Why is it that cafeteria Catholics

[TNT]

Just a little analogy:

Contraception and:
Bulimia Nervosa An eating disorder. A loss of control over food intake characterized by gorging binges followed by self-induced vomiting or use of laxatives; also accompanied by feelings of guilt and depression.

 

[amarischuk]

When I say that TNT had responded I knew that this would be interesting.

TNT, your criticism of Rahner is nothing short of slanderous. First you lift most of your information from two articles, one hosted on a traditionalist web-page: oltyn.com/rahner.htm

The other article it is obvious you only bothered to read the introduction to: gonsalves.org/favorite/rahnerheart.htm

as the NCR reported that the Rahner-Rinser relationship was celibate: “All three parties to this apparently celibate love triangle – Rinser, Rahner and “M.A.,” as she refers to the abbot [who was her spiritual director]”

“Publishing excerpts of these letters, she told him could help many priests to “sanctify love.” Rinser refers in her letters to Rahner’s commitment to celibacy.”

Also note that many of the letters are of a theological nature:

“Rahner wrote Rinser some 2,203 letters, both personal and theological”

Actually read the article next time and you will see what essentially we have here is a beautiful story of a Priest torn between his love of God (including his vows as a priest) and his love for a woman he can never have. It reminds me of the Abelard and Heloise story after Abelard’s castration. But of course only modernist heretic priests like Rahner can fall in love. There is no love in the Traditionalist camp, bahhumbug.

And TNT, if you think calling Maritain a conservative is a stretch, it is obvious you have never read a word he has written. I figured you would like him: he grew disillusioned with VII, his book on Aquinas argues that existential Thomism is the only legitimate interpretation of Catholic philosophy (contra the transcendental Thomism of the Jesuits Rahner and Lonergan), the more moderate Etienne Gilson never really forgave Maritain for using “Aquinas as a hammer” against Henri Bergson in his book “Thomism and Bergsonian Philosophy”, a member of the reactionary “Action Francais”.

TNT, if the Church before VII was so perfect, how come things fell apart during VII? How could a couple liberal theologians and Bishops hijack the council and effectively ruin the Church Christ had promised to protect? How come so many priests raised in the pre-Vatican II Tridentine tradition go so wrong? How come the clergy sex abuse scandal includes mainly priests ordained prior to VII and Paul VI’s reworking of the liturgy?

Your conspiracy theories are too much.

But all that aside, you still haven’t answered any of the objections to patg’s list of criticism except a rather poorly phrase answer to the problem of the translation of the word ‘virgin’ which as you yourself show, was a miss-translation (note the word almah):

Behold a virgin (almah) shall conceive (from Isaiah)…
Gen 24:16 (Rebekah) An exceedingly comely maid (almah), and a most beautiful virgin (bethulah ),

And Maccabbees, try to actually deal with the issues instead of just arguing about the intellectuals involved. Your defense is reliant on a type of gnostic Catholicism and somehow you paint me as the heretic!

Adam

 

[TNT]

Actually, I got it from a short excerpt in a newspaper. But your research is appreciated as the site
oltyn.com/rahner.htm
is far more complete, and should be read by all.
Thank you
The theological corruption in the Church was indeed a good 100 years old. Pius IX and especially St Pius X makes that very clear. There is no better place to puncture the jugular life of the Church than in the seminaries. Even a beast of prey knows that.

Regarding Trad priests, I can see where a few may fall, but with the modern seminary output since 1960 it is near wholesale levels.Modernist theology and philosophy was being pumped into the seminaries at least since the early 1950’s. My oldest brother was there.

If no virgin birth, then no souce of Divinity of Christ. Did He have 2 natures or did He not? If He did, and does, what was the source of each?

I will wait for your example in the OT of almah being a non-virginal maiden. Until then the answer stands.

I did not intend to address every question in Patg’s post. Only the almah point.

Your defense is reliant on a type of gnostic Catholicism and somehow you paint me as the heretic!
(contra the *transcendental Thomism * of the Jesuits Rahner and Lonergan),

No gnostcism there!

 

[amarischuk]

TNT:

The theological corruption in the Church was indeed a good 100 years old. Pius IX and especially St Pius X makes that very clear. There is no better place to puncture the jugular life of the Church than in the seminaries. Even a beast of prey knows that.

Are you aware that there has always been such complaints? The reactionary St. Bernard didn’t want priests to study at all in a style which recalls the southern Baptists today. Hugh of St. Victor lamented the “modernism” of the scholastic method in his Didascalion trying to strike a balance between the monastic allogorical reading and the friars systematization. Ironically then the Humanists like Thomas More, Piccolomini, and Erasmus were criticized by the schoalstics as being “modern” innovators. To artificially freeze Catholicism after the Council of Trent makes no historical sense unless you are a Trentian and not a Christian. But you attribute to the devil everything I attribute to the Spirit…are you aware that that is the sin against the spirit? Attributing to the devil that which is God’s?

If no virgin birth, then no souce of Divinity of Christ. Did He have 2 natures or did He not? If He did, and does, what was the source of each?

I will wait for your example in the OT of almah being a non-virginal maiden. Until then the answer stands.

No, it does not stand. Isaiah uses the hebrew word for virgin: bethulah, four times (23:12, 37:22, 47:1, 62:5) so he was obviously aware of the word. He chose to use a word which did not mean virgin. This doesn’t mean that Christ wasn’t born of a virgin mother, this only means that Isaiah wasn’t prophecying such a thing would happen. But this is all an aside because the entire passage is not prophesying the birth of God or of a far off Messiah. It is an incorrect and anachronistic interpretation of Isaiah to believe he is:

3 And the Lord said to Isaias: Go forth to meet Achaz, thou and Jasub thy son that is left, to the conduit of the upper pool, a in the way of the fuller’s held. 4 And thou shalt say to him: See thou be quiet: fear not, and let not thy heart be afraid of the two tails of these fire brands, smoking with the wrath of the fury of Rasin king of Syria, and of the son of Romelia. 5 Because Syria hath taken counsel against thee, unto the evil of Ephraim and the son of Romelia, saying:

6 Let us go up to Juda, and rouse it up, and draw it away to us, and make the son of Tabeel king in the midst thereof. 7 Thus saith the Lord God: It shall not stand, and this shall not be. 8 But the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Basin: and within threescore and five years, Ephraim shall cease to be a people: 9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria the son of Romelia. If you will not believe, you shall not continue. 10 And the Lord spoke again to Achaz, saying:

11 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God either unto the depth of hell, or unto the height above. 12 And Achaz said: I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord. 13 And he said: Hear ye therefore, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to be grievous to men, that you are grievous to my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel. 15 He shall eat butter and honey, that he may know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good.

16 For before the child know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good, the land which thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of the face of her two kings. 17 The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon the house of thy father, days that have not come since the time of the separation of Ephraim from Juda with the king of the Assyrians.

drbo.org/chapter/27007.htm

Adam

 

[TNT]

I can accept that there is no certitude on the “virgin”/alma being a definite prophecy of the Virgin birth. The important part as propecy would be the 2nd half of the verse:

and his name shall be called Emmanuel.

That is the prophecy explicit in Matthew.

The virgin birth is sufficiently explicit in the NT, no Catholic would need any further certification in the OT to believe it.

 

[John_of_Woking]

amarischuk:

Maybe because the Church’s arguments against contraception could not even convince Paul VI’s own commitee on it, and other leading Catholic philosophers and theologians of the 20th century, including Karl Rahner, Jacques Maritain, Hans Kung, Germain Grisez, Eduard Schillibeeckx, and Yves Congar.

Note that the conservatives Maritain and Grisez both rejected Huamni Vitae, though Grisez accepts the teaching against contraception, while rejecting Paul’s arguments.

Why is it that reactionary Catholics are always blindly accepting some irrational authority?

Adam

Germain Grisez - Way of the Lord Jesus. I suggest you read it and his opinions on contraception are quite at odds with the position that you insinuate he holds

 

[patg]

No, it does not stand. Isaiah uses the hebrew word for virgin: bethulah, four times (23:12, 37:22, 47:1, 62:5) so he was obviously aware of the word. He chose to use a word which did not mean virgin. This doesn’t mean that Christ wasn’t born of a virgin mother, this only means that Isaiah wasn’t prophecying such a thing would happen. But this is all an aside because the entire passage is not prophesying the birth of God or of a far off Messiah. It is an incorrect and anachronistic interpretation of Isaiah to believe he is:
drbo.org/chapter/27007.htm
Adam

Thanks Adam, You saved me some typing again! Since some seem to think we are making this up, let me refer to some “better” sources:

John Meier in “A Marginal Jew, Rethinking The Historical Jesus” states under the Imprimatur of the Catholic Church that the mistranslation is a fact (pages 220-230).

The truth of this accusation of conscious persistence in known error through the centuries is proved by confession of St. Jerome, who made the celebrated Vulgate translation from the Hebrew into Latin, and intentionally “clung to the error,” though Jerome well knew that it was an error and false.

Being criticized by many for this falsification, St. Jerome thus replies to one of his critics, Juvianus: "I know that the Jews are accustomed to meet us with the objection that in Hebrew the word Almah does not mean a Virgin, but a young woman. And, to speak truth, a virgin is properly called Bethulah.(Jerome, Adv. Javianum I, 32; N&PNF, vi, 370.)

 

[John_of_Woking]

patg:

Thanks Adam, You saved me some typing again! Since some seem to think we are making this up, let me refer to some “better” sources:

John Meier in “A Marginal Jew, Rethinking The Historical Jesus” states under the Imprimatur of the Catholic Church that the mistranslation is a fact (pages 220-230).

The truth of this accusation of conscious persistence in known error through the centuries is proved by confession of St. Jerome, who made the celebrated Vulgate translation from the Hebrew into Latin, and intentionally “clung to the error,” though Jerome well knew that it was an error and false.

Being criticized by many for this falsification, St. Jerome thus replies to one of his critics, Juvianus: "I know that the Jews are accustomed to meet us with the objection that in Hebrew the word Almah does not mean a Virgin, but a young woman. And, to speak truth, a virgin is properly called Bethulah.(Jerome, Adv. Javianum I, 32; N&PNF, vi, 370.)

Of course many books have been errouneously awarded the Imprimatur before being retracted.

 

[patg]

TNT:

Now, an appealing way to justify male Masterb. is to make us common folk believe that un-evolved man thought sperm was somehow a fetus or embryo or incipient organism.

Even “common folk” should not ignore the truth. The whole miraculous narrative of the virgin birth was composed at a time when nothing was known of the female ovum. The ancient idea of God making a woman pregnant is tied to the presupposition that children sprang from the male seed, while the woman merely provided the soil. Even the third century Christian writer Tertullian made this point when he wrote that “the whole fruit is already present in the semen.”

Actually the liberal believes that only the elite have fully evolved…the common person has actually devolved, and therefore will not only swallow ancient (historic) verities,

Are you trying to singe-handedly prove this?

Did you happen to notice that all heresy is a result of reducing the beliefs of the RCC, never, ever expanding on them or adding to them?.

No. But increasing our understanding may require us to rethink beliefs that were made in ignorance. Even the Church’s statement on interpretation (Dei Verbum) emphasizes this.

 

[John_of_Woking]

patg:

Even “common folk” should not ignore the truth. The whole miraculous narrative of the virgin birth was composed at a time when nothing was known of the female ovum. The ancient idea of God making a woman pregnant is tied to the presupposition that children sprang from the male seed, while the woman merely provided the soil. Even the third century Christian writer Tertullian made this point when he wrote that “the whole fruit is already present in the semen.”

Are you trying to singe-handedly prove this?

No. But increasing our understanding may require us to rethink beliefs that were made in ignorance. Even the Church’s statement on interpretation (Dei Verbum) emphasizes this.

DV stated that Scripture is inerrant in those matters which pertain to our Faith and Salvation. DV is indeed a good document on Revelation.

 

[patg]

John of Woking:

Of course many books have been errouneously awarded the Imprimatur before being retracted.

I know - I miss the good old days when almost every written word was inspired literal truth! Oh no, sarcasm again…

 

[Strider]

patg:

The idea of a bodily assumption or ascension is based on the ancient concept of a three tiered universe in which there is the flat earth, the sky as a “half bowl” above the earth on which the sun and stars move, and heaven as a place above this bowl. We know now that a body ascending up through the clouds would continue into “infinite space” and that God or heaven really isn’t right up there… The ascension concept made perfect sense in the primitive understanding of the universe but it is pointless to declare it as absolute doctrine now.

This kind of thinking always puzzles me. It’s not that I don’t understand it. I do, and that’s the problem.
For an educated person to believe he can outthink God is out of character. By that I mean that an educated person should know how much he does not, and cannot, know.
There is absolutely no requirement to be stuck in primitive understanding to believe in the ascension. Of course, our understanding has developed beyond the absolute belief that heaven is a physical space above the clouds. How does that negate the resurrection?
The belief is that Jesus, true God and true man, bodily dies, physically regains life and is physically taken to some domain of existence, which Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven is no more negated by modern knowledge than by ancient heresy.
Since the Bible is not a science book, there is no attempt to explain exactly what or where that is.

patg:

The current drastic decline in the power of institutional Christianity is occurring not because of liberal compromises with the ancient verities, but because the traditional basis upon which the faith system has been erected can no longer be sustained. The heart will never worship what the mind rejects. When these realities are finally recognized by church leaders, then perhaps the need for a totally new reformation will become both imperative and unavoidable.

I disagree. The current decline in institutional Christianity is due to poor catechesis and the human tendency to take the easy (modern, secular society) way. The Church is thriving in places where young people are challenged with traditional Catholic teaching in stead of secularized “spirituality.”

patg:

Many in the modern world are no longer drawn to blindly accept and obey a religion which suggests that salvation comes through the barbaric human sacrifice of a perfect person who was crucified to appease an offended theistic deity (who through some twist of logic turns out to be himself). Neither are they attracted to the idea that in the shedding of Jesus’ blood somehow the price of sin was paid. These threadbare concepts are not worthy today of eliciting worship. Indeed, they have become grotesque.

More’s the pity, but you misstate your case when you say the faithful, “blindly accept and obey,”…
There is nothing more difficult than the truly soul-seacrhing, questioning and willing one’s self to follow the “Narrow Way.”
That’s the problem: It’s not microwave fast, Viagara phoney or botox egotism. Therefore it’s rejected.
It’s just too much hard work.

 

[mercygate]

Strider:

This kind of thinking always puzzles me. . . . There is absolutely no requirement to be stuck in primitive understanding to believe in the ascension. . . .

The current decline in institutional Christianity is due to poor catechesis and the human tendency to take the easy (modern, secular society) way.

. . . you misstate your case when you say the faithful, “blindly accept and obey,”…
There is nothing more difficult than the truly soul-seacrhing, questioning and willing one’s self to follow the “Narrow Way.”
. . .

Bravo. When I read patg’s post, all I could think of was Jack Spong’s limited world view that arises from a dreary materialism and low-balls the integration of the mystical. He tried to forbid the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament in the Episcopal churches of his diocese on the lofty theological grounds that “you can’t keep God in a box” :whacky:

 

[TNT]

patg:

ancient (read outdated) idea of God making a woman pregnant is tied to the presupposition that children sprang from the male seed, while the woman merely provided the soil.

So, where is Paul in this; I repeat:
**

Gal 4:4

But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman… **
No mention of any man at all being the “whole fruit”.

…Even the third century Christian writer Tertullian made this point when he wrote that “the whole fruit is already present in the semen.”

Every one knows he was “state of the art” in science. All lawyers had the latest concepts of science, communications being so swift and all.
I wonder how many bodies were disected in 3000yrs and NOBODY discovered anything about reproduction…NOBODY had any curiosity either…amazing. Poor un-evolved neanderthals. Aren’t we thankful we are so beyond that. I know I am. Our brains are just bloated with superior knowledge. In a few more years, we can certify ourselves as gods…maybe sooner.

 

[HagiaSophia]

John of Woking:

Germain Grisez - Way of the Lord Jesus. I suggest you read it and his opinions on contraception are quite at odds with the position that you insinuate he holds

The testimony given about Paul VI’s commission is also markedly different.

 

[Exporter]

amarischuk http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/statusicon_cad/user_offline.gif vbmenu_register(“postmenu_346815”, true);
Regular Member

You said,"Why is it that reactionary Catholics are always blindly accepting some irrational authority?

Adam"

reactionary; characterized by, or favoring political or social reaction.
irrational authority; Is the Pope & the Magisterium IRRATIONAL? Maybe you think the entire Church is irrational ( not rational, insane).

You can believe that the Church is irrational, tell it to the greeting angel on the other side.

 

[rschermer2]

patg:

I don’t take that as a logical conclusion.
That’s what I am trying to avoid. Ignorance of history and disregard of its importance is what gives us the fabrications we have today. Dei Verbum stresses that the hsitory, literary form and culture which produced the stories alll must be considered.

I don’t have to look elsewhere - the Truth in faith and morals is found in the Catholic Church; the Truth in science, math, history, geology, etc. is NOT. The term “fullness” that you thow around as if it covers everything applies only to faith and morals - it is sheer ignorance to apply it to other things (it is also clearly against Church teaching).

So can you explain what part of the teaching on ARTIFICIAL CONTRACEPTION, is science, math, history or geology. I submit to you that in fact the teaching has to do with faith and morals.

RS

 

[amarischuk]

John of Woking:

Germain Grisez - Way of the Lord Jesus. I suggest you read it and his opinions on contraception are quite at odds with the position that you insinuate he holds

Read this:

Its core was the laying-out of Grisez’s emerging ethical
theory and its application to the question of contraception.
In much over-simplified terms, the argument is this: The
choice to contracept is a choice against the human good of
procreation and as such can never be justified, since it is
never morally right to turn one’s will against a good of the
person, not even for the sake of some other good. The
argument was developed meticulously, accompanied by a
devastating critique of inadequate “natural law” arguments
against contraception (e.g., the “perverted faculty”)

ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/GRISEZ.TXT

Grisez’s new philosophy of morality, which is contrary to Thomistic natural law theory which Paul used in Humani Vitae is commonly called the Grisez-Finnis method.

Adam

 

[amarischuk]

So can you explain what part of the teaching on ARTIFICIAL CONTRACEPTION, is science, math, history or geology

Wow, there are so many problems with this that I do not know where to start.

Let’s start at the beginning. First of all the Church does not draw it’s argument from revealed authority (Paul’s encyclical Humani Vitae relies on a Thomistic natural law theory, that is reason). So it is not a question of “faith.”

The interjection that it has been a consistent teaching is equally invalid because as it is a question of reason, not of revelation, the ancient view of conception (especially the Aristotlean notion that the male semen provided the form to the woman’s matter, remembering that the soul is the substantial form of the body for Aquinas) does not agree with modern knowledge about the sperm and egg each providing 23 chromosomes. For a synopsis of various early scientific views on conception: nyam.org/initiatives/im-histe_ter2.shtml

Even the modern JPII/Christopher West argument is merely another attempt to patch up the sinking ship. I maintain that it is a teaching struggling for a philosophical justification.

So when the teach, alledgedly founded on rational argument, is found invalid because of new scientific discoveries, what should happen to the teaching?

And Patg, I wouldn’t get too excited about the imprimatur or nihil obstate. I own a few books frmo Rahner, both with imprimatur and nihil obstats but then I was told they were not good sources because it is so easy after VII to get those. My only response was, um the nihil obstate are from 59 and 61…before the council.

Most reactionary Catholics simply dismiss everything they don’t agree with. It is so sad to see the modern Catholic Church sinking to such fundamentalist levels. What ever happened to the golden age of Catholicism? The Medieval age and the 20th century renaissance? The two had more in common than the average man is willing to admit.

You can believe that the Church is irrational, tell it to the greeting angel on the other side.

Exporter, I will be sure to tell the angel that, provided he isn’t busy deriding you for rejecting your God given gift of reason.

Adam

 

[patg]

rschermer2:

So can you explain what part of the teaching on ARTIFICIAL CONTRACEPTION, is science, math, history or geology.

Nothing

I submit to you that in fact the teaching has to do with faith and morals.

I agree - I thought that was my point