Free will means both everything and nothing. That is the point I was trying to make earlier when I said this is not a dispute over the "whether" of free will, but the "what" of it.
Your argument here reveals to me the problem of Protestantism – that it eventually falls into subjectivism. There is no objectivie truth, because there is no agreement on what the truth is.
You are right that Christians cannot even agree on the definition of free will. But that is only Protestant Christians. Protestant Christians cannot agree what free will is, let alone whether it exists. But you can say this about any point of doctrine. There is a reason there is no such thing as Protestant theology.
But Catholicism has a central authority, a magisterium. It can officially define things, and officially determine what is truth.
I looked at your profile, and you describe yourself as a conservative Christian. I mean no offense, but what you are saying seems to be more in line with what a post-modern nihilist would say. Your asking what is free will reminds me of Pontius Pilate asking what is truth. If we cannot know what is free will then can we know of anything else?
But the feedback is still a communication, and communication isn't inherently perspicuous in your view. You're aiming for a middle ground that I do not believe exists.
I never said that communication isn't inherently perspicuous. If communication is not perspicuous, then why are we wasting our time on this forum?
There is a difference between live communication and reading a book that was written 2,000 years ago.
I've heard of him once or twice, but it seems you've inflated the reputation of a very minor protestant (which itself is a dubious appellation for the Anglicans, who often, following the lead of Newman's colleagues in the Oxford Movement, suggested that the CoE was a middle path between Prots and Rome) to make some kind of point
If you only heard of him once or twice, then how can you be qualified to label him as a minor Protestant? Please do some study on Newman, and then we can discuss whether he was a “minor” Protestant.
I don't see "actual" in that quote, and since he was disputing with Gnostics who denied that Christ had a body, it's much easier to understand him as referring to people who believed that Christ had no body for the Eucharist to represent, not to those who didn't adhere to the uniquely Aristotelian bit of Thomism known as transubstantiation.
Funny, I do not see “represent” in that quote, either.
Here is the quote again, I emboldened that parts that shows that “represent” is completely foreign to the passage.
Take note of those who hold heterodox [heretical] opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God ... They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes.
Ignatius is saying the Eucharist IS the flesh of Christ, the flesh WHICH SUFFERED. True, this is not Thomism. How can it be, since this was written 1,000 before Thomas Aquinas? And it is not explicitly teaching transubstantiation. But neither does the Bible explicitly teach the Trinity.
Too bad you know so little of John Newman. He explained it clearly in his book The Development of Christian Doctrine. The truth in the first century was a kernel. As Jesus himself said, the kingdom of God started as a small mustard seed, and grows into a large tree. God did not dump His revelation fully developed. The Holy Spirit nurtures it. So although the first-century Christians would not know what “Trinity” meant, they still, understood that you had God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each is a unique Person, each is to be adored. And yet God is one, and only God is worshipped. Later on, the Church elaborated on this with the doctrine of the Trinity – One essence with three distinct persons. This may be a bit Aristotelian, but the doctrine was needed to be elaborated in order to respond to the heresies in the fourth and fifth centuries. And the Trinity was still faithful to the kernel preaching from the very beginning.
In the same way, although Ignatius was not explaining it the way the Church would later explain, but he still taught that the Eucharist IS THE FLESH of Jesus Christ.
Now, if you want to only go as far that, by all means, do so. Do you believe that the Eucharist is the flesh of Jesus Christ? Forget about “transubstantiation”. Our Eastern Orthodox brethren, like you, do not like the doctrine of transubstantiation, not because they believe that it only represents the body of Christ, but because they feel that we should not take away the mystery of it being the flesh of Christ. They believe that the Eucharist IS the body and blood of Christ. It does not merely “represent” the body and blood of Christ. And according to the Catholic Church, the Orthodox have a valid Eucharist.
So the issue is this: Do you believe, along with Ignatius, that the Eucharist IS the flesh of Christ? If you come back with the Eucharist ONLY REPRESENTS the body of Christ, then you are reading your own thoughts into Ignatius, far exceeding any transubstiation would.
Exsurge Domine, "In virtue of our pastoral office committed to us by the divine favor we can under no circumstances tolerate or overlook any longer the pernicious poison of the above errors without disgrace to the Christian religion and injury to orthodox faith. Some of these errors we have decided to include in the present document; their substance is as follows: [...] 33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit. "
I agree this is a difficult passage. But there are far more difficult passages found in the Bible itself
Command to execute homosexuals
13 ‘If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them
Lev 20:13
Command execute those who disobey their parents
18If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
19Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
20And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. 21And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21
It is not enough to say that these are in the Old Testament, and not in the New. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It is easy for us to condemn a different culture. We today think it is terrible to kill someone for their faith or their personal morality. But we go to war because of a certain political ideology. Back then, there was no such thing as separation of church and state. A person’s theology affected a person’s politics. A heretic in the OT times or the Middle Ages was not just the exchanging ideas but was advocating the overthrow of the existing government. Even the civil leaders punished heresy because the overthrow of the existing theology usually preceded the overthrow of the existing government. As the Reformation showed, the introduction of new doctrine brought on bloodshed, even even between Protestants.
Exsurge Domine was not saying that we should burn heretics, but that burning heretics was not against the Spirit. If executing people for religious reasons was against the Spirit, then one would then have to say that God Himself in the Old Testament issued commands that went against the Spirit. If that is the case, we might as well throw away the Bible.
Also, this was a papal bull, and it was not ex cathedra. So this document can be wrong. A pope is only infallible in matters of dogma and morality, not church discipline. Ex cathedra must be officially announced that this is binding to all Christians. A faithful Catholic can disagree with this document.
Sorry, no. You will know them by their fruit. The first criterion of being the church is that the church must not kill Christians. You may begin to claim that the RCC magesterium is even part of God's church at all when you present me with the living and not in any way burned alive body of Jan Hus.
If that is your criteria, then Protestants are not part of the church either.
Martin Luther was originally on the side of the peasants revolting against their leaders but then betrayed them and advocated that the rulers slaughter the peasants in the Peasant Revolt.
Martin Luther also taught that their Anabaptist brothers and sisters should be put into sacks and thrown into sea to be drowned.
John Calvin had Michael Servitus executed for heresy.
Zwingli went to war against his fellow Protestant Christians.
The Protestant Christians in England killed Catholics AND Puritans. In fact, the reason the Puritans came to America was to escape persecution from their fellow Protestants in England.
So if the criteria of the church is not to kill Christians, then I am afraid we are without any church.
