Shifting sand or solid rock?

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friardchips

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Shifting sand:

Fundamentalism
  • (idolatry)
Modernism
  • (banality)
Relativism
  • (individualism)
Solid Rock:

Catholicism
 
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OK, I’ll bite…

Seems to me that the Catholic practice of venerating images is in the “shifting sands” category

Regarding said practice Ludwig Ott said the following:

Owing to the influence of the Old Testament prohibition of images, Christian veneration of images developed only after the victory of the Church over paganism. The Synod of Elvira (about 306) still prohibited figurative representations in the houses of God (Can. 36). The original purpose of the images was that of instruction. The veneration of images (by kissing, bowing down before them, burning of candles, incensing) chiefly developed in the Greek Church from the fifth to the seventh centuries. The Iconoclasts of the eighth and ninth centuries saw in the veneration of images a relapse into paganism. Against them St. John Damascene (died 749), the Patriarchs Germanus (died 733) and Nicephorus (died 829) of Constantinople and the Abbot Theodor of Studium (died 826) defended the Church practice. They stressed above all the relative character of the veneration and also pointed out the educational value of the images. (Ludwig Ott, The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 320-21)

Any thoughts on the shift from prohibition of images to veneration of images?
 
This thread has been rewritten about a dozen times and was originally meant to be arguing against all the things that I think are problematic or that consist of issues. I then listed them, but then thought…no, I am going to get into trouble. Then, I looked at the first response, and thought…that makes this thread a sort of statement rather than a place of debate. But now, debate we must, for the tide has changed:
 
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I think the only problematic aspect of venerating images is to do with Scripture, where we are told not to make carved images, but I think that this reference is not in context with the worship of God. We are not venerating a blessed image as a final object of desire as something in itself, but venerating it, in knowledge of the fact that it is inspired by Heaven, to please God. If the Church announces a blessing, then a blessing is what comes of it.

Whatever new emoticon is equivalent to ‘my two-cents’.
 
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I’m a little confused by the assertion that fundamentalism is idolatry.

The Evangelicals I know are actually very anxious to avoid any semblance of idolatry, which is why they don’t like religious statues.

Would you mind expanding on that?
 
Fundamentalism is idolatry because it is an inner-attitude, first-and-foremostly, which places one’s own preferences before the discernment / before knowledge of what it is that God desires.
 
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friardchips said:
Shifting sand:

Fundamentalism
  • (idolatry)
Modernism
  • (banality)
Relativism
  • (individualism)
Click to expand...
“Shifting sand” seems to describe these definitions/characterizations. Each term means what you want it to mean.
 
There is a certain reasoning behind them. They are attempts at summation, although other descriptions may apply.
 
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friardchips said:
Fundamentalism is idolatry because it is an inner-attitude, first-and-foremostly, which places one’s own preferences before the discernment / before knowledge of what it is that God desires.
Click to expand...
Source.
Where do fundamentalists state this?
Without a source, this becomes an accusation, and a polemical one at that.
 
Fundamentalists are not going to state this; probably, partly why, fundamentalists are being fundamentalist.

Fundamentalism is self-accusatory.
 
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Okay, we’re not getting anywhere with fundamentalism.

How about Modernism/banality? How is banality the key to understanding Modernism?
 
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friardchips said:
Fundamentalists are not going to state this; probably, partly why, fundamentalists are being fundamentalist.

Fundamentalism is self-accusatory.
Click to expand...
If they are not going to say this, then it isn’t something they do.
To say it is “self-accusatory “ is an accusation in itself, without basis.
So, what specifically makes fundamentalism idolatry? Who or what is the idol?
 
Why is it we are not getting anywhere with Fundamentalism? No one has offered positive commentary, yet, apart from one person who asked me to expand on what I meant.

Modernism is not understood through banality. It is rather, that one is a consequence of the other - who wants to experience banality? Banality is the result of Modernism, not the ‘key’.
 
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People who are fundamentalists, are expressing an attitude of fundamentalism, which gives expression to their inner-attitude.

There is a difference between being able to tell when someone is being fundamentalist and a fundamentalist admitting that they are being fundamentalist - one does not equal the other.

Self-accusation is the same as saying, on more extreme and definitive terms, that people send themselves to Hell. This is objectively true.

Fundamentalism is, as has been stated, wilfully, and possibly obstinately, making one’s own ideas the first priority, before God’s Will. So the idol is one’s own mind, oneself, and/or the object being put before God, as priority. Both, even. One’s own choice-preference and one’s own will (possibly).
 
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friardchips said:
Fundamentalism is, as has been stated, makes one’s own ideas into the first priority, before God’s Will.
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Can you support that statement?

Fundamentalists endeavor to learn the truth from the Bible, which they assume to be God’s inerrant word. Fundamentalism takes the Bible as the source, not “one’s own ideas.”
 
friardchips said:
Modernism is not understood through banality. It is rather, that one is a consequence of the other - who wants to experience banality? Banality is the result of Modernism, not the ‘key’.
Click to expand...
There are other consequences of Modernism, perhaps of greater importance than banality. It’s not clear how you happened to single out banality.
 
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friardchips said:
Shifting sand:
Fundamentalism
  • (idolatry)
    Modernism
  • (banality)
    Relativism
  • (individualism)
Solid Rock:
Catholicism
Click to expand...
I thought perhaps you just wanted cheerleaders, but I am guessing that did want debate.
To the extent that Christ is the Rock, the Rock is great. To the extent that Peter is the rock, the rock is great. To the extent that revelation is the rock, the rock is great.
To the extent that the rock is the position that revelation ended with the apostles and the deposit of faith is fixed, the rock is particularly problematic. There are problems in this world that concern faith and morals and in their ancient manifestation appeared solved (to every Catholic thinker who put pen to paper without being condemned as a heretic), but in their modern manifestation are so clearly not solved that either the original solution was WRONG or there is a need for change to respond.
I can see the appeal of fixed truth, and I think there is fixed truth. I even believe that God could have inspired the Apostles to write scripture that applied to problems that would be and have been in small Catholic country AND similar problems that would be and have been in large secular societies. But God didn’t do that.
God also didn’t do that for the Jews. He could have inspired ancient Jews to write that if your brother dies marry his wife (even if you already have a wife) until a future time when this will no longer be necessary and as good Christians you will help take care of her and any children. God’s chosen people before Christ received truths that do not align with the truths Christians received in the first century. This was/is revelation. It is my position that “solid rock” without revelation is nowhere evident in the Bible and is thus not a mark of the true church.
So, I think the first century Christians were lead by Peter. He had a vision concerning clean and unclean food. The gospel was extended to the gentiles. This is the model that I think is God’s model and is thus the “mark of the true gospel” not solid-rock-ness. It is also not idolatry, banality, or individualism. I choose God’s way not solid-rock-ness.
Charity, TOm
 
Fundamentalists, are not just people who deem it necessary to state that everything in Scripture is to be taken literally - which is more along the lines of what I understand a fundamentalist to be, in the context of Bible study; the definition you put forward as being fundamentalism, does not equate to it, unless I have misunderstood your asserted definition - but can also be people who are putting any personal preference in one’s religion, before God’s Will.
 
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What other consequences are there? The first consequence of Modernism is an immediate lessening of spiritual understanding, and so it is the interpretion of something amazing, as being something one-dimensional i.e:- banal. There will be other consequences.
 
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