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e_c
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Yikes… If this is really your understanding authority and witness, we have some work to do. Remember that this text and “group” come out of a real place and a real time full of real people who did real things…
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PumpkinCookie
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What should I have said instead? “The priest doesn’t know what he’s talking about because the new testament is written in Greek, not Hebrew (like he claimed). Oh yeah, and I know that Jesus really spoke Aramaic anyway, and that’s different from Hebrew and Greek.” LOL. The second sentence doesn’t really seem necessary to make my point.Simple. It’s all about context. He’s talking to an audience who may not have a deep understanding of Scriptural languages and the history of the move from oral tradition to written Scripture; here, that’s part of the set of assumptions. Moreover, he only has a limited time, so his ability to delve into all the relevant background is limited; here, we have that ability. So, given that I’d expect that your argument include these considerations, and that I’d expect that his wouldn’t necessarily do so, therefore I conclude that your perspective and knowledge is less than you make it out to be. Perhaps I’m assuming too much about you: in that case, I should conclude merely that you weren’t up to the challenge of properly contextualizing your argument.
He has no idea what Jesus really said or really did, neither do you, neither do I. No one knows. All we have are documents written from varying perspectives. The Jesus reported in these documents really could map onto reality in a 1 to 1 correspondence. Or, he could map onto reality in a somewhat less direct way (like other ancient legends/heroes/myths).Wait… now who’s making assumptions about what the priest was trying to say? Did he talk about ‘characters in narratives’? Or is that your own personal assertion?
The irony here is that I was actually there, and all you have to go on are my accounts of the story. For all you know, I could be making this up, or misrepresenting the facts. You’ll quibble with me about the meaning of an event I witnessed two weeks ago (and the knowledge of which you have gained solely through my report), but are totally fine with accepting doctrines cooked up by Greeks centuries after the facts based on reports generated decades after the facts.
I don’t assume there is no original meaning, just that I’m not sure how to determine what it might be, given that there is no documentation and Jesus isn’t available for questioning.
Why don’t you go ahead and explain exactly how I have misunderstood you? Where have I gone wrong in the analysis below?The more you write, the more I become aware of exactly that dynamic…
And… you’ve completely failed to perceive my example. It’s all good, dude. You’re always right; we’re always wrong. You’re always logical; we’re always illogical. We’re well aware of the way you perceive the world. It’s all good. Wrong… prejudicial… but all good.
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PumpkinCookie
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It’s not particularly effective to simply accuse me of burning a straw man without explaining precisely why Catholic epistemology cannot be reduced in this way.
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o_mlly
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I don’t know by experience, that is sense perception. Knowledge is for things we “see.” Faith is belief in things unseen.
Only a mystical wisdom can hope to wrap itself around Mystery. Mystical and theological wisdom, grounded in faith rather than experience, possess an intrinsic superiority to metaphysical wisdom. I am more certain of theological wisdom than metaphysical wisdom, and of mystical wisdom than theological wisdom
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e_c
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My goodness.
Here is the core of it… Look at the evidence for the trustworthiness of the central visible authority. This includes all that was written about him, everything surrounding him that would shape how he lived and was received, what happened after his death in history, the internal and external coherence of his teaching, and so on. In other words, we have all these claims and reactions going on that mark this man as very, very different. The question is why that is the case… And one is left with the following options: people told bold faced lies, were somehow extremely confused about what they were encountering, we are radically misunderstanding the primary witnesses, or the central claims are true. There are no other options. Building a reasonable theory apart from admitting that this man Jesus really did perform miracles and rise from the dead is not an easy task. Why would people tell such lies? How could they possibly be so confused? How is it that so many people misunderstood the primary witnesses, while those same people were still alive? Etc.
It’s a simple epistemology of witness. The same thing happens in court.
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PumpkinCookie
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Once I met a refugee from Bhutan who wore a small picture of a tree on necklace. It looked something like this (but in a small locket):
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
I asked him: what’s that around your neck?
He looked uncomfortable and said…“that’s our god.”
Now, how would I even know that picture was of anything other than a tree if he hadn’t told me it was actually a god? How can I know that he knows it’s a picture of a god?
How can you know that the communion wafer turns into God, without someone having told you? How do you know that they know?
Can you imagine seeing this from an outsider’s perspective? All talk of mystery sounds like you’re telling me I should just believe the picture of the tree is a god and not a tree (which it seems to be) because I should have faith in your authority.
I do not have any faith in the authority of those who tell me to worship any sort of objects as God, and I cannot think of any grounds to embrace this authority unless the authority figure performed astounding miracles validating such. I’m waiting. The cameras are rolling, everywhere, always. Go for it.
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e_c
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The camera challenge is dealt with on top of the Temple at the end of the Lord’s sojourn in the desert.
Just as well, there are plenty of people who have encountered the miraculous… Notice how displeased the Lord is with His friends who didn’t believe the women he sent after His Resurrection! We need to be shrewd and discerning, but we also have to trust each other and take the signs that God wants us to have in the way He wants to give them.
All this stuff ends up ending in the same question as the problem of evil: why didn’t God create us already in Heaven?
Because then the good wrought from struggling for glory is forfeited.
It’s the same attitude Peter had about the Cross… Look at the Lord’s response…
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o_mlly
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One’s religion, an almost indelible imprint upon our nature infused by nurture or culture, provides a frame of orientation by which I experience and judge. I could not be human without some frame of orientation. Without this framework, my faculties cannot give meaning to my perceptions
Humans, free agents, must eventually choose their framework. We often, as I did, take on the framework of our parents until we are able to argue with it. Our predecessors, therefore, are the source of our initial framework. In the course of a lifetime, however, we must affirm or alter our inheritance.
I have never been without an understanding of my salvation. My parents and other teachers transmitted and entrusted to me the framework of our two thousand-year old Catholic heritage. The “entrust” component implies, I think, a covenant I have with my ancestry. The covenant requires me, in the course of my lifetime, to internalize the Catholic teaching about salvation, make it my own, but altering it only if I must. If I alter the teaching that I pass on to my posterity, I believe the covenant requires that the truth of my alterations be to me beyond a shadow of doubt.
No, that would be I think a terrible mistake.
Neither do I.
Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it. When it comes it will be the miracle of the gift of faith.
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PumpkinCookie
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You’re right: “development” could encompass further clarification, additional information, etc. The problem is that Wolfram clearly believed and preached the doom of pagans merely because they were not baptized. The newer teachings contradict this. That means:
The church was teaching error then OR the church is teaching error now. Which is it, and how can we know?
The Church makes the following claims: “We have the fullness of truth, and we’re infallible.” So, if the Church contradicts herself, she offers evidence that she is either 1) discontinuous or 2) not infallible and/or 3) has not taught the truth at some point.
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goout
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You just contradicted yourself.
You gave affirmation to the idea that doctrin develops, then you held Wofram to an eternal justice standard for an incomplete (but correct for him) understanding of the doctrine.
Did you see the analogy of tree/seed I posted earlier?
Ignorance is not necessarily contradiction.
Again,as other poster have mentioned, you are forwarding your own agenda on what the Church teaches. Others tell you what the Church teaches, but you won’t hear it.
So have you seen how a tree grows?
Can you answer this very simple question, so that you can be at peace:
Is a tree contradictory to it’s seed, or is it continuous with it?
This is not rocket science.
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PumpkinCookie
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The official backing of the Roman Empire explains the spread and popularity of Christianity in that sphere of influence sufficiently, just like crazed violence and zeal explains the rapid spread of Islam in the 7th-8th centuries (rather than it being a sign of God’s exclusive ordination in either case).
Christians can’t even agree about what constitutes the “central visible authority,” and they never have. All we have are various contradictory understandings of what Christianity means and a bunch of garbled texts and competing traditions, the meaning of which has always been hotly debated.
How could they possibly be so confused? How can anyone believe in Mormonism? How can anyone embrace Hinduism? It all seems so manifestly false and fraudulent from the outside doesn’t it? Herd-mentality, superstition, and ignorance were and are powerful influences on us, unfortunately. People, to this day, still believe in astrology. Goodness, gracious! How is that possible? People engage in superstitious ritualistic behavior for their sports teams, people consult “psychics,” people go to psychologists even though there are dozens of contradictory theories of the human mind and they all stand up to scientific testing equally well.
They weren’t telling lies. They were confused and mistaken, just like the rest of us about nearly everything! If there were so many primary witnesses, why weren’t their names and testimony recorded? Paul says “500.” Why didn’t he name them and state where they could be found?
I can offer you a fuller and more coherent explanation of Christianity if you want, but this particular thread doesn’t seem to be the right place.
Here is one possible explanation for why people today believe in various forms of Christianity: badnewsaboutchristianity.com/id0_christianity.htm
Why did the earliest members of the Christian cult believe? For the same reason the followers of Mithras, Isis, Attis, Cybele and members of other mystery cults from that period believed. Novelty, exclusivity, excitement, mystery: these things appealed to the bottom rung of the society at the time.
It’s just that one of these mystery religions happened to be adopted by an influential Emperor and become the official state religion of the Roman Empire while the others did not. The rest is documented history.
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goout
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This sentence just stands out somehow.
Among a post full of the all the standard copy and paste canards against Catholicism, this sentence demonstrates the problem perfectly.
Surely, we wait for you to give a full and coherent explanation of Christianity.
I will cancel all my appointments today while I wait in suspense.
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PumpkinCookie
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Oh you see, I believe that Catholic doctrine isn’t true. Myth and error can of course develop with no restraint. Our understanding of truth can develop, but truth itself is stable, unless we embrace some kind of relativism.
- How can I know that your or their view of what the Church teaches is correct? How do you know that you know?
- Unfortunately your tree analogy doesn’t work precisely because we’re dealing with contradictory claims here. If the Church started out by making very few claims and then added more over time, the tree analogy would work better. That’s not what we have here. Instead:
Church: “religious freedom is good and in keeping with the dignity of man.”
Church: “unbaptized people go to hell.”
Church: “unbaptized people don’t necessarily go to hell.”
Church: “slavery is OK.”
Church: “slavery is a heinous evil.”
Church: “torture and execution are good tools for suppressing heretics.”
Church: “torture and execution are evil and wrong.”
Church: “marriage is a tolerable and sadly necessary evil.”
Church: “marriage is amazing and wonderful and an icon of the trinity oh wow!!”
Church: “charging any interest at all is a damnable offense.”
Church: “well…maybe not ANY interest.”
The list goes on…
The Church can grow, but it cannot simultaneously claim to have always been teaching the truth.
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goout
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That is another post full of straw men. Sorry for snipping.
You are deflecting.
Can you answer my question in good faith or not.
Does a tree contradict it’s seed?
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PumpkinCookie
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Specifically because trees are neither capable of “contradiction” nor any kind of diction, no.
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e_c
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You mega-whiffed.
- You are forgetting the several hundred years where it did NOT have the backing of Rome but instead had just the opposite. By that point, it was “widely spread.” Out in the open everywhere, no, but to put all the praise (or blame?) on Constantine is ludicrous.
- JESUS. That is who I meant in my post - the fact that you didn’t get that is very odd.
- Except for those times when people claimed to have seen a man cure a leper, a blind man, a lame man, raise people from the dead, walk on water, multiply bread and fishes, etc. We are talking about the EXPERIENCE of things DONE, not their interpretation or meaning. How does one become confused that he and all his friends saw a man alive they know to have died when that man sits down and eats breakfast with them and shows them his wounds from being executed? This is the issue… not a spurious and hostile account of some words of St. Wolfram.
- What a silly argument. Why doesn’t he list out 500 names in a letter? First, he probably didn’t know all their names, but simply knew that the appearance was to a large enough group to put that number on it. Second, even if he did - why bother? Go into town and ask around… IT’S WHAT EVERYONE WAS TALKING ABOUT ANYWAY. Finally, letter writing was a very expensive and time-consuming task.
- I don’t know how to respond to this charitably.
- And?
- And the fact that people actually saw stuff happen with their own eyes that only God or his prophets (or maybe a demon!) could do, and that the epicenter of the Jewish world was thrown into mayhem by this man named Jesus. Don’t forget that stuff. Oh, and his closest disciples were performing miracles too.
- Back to the same mistake as before… Why on Earth would Rome care about an insignificant religion? They wouldn’t - it was wildly popular.
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e_c
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Find the magisterial documents that say these things, then we can have a discussion about them. In the body of magisterial teaching on these subjects, you will find the necessary contextual subtleties and distinctions that clear the difficulties. As long as you live in the shadows, there can’t be meaningful discourse…
And you are still operating under a super-ultramontanism, where anything any Christian says is “what the Church teaches” or some such thing.
NEWSFLASH: IT AIN’T.
So… Can we put Wolfram to bed? Please?
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goout
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PumpkinCookie
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Several competing and contradictory versions of Christianity were all over the place before Constantine adopted one or more of them (it’s not clear whether he actually converted to Arianism near the end of his life). That period of Roman history was a religious gumbo: all kinds of ideas were floating around. The cult of Mithras was equally widespread, and devotion to Isis as a personal lord as savior was familiar to much of the empire as well. I do believe if Constantine had instead converted to the cult of Isis or Apollo, you’d be arguing with me right now that one of them is the true god.
Sorry sir, but Jesus appears to be unavailable for questioning or otherwise absent. If he weren’t then there wouldn’t be thousands of denominations and history would have proceeded quite differently. All you have are various understandings of texts.
You have no proof or evidence that these things were really done except the argument that they’re too silly to fabricate. People hallucinate visions of their recently deceased loved ones commonly. It’s not so far-fetched to believe the intimate followers of an influential apocalyptic messianic cult leader hallucinated visions of him after he is brutally executed and their hopes are crushed. The stories in the texts could be later embellishment and legend grounded on the fundamental hysteria and hallucination of just a handful of people.
Right, Paul’s statement was probably just exaggeration. Yes, I agree that Christianity was a fascination of gossips, slaves, and superstitious people long ago. Corinth was far away from the center of the supposed events: the people couldn’t have been talking about what they witnessed. Rather, it’s possible they were excited by rumor and innuendo.
Christianity is wish-fulfillment, not truth.
The number of Jews who converted to Christianity in the first century is grossly overestimated by Christian apologists, in my opinion. The Jewish world was thrown into mayhem by the Romans, not Christianity. Besides, who cares? The entire middle east, northern Africa, southern Europe, and large portions of Asia were thrown into mayhem by Muhammad’s followers very rapidly. To this day his followers cause mayhem. Is that proof of divine guidance? I doubt it. Where is the proof of these miracles?
Certain forms of Christianity were popular among different classes during Constantine’s life, yes. Specifically: Arianism was the superstition du jour of the upper classes and gnosticism and proto-orthodoxy were popular among slaves. Other superstitions and traditional paganism were also practiced. When Constantine made Christianity the official religion and his successors added penalties for pagan practice, it was good business/politics to convert. By that time, traditional paganism had lost appeal anyway. The educated had long abandoned actual belief in the gods so Christianity was stepping into a situation where the was religion everywhere, but very little actual belief or strong faith. It was a religion gumbo, but a faith vacuum.
The various Christianities are not alone in being situated in history or “event-driven.” Here’s one: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frum
Islam is another, and also Mormonism.
Another: youtube.com/watch?v=W2Cv5hZfOmk
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