A conversation about unity.

2PhiloVoid said:

So, my takeaway from your discussion here is that the RCC view on Unity is contingent upon full comprehension and subscription to the RCC magisterial pronouncements.

Alright then. That was an interesting discussion.

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I came to that inescapable conclusion back in post #331

public hermit said:

Perhaps it helps to add that the doctrine of transubstantiation was not clearly established until Lateran IV in 1215 (along with the requirement for annual confession). That's pretty late in the game to then argue that it represents Jesus' teaching. But to be fair, many think their flavor of Christianity represents the true faith.

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True, but some churches pound "we are the one and only true one" a lot deeper than others.

Hentenza said:

It is though a travesty that professed Christians washed by the same blood of Christ are outsiders from your church. I hold the hope that our Lord Jesus will one day rectify this since all saved Christians are going to the same heaven.

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That's what I've been talking about. Christians being taught diligent gatekeeping, segregation, and alienation of fellow Christians.

And I keep asking the same question; does anyone think any of that is going to exist in the Kingdom of Heaven?

Xeno.of.athens said:

Catholics are bound to affirm the dogma of transubstantiation: that in the Most Holy Eucharist, the entire substance of bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the entire substance of wine becomes His Blood, while the appearances (or “accidents”) of bread and wine remain. This doctrine was solemnly defined by the Council of Trent (Session XIII, Chapter IV), which declared: “By the consecration of the bread and wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the Body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His Blood. Which conversion is, by the holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called transubstantiation”. You are not permitted to interpret this change as merely symbolic or spiritual; the Church insists on a real, substantial presence.

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Jesus said: God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

I do believe there is judgment at the cup, and it hinges upon whether my worship of God's Spirit is pure and sincere in spirit. To that end, a sincere worship must be drawn out of me by the object of worship, through revelation, and therefore it's not at my discretion.

Subsequently, I have a testimony that it's the self-sacrificing Love incarnate that is the sacred thing being acknowledged and reverenced once the bread and wine has been consecrated. Moreover, this Love that I trust is the incorruptible Eternal Spirit of God, is marked by the horrific suffering the Christ endured in his flesh, and the shedding of his blood, for us.

So, I when I hear these sentiments ---> And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, this cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. ---> I remember his suffering death for me.

Hence His Incorruptible Love is the substantive Spirit and the substantive presence in the eucharistia (thanksgiving). Therefore, even though I see it as spiritual food which draws out true worship, I don't believe the universal church in unity through the Holy Spirit would ever count the suffering of Jesus and his subsequent death on the cross as merely symbolic.

ozso said:

That's what I've been talking about. Christians being taught diligent gatekeeping, segregation, and alienation.

And I keep asking the question; does anyone think any of that is going to exist in the Kingdom of Heaven?

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Reminds me of these verses.

“Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all people, revealing yourselves, that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such is the confidence we have toward God through Christ. Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭3‬:‭1‬-‭6‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

ozso said:

True, but some churches pound "we are the one and only true one" a lot deeper than others.

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Yes, but the reality is that it's harder to make the case if your church is the 7th Reformed United Congregational Church of Belize.

Valletta said:

Of course these councils didn't start until Catholics were free to worship, until the 300s. Thus you could just as well say everything brought up by any of the Councils was "late in the game." Because the Catholic Church comes up with a word or specific words for a mystery or anything else, for example the mysteries of "transubstantiation" or "Trinity," in no way means the Church previously believed in no such thing. Rather than "establishing" a doctrine it is better thought of as a statement of what the Church knows.

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Firstly, the church or "Church" doesn't know anything. The church believes; "We believe..." If we can't make the simple distinction between knowledge and belief, then we might as well hang it up. Secondly, stop equating your church with all the Church. The Syrian churches and Ethiopian churches and Orthodox have as much claim to roots in the early church as the RCC. Actually, they might have a better claim, since the See of Rome was not primary early on; that would probably go to Antioch or Alexandria. And, you are simply wrong. The doctrine of the Trinity was not believed by hardly anyone prior to the council. There was a huge discussion over whether it should be homo-ousia or homoi-ousia. That's a significant discussion, and not everyone was certain which it should be. Eusebius leaned more toward homoi, but he accepted what became the official doctrine of the orthodox (versus the Arians). Did the church prior to the council believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Yes. But they did not believe in what became the doctrine since it did not exist, yet.

And yes, most all doctrine was late in the game. The first confession was probably just "Jesus is Lord." My goodness, one wonders how they could even be "Christian" with such an anemic confession! (joke)

public hermit said:

The first confession was probably just "Jesus is Lord."

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Yes, it was the first creed - very daring in a society that proclaimed, "Caesar is Lord".
I believe new Christians were also required to confess/declare it before baptism.

Look at how complicated we've made things since then.

Hentenza said:

Let me qualify my argument because you are misinterpreting it. My argument is against transubstantiation not against real presence. Your argument above centers on real presence, which is your church’s belief. Scripture teaches that where 2 or 3 are gathered in His name He is there.

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Incorrect. First, one does not have to accept the dogma of transubstantiation to hold a belief in the bread and wine being the real presence of Christ's very body and blood, given for us to eat and drink. Lutherans and Orthodox take the view that it is a mystery and can not be explained by employing human reason. It just is. Your definition is disregards the historic definition. Christ is omnipresent; but is physically present in the Eucharist.

public hermit said:

Firstly, the church or "Church" doesn't know anything. Snip.

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And you do? Good to know.

public hermit said:

As I've stated before, any pursuit of unity between many different Christians is going to have to be more general.

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That requires compromise of doctrine and reductionism, which the Orthodox will not accept, and which also we don’t need to accept since there exist schisms that were the result of miscommunication or political factors, and these schisms account for the majority of Christians, so those with actual doctrinal differences from the Orthodox that are material represent only a minority of liturgical Christians, and aliturgical Christians who reject sacramentality we are not equipped to assist.

I would also note that the Orthodox Church is also the only major denomination that entirely rejects the idea of doctrinal development and regards its deposit of faith as pure, apostolic and immutable, so in a sense we are the church that everyone else will have to adjust themselves to (indeed the immutable character of Orthodoxy is largely why I joined, because I could be comfortable that the sacrament of matrimony or other essential Christian beliefs would never be compromised).

The desire to preserve Holy Tradition is so strong among Orthodox that occasionally people less well versed in the history of our church make mistakes in their zeal which cause headaches, but this is a failsafe design, since we err on the side of the status quo rather than Pietistic embrace of innovation and doctrinal pluralism.

public hermit said:

We have two creeds that are widely accepted.

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Actually, only one, the Nicene, unless you were referring to the version of the Nicene Creed with the filioque and the version without favored by the Eastern churches. This is a complex issue and one of frustration because the filioque is a violation of the canons of the Council of Ephesus, but people are attached to it and wrongly believe it is a defense against errors - it was implemented in Spain as a misguided response to an outbreak of Adoptionism. However some Orthodox have been tolerant of it, such as St. Maximos the Confessor. Thus the potential exists for reconciliation without the complete removal of the Creed. Additionally our recent success in persuading the Lutheran World Federation to drop the filioque is great, but its also a hollow victory when the ELCA tolerates parishes such as “herchurch” in San Francisco, a parish whose beliefs, as far as I can tell, are not in accord with the CF Statement of Faith.

That said, by getting the Lutherans to drop the filioque, and many Anglicans, and getting our icons into the altar at Westminster Abbey and other sacred places in the Anglican communion and elsewhere, and getting our hymns such as Phos Hilarion put in the Book of Common Prayer, and even getting Episcopalians to celebrate our liturgy, it seems we can possibly assimilate these churches, which are very problematic, gradually, although I personally would prefer it if we focused on the Confessional Lutherans such as my friend @MarkRohfrietsch with whom we actually agree with on most issues of eucharistic and moral theology. Indeed everything @ViaCrucis writes on CF feels like it could have been ripped from the pages not only of The Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, memory eternal, but the pages of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky and other figures who could be regarded as Orthodox hardliners. And I have no doubt that the LCMS, like the Orthodox, will hold the line on human sexuality and other important issues of moral theology where Pietism and Latitudinarianism have led to compromises in other churches - indeed the LCMS was historically regarded as a mainline Lutheran denomination existing in the same space as those synods which merged into ELCA, and actually initiated the development of the controversial 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship. But fortunately they pulled out at the right moment, and had the courage to sack dissenting seminarians from Concordia during the Seminex fiasco.

public hermit said:

Firstly, the church or "Church" doesn't know anything.

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That’s not true. As the Body of Christ, the entire Church, which includes the Church Triumphant, includes those from whom faith has been transformed into certainty.

Valletta said:

Yes, but the reality is that it's harder to make the case if your church is the 7th Reformed United Congregational Church of Belize.

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Why?

Was the church in Jerusalem - which was founded before the church in Rome - superior to it? Or the church in Philippi superior or more authentic than the church in Thessalonica?
And what about places like Damascus, where Saul preached as soon as he was converted? Or Laodicea, who also received a letter from Paul, Colossians 4:16? We don't hear about them, but there were probably churches there too.

THE Church is all believers. Those who trust in the Lord Jesus as their Saviour and are being made into his image by his Spirit, 2 Corinthians 3:18, are his bride. There is no "case to be made" by anyone.

The Liturgist said:

That’s not true. As the Body of Christ, the entire Church, which includes the Church Triumphant, includes those from whom faith has been transformed into certainty.

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Great, until we who are still in the flesh become triumphant, "We believe..."

MarkRohfrietsch said:

And you do? Good to know.

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I don't confess knowledge. I confess belief.

public hermit said:

Great, until we who are still in the flesh become triumphant, "We believe..."

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Except that ignores the fact that some communication does occur between the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant, particularly in the Orthodox church where the saints are very much with us and actively do things in the world to help the faithful in the service of God the Holy and Undivided Trinity.

The Liturgist said:

Except that ignores the fact that some communication does occur between the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant, particularly in the Orthodox church where the saints are very much with us and actively do things in the world to help the faithful in the service of God the Holy and Undivided Trinity.

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Particularly in the Orthodox church? Here we are again with one church having special privileges, this time to knowledge.

Let's not get sidetracked. You often have a lot of good things to say. How do you propose more unity among Christians?

public hermit said:

Particularly in the Orthodox church?

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To my particular knowledge as an Orthodox Christian,, yes. I am particularly aware of what happens in Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, which I am referring to in the collective (someone less ecumenically minded would not do this).

Of course, this is not exclusive to Orthodoxy - I am aware in this case of our Roman Catholic brethren report some similar occurrences, albeit there are some stylistic differences between what the Roman Catholics reported that I was made aware of and what was reported in our case, but not being a Roman Catholic I can’t comment on the extent of the similarity, but a great many denominations do not report this occurring, so in those denomination where this phenomenon is not reported, it presumably does not exist or is else ignored.

Indeed I have been in some churches where I feel confident that if what was reported in the Orthodox Church was reported, I don’t think they would regard such a report with credulity or interpret it as a holy occurrence.

public hermit said:

Perhaps it helps to add that the doctrine of transubstantiation was not clearly established until Lateran IV in 1215 (along with the requirement for annual confession). That's pretty late in the game to then argue that it represents Jesus' teaching. But to be fair, many think their flavor of Christianity represents the true faith.

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There's a deeper historiographical and epistemological issue related to the point you're bringing up here with the Lateran IV, and I referred to it the other day in this thread, but it was apparently summarily ignored. So, I didn't pursue it further since my praxis in my own theologizing (as we each do, really) draws from and reacts to many various strains of the overall history of our mutually held Christian Faith, including that of the RCC.

I don't want to bash my Catholic brethren, but it would be nice if they could get beyond the formal epistemic assumptions that holds (and to my mind "limits") their capacity to bilaterally find unity with other, fellow Trinitarian Christians. On the other hand, I wish my Protestant brethren could likewise get beyond their assumed epistemic limits as well.

Unfortunately, I'm beginning to see more clearly that because of the particular assumptions each denomination often unquestionably holds, my naive hope for a broader sense (expectation?) of Christian Unity is not forthcoming in the very near future.

public hermit said:

There wouldn't have been a Council of Trent if it hadn't been for Protestants. So it was clearly reactionary, which is fine since most councils are reactionary. But it undercuts the idea that what the RCC believes goes back to Jesus. It just simply does not.

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public hermit said:

Let's not get sidetracked. You often have a lot of good things to say. How do you propose more unity among Christians?

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On the one hand, by promoting the study of Patristics, iconography, sacramental theology, increased fasting and almsgiving, the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a belief in the Real Presence, and frequent partaking of the Eucharist and frequent sacramental confession.

On the other hand, by discouraging anti-Catholic prejudice, calling out those who disseminate anti-Catholic polemics such as the offensive tracts of Jack Chick, and other forms of anti-Catholic bigotry, which does not just lead to discrimination against Catholics but against Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, and Orthodox and anyone else who can be accused of what Thomas Jefferson called “priestcraft” and what others call “Popery.” In particular, it must be pointed out to anti-Catholics how their beliefs are predicated upon a false dichotomy, a logical fallacy, and they must be shown the real harm the propagation of anti-Catholic falsehoods is causing, for example, in the form of Islamic violence against Orthodox and Anglican Christians in Syria and Pakistan.