Which Church teachings do you struggle to accept?

[Hans_W]

You folk make life so complicated. My trust is in Jesus alone. In Him I rest and trust not in the words of any man… So often the harshness and lack of love is written here not the utter love of Jesus. The human intellect is a dangerous thing so I set it aside. Most of us do not analyse and define as you do. So that is more of the church teaching I set aside for the utter love of Jesus. No I do not believe what you say; it is alien to me and many create their own hell . Sometimes it seems some Catholic worship the church not Jesus. NB I am a trained academic with a MENSA Iq but I set all that aside when I pray and live for Jesus. Hubris else. According to you Church teaches by threat and fear not by love. Sugar is more wholesome and nourishing than vinegar.

So true. For some people their faith rests on a set of rules and regulations. If you do this and that then you go to heaven. Everything is black and white.

Most people have no idea what science is, but it is successful, gives results and is based on logic. So we need to apply some kind of logical thinking to our faith as well. It gives us assurance and we don’t need to rely on mysteries and such stuff anymore.

 

[Bookcat]

So true. For some people their faith rests on a set of rules and regulations. If you do this and that then you go to heaven. Everything is black and white.

Most people have no idea what science is, but it is successful, gives results and is based on logic. So we need to apply some kind of logical thinking to our faith as well. It gives us assurance and we don’t need to rely on mysteries and such stuff anymore.

The first part though is not about the Catholic Faith - for Faith does not “rest” on such -though like all love we do have that which we are to say “no” to in our saying “Yes!” to God.

“Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”

~ Pope Benedict XVI Deus Caritas Est

As to the second part – the Catholic Faith is about reason and Faith - after all we follow Jesus of Nazareth *Who is the Logos *(reason, word, meaning…).

Reason and Faith are two wings and truth is not contradictory (ie the truths known via empirical sciences do not contradict the Truth known via Revelation etc.)

And it is always to be remembered that the the empirical sciences by nature are limited to their area of knowledge and are partial and in “flux” needing constant revision.

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

159 Faith and science: “Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth.” “Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are.”

scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s1c3a1.htm#159

And

157 Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but “the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives.” “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.”

And it is important to note that…

“Mysteries” are actual of the highest encounter with Truth…

 

[Abu]

Hans W #315
For some people their faith rests on a set of rules and regulations. If you do this and that then you go to heaven. Everything is black and white.

For cafeteria Catholics anything goes, for they feel greater than the Christ whereas the Christ, God the Son, mandates: “if he refuses to hear even the Church let him be like the heathen and a publican.” (Mt 18:17).

Most people have no idea what science is, but it is successful, gives results and is based on logic. So we need to apply some kind of logical thinking to our faith as well. It gives us assurance and we don’t need to rely on mysteries and such stuff anymore.

This poster has already been acquainted with the reality by Abu #19, 28/2/15 10:33 am in Question about intersection between religion and science [Apol/Moral Theol].

Real science developed from the Catholic faith.

catholicleague.org/catholicism-and-science/
Catholicism and Science
by Rodney Stark
(from Catalyst 9/2004)
“All educated persons of Columbus’ day, very much including the Roman Catholic prelates, knew the earth was round. The Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) taught that the world was round, as did Bishop Virgilius of Salzburg (c. 720-784), Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), and Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224-74). All four ended up saints. Sphere was the title of the most popular medieval textbook on astronomy, written by the English scholastic John of Sacrobosco (c. 1200-1256). It informed that not only the earth but all heavenly bodies are spherical.

“So, why does the fable of the Catholic Church’s ignorance and opposition to the truth persist? Because the claim of an inevitable and bitter warfare between religion and science has, for more than three centuries, been the primary polemical device used in the atheist attack on faith.

“The truth is, there is no inherent conflict between religion and science. Indeed, the fundamental reality is that Christian theology was essential for the rise of science – a fact little appreciated outside the ranks of academic specialists.

“It is the consensus among contemporary historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science that real science arose only once: in Europe. It is instructive that China, Islam, India, ancient Greece, and Rome all had a highly developed alchemy. But only in Europe did alchemy develop into chemistry. By the same token, many societies developed elaborate systems of astrology, but only in Europe did astrology lead to astronomy. And these transformations took place at a time when folklore has it that a fanatical Christianity was imposing a general ignorance on Europe—the so-called Dark Ages.”

‘Recent historical research has debunked the idea of a “Dark Ages” after the “fall” of Rome. In fact, this was an era of profound and rapid technological progress, by the end of which Europe had surpassed the rest of the world. Moreover, the so-called “Scientific Revolution” of the sixteenth century was a result of developments begun by religious scholars starting in the eleventh century.’

 

[Rau]

So true. For some people their faith rests on a set of rules and regulations. If you do this and that then you go to heaven. Everything is black and white.

Most people have no idea what science is, but it is successful, gives results and is based on logic. So we need to apply some kind of logical thinking to our faith as well. It gives us assurance and we don’t need to rely on mysteries and such stuff anymore.

Can you say what Rosebud’s post means, since he has not explained it? Love Jesus and all will be good! What does that mean?

Moral truths can be analysed logically. Read Aquinas or papal encyclicals. But expecting the mystery to be lifted from God may be presumptuous.

 

[Hans_W]

This poster has already been acquainted with the reality by Abu #19, 28/2/15 10:33 am in Question about intersection between religion and science [Apol/Moral Theol].

As a professional scientist and philosopher “this poster” is pretty familiar with what science is and what is isn’t.

My point is not to confront science with religion or to reconcile them.

My point was that faith is being dissected, logically analysed and everything needs to be literally interpreted. And this is a fairly new development which has started 100-150 years ago.

 

[Abu]

Hans W #319
My point was that faith is being dissected, logically analysed and everything needs to be literally interpreted. And this is a fairly new development which has started 100-150 years ago.

From the beginning real “faith” was dissected and despised, but that “everything needs to be literally interpreted” is meaningless.

Even Friedrich Nietzsche (‘God is dead’) wrote: “Strictly speaking there is no such thing as science ‘without any presuppositions’… a philosophy, a ‘faith’, must always be there first, so that science can acquire a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method, a right to exist… It is still a metaphysical faith that underlines our faith in science.” (Genealogy of Morals III, 23-24).

St John Paul II in Centesimus Annus, 13, 1991:
“The atheism of which we are speaking is also closely connected with the rationalism of the Enlightenment, which views human and social reality in a mechanistic way. Thus there is a denial of the supreme insight concerning man’s true greatness, his transcendence in respect to earthly realities, the contradiction in his heart between the desire for the fullness of what is good and his own inability to attain it and, above all, the need for salvation which results from this situation.”

It began with Enlightenment. The so-called “Enlightenment” was exposed for its degradation by St John Paul II:
“The rationalism of the Enlightenment put to one side the true God – in particular, God the Redeemer.

“The consequence was that man was supposed to live by reason alone, as if God did not exist…as if God were not interested in the world. The rationalism of the Enlightenment was able to accept a God outside of the world primarily because it was an unverifiable hypothesis. It was crucial, however, that such a God be expelled from the world.”
Crossing The Threshold Of Hope, St John Paul II, Random House Australia, 1994, p 53.]

 

[Hans_W]

Real science developed from the Catholic faith.

catholicleague.org/catholicism-and-science/
Catholicism and Science
by Rodney Stark
(from Catalyst 9/2004)
“All educated persons of Columbus’ day, very much including the Roman Catholic prelates, knew the earth was round. The Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) taught that the world was round, as did Bishop Virgilius of Salzburg (c. 720-784), Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), and Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224-74). All four ended up saints. Sphere was the title of the most popular medieval textbook on astronomy, written by the English scholastic John of Sacrobosco (c. 1200-1256). It informed that not only the earth but all heavenly bodies are spherical.
…

That article is very skewed. I wouldn’t have put so much emphasis on the roundness of the earth. That was already known to the ancient Greeks and Eratosthenes worked out the size of the earth around 240 BC and to a much better value than Columbus had when he set sails to get to India.

We don’t want to use this thread on a discussion of science and its origin in the late Middle Ages. But it is useful to remember that learning at that time was largely the privilege of monks. Church leaders repeatedly tried to curtail the influence of Aristotelian philosophy. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX demanded that Aristotle’s books on natural philosophy (today’s science) must first be “examined and purged of all suspected error”. St Augustine of Hippo (whom I personally greatly admire) wrote “in Holy Scripture … all truth is rooted”. His conclusion was that natural philosophy is nothing but the “handmaiden” of theology. It was a century-long battle to separate the study of the natural world from theology. And it’s still going on (see Intelligent Design).

 

[Hans_W]

I want to get the discussion back to what Rosebud said:

You folk make life so complicated. My trust is in Jesus alone. In Him I rest and trust not in the words of any man… So often the harshness and lack of love is written here not the utter love of Jesus. The human intellect is a dangerous thing so I set it aside. Most of us do not analyse and define as you do. So that is more of the church teaching I set aside for the utter love of Jesus. No I do not believe what you say; it is alien to me and many create their own hell . Sometimes it seems some Catholic worship the church not Jesus. NB I am a trained academic with a MENSA Iq but I set all that aside when I pray and live for Jesus. Hubris else. According to you Church teaches by threat and fear not by love. Sugar is more wholesome and nourishing than vinegar.

There is too much emphasis on Church teaching and rules and regulations. So many claim that we, and we alone, know the Truth, we have the Answers. Everything needs to be analysed and interpreted and, of course, WE got it right. What is missing today is HUMILITY - the realisation that we can only grasp next to nothing of the Truth with our little brain.

 

[Rau]

I want to get the discussion back to what Rosebud said:

There is too much emphasis on Church teaching and rules and regulations. So many claim that we, and we alone, know the Truth, we have the Answers. Everything needs to be analysed and interpreted and, of course, WE got it right. What is missing today is HUMILITY - the realisation that we can only grasp next to nothing of the Truth with our little brain.

Maybe so. Yet equipped with puny brains and limited understanding we are required to make decisions on so many complex matters. We have brains for just that purpose. How are we to proceed? What guidance does Rosebud provide?

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

I want to get the discussion back to what Rosebud said:

There is too much emphasis on Church teaching and rules and regulations. So many claim that we, and we alone, know the Truth, we have the Answers. Everything needs to be analysed and interpreted and, of course, WE got it right. What is missing today is HUMILITY - the realisation that we can only grasp next to nothing of the Truth with our little brain.

Yes, I often think this. The lack of humility and obedience to the faith, even when we do not fully comprehend is astounding at times. I think that is human nature. I am guilty of it at times myself. Those are the times I say "I have it all figured out and those men with the funny hats following 2000 years of history of mankind have no idea of MY situation or MY troubles, Or MY logic. It is at these times when humility and obedience need to shine through my own ego.

 

[Bookcat]

There is too much emphasis on Church teaching and rules and regulations. So many claim that we, and we alone, know the Truth, we have the Answers. Everything needs to be analysed and interpreted and, of course, WE got it right. What is missing today is HUMILITY - the realisation that we can only grasp next to nothing of the Truth with our little brain.

The Church does not Teach we alone know the Truth, we alone know the answers.

The Church actually teaches that others too can come to know many varied truths.

What we do know - what has been Revealed by God - is yes Truth and yes in reasoning about such such we profess and teach Truth. And yes the Church Teaches we are to live in humility. And humility is as S. Thomas reminds us “truth”. We can know the Truth and above we can encounter and know Jesus Who is the Truth and it is as he says “truth” that “sets free”.

We in humility* receive* the truth…

And the focus is not on “rules”. Christianity is not about ethics. Though ethics are involved.

“Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”

~ Pope Benedict XVI Deus Caritas Est

Yes ethics are involved - yes morality is certainly part of the life - but above all it is an encounter with Jesus - that is the focus

…but yes as in all love we do have that which we are to say *“no” *to- in our saying “Yes!” to God.

 

[Abu]

Hans W #322
There is too much emphasis on Church teaching and rules and regulations.

Thus says the oracle, when the Christ emphasises of His foundational Petrine Apostolic Church “He that hears you hears Me“, and “If he will not listen to the Church let him be as the heathen and the publican.”

What is missing today is HUMILITY – the realisation that we can only grasp next to nothing of the Truth with our little brain.

Fr John A Hardon, S.J., defines humility.

Modern Catholic Dictionary by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
therealpresence.org/cgi-bin/getdefinition.pl
**HUMILITY. **The moral virtue that keeps a person from reaching beyond himself. It is the virtue that restrains the unruly desire for personal greatness and leads people to an orderly love of themselves based on a true appreciation of their position with respect to God and their neighbors. Religious humility recognizes one’s total dependence on God; moral humility recognizes one’s creaturely equality with others. Yet humility is not only opposed to pride; it is also opposed to immoderate self-abjection, which would fail to recognize God’s gifts and use them according to his will. (Etym. Latin humilitas, abasement, humility, from humus, ground.)

So, as apologist Desmond A Birch points out in Trial, Tribulation and Triumph, Queenship Publishing, 1996, p 131:
“That gift of humility leads us to understand the need for an authoritative interpreter and teacher of Revelation – the Magisterium. If we will but ask for increased humility, we can be obedient to that Magisterium, whose function, a humble intellect tells us is necessary. God gave us intellects to faithfully work within that framework.”

Christ’s Catholic Church is how the real Catholic knows, believes and lives. As St Josemaria Escrivá de la Balaguer stresses:
“The Christian life has to be shot through with optimism, joy and the strong conviction that Our Blessed Lord wants to make use of us. If we feel part of the Church, if we see ourselves sustained by the rock of Peter and by the action of the Holy Spirit, we will decide to fulfill the duty of every moment. We will sow a little each day, and the granaries will overflow.” Christ Is Passing By (Homilies), Scepter Press, 1990, #160].

We grasp what we strive for in the Catholic Church – of Her teaching, sanctifying and ruling.

 

[Tomdstone]

**HUMILITY. **The moral virtue that keeps a person from reaching beyond himself.

In America, people who reach high are oftentimes admired, especially in the Olympic contests.

 

[Rau]

In America, people who reach high are oftentimes admired, especially in the Olympic contests.

They discovered themselves. They did not reach beyond. Perhaps the drug cheat reaches beyond?

 

[Burdock]

Yes, I often think this. The lack of humility and obedience to the faith, even when we do not fully comprehend is astounding at times. I think that is human nature. I am guilty of it at times myself. Those are the times I say "I have it all figured out and those men with the funny hats following 2000 years of history of mankind have no idea of MY situation or MY troubles, Or MY logic. It is at these times when humility and obedience need to shine through my own ego.

But its true they havent got any idea.

 

[Rau]

But its true they havent got any idea.

Of what - your situation? Your troubles? Your logic? How might those things change moral teaching?

 

[Tomdstone]

They discovered themselves. They did not reach beyond.

Many athletes reach beyond where they were to make new records.
youtube.com/watch?v=ul_qm3Ym8-k

 

[Rau]

Many athletes reach beyond where they were to make new records.

By definition, then, they discover where they are NOW!

 

[Hans_W]

Maybe so. Yet equipped with puny brains and limited understanding we are required to make decisions on so many complex matters. We have brains for just that purpose. How are we to proceed? What guidance does Rosebud provide?

As Rosebud says, simple love, unconditional love and trust for my God and Saviour.

 

[Rau]

As Rosebud says, simple love, unconditional love and trust for my God and Saviour.

And apparently the Church fails to follow this roadmap?