father’ and ‘God the Son’ would have been a better way to state the teaching.

I don’t see that you are grasping what is said, and in essence it is simply that what is “an ineffable mystery, infinitely beyond all we can humanly understand” cannot be objectively known as the “absolute truth” by either the human intellect or expressed by the limits of language.

 

[Thomas_White]

Where is this phrasing taught anywhere in Catholic theology?

The phrase was inadvertenly misstated. ‘God the Father’ and ‘God the Son’ would have been a better way to express the teaching.

I don’t see that you are grasping what is said, and in essence it is simply that what is “an ineffable mystery, infinitely beyond all we can humanly understand” cannot be objectively known as the “absolute truth” by either the human intellect or expressed by the limits of language.

 

[JimG]

The phrase was inadvertenly misstated. ‘God the Father’ and ‘God the Son’ would have been a better way to express the teaching.

I don’t see that you are grasping what is said, and in essence it is simply that what is “an ineffable mystery, infinitely beyond all we can humanly understand” cannot be objectively known as the “absolute truth” by either the human intellect or expressed by the limits of language.

So the Church should not be teaching the objective truth about the Trinity? Should the Imprimatur be withdrawn from Frank Sheed’s books, for a start?

 

[LongingSoul]

So the Church should not be teaching the objective truth about the Trinity? Should the Imprimatur be withdrawn from Frank Sheed’s books, for a start?

The Trinity explains to us something of the divine nature of God… Father, Son and Holy Spirit but that explanation was only dogmatised a few centuries after Christ after loads of theological too-ing and fro-ing about the relationship. God is three and God is one.

We refer back to Jesus words as recorded in the bible for justification for the dogma, but it wasn’t as though Jesus said things clearly enough that people said " ok that clearly means ‘The Trinity’". It’s not out of the realm of possibility that our understanding of Gods triune nature could develop leading the Church to express the Trinity in a different way.

But when that happens you can be sure there will be some who defend the wording of the Council of Constantinople, as immutable in and of itself and beyond reformulations. That’s where the problems set in.

 

[Thomas_White]

So the Church should not be teaching the objective truth about the Trinity? Should the Imprimatur be withdrawn from Frank Sheed’s books, for a start?

The Church very clearly does not claim to teach the objective truth of the Trinity.

CCC 251 provides that in articulating the dogma of the Trinity the Chuch did not “submit the faith to human wisdom, but gave a new and unprecedented meaning to certain philosophical notions [substance, person, relation, and so on] which from then on would be used to signify an ineffable mystery, infinitely beyond all that we can humanly understand”.

These words are a sign of what is completely beyond human understanding and thus are neither the objective truth (knowledge) nor the “absolute truth”. The “absolute truth” is ineffable, which means it is inexpressible by human language (Cf. CCC 42: “Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God.”)

 

[JimR-OCDS]

But when you say “the Jews knew exactly that he was saying He is God” we know that God wasn’t giving them a plain talking, straightforward answer even in their language. I AM who I AM is not really saying who He is really. .

I Jewish belief and theology of that time, Jesus saying “I AM,” they knew exactly what he was saying and they picked up rocks to stone him.

Remember, Jews did not give God a name, “I AM,” from Exodus, is God.

Jim

 

[Brendan]

The Church very clearly does not claim to teach the objective truth of the Trinity.

CCC 251 provides that in articulating the dogma of the Trinity the Chuch did not “submit the faith to human wisdom, but gave a new and unprecedented meaning to certain philosophical notions [substance, person, relation, and so on] which from then on would be used to signify an ineffable mystery, infinitely beyond all that we can humanly understand”.

No further understanding of the word “Person” would change the objective truth that there are 3 of them. That is an objective truth. No variation of the term, no deeper understanding, would cause that number to change to 4, or 5, or be reduced down to 2 or 1.

So yes, the Church does known objective truth about the Trinity.

 

[clem456]

The dogmatic truths proclaimed by the Church are objectively true. That includes all the Church teaches about God as Trinity.

Objective means:
The reality contained therein is subject to no one or no thing else. Objective truth is not subject to my perceptions, my ability to understand, or even the Church’s ability to express that truth. The fact that a truth might be described as ineffable, does not mean that truth is not objectively true.

What the Church expresses in dogmas are objectively true, of their own merit, independent of any other perspective which attempts to subject that truth to itself.

“Faith” without objective truth is idolatry of something else (there are many idols, idolatry of one’s self is probably our most common). Life without objective truth is chaos.

A philosopher could probably explain this with more precision.

 

[JimG]

If one goes to the Catholic Answers website and does a search for the term “Trinity,” one is presented with pages upon pages of documents about the Trinity. I’m pretty sure that the authors of these documents, from Church Fathers to theologians, are not fundamentalists or judgmentalists. I think we can have confidence in their writings.

It should be noted in passing that everything said or written in human language symbolizes some other reality. That’s the purpose of language. It’s purpose is to present reality in human language. Some realities, such as God, are greater than language can fully signify, to be sure. But even then, there can be true things stated about God, and false things, and there is a difference.

I don’t think that the authors of the Catechism of the Catholic Church are considering inserting before the table of contents a disclaimer page stating “Nothing in this book is to be taken as certain objective truth.” At least I hope there is not such a movement. For it would defeat the purpose of theology and even of divine revelation itself. It would say to God, “You cannot communicate with man, because man cannot understand you, so don’t even try.”

 

[clem456]

When God says “I Am”, it is not God’s proposal for his strange unknowable complexity. It is not an invitation to come to grasp complex chaos.

“I Am” is the name of utter simplicity.

God cannot be classified or defined, as contingent beings are classified and defined; for there is no aspect of being in which He is perfectly similar to the finite, and consequently no genus in which He can be included. From this it follows that we cannot know God adequately in the way in which He knows Himself, but not, as the Agnostic contends, that our inadequate knowledge is not true as far as it goes. In speaking of a being who transcends the limitations of formal logical definition our propositions are an expression of real truth, provided that what we state is in itself intelligible and not self-contradictory; and there is nothing unintelligible or contradictory in what Theists predicate of God. It is true that no single predicate is adequate or exhaustive as a description of His infinite perfection, and that we need to employ a multitude of predicates, as if at first sight infinity could be reached by multiplication. But at the same time we recognize that this is not so — being repugnant to the Divine simplicity; and that while truth, goodness, wisdom, holiness and other attributes, as we conceive and define them express perfections that are formally distinct, yet as applied to God they are all ultimately identical in meaning and describe the same ultimate reality — the one infinitely perfect and simple being.

 

[Thomas_White]

No further understanding of the word “Person” would change the objective truth that there are 3 of them. That is an objective truth. No variation of the term, no deeper understanding, would cause that number to change to 4, or 5, or be reduced down to 2 or 1.

So yes, the Church does known objective truth about the Trinity.

That would be true if and only if the word “Person” were given its literal meaning. CCC 251 specifically provides otherwise, and the correct teaching has been provided a number of times on this thread.