Well, that settles it. I’m a heretic and anathema.

[zippy2006]

Denying any one of these four Marian dogmas may not automatically result in heresy or anathema, as there is room for theological debate within Catholicism.

This is just a straight up contradiction, for dogmas are by definition not open to theological debate. This is a good example of why one should not put their faith in AI, which has no intellect or authority. It is just stringing together words it found without any understanding of what the words mean or whether they are true.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

His saving power, and transubstantiation, one could be a Catholic.

Transubstantiation comes from old world metaphysics before we know about the quantum world.
"Substance" has been proven to be a concept rather than some platonic unchanging form.
I wonder if the Catholic Church will ever reconsider that theory.

 

[AlexB23]

This is just a straight up contradiction, for dogmas are by definition not open to theological debate. This is a good example of why one should not put their faith in AI, which has no intellect or authority.

Ooh, I see your point, brother. AI is good for some things, but it still has a ways to go when it comes to understanding theology. And yes, I would not want any churches to use AI-generated sermons or AI-generated homilies. I do have to tell you, that AI has helped me at least understand complex Bible verses, and write parts of my devotionals. April 2024 was the first month where I have used AI to help myself understand Biblical scripture, while July 2024 is the first month where I installed Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant documents into the AI.

 

[AlexB23]

Transubstantiation comes from old world metaphysics before we know about the quantum world.
"Substance" has been proven to be a concept rather than some platonic unchanging form.
I wonder if the Catholic Church will ever reconsider that theory.

My brother, even though quantum physics is real, transubstantiation is also real. Check up on Eucharistic miracles.

Eucharistic miracles have been studied by scientists, and in all of the confirmed miracles, the blood was type AB. In other Eucharistic miracles, the Catholic church has dismissed some, as red fungus sometimes grows on old bread. So, rigorous scientific testing is used to confirm these miracles.

This short PDF showcases the science of an old Eucharistic miracle:
https://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/english_pdf/Lanciano2.pdf

Devotional on Faith and Science, and Eucharistic Miracles. Yes, part of the devotional was AI-generated.

 

[jas3]

The key term in there is 'willful denial', which also implies deliberation and indeed investigation. Your run of the mill Protestant who only knows what some pastor taught them is not a willful denier. But if someone really studied it and then denies it I might agree with Pius XII. I think those are uncommon people.

Right, but that would only be the distinction between formal and material heresy, where you can hold to a belief that is "materially heretical," i.e. objectively heretical, even if you don't formally reject something you know is the teaching of the Church.

I want to be careful to say that I don't think calling non-Catholics heretics on Twitter is an effective or Christlike approach, but as far as I know, Marshall is technically correct.

 

[ozso]

View attachment 353586
Bummer for me.

The thing with this is, if he's taking the Vatican 2 amendments into consideration. Also as I understand it (probably according to V2) the anathemas only apply to Roman Catholics who don't accept RCC dogma. Those who aren't Roman Catholic are already essentially heretics.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I deviate with one point at least. So am I anathema? Is the guy in the OP correct?

He’s just a guy. So am I. I don’t pronounce anathemas. Best I could say is I’d be happy if you could see Mary as sinless, and not mouldering in some grave somewhere, and not having any other children, all in keeping with the common teaching of the Church for most of her existence. And to a degree see her as the mother of the beloved disciple, with us all being beloved disciples. I get it that such things would be hard to accept. They were for me too but I finally came around and they made sense. It took some time. I was not a heretic for that time because I was not ‘in denial’ but open to truth.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Wiggle room on point number 1: Mary physically bore a son, and His name was Jesus.

Of course.

But God the Son did not come into being through Mary. He existed forever before He created everything.

Of course.

You don't have to ba a Catholic to understand this.

Most who have trouble with the first item get hung up on Mary somehow pre-existing God and originating God, as kind of a god behind God. It would be a humorous absurdity nobody actually believes in real life if they were not so earnest in their confusion.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

The key term in there is 'willful denial', which also implies deliberation and indeed investigation. Your run of the mill Protestant who only knows what some pastor taught them is not a willful denier. But if someone really studied it and then denies it I might agree with Pius XII. I think those are uncommon people.

Uh ------ oh!!!! There's a lot that I willfully deny or pass on affirming which other, fellow Christians believe.

Should I worry?

 

[jas3]

What interests me the most about these kind of posts is WHY people believe these things? These councils that he quotes were convened at a time when they didn't have flushing toilets and they thought that the universe was made of concentric spheres. What leads one to think that they had a better corner on truth that we can arrive at with our own God-given reason?

"The wisdom of this world is foolishness to God." Why would reason be a better way to arrive at the truth than the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Can you reason why there are three Persons in the Trinity, rather than two or four? Did the Apostles reason their way to knowledge of Jesus Christ as God the Son, or was that revealed to them?

 

[zippy2006]

I want to be careful to say that I don't think calling non-Catholics heretics on Twitter is an effective or Christlike approach, but as far as I know, Marshall is technically correct.

Technically speaking he is incorrect, but let's pretend he said something more precise: "If you are baptized and you deny any of these four dogmas you are a heretic and anathema..." Would he be technically correct in this case? If he limited his statement to the baptized?

I think not, and this is especially true given (4), but it depends somewhat on what he means by 'heretic' and 'anathema'. Heresy generally involves a falling away, and anathema generally involves some form of excommunication. But someone who is not part of something cannot fall away from it, and someone who is not in communion cannot be excommunicated. Therefore using the words in such a way would seem to be nonsensical, and all of this is particularly true as regards the dogma of the Assumption. It is like telling a Hindu that they are at fault because they do not believe a Catholic dogma on the authority of the Church, or trying to send someone to prison who is already in prison.* The statement is only plausible with respect to Catholics.

Of course one can plausibly predicate heresy or anathema of historical groups that span many generations, albeit in a secondary sense. If Marshall was saying that such people are branches of heretical roots and therefore heretical then this could be appropriate, but I really don't think that is what he was saying.

Those who aren't Roman Catholic are already essentially heretics.

Exactly. Whether or not one thinks of non-Catholics as heretics, there is no change of status occurring, and therefore the charge is vacuous.

* Specifically, "heretic" connotes fault. "Heresy" or "heretical opinion" usually also connote fault, but they can be used in a way that prescinds from culpability. I would only consider granting Marshall the technicality if he had used one of these two terms and omitted "anathema," but given Marshall's nature it would still be unintuitive to interpret him in such a way.

 

[zippy2006]

I do have to tell you, that AI has helped me at least understand complex Bible verses, and write parts of my devotionals.

I would say that LLMs are a danger to those who have no way to discern true answers from false answers. Without that discernment one does not know whether the LLM has led them into understanding or misunderstanding.

 

[The Liturgist]

Wiggle room on point number 1: Mary physically bore a son, and His name was Jesus. But God the Son did not come into being through Mary. He existed forever before He created everything. You don't have to ba a Catholic to understand this.

No one claims that, but it does not provide for wiggle room on number 1, because if we deny that St. Mary is the Theotokos (birth giver to God) we have denied that God became incarnate having assumed our human nature in the person of the Son and Word, Jesus Christ (John 1:1-18, Luke 1-2, Matthew 2)

 

[trophy33]

No one claims that, but it does not provide for wiggle room on number 1, because if we deny that St. Mary is the Theotokos (birth giver to God) we have denied that God became incarnate having assumed our human nature in the person of the Son and Word, Jesus Christ (John 1:1-18, Luke 1-2, Matthew 2)

We can simply say that Jesus was God in flesh. We do not need to grant any titles to Mary. Involving Mary into this is unnecessary and I guess heavily influenced by the Roman culture (like family pantheons).

 

[JSRG]

View attachment 353586
Bummer for me.

The second one is odd. He claims:

“Mary is Ever-Virgin. She and Joseph never had relations or children. She also experienced zero pain in giving birth to Jesus Christ. (Second Council of Constantinople in AD 553 and at the Lateran Synod of AD 649)"

It's certainly true that the Second Council of Constantinople said Mary was ever virgin, and (from what I can tell) the 649 Lateran Synod said this too. The odd part is that it declares "she also experienced zero pain in giving birth to Jesus Christ." Where does that come from? I see it nowhere in the decrees of the Second Council of Constantinople. Perhaps it's stated somewhere in the 649 Lateran Synod; unfortunately, the canons of it do not seem available in English online. But even if it did give a statement that Mary experienced zero pain, it would not be an ecumenical council and thus does not provide evidence of it being a dogma. So what exactly is his source that Mary not suffering pain is a dogma?

 

[The Liturgist]

Transubstantiation comes from old world metaphysics before we know about the quantum world.
"Substance" has been proven to be a concept rather than some platonic unchanging form.
I wonder if the Catholic Church will ever reconsider that theory.

The idea that it refers to, that being the Real Presence of the Eucharist, is integral to the ancient faith of the Lutherans, high church Anglicans, Orthodox and other traditional Christians in addition to Roman Catholics. It unifies the majority of Christians (since numerically speaking, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans and Lutherans are the four largest denominations, and Oriental Orthodoxy is around the seventh largest, and even when we deduct those Anglicans of the low church, broad church and liberal catholic persuasion who reject the doctrine of the real presence, we still get a majority of Christians and a large majority of traditional Christians. And then when we attach other groups like the traditional Methodists who believe in the Real Presence, or the Moravians, the number goes up even more.

Now not all traditional liturgical Christians believe in the real presence, but almost none adhere to a Zwinglian or Memorialist interpretation. Where the real presence is not believed, the most common alternative seems to be a diet form of the real presence, which is a belief that our Lord is spiritually but not physically present in the Eucharist.

 

[JSRG]

The thing with this is, if he's taking the Vatican 2 amendments into consideration. Also as I understand it (probably according to V2) the anathemas only apply to Roman Catholics who don't accept RCC dogma. Those who aren't Roman Catholic are already essentially heretics.

I believe Catholic anathemas apply to everyone--or at a minimum the baptized--but functionally only apply to Catholics who reject Catholic dogma. The reason for this is that since the effect of an anathema is to declare that someone is not a member of the Catholic Church, it has no practical effect on a non-Catholic, who is not part of the Catholic Church anyway.

 

[The Liturgist]

We can simply say that Jesus was God in flesh. We do not need to grant any titles to Mary.

The status of St. Mary as Theotokos is a proper description of her role, not a title. But we should grant her titles, as she is most worthy of veneration, since by virtue of being selected out of all of humanity to be the mother of God, she had a closer and more intimate relationship with Him than anyone else.

As for her sinlessness, the Orthodox and most other Christians regard Luke 11:27-28 as an explicit confirmation of this status (verses ironically used by antidicomarians to attack the veneration of the Theotokos) and Luke 1, which is also inspired Scripture, has her accurately predict that all subsequent generations would call her blessed. So referring to her as the Blessed Virgin Mary is scripturally warranted.

Involving Mary into this is unnecessary and I guess heavily influenced by the Roman culture (like family pantheons).

False. One cannot have correct Christology with incorrect Mariology. Also, the Roman church had very little to do with the Council of Ephesus. Nestorius was a Syrian Greek from Antioch, and St. Cyril the Great, his opponent, was an Alexandrian Greek, and a successor to St. Athanasius the Great, who had defended the doctrine of the Incarnation against Arianism. And the approach of St. Cyril flows directly from the writing of St. Athanasius and the Cappadocians, for instance, St. Gregory the Theologian, who taught that what has not assumed has not been healed.

 

[zippy2006]

So what exactly is his source that Mary not suffering pain is a dogma?

He was too far out over his skies on that one. He is falsely assuming that a Catholic doctrine is found in the same places that Aeiparthenos derives from. He does this because in Catholic circles those doctrines are always grouped together.

 

[The Liturgist]

I believe Catholic anathemas apply to everyone--or at a minimum baptized Christians--but functionally only apply to Catholics who reject Catholic dogma. The reason for this is that since the effect of an anathema is to declare that someone is not a member of the Catholic Church, it has no practical effect on a non-Catholic, who is not part of the Catholic Church anyway.

I believe only Orthodox anathemas have any real importance, since the Roman church fired off anathemas at virtually everyone, and then later contradicted itself and retracted those anathemas, whereas the Orthodox have been much more consistent in what they anathematize.

Also you can’t have an ecumenical council without it being convened by the Emperor in Constantinople and with participation of both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, and that last happened at the Photian Synod, where the RCC agreed to drop the filioque, before changing its mind in the following century and reinstating it, which was a contributing factor to the Great Schism in 1054.

That being said, the core Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox anathemas are the same, and these are universally applicable. For example, no one would disagree that Arians are anathema.