Mary - Christian Prototype

[david.d]

And you would be fairly wrong. Show me the verse that says that everything we are to believe is to be found in the Bible alone. Show me what the Bible says about contraception, about in vitro fertilization, on whether it is sinful to fly like a bird in a machine with engines.

There was one Church in the beginning of the New Covenant. It became described as "katholicos" (universal) because wherever you went in the empire, the doctrines and practices were universal. The Church in Rome, like the Church in Antioch, Jerusalem, etc. existed in the first century. And people did not split off. Where in the world did you get such an idea? Until 1054 AD, the Church was one, not the thousands we see in Protestantism.

And what kind of answer to my question is "believe it or not?" Can you give a straight answer to a straight question?

OK. The believe it or not was an accidental paste. To be straight up, the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Constantine. There is no evidence of that people practiced in the way the Catholics practice. The only history of that church before Constantine is a few writings well after Peter was killed that attempted to differentiate Catholicism (universalism) from early Christianity.

 

[Paul Yohannan]

To be straight up, the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Constantine.

This is of course entirely inaccurate.

There is no evidence of that people practiced in the way the Catholics practice.

On the contrary, we have liturgical texts, various Patristic works by important figures such as Origen, Tertullian, Sts. Ignatius, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and others, and other material which corresponds to Orthodox-Catholic-traditional Protestant practice.

The only history of that church before Constantine is a few writings well after Peter was killed that attempted to differentiate Catholicism (universalism) from early Christianity.

This is greatly inaccurate.

St. Irenaeus, in his work Against Heresies, differentiated between the Catholic (Christian apostolic) faith and the beliefs of various heretical cults like the Gnostics, the Ebionites, the Marcionites and so on, which are non-Christian according to the CF.com Statement of Faith, but which did prey upon the early Church.

 

[Philip_B]

OK. The believe it or not was an accidental paste. To be straight up, the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Constantine. There is no evidence of that people practiced in the way the Catholics practice. The only history of that church before Constantine is a few writings well after Peter was killed that attempted to differentiate Catholicism (universalism) from early Christianity.

I would have a great deal of trouble accepting the basic assertions you make here. Constantine, whilst very sympathetic to the Christian Faith was not baptised till near the end of his life. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that people gathered to break the bread of life and recall his sacrifice and proclaim his resurrection until he comes in glory, as indeed they do to this day. Of course much of the early churches documents were destroyed during the Diocletian persecution, however we will not blame Constantine for that. There is no evidence that I am aware of that the Catholicism of the day ever sought to embrace universalism, the sense of the Greek kata holos was the meaning - according to the whole - and was reference to the Church in every place being utterly connected.

 

[david.d]

Augustine's idea of "original sin" passed down through sexual generation. We Orthodox utterly reject it!

The case for sin to be a part of our nature is clear in the Bible.

I'm not sure how one would think it was so important for Jesus to be sacrificed as our flesh and not believe that was because sin is part of the flesh. Christ did not sin, he resisted the devil's temptation, but it was still a temptation of the flesh.

 

[Philip_B]

The case for sin to be a part of our nature is clear in the Bible.

I'm not sure how one would think it was so important for Jesus to be sacrificed as our flesh and not believe that was because sin is part of the flesh. Christ did not sin, he resisted the devil's temptation, but it was still a temptation of the flesh.

And that may in part be why you end up with a different approach to soteriology and the atonement. I wonder what sense you make of Anselm's Cur Deus Homo?

 

[~Anastasia~]

The case for sin to be a part of our nature is clear in the Bible.

I'm not sure how one would think it was so important for Jesus to be sacrificed as our flesh and not believe that was because sin is part of the flesh. Christ did not sin, he resisted the devil's temptation, but it was still a temptation of the flesh.

Mankind fell under the curse of death as the result of sin. And we are born with inclination to selfishness and a bent to sin, into a world infected by and affected by sin. As a result, we all sin. This is why we needed Christ to come, to overcome the curse of death through His death and resurrection, and for our salvation, to save us from our sin.

The particular theology that we (Orthodox Christians) reject was introduced later, and involves such things as infants born worthy of condemnation, because they bear the guilt of Adam's sin, the supposed transmission of sin through the sexual act and so passed down to children from the father's seed, and a "sin nature" which some believe is completely depraved.

The nature of man is a little harder to explain. We believe that mankind was created in the image and likeness of God, but through sin that image is marred. But it is not destroyed. So we are not totally depraved, but we are born with a bent to self, and to sin. Because of this, and because temptation abounds, every person who lives long enough to be able to sin, will sin. So we are indeed all sinners. But it is not our very nature.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[Paul Yohannan]

And that may in part be why you end up with a different approach to soteriology and the atonement. I wonder what sense you make of Anselm's Cur Deus Homo?

Interestingly the Orthodox entirely reject Anselm of Canterbury.

 

[Philip_B]

Interestingly the Orthodox entirely reject Anselm of Canterbury.

That is interesting, and hardly surprising. I suspect that relations between the English Church and the East were better in the pre-conquest era. Lanfranc formerly Abbot of Bec in Normandy replaced Stigand, who appears to have died of starvation gaol (episcopal deaths in custody) and in die course Lanfranc was replaced by Anselm, also formerly Abbot of Bec. Cur Deus Homo is essentially work about the redemptive work in Christ, entirely predicated on humanities need to pay the price, whilst only God had the resources to pay the price, so for love, God became man that man might pay what only God could pay, and that as a result we might be reconciled to God.
The work is largely dialectical so is couch as a conversation with questions and answers. My feeling is that it is a Western rather than an Eastern approach, and yet the reason I raised it as being worth a look is because to the centrality of incarnation in the story of redemption. The soteriology is far to transactional to be likely to have any fans in the east.

 

[Sword of the Lord]

The problem with praying to Mary and/or the Saints, to me, is so simple, and the answer is never satisfying.

How can it be that, like God, they can hear every prayer at once, from all around the world? Do you know how many people are praying to Mary at once? Thousands if not millions. And then, of course, some people pray without speaking, which gives Mary and the Saints another divine power: mind reading. There's also another issue: if they intercede on our behalf, they would literally spend all of their time running to Jesus on our behalf, and it seems to me that there wouldn't be enough time to even cover everyone. It's a divine power. It makes no sense.

That answer is always something about how time works differently in heaven, that powers are bestowed on the people in heaven, that things work differently. It's all an assumption. It's not scriptural. Saints do intercede for us; that is scriptural: they pray for us believers on earth. That doesn't mean that they pray for individual people or that they can hear the prayers of individual people. As the Book of Concord says: "They have made them (saints) Gods."

 

[Wolf_Says]

Interestingly, my parents worshiped saints, virgins, and appearances when I was a child. I would ask my dear mom if these saints, virgins, and appearances she prayed to could actually hear and respond. She would not commit to a definite answer, but she was always lighting candles to the virgin Mary and praying to her as a goddess. Then, she added another virgin named Virgin de la Guadalupe, and another La Macarena, and so on. She had a list of all the Roman Catholic saints she prayed to for specific things. Later, I began reading the Bible in my early teens and found a disturbing passage in the N.T., 2 Timothy 2:5-6, "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all , to be testified in due time,. . ." When I showed this verse to my dear mom, it impacted her profoundly. All this time her focus had been the Virgin Mary, her saints, her lighted candles, and praying to them. Mom realized how she was violating the first of the Ten Commandments by assigning the category of deity to the Virgin Mary and other virgins and the saints. It was very difficult for her to let go of the Virgin Mary idolatry, but she eventually stopped praying to her, the other virgins, and the list of Roman Catholic saints. My dear mom later told me that she realized that Mary was not the center of the Incarnation but just a vehicle used by God, and for her to raise her up to the prominence of deity or as an idol was wrong since Mary had sons and daughters. She explained that she had equated holiness with virginity and had made Mary to be more holy than any woman, when in fact she was a sinner, just like her husband Joseph, in need of a holy, sinless Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. She asked me, "Do you know who died on the Cross of Calvary? Not the virgin Mary or any other virgins, nor the Roman Catholic saints, nor appearances or apparitions. Who died for us was our Lord Jesus Christ."

Philip B., fortunately Mary is not "the Icon of the Church" if you meant the true followers of Christ do not follow the dictums or creeds or councils of early church fathers, since in reality, Christ did not come to establish a denominational religion, but he came to establish an open door for any person to enter into a vibrant RELATIONSHIP

So, in the end, your mother was confused and gave you a wrong teaching about what the Catholic Church teaches.

Catholics do not worship any saint, or Mary, we only worship God.

Yes, they can hear us in heaven, and they can pray for us in heaven. Just like we ask people around us to pray for us when we are having a hard time, asking the saints to pray for us is NO DIFFERENT.

I fail to see the issue here.

 

[Paul Yohannan]

How can it be that, like God, they can hear every prayer at once, from all around the world?

The answer is simple: God, who is omnipotent, confers this ability on those in Heaven.

And the ability to hear silent prayers hardly requires clairvoyance. And discussing clairvoyance about people who are in Heaven, who have already transcended this mortal coil, who represent the Church Triumphant, is not compelling. You cannot make a cohesive argument based on the temporal limitations of humans in this life and apply it to those saved and united with God in anticipation of the resurrection, you just can't. Such arguments are non sequiturs.

 

[Paul Yohannan]

Interestingly, my parents worshiped saints, virgins, and appearances when I was a child.

If that's true they were deviating from the teachings of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, which preclude the offer of worship to the saints (veneration is something else), but in pursuing this argument we risk deviating from the subject of this thread; this thread is not about the veneration of the saints as a doctrine but rather the importance of St. Mary to the Christian faithful as a model of personal piety and devotion to God.

 

[Sword of the Lord]

The answer is simple: God, who is omnipotent, confers this ability on those in Heaven.

And the ability to hear silent prayers hardly requires clairvoyance. And discussing clairvoyance about people who are in Heaven, who have already transcended this mortal coil, who represent the Church Triumphant, is not compelling. You cannot make a cohesive argument based on the temporal limitations of humans in this life and apply it to those saved and united with God in anticipation of the resurrection, you just can't. Such arguments are non sequiturs.

Same unsatisfying assumption of an answer.

 

[Paul Yohannan]

Same unsatisfying assumption of an answer.

Well, alas, what was unsatisfying to me was a question predicated on an assumption that all present transient limitations of fallen humanity will continue without modification or correction by God once we have been saved by Him and are in Heaven, awaiting the Resurrection. Such an argument is not credible to me.

 

[Wolf_Says]

OK. The believe it or not was an accidental paste. To be straight up, the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Constantine. There is no evidence of that people practiced in the way the Catholics practice. The only history of that church before Constantine is a few writings well after Peter was killed that attempted to differentiate Catholicism (universalism) from early Christianity.

I'm sorry this is incorrect, the Catholic Church was started in Matthew 16:18, not from Constantine.

 

[Wolf_Says]

I'm fairly certain if the church was always called Catholic it would be mentioned in the Bible.

Know what is also not stated in the Bible? The trinity

It doesn't exactly need to be in the Bible for it to be true, we are look at the writings of the Early Church Fathers and history to see, and by reading these we come to find that the ecf and their beliefs were in line with the Catholic Church.

You are also mistaken the meaning of universal, it was universal as anybody can enter into the Church, and the Church is spread across the world, not a universal religion and not just Christianity.

 

[Paul Yohannan]

Know what is also not stated in the Bible? The trinity

Well, on that point I have to disagree. I triumphed several Arians in debate using only John 1 and Matthew 28:19. They attempted to claim that the Trinity was unbiblical because the word itself, coined by Tertullian, was not in the Bible, but I pointed out this argument was invalid, because the underlying doctrine the word expresses is clearly in the NT, and indeed, one cannot rationally exegete the NT in any other manner.

 

[Paul Yohannan]

You are also mistaken the meaning of universal, it was universal as anybody can enter into the Church, and the Church is spread across the world, not a universal religion and not just Christianity.

Indeed.

 

[Light of the East]

Interestingly the Orthodox entirely reject Anselm of Canterbury.

Here, here!!!

 

[Wolf_Says]

Well, on that point I have to disagree. I triumphed several Arians in debate using only John 1 and Matthew 28:19. They attempted to claim that the Trinity was unbiblical because the word itself, coined by Tertullian, was not in the Bible, but I pointed out this argument was invalid, because the underlying doctrine the word expresses is clearly in the NT, and indeed, one cannot rationally exegete the NT in any other manner.

Oh you misunderstand, I use that as a counter to "well it's not in the bible so I don't believe it" and I point to the truth that the WORD trinity never appears in the Bible, though we know it to be true from context of the entire NT.