Dogma, Heresy, and Modernity

[The Liturgist]

I know Baptists do not call TLS communion. That is just the word the Vineyard, which is an evangelical and charismatic church chain, uses.

You are not understanding what I said. I was explaining why the bread can't literally be the body of Jesus, the wine can't literally be the blood of Jesus, and Jesus can't literally be present when we take them.

With all due respect, you offered no such explanation, and it would be off-topic to this thread, but perhaps you might post a topic in the Sacramental / Ordinance Theology forum.

 

[Fervent]

Actually most Baptists I am aware of reject your interpretation, which is Zwinglianism, in favor of Memorialism.

The distinction between Reformed and Zwinglist positions on the presence in the elements is a bit of distinctions without difference. Both hold that the elements are merely symbolic, at least in so far as the consubstantiation/transubstantiation question. Most Baptists fall into one of those two categories but the deeper theological issues are generally poorly understood among a lot of even well educated Baptists due to the aversion to pre-Reformation history and the extent to which the controversies of the last 500 years have dominated the conversation.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

What its about is the model @zippy2006 proposed for classifying
doctrines and actions into three categories: dogma, theological opinion and heresy, or mandatory, optional and prohibited, which comes across as Scholastic, but the concepts are solidly Patristic, and @GreekOrthodox used the metaphor of a crown to link it to Eastern Orthodox views on the subject, because Eastern Orthodox doctrines are defined apophatically, and are more frequently defined as anathematized heretical beliefs than kataphatic mandatory beliefs, which defines a sort of safe space where a wide range of theologoumemna can be held, including diverse liturgical praxis, diverse opinions on ecumenism, diverse opinions on the suitability of mystical theology treatises like the Philokalia for laity, diverse opinions on the usefulness of Origen, diverse opinions on whether the Septuagint is absolutely superior to the Masoretic Text used in the KJV, or if the latter can be used to a certain extent (there is a Russian Orthodox Bible that uses it in part), diverse opinions on certain aspects of eschatology like aerial toll houses (don’t ask what those are, I am too tired to explain, but suffice it to say some believe in them literally, some believe in them as metaphors and some reject them as an error, and this is allowed because the Church never made a formal doctrinal pronouncement on the issue), and so on.

I'm actually surprised I could follow that, guess I did more research than I thought.

One thing I found missing from that was emphasis on the sermon on the mount, Jesus ended that sermon saying that not putting those words to practice was like building a house on sand.

 

[The Liturgist]

The distinction between Reformed and Zwinglist positions on the presence in the elements is a bit of distinctions without difference. Both hold that the elements are merely symbolic, at least in so far as the consubstantiation/transubstantiation question. Most Baptists fall into one of those two categories but the deeper theological issues are generally poorly understood among a lot of even well educated Baptists due to the aversion to pre-Reformation history and the extent to which the controversies of the last 500 years have dominated the conversation.

I think you mean Memorialist rather than Reformed, since Calvinist Eucharistic theology is basically Pneumatological, which is to say, Calvinists and most Reformed, aside from Calvinist Baptists like Al Mohler or the Particular Baptists, believe in the spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

 

[Fervent]

I think you mean Memorialist rather than Reformed, since Calvinist Eucharistic theology is basically Pneumatological, which is to say, Calvinists and most Reformed, aside from Calvinist Baptists like Al Mohler or the Particular Baptists, believe in the spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Yes, you're right. Though a lot of this to me is simply splitting hairs, especially once the denial goes beyond consubstantiation.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

<Snip>

You are not understanding what I said. I was explaining why the bread can't literally be the body of Jesus, the wine can't literally be the blood of Jesus, and Jesus can't literally be present when we take them.

When you say "can't" you are putting limits on God; God has no limits so God can be where He chooses when He chooses how He chooses, and when God says in His Word that "this is my body" and "this is my blood" I take God at His Word, because to do otherwise is doubting and mocking God; and diminishing His divinity.

 

[The Liturgist]

When you say "can't" you are putting limits on God; God has no limits so God can be where He chooses when He chooses, and when God says in His Word that "this is my body" and "this is my blood" I take God at His Word, because to do otherwise is doubting and mocking God; and diminishing His divinity.

Indeed, and in John 6 he says that to be saved we must eat his flesh and drink his blood, a saying which temporarily alienated most of his disciples. I prefer to follow in the footsteps of the Twelve (the eleven faithful disciples, and St. Matthias, who was ordained to replace Judas Iscariot).

 

[GodLovesCats]

When you say "can't" you are putting limits on God; God has no limits so God can be where He chooses when He chooses how He chooses, and when God says in His Word that "this is my body" and "this is my blood" I take God at His Word, because to do otherwise is doubting and mocking God; and diminishing His divinity.

I am basing it on what the Bible says. He went back to heaven, not to come back until an appointed time. For Jesus to be physically present at church in any form he cannot be in heaven. The Holy Spirit is there, not Jesus.

I am not limiting God or mocking His divinity in any way. I am just telling the truth about Him.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Hence why Lutherans are not quite "protestant" and not quite "Catholic"; we agree with the protestants regarding salvation and justification (more or less), and agree with the Catholic Church (more or less) regarding the sacraments.

Oh yes, I know. I was raised LCMS and converted to EO in my 30s. I served as an elder for about 6 years.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Personal Assent

There are three basic positions that can be taken with respect to personal assent: assent, denial, and indifference. For example, consider the proposition, "It will rain tomorrow." We have three basic options: assent to the proposition and assert that it is true; deny the proposition and assert that it is false; or take up a stance of indifference (or ignorance) and neither assert that it is true nor that it is false.


Ecclesial Assent

There are three basic positions that the Church takes up with respect to corporate assent, and they correlate to the above three positions. They are: dogma, heresy, and theological opinion. Dogmas require assent, heresies require denial, and theological opinions require neither assent nor denial. For example, take the proposition, "Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man." We have three basic options: assent, denial, and indifference. Since this proposition is a dogma of Christianity, assent is required, denial is heresy, and indifference is not an option.

A dogma is something that is essential to Christianity, and a heresy is something that is contradictory to Christianity. The logical relation of dogma and heresy to Christianity is as follows:

1. If someone is a Christian, then they must assent to the dogmas.*
2. If someone formally assents to a heresy, then they are no longer Christian.​

*At least implicitly.


Erroneous Modern Tendencies

In modernity there have been two erroneous and common tendencies. The first is religious indifferentism. This is the view that there are no dogmas, there are no heresies, everything is a matter of theological opinion, and people can believe whatever they want while still calling themselves "Christian." The problem with this error at the most general level is that the religion becomes contentless, without form or substance. If people can believe whatever they want while still calling themselves "Christian," then the name "Christian" becomes meaningless. The more specific problem is that the Good News becomes emptied of substance.

The second erroneous modern tendency is a kind of progressive reversal. This is the view that some things which were previously dogmas are now heresies, and some things which were previously heresies are now dogmas. The problem with this error at the most general level is that it constitutes institutional self-contradiction. The more specific problem is that the Good News is undermined and anti-evangelization occurs, where "good is called evil" (Isaiah 5:20). A third problem is that Christianity becomes nothing more than a vehicle for the passing doctrines of the day (Ephesians 4:14).

In order to avoid these erroneous tendencies we must ask ourselves, first, what are our dogmas and heresies? What things are essential to the Christian faith, and what things are incompatible with the Christian faith? Second, we must ask ourselves whether the dogmas and heresies that we hold today are consistent with the dogmas and heresies that our Christian ancestors held. We must ask, ultimately, whether we are part of the same religion that Jesus Christ founded 2000 years ago.

---------------

Spoiler: A Note on Propositions

Some might claim that Christianity, or religion, should not be propositional. I think it should be and needs to be since humans are rational creatures, but that aside, the content of dogmas and heresies need not always be theoretical. Presumably the schema could also be analogously applied to actions, where some actions are required ("love thy neighbor"), some are prohibited ("thou shalt not commit adultery"), and some are indifferent. In the past there were certain grave sins that cut one off from the Church, and which required a formal period of public penance before reconciliation could occur. The two modern errors therefore apply equally to actions, and those who are more action-oriented could recast this OP in light of practical actions which are encouraged or prohibited.

I generally agree with what you've said here, Zippy. The only caveat is that I tend to be more critically radical in assessing Christianity on the whole than some other fellow Christians; and I apply to it the same level of scrutiny that I do any other aspect of life.

But yeah, I agree with you. We have to be discerning the whole way through and try to avoid conjuring up our 'own' home-made brew of faith or adhering to an unqualified assent to dogmatic interpretations which some leaders have presented to various quarters of the Church Universal.

 

[The Liturgist]

I am basing it on what the Bible says. He went back to heaven, not to come back until an appointed time. For Jesus to be physically present at church in any form he cannot be in heaven. The Holy Spirit is there, not Jesus.

I am not limiting God or mocking His divinity in any way. I am just telling the truth about Him.

If you believe Jesus is God, one attribute of God, shared by all three members of the Trinity, is omnipresence. St. Peter calls us “partakers of the divine nature.” It furthermore possible for the risen Lord to be everywhere at once; his sudden and miraculous appearances post-resurrection confirm this. This is why the early Church always believed that the bread and wine became the actual body and blood of our Lord; no one taught they were symbols until the 16th century, and Martin Luther was rightfully angered about it.

Luther himself had tried to restore Eucharistic theology to its pre-Scholastic, pre-Thomistic state, unsuccessfully I would note, because none of the ancient liturgies we have recovered say anything about the body and blood of Christ being in, with and under the elements of bread and wine or suggest Sacramental Union; rather the early Church while believing the bread and wine became the precious body and blood of Christ, regarded this to be a mystery; Martin Luther, trained by Scholastic theologians, could not resist the Scholastic impulse to try to rationally work out theological doctrines even in the face of epistemological limitations, which Thomas Aquinas, overconfident in newly recovered Aristotelian philosophy enhanced by the commentary of the Islamic philosopher Averroes, attempted to use Aristotelian categories to explain the Eucharist.

However, as I recently pointed out in another thread, the problem with transubstantiation per se (as opposed to the Orthodox/Patristic doctrine which is often called transubstantiation because it is based on the same concept, just not explained using the same terminology), is that in order to explain Eucharistic miracles, a change in substance with unchanging attributes is not quite enough; when a Muslim (who as a result of the following incident converted to Christianity and immediately received a Crown of Martyrdom) saw at an Eastern Orthodox Eucharist an infant being dismembered on the altar, only to discover, when he returned with guards, that it was bread and wine and had been the entire time, and in numerous other instances where people have seen flesh and blood, this indicates a change in accidents as well as substance, or, if we discard cumbersome Aristotelian-Thomistic categories, we can say that in the sacred mystery of the Eucharist, the Holy Spirit, when He descends upon the bread and wine and changes them into the true body and blood of our Lord, causes them to retain their perceptual attributes except in some cases, where allowing people to perceive the hidden reality is beneficial to their salvation.

At any rate, all of the early Eucharistic texts we have from the church speak of the real change, so Luther was right about nearly everything. His idea of sacramental union is a minor technical error in an attempt to explain why the body and blood normally retain their perceptual attributes except in strange and miraculous circumstances, but the right answer is simply because God wills it to be so, for our benefit.

 

[The Liturgist]

Oh yes, I know. I was raised LCMS and converted to EO in my 30s. I served as an elder for about 6 years.

I went to an LCMS parochial school and I still love that denomination.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I am basing it on what the Bible says. He went back to heaven, not to come back until an appointed time. For Jesus to be physically present at church in any form he cannot be in heaven. The Holy Spirit is there, not Jesus.

I am not limiting God or mocking His divinity in any way. I am just telling the truth about Him.

Old protestant logic; can't be in two places at once eh? What about "where two or three are gathered together? Jesus is God, God is omnipotent, God can be everywhere or nowhere as God chooses. Jesus Christ is true God and true Man at the same time. When he says "take and eat, take and drink" and "this is My body and this is My blood", you either accept the word of our Lord, or you reject it. If you reject it, you are implying that our Lord is either too weak to do what He says, or is lying.

 

[GodLovesCats]

Old protestant logic; can't be in two places at once eh? What about "where two or three are gathered together? Jesus is God, God is omnipotent, God can be everywhere or nowhere as God chooses. Jesus Christ is true God and true Man at the same time. When he says "take and eat, take and drink" and "this is My body and this is My blood," you either accept the word of our Lord, or you reject it. If you reject it, you are implying that our Lord is either too weak to do what He says, or is lying.

The Holy Spirit is down here with us. Jesus is up there. He said it Himself on Ascension Day.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I am basing it on what the Bible says. He went back to heaven, not to come back until an appointed time. For Jesus to be physically present at church in any form he cannot be in heaven. The Holy Spirit is there, not Jesus.

I am not limiting God or mocking His divinity in any way. I am just telling the truth about Him.

Ephesians 1:23 says that Jesus Christ fills all things.

What stops Him from being at the right hand of the Father in glory AND ALSO present with us through His Supper which He declares to be His own body and blood?

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

The Holy Spirit is down here with us. Jesus is up there. He said it Himself on Ascension Day.

He also said, "Where two or three are gathered in My name, I am in their midst" and "I am with you always, even until the end of the age."

-CryptoLutheran

 

[The Liturgist]

The Holy Spirit is down here with us. Jesus is up there. He said it Himself on Ascension Day.

Jesus is God. The Holy Spirit is God. The Father is God. God is omnipresent. Therefore Jesus cannot be “up there” nor the Holy Spirit “down here” in any exclusive sense, and Scripture says as much, and frankly, you’re engaging in eisegesis, cherry-picking verses that support your Memorialist interpretation of the Eucharist.

 

[Clare73]

Personal Assent

There are three basic positions that can be taken with respect to personal assent: assent, denial, and indifference. For example, consider the proposition, "It will rain tomorrow." We have three basic options: assent to the proposition and assert that it is true; deny the proposition and assert that it is false; or take up a stance of indifference (or ignorance) and neither assert that it is true nor that it is false.


Ecclesial Assent

There are three basic positions that the Church takes up with respect to corporate assent, and they correlate to the above three positions. They are: dogma, heresy, and theological opinion. Dogmas require assent, heresies require denial, and theological opinions require neither assent nor denial. For example, take the proposition, "Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man." We have three basic options: assent, denial, and indifference. Since this proposition is a dogma of Christianity, assent is required, denial is heresy, and indifference is not an option.

A dogma is something that is essential to Christianity, and a heresy is something that is contradictory to Christianity. The logical relation of dogma and heresy to Christianity is as follows:

1. If someone is a Christian, then they must assent to the dogmas.*
2. If someone formally assents to a heresy, then they are no longer Christian.​

*At least implicitly.


Erroneous Modern Tendencies

In modernity there have been two erroneous and common tendencies. The first is religious indifferentism. This is the view that there are no dogmas, there are no heresies, everything is a matter of theological opinion, and people can believe whatever they want while still calling themselves "Christian." The problem with this error at the most general level is that the religion becomes contentless, without form or substance. If people can believe whatever they want while still calling themselves "Christian," then the name "Christian" becomes meaningless. The more specific problem is that the Good News becomes emptied of substance.

The second erroneous modern tendency is a kind of progressive reversal. This is the view that some things which were previously dogmas are now heresies, and some things which were previously heresies are now dogmas. The problem with this error at the most general level is that it constitutes institutional self-contradiction. The more specific problem is that the Good News is undermined and anti-evangelization occurs, where "good is called evil" (Isaiah 5:20). A third problem is that Christianity becomes nothing more than a vehicle for the passing doctrines of the day (Ephesians 4:14).

In order to avoid these erroneous tendencies we must ask ourselves, first, what are our dogmas and heresies? What things are essential to the Christian faith, and what things are incompatible with the Christian faith? Second, we must ask ourselves whether the dogmas and heresies that we hold today are consistent with the dogmas and heresies that our Christian ancestors held. We must ask, ultimately,
whether we are part of the same religion that Jesus Christ founded 2000 years ago.

You omitted the most important question:

What do the Scriptures say?

[SPOILERSome might claim that Christianity, or religion, should not be propositional. I think it should be and needs to be since humans are rational creatures, but that aside, the content of dogmas and heresies need not always be theoretical. Presumably the schema could also be analogously applied to actions, where some actions are required ("love thy neighbor"), some are prohibited ("thou shalt not commit adultery"), and some are indifferent. In the past there were certain grave sins that cut one off from the Church, and which required a formal period of public penance before reconciliation could occur. The two modern errors therefore apply equally to actions, and those who are more action-oriented could recast this OP in light of practical actions which are encouraged or prohibited.[/SPOILER

 

[The Liturgist]

You omitted the most important question:

What do the Scriptures say?

Respectfully, he didn’t, since this thread deals with the interpretation of Scripture, for which multiple competing forms of logically consistent exegesis do exist, which is why I cannot prove or disprove Calvinism or Arianism from Scripture alone, and not its content.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

The Holy Spirit is down here with us. Jesus is up there. He said it Himself on Ascension Day.

"Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world"; you are wrong.