Deception in Theology

[2PhiloVoid]

That is a much better response than I have heard from some others. I do try to be logical. I am not the best deductive thinker, but I do consider myself a thinker or philosopher. Obviously, I do not think I have all the answers. That's kinda the point of this thread. It is easy to make someone else out to be a god, relying on their words as infallible while maintaining your own infallibility. That way, you have an "out" to say your tradition of Christianity is correct because you are not appealing to yourself but to someone else. You protect yourself by making other people infallible, is what I am saying.

Yeah, I concur with you're saying here. We do have to be careful to avoid going overboard in placing our trust in other people. These are all good points you're making. Keep up your Philosophical inquiry. We both do this and have this in common.

Anyway, it's almost my bedtime, brother, so thanks for making us think tonight. Have a blessed evening, Mr. J!

 

[jas3]

Because it was a sign.

So was casting lots in Acts 1:26, but that doesn't mean that you could cast lots today and become an apostle.

The Trinity was earlier and closer to the deposit the Apostles left.

If by the Trinity you mean more specifically the definition given at Nicaea I, then that's true, but it has nothing to do with your double standard. Either we're using the definitions of the ecumenical councils strictly or we're not, there's no consistent way to be strict about Nicaea II but not Nicaea I.

Do you have a verse in the OT (or the NT, but good luck with that one) that talks about icon veneration or not?

There are plenty that are related to icon veneration; "he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," for example, in addition to the verses we discussed about the images on the Ark of the Covenant and the bronze serpent. But I doubt these meet your rigorous criteria for application to icon veneration.

There is precedence of the explicitly of Nicea in the bible. Not Nicea 2.

Are you sure that's not just you reading the Bible "through the eyes of others"?

 

[All Becomes New]

So was casting lots in Acts 1:26, but that doesn't mean that you could cast lots today and become an apostle.

Where does it say that was a sign? That's just God's providential oversight as Proverbs 16:33.

Either we're using the definitions of the ecumenical councils strictly or we're not, there's no consistent way to be strict about Nicaea II but not Nicaea I.

The difference is that there is nothing explicit in the Bible about venerating. It is a word absent from the Bible. Further, we can show with scripture that the Father, Son, and Spirit are God and the Father is not the Son is not the Spirit is not the Son is not the Father. I'd point to Romans 8:9 for precedence that the Trinity are all of one substance.

But I doubt these meet your rigorous criteria for application to icon veneration.

Because they have nothing to do with veneration.

Are you sure that's not just you reading the Bible "through the eyes of others"?

See Romans 8:9. That is my argument.

 

[jas3]

Where does it say that was a sign?

Where does it say that Judas receiving the bread dipped in wine was a sign?

The difference is that there is nothing explicit in the Bible about venerating.

That's not a difference between ecumenical councils. You're just being inconsistent.

It is a word absent from the Bible.

Oh boy, if we're playing that game, find me the word "Trinity" or "homoousios" in the Bible.

 

[All Becomes New]

Where does it say that Judas receiving the bread dipped in wine was a sign?

That's not a difference between ecumenical councils. You're just being inconsistent.

Oh boy, if we're playing that game, find me the word "Trinity" or "homoousios" in the Bible.

If you are not going to be fair to my argumentation, then this debate is pointless.

 

[jas3]

If you are not going to be fair to my argumentation, then this debate is pointless.

I have been nothing but fair.

• There is no explicit statement in any of the accounts of the Last Supper that Christ giving Judas the bread dipped in wine is a sign. We know it's a sign because we understand that from the context and the definition of the word "sign." In the same way, there's no explicit statement that casting lots to make a divinely-guided decision, or using the urim and thummim, or receiving an indication of God's will in any other way is a "sign," but that's what a sign is, so we can say it's a sign.
• You can't hold different standards for Nicaea I and Nicaea II. That's a double standard in the most literal sense of the term. It doesn't matter how much biblical evidence becomes explicit if you broaden the definition of one council. It wouldn't even matter if St. John had written an extra chapter saying that the holy icons are to be venerated by performing three prostrations, kissing the icon after the second; in that case we would still have to hold the same standard for the later councils if we were using them for normative definitions in a debate on the doctrines they professed.
• Romans 8:9 says that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. That doesn't explicitly identify Christ with God or the Father, and it doesn't explicitly say that any of the Persons are of the same essence, just to name a couple of problems with your use of that verse. To be clear, it is supportive of the doctrine of the Trinity, but it is not explicitly teaching the Trinity. And there is no other single verse you or anyone else can supply that explicitly lays out the doctrine, which is why Nicaea I was necessary.
• Your argument that "veneration" is not a word found in the Bible is just bad, because it should have occurred to you that other very important words we're discussing, e.g. "Trinity," also aren't in the Bible.

 

[All Becomes New]

There is no explicit statement in any of the accounts of the Last Supper that Christ giving Judas the bread dipped in wine is a sign. We know it's a sign because we understand that from the context and the definition of the word "sign." In the same way, there's no explicit statement that casting lots to make a divinely-guided decision, or using the urim and thummim, or receiving an indication of God's will in any other way is a "sign," but that's what a sign is, so we can say it's a sign.

John 13:26-27
"Jesus replied, “He’s the one I give the piece of bread to after I have dipped it.” When he had dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son. After Judas ate the piece of bread, Satan entered him. So Jesus told him, “What you’re doing, do quickly.”"

Jesus just prophesied about it. That is a sign (among many) that Jesus gave. That is literally what the word sign means.

It doesn't matter how much biblical evidence becomes explicit if you broaden the definition of one council.

Thanks for confirming you don't care what the Biblical evidence is.

Romans 8:9 says that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ.

Incorrect. There are three spirits. Spirit, Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ. All are Spirit.

That doesn't explicitly identify Christ with God or the Father, and it doesn't explicitly say that any of the Persons are of the same essence,

It says they are all Spirit.

Your argument that "veneration" is not a word found in the Bible

That is not my argument. My argument is that veneration as such is never discussed in the Bible.

 

[jas3]

Thanks for confirming you don't care what the Biblical evidence is.

So much for being fair to one another's argumentation.

 

[All Becomes New]

So much for being fair to one another's argumentation.

I'm broadening nothing. Hence, you don't care about my scriptural evidence.

 

[All Becomes New]

Proskynesis: That is what Nicea 2 says.

 

[All Becomes New]

You still have some explaining to do pertaining to the idea that doctrinal developments go back to the Apostles, which is the view of the Orthodox church. I believe some traditions are good if they are well-founded. I don't see the same thing for Nicea 2 as I do with Nicea. Rather we have testimony AGAINST icon veneration in the ECF. That is a hard hill to climb if you want to say it goes back to the Apostles.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I just try and be Biblical honestly.

Lots of us try to do that.

I call myself non-denom because I do not stick to one tradition. I "borrow" from different traditions based on what I think the Bible says. For example, I think that the MJ are right that Jesus was Jewish and all that comes with that and we need to remember that. I believe that EO and Catholics are right when it comes to theosis or deification. I believe that Protestants are right that we are justified by faith alone. etc.

That might sound all well and good but the syncretism risks putting mutually incompatible things together by accepting conclusions while possibly rejecting the bases of those conclusions and/or accepting conclusions while possibly rejecting things those conclusions lead to. Such picking and choosing can be very problematic.

It also means you are the picker and chooser, putting you in a position of infallibility as the arbitrator of not only the Bible but also of Tradition and traditions. I don't know enough to sort through traditions like that, picking one thing from one and two things from another. I can like some traditions and not like others but to actually construct my theology from what I choose to borrow ... I'm not that infallible.

Let's say I like theosis, and properly understood I do. How do I 'like' theosis but then 'dislike' the LDS version of it? How does theosis interact with soteriology (It does.). How do I do both theosis and sola fide? Can I really do that? I am not sure that works without radically redefining one or the other. And then, with regard to Protestant 'faith alone' tradition, WHICH Protestant 'faith alone' tradition? There are so many. One that coencides with the Lutheran/Catholic Dialogue understanding of it or one that totally rejects that understanding?

I think you are trying, and that's good. But by picking and choosing from several traditions you really are creating a very complex tradition with potentially numerous incompatibilities. I have stuck myself within Catholic Tradition. I guess one Tradition is enough for me. But even there we have within one Tradition a bunch of sub-traditions, spiritualities, practices, and numerous cultural expressions. Those things can all come and go. For example my spirituality is Jesuit, and yet I respect the Dominican and Benedictine and Franciscan and Maronite spiritualities as fitting and valid and legitimate. My liturgical tradition is Latin Rite as opposed to Eastern Rites, and I prefer to practice that Rite in the Anglican Usage at an Ordinariate liturgy when I can even if I usually practice that Rite at a more plain vanilla Catholic parish. I managed, by just the way my ancestors lived, to have escaped a cultural Catholicism. Not that doing so is good or bad but I pretty much missed out on that. Lots of converts also missed out on that. Point being I know about picking and choosing, but I do it within a Tradition that maintains an overall coherency.

I became an intentional disciple within Catholicism because I could see a continuity with the past, something in every generation. From Jesus to the Apostles such as John and Paul and Peter to the early Church Fathers like Polycarp (a disciple of John) and Irenaeus of Lyon (a disciple of Polycarp), the later Fathers like John Chrysostom of Constantinople and Gregory of Nyssa and Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo, the medieval scholars like Scotus and Bonaventure and Thomas, men and women who would die for their faith like bishop John Fischer of Rochester and Thomas More and Margaret Clitherow, and contemporaries like Mother Teresa of Calcutta and John Paul II. There is something I can recognize in all of the generations. It's not like this was all invented 2000 years after the fact. It flows. It's the acorn planted by Jesus that is now an oak tree. As C. S. Lewis said of it: "Spread through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners". Lewis never became Catholic. undoubtedly because of his Ulster Protestant upbringing making it impossible for him to overcome the prejudices ingested with his mother's milk.

To wrap up, most of us are trying to be honest to the Bible. I see the best way of doing that as belonging to a well chosen Tradition, learning from the Tradition as it shows itself over the ages. I can learn from, and even stand on the shoulders of folks like St. Thresa of Lisieux, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Peter Damian, St. Athanasius, St. Jerome, St. John of the Cross, and the like. I am not their judge so much as their student as we are all disciples of Jesus.

I know you follow a simpler path. I consider it a too simple path, that for me would be prone to just picking and choosing based on my own whim. My path is a web of disciples with the newer ones judged by the older ones, expanding bit by bit the wisdom of the older ones. Take for example the formation of the Nicene Creed. Arius was a deacon in Alexandria around 300 AD. He knew his Scripture pretty well and followed a primitive version of Sola Scriptura. To him, Jesus was not God incarnate but instead the greatest of creation. He wheedled his way into ecclesial power in Alexandria and replaced traditional presbyters with those who agreed with him that Jesus was a created being. He got Athanasius deposed. But the people would not go to those churches in Alexandria, instead preferring to walk out into the desert to hear the original faith from the hermits They said their grandmothers never taught them such drivel and that of course Jesus was God just as the Father was God. THAT was the Tradition. Arius could sling Bible verses all he wanted but he was WRONG. They knew it because that was contrary to the faith they had received. Athanasius was the key player in the council of Nicea that addressed the Arian problem. The council affirmed that Jesus was not a created being but 'of the same stuff' as God the Father. They had to go outside of Biblical language to affirm that. Arius was clever enough to spin the Bible any which way but the way those old grandmothers had learned it and taught it to their children. I get to stand on the shoulders of the Fathers of the council of Nicea, and they stood on the shoulders of their grandmothers who stood on the shoulders of their forebearers all the way back to Jesus. The guy with the Bible in his hand was Arius, but he was wrong.

 

[chevyontheriver]

No, I just have to show that Judas dunked it as a sign of who betrayed the Lord, whilst the other Apostles did not do the same thing.

Who says none of the other apostles did or did not do the same thing?

What name were you baptized into?

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And you?

 

[jas3]

I'm broadening nothing.

You're broadening the definition of the Trinity.

Hence, you don't care about my scriptural evidence.

It's irrelevant to whether we're using the ecumenical councils for definitions. But it is incredibly dishonest of you to say I "don't care what the Biblical evidence is."

Proskynesis: That is what Nicea 2 says.

Homoousion: That is what Nicaea 1 says.

You still have some explaining to do pertaining to the idea that doctrinal developments go back to the Apostles, which is the view of the Orthodox church. I believe some traditions are good if they are well-founded. I don't see the same thing for Nicea 2 as I do with Nicea. Rather we have testimony AGAINST icon veneration in the ECF. That is a hard hill to climb if you want to say it goes back to the Apostles.

It is not quite as hard of a hill to climb as saying you can read the Bible for yourself, isolated from any kind of hierarchy, and determine that Christianity for the majority of the past two millennia was in error about baptism or ecclesiology.

 

[All Becomes New]

Lots of us try to do that.

That might sound all well and good but the syncretism risks putting mutually incompatible things together by accepting conclusions while possibly rejecting the bases of those conclusions and/or accepting conclusions while possibly rejecting things those conclusions lead to. Such picking and choosing can be very problematic.

It also means you are the picker and chooser, putting you in a position of infallibility as the arbitrator of not only the Bible but also of Tradition and traditions. I don't know enough to sort through traditions like that, picking one thing from one and two things from another. I can like some traditions and not like others but to actually construct my theology from what I choose to borrow ... I'm not that infallible.

Let's say I like theosis, and properly understood I do. How do I 'like' theosis but then 'dislike' the LDS version of it? How does theosis interact with soteriology (It does.). How do I do both theosis and sola fide? Can I really do that? I am not sure that works without radically redefining one or the other. And then, with regard to Protestant 'faith alone' tradition, WHICH Protestant 'faith alone' tradition? There are so many. One that coencides with the Lutheran/Catholic Dialogue understanding of it or one that totally rejects that understanding?

I think you are trying, and that's good. But by picking and choosing from several traditions you really are creating a very complex tradition with potentially numerous incompatibilities. I have stuck myself within Catholic Tradition. I guess one Tradition is enough for me. But even there we have within one Tradition a bunch of sub-traditions, spiritualities, practices, and numerous cultural expressions. Those things can all come and go. For example my spirituality is Jesuit, and yet I respect the Dominican and Benedictine and Franciscan and Maronite spiritualities as fitting and valid and legitimate. My liturgical tradition is Latin Rite as opposed to Eastern Rites, and I prefer to practice that Rite in the Anglican Usage at an Ordinariate liturgy when I can even if I usually practice that Rite at a more plain vanilla Catholic parish. I managed, by just the way my ancestors lived, to have escaped a cultural Catholicism. Not that doing so is good or bad but I pretty much missed out on that. Lots of converts also missed out on that. Point being I know about picking and choosing, but I do it within a Tradition that maintains an overall coherency.

I became an intentional disciple within Catholicism because I could see a continuity with the past, something in every generation. From Jesus to the Apostles such as John and Paul and Peter to the early Church Fathers like Polycarp (a disciple of John) and Irenaeus of Lyon (a disciple of Polycarp), the later Fathers like John Chrysostom of Constantinople and Gregory of Nyssa and Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo, the medieval scholars like Scotus and Bonaventure and Thomas, men and women who would die for their faith like bishop John Fischer of Rochester and Thomas More and Margaret Clitherow, and contemporaries like Mother Teresa of Calcutta and John Paul II. There is something I can recognize in all of the generations. It's not like this was all invented 2000 years after the fact. It flows. It's the acorn planted by Jesus that is now an oak tree. As C. S. Lewis said of it: "Spread through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners". Lewis never became Catholic. undoubtedly because of his Ulster Protestant upbringing making it impossible for him to overcome the prejudices ingested with his mother's milk.

To wrap up, most of us are trying to be honest to the Bible. I see the best way of doing that as belonging to a well chosen Tradition, learning from the Tradition as it shows itself over the ages. I can learn from, and even stand on the shoulders of folks like St. Thresa of Lisieux, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Peter Damian, St. Athanasius, St. Jerome, St. John of the Cross, and the like. I am not their judge so much as their student as we are all disciples of Jesus.

I know you follow a simpler path. I consider it a too simple path, that for me would be prone to just picking and choosing based on my own whim. My path is a web of disciples with the newer ones judged by the older ones, expanding bit by bit the wisdom of the older ones. Take for example the formation of the Nicene Creed. Arius was a deacon in Alexandria around 300 AD. He knew his Scripture pretty well and followed a primitive version of Sola Scriptura. To him, Jesus was not God incarnate but instead the greatest of creation. He wheedled his way into ecclesial power in Alexandria and replaced traditional presbyters with those who agreed with him that Jesus was a created being. He got Athanasius deposed. But the people would not go to those churches in Alexandria, instead preferring to walk out into the desert to hear the original faith from the hermits They said their grandmothers never taught them such drivel and that of course Jesus was God just as the Father was God. THAT was the Tradition. Arius could sling Bible verses all he wanted but he was WRONG. They knew it because that was contrary to the faith they had received. Athanasius was the key player in the council of Nicea that addressed the Arian problem. The council affirmed that Jesus was not a created being but 'of the same stuff' as God the Father. They had to go outside of Biblical language to affirm that. Arius was clever enough to spin the Bible any which way but the way those old grandmothers had learned it and taught it to their children. I get to stand on the shoulders of the Fathers of the council of Nicea, and they stood on the shoulders of their grandmothers who stood on the shoulders of their forebearers all the way back to Jesus. The guy with the Bible in his hand was Arius, but he was wrong.

If you pick a tradition, you are stuck with its errors. All of them. Also, it is not true that new ideas are being tried by older people. That's simply not true.

Who says none of the other apostles did or did not do the same thing?

Jesus dunked the bread, not Judas. That's what it says. Did Jesus dunk the bread for anyone else?

 

[All Becomes New]

You're broadening the definition of the Trinity.

How?

Homoousion: That is what Nicaea 1 says.

And I have no problem with that.

It is not quite as hard of a hill to climb as saying you can read the Bible for yourself, isolated from any kind of hierarchy, and determine that Christianity for the majority of the past two millennia was in error about baptism or ecclesiology.

You have no idea what my view is on these things.

 

[chevyontheriver]

If you pick a tradition, you are stuck with its errors.

If you pick and choose parts of various traditions you are stuck with your own errors. AND with incompatibilities you can't even fathom.

Also, it is not true that new ideas are being tried by older people. That's simply not true.

I don't want 'new ideas' in religion. Whether thought up by young people or old people. I want true ideas. And old ideas have something going for them that new ideas seldom do. They have been out there and examined already from lots of angles. New ideas not so much.

I guess I'm skeptical of 500 year old ideas. More skeptical of 100 year old ideas. Incredibly skeptical of ideas generated just last year. These aren't the kind of ideas I want to base the salvation of my sorry soul on. Something that has been around for 2000 years has much more appeal. And when I can see the connection between Jesus and the OT, Jesus and the apostles, Jesus and the early Church Fathers, then I start thinking that I have found a living Tradition that conveys truth. I don't like invented things, no matter the century. I like original things, things with roots back to Jesus. That's why I'm Catholic. That's why I respect the Orthodox. That's why I respect the Traditional Christians. There are roots there. 'Me and my Bible' is a cut flower in comparison. It might be pretty but in a week it has faded and is only fit for compost.

 

[All Becomes New]

If you pick and choose parts of various traditions you are stuck with your own errors. AND with incompatibilities you can't even fathom.

The Catholic church is not some monolithic thing. It ignores some things and adds others.

I don't want 'new ideas' in religion. Whether thought up by young people or old people. I want true ideas. And old ideas have something going for them that new ideas seldom do. They have been out there and examined already from lots of angles. New ideas not so much.

I guess I'm skeptical of 500 year old ideas. More skeptical of 100 year old ideas. Incredibly skeptical of ideas generated just last year. These aren't the kind of ideas I want to base the salvation of my sorry soul on. Something that has been around for 2000 years has much more appeal. And when I can see the connection between Jesus and the OT, Jesus and the apostles, Jesus and the early Church Fathers, then I start thinking that I have found a living Tradition that conveys truth. I don't like invented things, no matter the century. I like original things, things with roots back to Jesus. That's why I'm Catholic. That's why I respect the Orthodox. That's why I respect the Traditional Christians. There are roots there. 'Me and my Bible' is a cut flower in comparison. It might be pretty but in a week it has faded and is only fit for compost.

Who is talking about adding new information? My position is that when new traditions start, something gets lost. You can recover these things, but you have to rid yourself of the dogmas that either don't look at these things or add things in its place.

 

[chevyontheriver]

The Catholic church is not some monolithic thing. It ignores some things and adds others.

In post 56 I think you said if you pick a tradition you are stuck with it's errors. And now the Catholic Church is not monolithic. Whazzup?

Who is talking about adding new information? My position is that when new traditions start, something gets lost. You can recover these things, but you have to rid yourself of the dogmas that either don't look at these things or add things in its place.

Some really big things did get lost in the Reformation. But you can ALWAYS recover things. For example, you CAN recover theosis, as you say you did. You can also recover the Liturgy of the Hours as a way to pray without ceasing. You can also recover the Fathers, the Real Presence, and a whole number of other things. A healthy understanding of Tradition will allow you to look back at all those 'old' things you have been taught to reject out of hand and look at them with fresh eyes. You CAN. What dogmas of yours are in your way that prevent you from doing this?

 

[All Becomes New]

In post 56 I think you said if you pick a tradition you are stuck with it's errors. And now the Catholic Church is not monolithic. Whazzup?

Catholics all agree with (because it is necessary to be saved by affirming them) in things that are false.

Some really big things did get lost in the Reformation. But you can ALWAYS recover things. For example, you CAN recover theosis, as you say you did. You can also recover the Liturgy of the Hours as a way to pray without ceasing. You can also recover the Fathers, the Real Presence, and a whole number of other things. A healthy understanding of Tradition will allow you to look back at all those 'old' things you have been taught to reject out of hand and look at them with fresh eyes. You CAN. What dogmas of yours are in your way that prevent you from doing this?

I don't really have much of a problem with those things. I don't know what Liturgy of the Hours is, but the way it is framed seems like a religious tradition not rooted in the Apostles. I already agree with some of these things. This is worlds different from making the assumption of Mary obligatory to believe under the pain of Apostle Peter and Paul.