The Confusion of Catholicism

[Aloysium]

What are the people in this picture doing?

http://www.bluecorncomics.com/pics/aztecs.gif

Obviously, they’re murdering some poor guy by taking out his heart and holding it up to the sun. That is literally what they are doing. See my point, or do I need to spell it out? . . …

Actually, that is not what they are doing. That is what you see.
I am not sure because I do not know the significance of the sun for them.
Clearly, sacrifice is a concept/ritual/requirement/I-don’t-know-how -to-say-it deep within us, that has to do with our relationship with what is of true importance in our lives.

You should spell it out for me, and perhaps others, because I don’t understand what point you are trying to illustrate.

 

[tonyrey]

Oddly enough I do agree with you here, sort of. I don’t know what to say about God as it is understood in Catholicism, or Islam and Judaism for that matter. But I do believe that that the answer to the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” is that there cannot be “nothing”. I believe that, somehow, there is necessary existence, although I am not sure I would identify this with the Abrahamic god or even with a personal being. I guess this is where faith comes in.

According to the principle of adequacy an explanation should be in terms of the highest aspect of reality. Pascal made the point succinctly:

Man’s greatness lies in his power of thought.

He elaborated:

“Man is a reed, the weakest of nature, but he is a thinking reed. It is not necessary that the entire universe arm itself to crush: a vapor, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than what kills him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage that the universe has over him, the universe does knows nothing”

It is unreasonable to believe reason has emerged from processes which know nothing…

 

[OneSheep]

Good Morning, guanophore!

Let’s begin, again, with this scripture that you so generously offered to this thread:

"If anyone teaches other doctrine and does not agree with the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the teaching that promotes godliness,4he is conceited, understanding nothing, but has a sick interest in disputes and arguments over words. From these come envy, quarreling, slander, evil suspicions, 5and constant disagreement among people whose minds are depraved and deprived of the truth, who imagine that godliness is a way to material gain.I Tim. 6

Now, let us measure this against your post:

It is important to point this out, for those who might be reading the threads. People can go back in the discussion and it will become clear where your comments deviate from the Teachings.

Here, you are raising suspicions. You have failed to show where I deviate from teachings, and now you are saying that they are there, but leaving it up to people to do so. If there are deviations, guanophore, please stop making your accusations and prove it. I have asked at least half a dozen times, now, and you have come up with nothing. My saying that people are basically good does not diverge from Church teachings. My saying that people do not knowingly and willingly reject God does not diverge. Saying that I do not take revelations literally does not diverge.

Your comments are uncharitable. Are all people of your order so disrespectful as to not shake a person’s hand? I think not.

Confirming people in their errors is not charitable.

If you are trying to be charitable, do not make unfounded accusations and leave it up to readers to find the “deviations”. Is this part of the Benedictine rule to behave as you are doing? Is this the Benedictine idea of “charity”?

Statements such as this indicate you are holding a position contrary to the TEaching of the Church. Unity is not created by holding hands.

The Church does not deny that unity can be enhanced by holding hands. If you have doctrine that shows otherwise, put it forth. Otherwise, you are misrepresenting the Church and its doctrine. You do not see any unity in hand-holding, that is okay, but if someone else does, it is not “contrary to Church teachings”. Again, you are making unfounded accusations.

The disagreements are not just words, One Sheep. they are departures from the One Faith, deposited once for all to the Church by the Apostles.

And by our “one faith” a person cannot find a unity, in part, by holding hands? Please find the teaching that says this. It does not exist, guanophore.

Communion DOES NOT have to do with our willingness to embrace each other and actively seeking unity by hand holding, inclusion or any other human warm fuzzy activity. Communion occurs when each person is “in Christ”. Unity of doctrine exists because those who are In Christ accept HIs Teachings. The Holy Spirit creates communion

.

And the Holy Spirit may actually inspire people to hold hands, which may help create unity found in Love. Are you open to such action by the Spirit, or are you closed to such action?

The words represent and contain the One Faith. People who present themselves to participate in Eucharist say “Amen”, meaning that they affirm all that the Church teaches.

What does the Church teach about respecting other people, guanophore? If a person says, “I am a follower of Christ”, but that person has some different ideas about practices and interpretations, does that mean you cannot shake his hand? Does the Church teach that? No, it does not. However, you refuse my hand, you let the words get in the way. Are you saying that we are to remain in “constant disagreement” as in 1Tim6? That is not my wish, guanophore.

The idea that I, or anyone else can “do my part to make unity triumph over division” is a fantasy. Unity occurs between members of the Body that are conformed to Christ. It cannot be created by human “triumph” of any kind.

You words there are not supported by doctrine, they are only opinion. Humans can create division, and you seem determined to do so with me, refusing to even shake my hand. So, humans can create unity. God does not divide the Church, guanophore, humans do.

Division occurs when members of the Body depart from the Teachings of Christ. Every human person is free to deny the Teachings of Christ, just as you are doing now.

This is the rationale for all the many, many divisions in Protestantism and in the history of the Church. I find unity in hand-holding (and, of course, in the teachings of Christ) and you find my opinions a denial of the teachings.

I ask without accusation, but with curiosity: Do you have the right to say that I am denying the Teachings of Christ without providing doctrinal proof against something I have said? If so, on whose authority? Your superior? Your Bishop? The Pope? Who gave you the authority to make such a judgment? The CAF? God?

Oh, and you must have missed this part of my last post:

Let’s shake on it, guanophore, adherence to “sound teachings of our Lord” does not lead to disputes over words. Here are some “sound teachings” we can agree on: Love God. Love one another. Have mercy. Welcome strangers, everyone! Be charitable. Be merciful. Recognize that we who are baptized and have committed themselves to Christ are part of the body. Believe in the Creed.

Aren’t those “words” enough? Or would you rather continue the argument?

Well, it sounds like you would rather continue the argument. Why? Can we agree on the words I wrote above? Pope Francis asks us to begin with what we have in common. Do we have those words in common?

Please, give it another think.

 

[o_mlly]

What are the people in this picture doing?

http://www.bluecorncomics.com/pics/aztecs.gif

The Incas almost had it right. They knew salvation had something to do with sacrifice and death. Unfortunately, they used their neighbors.

 

[OneSheep]

Not at all. But we must understand that people see/believe things differently, even within our church, and it doesn’t make them any less Catholic.
We each have our own personal belief about our faith, about God etc.

I agree, Simpleas.

What about shaking hands, Simpleas? Where you come from, is it respectful to refuse a handshake from someone?

There is so much animosity on this side of the pond, Simpleas. It seems that the lack of charity on talk radio has infected our entire congress, and now people in the Church are also blind to the lack of civility in our society.

I’m thinking that people are looking in the wrong direction for examples of what it means to be humble, to be a servant, to be a follower of Christ. In my generation, it is unthinkable to refuse to shake a person’s hand, and actually, none of my own children would do such a thing, so it is certainly not generational.

What do you think?

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Actually, that is not what they are doing. That is what you see.
I am not sure because I do not know the significance of the sun for them.
Clearly, sacrifice is a concept/ritual/requirement/I-don’t-know-how -to-say-it deep within us, that has to do with our relationship with what is of true importance in our lives.

You should spell it out for me, and perhaps others, because I don’t understand what point you are trying to illustrate.

OK, what do you see in this picture?



I see a man holding up an object and two other men kneeling before him. I know from experience that the words accompanying this action are essentially a proclamation that the object is in fact God in the sense that it is the second person of God. That is literally and obviously what is happening here.

Now, you’ll say all kinds of other things are happening, but plain common sense tells us what is obvious. You’ll say it only appears to be what I say it is, but it is in fact something much more profound. I think it’s fine for you to believe that, but I don’t.

With the picture in the previous post, neither of us have any idea of what the deeper significance of the act is. It could be ritual cannibalism for all you or I know. It could be a religious sacrifice to a sun deity, it could be any number of things. However, from the outside, it is clearly and obviously a murder by removal of the heart. Would you be ready to convert to the religion of the heart-removers because they tell you they’re convinced what they’re doing is pleasing to God?

From the outside, mass is clearly and obviously the worship of an object. I’m not ready to believe just because some people say they’re convinced it is pleasing to God.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

The Incas almost had it right. They knew salvation had something to do with sacrifice and death. Unfortunately, they used their neighbors.

LOL you have read too much Chesterton my friend! How were you able to determine that they are Inca?

 

[o_mlly]

Oddly enough I do agree with you here, sort of. I don’t know what to say about God as it is understood in Catholicism, or Islam and Judaism for that matter. But I do believe that that the answer to the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” is that there cannot be “nothing”. I believe that, somehow, there is necessary existence, although I am not sure I would identify this with the Abrahamic god or even with a personal being. I guess this is where faith comes in.

So are you saying that “necessary existence” rather than “existence” itself is God’s whatness? Or at least part of it?

That is something I can agree with, and that Kant can also agree with. But it does not mean God exists. I am not denying he exists, just to be clear, I am just saying that that particular argument does not work. It would be the same as my realunicorn, which has necessary being as part of its whatness. We can say that if a realunicorn exists it exists necessarily, but we are entitled to reject the entire concept.

Then, my friend, I think with your agreement I have defended my initial claim successfully. Thank you for the exchange!

I … think that our faith is neither irrational or ambiguous. That is, right reason does not stand in opposition to Catholic teaching although reason alone may not reach all the tenets of our beliefs.

Reason and faith are two forces that are to cooperate to bring the human person to know the truth, and that each of these has its own primacy: faith comes first in the sequence of time, reason has the absolute primacy.

Encyclical on “Augustine of Hippo,” John Paul II.

 

[o_mlly]

LOL you have read too much Chesterton my friend! How were you able to determine that they are Inca?

No blue paint smeared on the priests’ bodies. Thank you Mel Gibson!

 

[paziego]

Then, my friend, I think with your agreement I have defended my initial claim successfully. Thank you for the exchange!

Are you referring to the logical consistency of the trinity? Because that has certainly not been demonstrated. In fact it has been conclusively disproven.

As for my agreeing with you, when I say Kant and I agree with you I mean that we can posit a hypothetical being who necessarily exists. However, I am not saying that there is such a being, nor am I saying that it is possible to say that existence is God’s “whatness” while denying pantheism. I believe that this has also been proven conclusively, unless we further qualify what we are saying and specify that we are not talking about whatness in general.

 

[simpleas]

I agree, Simpleas.

What about shaking hands, Simpleas? Where you come from, is it respectful to refuse a handshake from someone?

There is so much animosity on this side of the pond, Simpleas. It seems that the lack of charity on talk radio has infected our entire congress, and now people in the Church are also blind to the lack of civility in our society.

I’m thinking that people are looking in the wrong direction for examples of what it means to be humble, to be a servant, to be a follower of Christ. In my generation, it is unthinkable to refuse to shake a person’s hand, and actually, none of my own children would do such a thing, so it is certainly not generational.

What do you think?

No it would most likely be disrespectful to refuse a hand shake here. It’s a very common greeting.
You mentioned the kiss of peace in church? Is that what is done in your church? We make the sign of peace by shaking hands just before the Eucharist.

I do remember years back at a parish I used to attend when I couldn’t get to my regular parish due to work, that there was a family from New Zealand, mum, dad and two sons, they would hug and kiss each other at the sign of peace, that was the first time I saw that being done. I remember thinking they must be a close family, they never kissed and hugged anyone else, just shook hands, and no one else followed suit.

The very early church used to have the kiss of peace, so it’s not a new thing, but a very ancient one by all accounts.

Here and in the rest of Europe we have little lent and advent booklets that have short scripture quotes and daily reflections, yesterdays seems to reflect on what is being discussed here so I thought I’d share it. This is the “type” of Catholicism I am used to being exposed to :

Hear my voice when I call, O Lord, be merciful to me and answer me.(Psalm 27:7)

Matt 20:17-28

The son of man did not come to be served but to serve.

Mercy needs to become a way of life for us, a lifestyle.
This means we must choose mercy over judgement, goodness over evil and humility over arrogance. This is easier said than done and can only be done with God’s help. This is because like Ss John and James, there is a force or darkness within us which wants to lord it over others, to be considered the greatest and to look down on others. We think and act like this when we lose the sight of God’s mercy. The goal of lent is to recover and recommit ourselves to a lifestyle of mercy. This means that we seek first to understand God’s mercy towards us and then to extend this mercy to others.

Prayer :

Lord, help me to desire mercy and humility that I may walk humbly before you my Lord and my God.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . With the picture in the previous post, neither of us have any idea of what the deeper significance of the act is. It could be ritual cannibalism for all you or I know. It could be a religious sacrifice to a sun deity, it could be any number of things. However, from the outside, it is clearly and obviously a murder by removal of the heart. Would you be ready to convert to the religion of the heart-removers because they tell you they’re convinced what they’re doing is pleasing to God? . . .

I notice your image of Aztecs came from a comic site. It is nothing like their art. The choice is fitting however given that your views are a caricature of Catholicism.

The “deeper” significance would be that which envelops those persons involved, the meaning that describes their relationship with the Ground of our being, the relationship with each other and with the world.
When you say obvious, you describe what is apparent to you on the surface.
It may be something most people would agree with because it simply describes object: the sun, the heart some men a knife, a wound and some blood.
Putting it together as a human activity, the image portrays is an act having a moral nature.

Murder involves the planning and killing of a human being by other human being(s). The purpose and meaning of the act are outside the law. This is not murder in a societal sense.
It does appear to be an offense against objective moral reality. It goes against the Sixth Commandment and the second of the two which underlie all moral law as revealed by Jesus Christ.
I would agree that it is murder, but that is a moral judgement rather than a description of what is taking place in the reality of those persons in their cultural and environmental circumstances.

I have a lot of trouble with hypotheticals, especially the ones that appear all too frequently on this forum. I like to look reality in the face.
As to whether I would convert to that religion, I am not really sure what it means to convert.
Fact is that the Catholic Church is the quickest and surest way to deepen one’s relationship with God. In your spiritual wanderings, if you are focussed on the truth you’ll be back.

 

[o_mlly]

Are you referring to the logical consistency of the trinity? Because that has certainly not been demonstrated. In fact it has been conclusively disproven.

I didn’t see that argument that concludes that the Trinity cannot exist. Would you re-post as a simple syllogism for analysis?

As for my agreeing with you, when I say Kant and I agree with you I mean that we can posit a hypothetical being who necessarily exists. However, I am not saying that there is such a being,…

And, absent faith, you don’t have to. It’s enough that you agree on the reasonable possibility.

Remember the claim I made was not that I can rationally prove a Catholic doctrine but rather that you rationally cannot disprove one. Therefore, Catholic beliefs properly understood are neither confusing or ambiguous.

 

[paziego]

Oddly enough I do agree with you here, sort of. I don’t know what to say about God as it is understood in Catholicism, or Islam and Judaism for that matter. But I do believe that that the answer to the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” is that there cannot be “nothing”. I believe that, somehow, there is necessary existence, although I am not sure I would identify this with the Abrahamic god or even with a personal being. I guess this is where faith comes in.

I would add to my argument that God, described as existence itself or as a being whose essence is existence, would imply that this God is not a person or intellect at all.
If God is existence itself he is not a whatness of any kind. He would be pure thatness. This is irreconcilable with the Abrahamic conception of god, not to even mention the Trinitarian version.

So are you saying that “necessary existence” rather than “existence” itself is God’s whatness? Or at least part of it?

From what I have explained above it is clear that these two alternatives give us completely different results. The first is a being with properties and whose whose instance is necessary (hypothetically and not literally). This being has exactly the same relationship with existence we have, the only difference is that we are adding the claim that it is necessary. The extra claim to necessity we would be ascribing would be completely arbitrary. The second is what I described above - an impersonal thatness that is completely incompatible with any traditional notion of God. We would be reducing God to a mere property.

There are other arguments against it,

Alvin Plantinga argued that God cannot simply be his abstract properties and still be non-abstract: [2]

“No property could have created the world; no property could be omniscient, or, indeed, know anything at all. If God is a property, then he isn’t a person but a mere abstract object; he has no knowledge, awareness, power, love or life. So taken, the simplicity doctrine seems an utter mistake.”

Properties do not subsist (self-maintain) themselves, God supposedly subsists. How can a God be identical to his act?

[1] (R. T. Mullins, Something Much Too Radical To Believe: Towards a Refutation of Divine Simplicity, Journal of Reformed Theology 7 (2013) 181-203 [1])*

That is something I can agree with, and that Kant can also agree with. But it does not mean God exists. I am not denying he exists, just to be clear, I am just saying that that particular argument does not work. It would be the same as my realunicorn, which has necessary being as part of its whatness. We can say that if

a realunicorn exists it exists necessarily, but we are entitled to reject the entire concept.

So as you can see, I agree that there is the possibility or arbitrarily positing beings who must necessarily have an instance. But I am not agreeing to a being whose essence is existence. Such a being would cease to be a being as we think of one.

 

[paziego]

Hello again.

You are probably right about my failure to adequately separate ‘person’ and ‘being’. I am aware of their difference and of the usage made of these terms in Trinitarian theology. But then again, the usage of these terms is what is problematic about Trinitarian theology. Let me explain.

‘Being’ can either be a referent of identity, or it can not. (The Church, in its Trinitarian theology, seems to treat it as a referent of identity. That is, ‘God’ is who the persons are. I am aware it is also what the persons are, but in emphasising the joint-ness between them it is primarily making a claim about the persons as an entity).
If this is the case, then we have two options:

We can say things like the ‘son is God’, and ‘the father is God’. But then we will be forced to accept ‘the son is the father’ (A is F, B is F = A is B). This is a self-contradiction because Trinitarian theology also says the son is not the father.

Alternatively we can say that what we mean by ‘the son is god’, or ‘the father is god’ needs fuller explanation. We can say ‘the son is god sonwise’, or that ‘the father is god fatherwise’. The problem with this is that it yields partialism or modalism, both of which are heresies.

If we take the other approach and say ‘being’ is not a referent of identity, then we have even bigger problems. It is unclear what ‘being’ would mean in this case, but since identity is ruled out we would most likely be talking about what type of being a thing is, rather than what individual thing the being. (For example, you and I are both humans, but what is shared by us really ends there. It does not make us the same being identity-wise, but we are the same being nature-wise). So in this case we can say that all three persons are divine, but we are not positing any joint being-ness to be shared by them, as to do so would transform it into an identity claim.
But this leaves us with three, divine, independent beings - with three gods.

Here is what I presented. This was not responded to effectively.

 

[paziego]

“Being” means “God is existence.” That is, God does not exist, He is existence itself. All creatures depend on God’s being existence as He is sole the source of their existence. " I am who am" (outside time).

Since the non-transitive property obtains in the relations I think the math metaphor for the Trinity would be notated as A → B, A + B → C. The Son is begotten of the Father in eternity and the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and Son in eternity.

This was your reply. But your formula does nothing to show how the persons of the trinity are united in one being. You have posited three different entities with relations, but these relations do not constitute unity in being.

There is nothing to say that each person cannot be something whose essence is existence.

 

[o_mlly]

This was your reply. But your formula does nothing to show how the persons of the trinity are united in one being. You have posited three different entities with relations, but these relations do not constitute unity in being.

There is nothing to say that each person cannot be something whose essence is existence.

In order to prove me wrong, the basic premise that you must prove is:
*
The existence and properties of things that transcend nature can be dis-proven by things in nature.*

Good luck.

 

[davidv]

I would add to my argument that God, described as existence itself or as a being whose essence is existence, would imply that this God is not a person or intellect at all. {snip}

Please supply the logic and/or evidence that this is a reasonable implication. As it stands it is a non sequitur, in other words, an unreasonable conclusion.

 

[Aloysium]

Please supply the logic and/or evidence that this is a reasonable implication. As it stands it is a non sequitur, in other words, an unreasonable conclusion.

I don’t have any idea what he’s talking about either, but while I would agree that existence is the essence of God, a better way to conceive of Him is Love.

 

[guanophore]

What are the people in this picture doing?

Obviously, they’re murdering some poor guy by taking out his heart and holding it up to the sun. That is literally what they are doing. See my point, or do I need to spell it out?

You are projecting your assumptions into the interpretation. How do you know he did not volunteer himself to be sacrificed? How do you know that the offering of a heart to the Sun God was not believed to be a source of eternal life?

Of course we can assume, based on our own modern interpolation into the event, that what you are saying is true, but this is not a culturally or historically appropriate hermeneutic.

I do not believe the Christians in the earlier photo are worshipping the kleenex boxes, or the podium, or the band. But if I were to use your method, I could assume any one of these possibilities.

Observation, although helpful, is insufficient. Observation tells us nothing about the motivations, values, beliefs and intentions of the person. This is one reason that scientific method is insufficient as a tool of investigation for such phenomena.

If you’re so concerned about the lived experiences of your fellow humans, then the thought that the vast majority of human beings who have ever lived did not believe in Catholicism should keep you up at night.

Why would it? The Catholic Church teaches that every soul is given sufficient grace to be saved. It is not my job to give them grace, so why would my peace of mind be disturbed? We are His creatures, and He has provided a method of attaining eternal fellowship with Him.

You reject the experience of a billion Muslims, a billion non-religious,a billion hindus, hundreds of millions of protestants, hundreds of millions of Chinese traditional believers, hundreds of millions of buddhists, hundreds of millions of animists of various sorts, and hundreds of millions of believers in thousands of other religious traditions.

I do nothing nof the kind!

You did not answer my question. Are you asserting that the people in the photo are worshipping the kleenex boxes?

It is not appropriate to make assumptions about the attitude of the heart in another human being. When a person kneels in prayer, who are any of us to judge/condemn them because we are looking at what is within their eyesight?