Question:Why be Catholic and not Eastern Orthodox?

[josephdaniel29]

The burden of proof is to prove he WASN’T one since it’s painfully obvious by his condemnation, advocacy of Monothelitism in writing and in sending a representative to a synod to support it that he was indeed a Monothelite. As Contarini (Edwin) said accurately, if he weren’t a pope of Rome, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Catholics would condemn him a Monothelite without a second thought were he a bishop of Rome.

Even the Monothelites themselves, when asked to give an answer for their beliefs at the Sixth Council gave Honorius as an authority for their belief!

We have brought out no new method of speech, but have taught whatever we have received from the holy Ecumenical Synods, and from the holy approved Fathers, as well as from the archbishops of this imperial city, to wit: Sergius, Paul, Pyrrhus, and Peter, as also from Honorius who was Pope of Old Rome, and from Cyrus who was Pope of Alexandria, that is to say with reference to will and operation, and so we have believed, and so we believe, so we preach; and further we are ready to stand by, and defend this faith.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Enough has not been said, Nicea. The man is a heretic. The evidence is painfully clear. You can pretend he isn’t and skirt the issue with semantics. That’s fine. I disagree completely. So did the council who condemned him, the popes after him who upheld it, and people who are not just interested in covering up for popes and hierarchs of Rome. Sending a legate to advocate Monothelitism is pretty danged obviously OPEN! Synodal advocacy in my book is a pretty obvious hunk of evidence for embracing a position.

It’d be like Obama writing a memo to the Department of Justice saying he wants to send in an airstrike to take out Iranian nuclear facilities. Then he sends someone from the White House to speak with the Dept. of Justice about it, then the airstrike happens, and yet never publically did Obama tell us he was in favor of this in a State of the Union, ah hah! He’s not an open advocate of bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities!

This is like Clinton with “is.” Doesn’t wash with me but, as always, you’re more than welcome to believe this stuff.

Ah no! The burden of proof is to PROVE he was officially condemned for being an OPEN Monothelite!

Honorius probably should have known the implications of using the “one will” formula; he could have found out by writing a letter to Sophronius of Jerusalem. But he was no heretic.

And as josie L already displayed accurately how Contarini deliberately left out some important words,thus giving the presentation of a smoking gun…enough said!

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

That still won’t be enough, joseph, for people who want to believe something. You could have a public speech by Honorius and they’d still find a way to say it wasn’t ex cathedra somehow…

I was on a jury about three years ago. It was armed robbery. A black male about 16 years old was caught with three different security cameras going into a bar and assaulting the bartender, robbing him, and threatening to kill him. You could see his face up close on two video cameras, another one caught him on the way out. His alibies were all contradictory, his “friends” claimed he was in different places, etc. He had priors and when the cameras zoomed in on him, it was plain as day that it was him.

We had a couple of ladies on the jury who DIDN’T want to ‘condemn’ a 16 year old. “He’s just a baby!” they said and they felt like racists if they found him guilty. They even admitted in the jury room that they knew he was the guy obviously on the video. But as the guilt and desire to acquit him got stronger, they convinced themselves it WASN’T him.

Yet we had a hung jury thanks to these two liberal ladies. Three days of my life down the drain LOL

If you want something to happen, you’ll will the history to be something else and make a square peg fit in a round one. Honorius was caught on camera; the camera of history. We can disguise it all we want.

Even the Monothelites themselves, when asked to give an answer for their beliefs at the Sixth Council gave Honorius as an authority for their belief!

We have brought out no new method of speech, but have taught whatever we have received from the holy Ecumenical Synods, and from the holy approved Fathers, as well as from the archbishops of this imperial city, to wit: Sergius, Paul, Pyrrhus, and Peter, as also from Honorius who was Pope of Old Rome, and from Cyrus who was Pope of Alexandria, that is to say with reference to will and operation, and so we have believed, and so we believe, so we preach; and further we are ready to stand by, and defend this faith.

 

[Contarini]

Ah no! The burden of proof is to PROVE he was officially condemned for being an OPEN Monothelite!

Honorius probably should have known the implications of using the “one will” formula; he could have found out by writing a letter to Sophronius of Jerusalem. But he was no heretic.

He was a material heretic. I am happy to agree that he was not a formal heretic.

And as josie L already displayed accurately how Contarini deliberately left out some important words,thus giving the presentation of a smoking gun…enough said!

In post 153 on this thread, I was responding to this claim by Josie:

Honorius did not teach anything, i.e., the only thing that he managed to say concretely was in agreeing to uphold the ban suggested by Sergius.

I responded this way:

He said: “Wherefore we acknowledge one will of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” By any normal definition of the word, this is a teaching. He’s asked for an opinion by a fellow bishop; he uses the official “we”; and he proposes an answer to an important doctrinal controversy. How is this not teaching?

As you can see, the point at issue there was whether Honorius “taught anything.” I pointed out that he did. I wasn’t addressing the question of whether his words can be given an orthodox sense, but the question of whether he offered a positive teaching. Furthermore, if you want to go after me for “omitting” his subsequent explanation of the language, you have to go after Josie even more strongly. Josie didn’t just “omit” the full context–she made a statement that was simply false in the light of that context. She said that he didn’t teach anything and that he didn’t manage to say anything “concretely” except to agree to the ban.

Of course, I don’t suspect Josie of dishonesty. I understand that she was not intending to deceive anyone–that since she doesn’t think the phrase in question really was “monothelite,” it didn’t strike her as relevant. Therefore, I pointed out the fact that (as I see it) contradicted her claim, but did not make personal accusations. I would suggest that you and Josie adopt the same policy.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Even the Monothelites themselves, when asked to give an answer for their beliefs at the Sixth Council gave Honorius as an authority for their belief!

We have brought out no new method of speech, but have taught whatever we have received from the holy Ecumenical Synods, and from the holy approved Fathers, as well as from the archbishops of this imperial city, to wit: Sergius, Paul, Pyrrhus, and Peter, as also from Honorius who was Pope of Old Rome, and from Cyrus who was Pope of Alexandria, that is to say with reference to will and operation, and so we have believed, and so we believe, so we preach; and further we are ready to stand by, and defend this faith.

I’m not sure you would say “even.” Of course they would look for support wherever they could find it, just as Maximus and the successors of Honorius would try to explain away what Honorius said. I don’t think the fact that they appealed to Honorius adds anything to the evidence of Honorius’s own letters.

Edwin

 

[josephdaniel29]

I’m not sure you would say “even.” Of course they would look for support wherever they could find it, just as Maximus and the successors of Honorius would try to explain away what Honorius said. I don’t think the fact that they appealed to Honorius adds anything to the evidence of Honorius’s own letters.

Edwin

Are you saying they just pulled his name out of a hat?

 

[FairyGirl]

We should be Catholic because Catholics rock. We’ve got it all!

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

How old ru?

We should be Catholic because Catholics rock. We’ve got it all!

 

[Contarini]

Was Monothelitism condemned at Chalcedon, yes or no?

Actually it was condemned at III Constantinople.

Were they condemned because they believed in one will, i.e., denying that Jesus had a human will, yes or no?

They were condemned because they believed in one will, and thus denied that Jesus had a human will that was distinct from His divine will and needed to be voluntarily aligned with it. They denied this (apart from the simple desire to find a compromise formula with the Monophysites) for the same reason Honorius did–it seemed to them (reasonably enough) that if this was true, then Jesus must have had a “gnomic will”–He must have had the same tendency to dissent from the divine will, and the same need for deliberation and inner struggle, that we have. Maximus answered this objection by his careful analysis of the distinction between natural and gnomic will.

From the standpoint of the Council, the monothelite position resulted in the denial that Jesus had a human will, yes.

If the answer to these questions are yes (and they should be), then everything you’ve written is useless, i.e., we are debating whether Honorius was a Monothelite with respect to how Chalcedon defined Monothelitism. Since you believe he was, then I have to beg to differ. His use of the word "one will’ was not heretical, in fact, it is hard to believe that you (or others) would think he is denying Jesus’s human will when he specifically states that he had a will in reference to his human nature.

You’re assuming that a “will in reference to his human nature” is the same thing as a human will distinct from His divine will. What is your reason for believing this?

The problem with this whole debate is that monothelitism never really got off the ground as a well-developed, systematic, consistent heresy (the way Arianism did in its later and most radical stages with folks like Eunomius). It was a compromise position from the beginning, and from the texts we have (admittedly fragmentary and biased against them) they don’t seem to have had very good explanations for the dilemmas presented to them by the orthodox. You are assuming that there was a full-blown, consistent “monothelitism” that completely denied any kind of human will in Jesus. If you will trouble to look at Maximus’s debate with Pyrrhus, in p. 80 of the work by Hefele to which I earlier linked, you will see that Pyrrhus clearly doesn’t hold to such a view himself. Yet we agree that Pyrrhus was a monothelite.

When you can show me how Pyrrhus and Honorius clearly differed–not by silence but by actual disagreement–then I’ll concede that Honorius should not be called a “monothelite” without heavy qualification. (Actually I would qualify it anyway, by saying that his monothelitism was not very carefully worked out and certainly was not stubbornly maintained against the orthodox position. But if he can be shown to have differed substantively from Pyrrhus, I’ll admit that his position was not really a monothelite position.)

p.s. The Monothelites either believed that Jesus had a divine will which swallowed up his human will (which would deny he had a human will) or that his will was mingled (which still would be a denial of his human will).

That is the dilemma presented to them by the orthodox, and to which they had no good answer.

The difference between Honorius and the undisputed monothelites was that they had more of a chance to defend and articulate their position in debate with Maximus and Sophronius. Indeed, I think Hefele may be correct in his suggestion that possibly Honorius dropped the “one will” language in the second letter because he had had a chance to read Sophronius in the meantime.

So again, I concede that Honorius’s monothelitism was not as deep-rooted as that of the Easterners. What I cannot see is that Honorius’s first letter shows a fundamentally different Christology from that of the Easterners. The best case would be that he does use Leo’s language–though as Hefele says, not as thoroughly as in the second letter. But after all, the Easterners agreed with Chalcedon as well. No one was disputing that each nature did what was proper to it, were they?

Edwin

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Hi Edwin,
You probably have already done so so apologies if I missed it, but could you please elaborate on the “material” vs. “formal” heretic labels? Thanks

He was a material heretic. I am happy to agree that he was not a formal heretic.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Are you saying they just pulled his name out of a hat?

Of course not. I’m saying that they looked at the same evidence we have, found him using “one will” language, and happily appropriated it. And as I’ve been arguing against josie at some length, I think they were justified in doing so.

I’m just saying that their interpretation of his letters shouldn’t be privileged over that of, say, Maximus, who argued that he was using the language in an orthodox sense. I think that Maximus was wrong because I can’t find warrant in the texts for interpreting Honorius in that sense. But if I did, the fact that the Eastern Monothelites interpreted the words differently wouldn’t prove anything. One group was misinterpreting Honorius to serve their own agenda. Indeed, if anything we should surely be more ready to accuse the heretics of misinterpretation than the orthodox

But unfortunately, in this case the heretics seem to have a better argument, though I am quite willing to admit that they were making too much of one careless expression in one letter.

Edwin

 

[josephdaniel29]

Hi Edwin,
You probably have already done so so apologies if I missed it, but could you please elaborate on the “material” vs. “formal” heretic labels? Thanks

Think of Origen vs Arius or Nestorius.

 

[Contarini]

Hi Edwin,
You probably have already done so so apologies if I missed it, but could you please elaborate on the “material” vs. “formal” heretic labels? Thanks

A material heretic is someone who holds to a heretical opinion.
A formal heretic is someone who holds to a heretical opinion in opposition to the Church, even after the orthodox view has been explained to them.

Of course, if the issue is simply semantics, they may not even be a material heretic. And that’s what the Catholics are arguing.

So, for instance, a person who says that they “worship” the Blessed Virgin, using the word loosely to cover “dulia” as well as “latria,” is not a heretic at all, but is using language ambiguously. Even a person who used the word “latria,” mistakenly thinking that it had a broader reference, would obviously not be a heretic, but just confused.

A person who mistakenly thinks that the Church teaches that the Blessed Virgin should be worshiped with latria (i.e., with worship in the fullest sense), and therefore engages in the practice, is a material heretic (and idolator!).

A person who understands and rejects the latria/dulia position, and continues to worship the Blessed Virgin with latria, is a formal heretic.

The flaw in this analogy is that the teaching that only God should be worshiped in the full sense of the word is much clearer and less abstruse than the question of how many wills Jesus had. So Honorius’s mistake was much more pardonable! But it seems to me that he was, in fact, a material heretic. Like his Eastern counterparts, he saw no way to maintain Jesus’ full harmony with the divine will except by insisting that Jesus had only one will.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

No, he is not creating a straw-man picture of Monothelitism in order to whitewash Honorius, please read this:

newadvent.org/cathen/10502a.htm

In other words, the Monothelites were denying Jesus’s human will.

That is the implication which the orthodox saw in their position. That’s the mistake you keep making–you assume that to be a Monothelite one must agree with the implications the orthodox see in your position, and still hold your position.

We perhaps need to make a further distinction here, one helpfully made by Richard Hooker in his “Sermon on Justification.” (Since he was discussing the sense in which the Catholic view of justification was heretical, neither you nor I will agree with his application–but the distinction is still helpful.) Hooker distinguishes between heresies that directly deny an article of faith, and heresies whose consequences deny an article of faith, even though the heretic does not see this. (Again, Hooker thought that the “Roman” doctrine of justification fell into this category, but that’s not the point here.) Monothelitism is pretty clearly in the latter category. Its proponents were intending to maintain the orthodox doctrine, but they took up a position whose logical consequence was to deny orthodoxy.

Edwin

 

[Nicea325]

Enough has not been said, Nicea. The man is a heretic. The evidence is painfully clear. You can pretend he isn’t and skirt the issue with semantics. That’s fine. I disagree completely. So did the council who condemned him, the popes after him who upheld it, and people who are not just interested in covering up for popes and hierarchs of Rome. Sending a legate to advocate Monothelitism is pretty danged obviously OPEN! Synodal advocacy in my book is a pretty obvious hunk of evidence for embracing a position.

It’d be like Obama writing a memo to the Department of Justice saying he wants to send in an airstrike to take out Iranian nuclear facilities. Then he sends someone from the White House to speak with the Dept. of Justice about it, then the airstrike happens, and yet never publically did Obama tell us he was in favor of this in a State of the Union, ah hah! He’s not an open advocate of bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities!

This is like Clinton with “is.” Doesn’t wash with me but, as always, you’re more than welcome to believe this stuff.

Exactly! And if you want to believe the position of anti-Catholics,by all means,go for it! Frankly I do not care,your issue not mine. The evidence is clear he was not declared an **open Monothelite **long before ANY of us existed and the man is NOT a heretic…end of case!

Next!

 

[Nicea325]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicea325
Ah no! The burden of proof is to PROVE he was officially condemned for being an OPEN Monothelite!

Honorius probably should have known the implications of using the “one will” formula; he could have found out by writing a letter to Sophronius of Jerusalem. But he was no heretic.

He was a material heretic. I am happy to agree that he was not a formal heretic.

So in other words, he is was one in theory,but not in practice?

 

[patricius79]

I read an article here at catholic answers to the effect that for fifty years the eastern hierarchy was thoroughly infected by the monothelite heresy. Is that true? And is it true that they were rescued from this heresy largely–as with the Monophysite heresy–through the Papacy?

And if so: then how could anyone use Pope honorius as an argument against the Papacy?

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Anyone that ends their statements on online forums or in real life with “end of discussion!” or “period, done!” or “next issue!” I don’t take seriously anyway. Your argument is hardly compelling based on the wealth of evidence shown in this thread and beyond. Don’t imply I have an “issue” because I don’t agree with your wishful conclusion. We disagree but neither of us has “issues,” just disagreement. Your statement shows a tribal “us against them” triumphalism that bothers me. Anything dissenting from your view is “anti-Catholic” and hostile and enemy.

Exactly! And if you want to believe the position of anti-Catholics,by all means,go for it! Frankly I do not care,your issue not mine. The evidence is clear he was not declared an **open Monothelite **long before ANY of us existed and the man is NOT a heretic…end of case!

Next!

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Thanks, Edwin!

A material heretic is someone who holds to a heretical opinion.
A formal heretic is someone who holds to a heretical opinion in opposition to the Church, even after the orthodox view has been explained to them.

Of course, if the issue is simply semantics, they may not even be a material heretic. And that’s what the Catholics are arguing.

So, for instance, a person who says that they “worship” the Blessed Virgin, using the word loosely to cover “dulia” as well as “latria,” is not a heretic at all, but is using language ambiguously. Even a person who used the word “latria,” mistakenly thinking that it had a broader reference, would obviously not be a heretic, but just confused.

A person who mistakenly thinks that the Church teaches that the Blessed Virgin should be worshiped with latria (i.e., with worship in the fullest sense), and therefore engages in the practice, is a material heretic (and idolator!).

A person who understands and rejects the latria/dulia position, and continues to worship the Blessed Virgin with latria, is a formal heretic.

The flaw in this analogy is that the teaching that only God should be worshiped in the full sense of the word is much clearer and less abstruse than the question of how many wills Jesus had. So Honorius’s mistake was much more pardonable! But it seems to me that he was, in fact, a material heretic. Like his Eastern counterparts, he saw no way to maintain Jesus’ full harmony with the divine will except by insisting that Jesus had only one will.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicea325
Ah no! The burden of proof is to PROVE he was officially condemned for being an OPEN Monothelite!

I will grant that the intention of the Council cannot be proven. As I said earlier to Josie, they may have wished to leave the question vague, and clearly they wanted to make Sergius the primary villain.

So in other words, he is was one in theory,but not in practice?

No, he was one in fact but probably not in intention.

Edwin