Most knowing observers of the New Age Movement have kept a careful watch on the Earth Charter. That it amounts to Earth worship is apparent, at least to my eye. I'm doing a slow and careful read of Pope Francis' LAUDATO SI encyclical. Something compelling there caught my eye. Was I seeing things nobody else was seeing? Nope! There it was, bold as a cobra, lurking in the pages of Pope Francis' pronouncements on environmental issues.
207. The Earth Charter asked us to leave behind a period of self-destruction and make a new start, but we have not as yet developed a universal awareness needed to achieve this. Here, I would echo that courageous challenge: “As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning… Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life”.It is no surprise that the Earth Charter proponents are thrilled about Pope Francis' input:
For the global Earth Charter network this document is paramount, as Pope Francis makes an explicit reference to the Earth Charter reference in paragraph 207 of Chapter Six on Ecological Education and Spirituality:It is no surprise that the Earth Charter proponents are thrilled about Pope Francis' input. They have issued their Voices of the Earth Charter responding to Laudato Si.
P. 207. The Earth Charter asked us to leave behind a period of self-destruction and make a new start, but we have not as yet developed a universal awareness needed to achieve this. Here, I would echo that courageous challenge: “As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning… Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life”.
Another thing I could not help but notice is the Ken Wilber cultish terminology of "Integral" -- a most favorite New Age buzzword for a most prolific New Age writer: Ken Wilber. Ken Wilber is the author of just about "Integrative" everything - medicine, spirituality, etc.
Well, it is obvious to me that Pope Francis has made most of the New Age community VERY HAPPY. I'm not!
Stay tuned!
CONSTANCE
467 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 401 – 467 of 467Craig,
Given that we know Jesus was without original sin at His incarnational conception, then, applying the same logic as above, it would be unnecessary for Mary to be Immaculately Conceived.
Also, if this doctrine were to be true, then we’d expect an ‘except for Mary’ clause in 1 John 1:8.
Actually NOTHING was NECESSARY. God didn't even HAVE to save us from our sins at all. But it was God's CHOICE to do so. If, as Catholics believe, God made Mary free from Original Sin, it is because it was what God CHOSE to do because it fit into His plan of salvation, and not because it was NECESSARY that He do so. To think otherwise is YOUR interpretation. Which is fine. However, I will stick with the Traditional interpretations.
Re:Then why did the Council anathematize all other Latin translations? Did the RCC read every one of those and determine they were all contrary to “faith and morals”?
They didn't have to read every other Latin translation. And that is because "sola scriptura" is not the Catholic Rule of Faith. Besides the Latin Vulgate only applied and still applies to the Latin Rite.
Have YOU read ALL the Hebrew and/or translations of the bible as well as, perhaps, the Greek ones to determine if any of those texts are contrary to "faith and morals?" Since, by virtue of private interpretation, your own own "magisterium," wouldn't YOU have an even GREATER vested interest in doing so since the Bible is all you have?
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Anonymous 3:17 PM
If you are not happy with the discussion here between me, Craig and J, no one is forcing you to stay here and read it. So why don't you just move on to the most recent thread instead of staying here and whining? The reason why we have remained here is so that we will not interfere with the present discussion on the next thread.
Moreover, the topic of this thread has to do with the Pope to begin with, so we are not exactly wandering off the reservation.
Sorry, Susanna, but the rabbit trails are long and winding. This is not whining, it just simply the truth.
You could table it here and go down any trail you choose, with your own emails.
You are promoting a whole lot of your denomination's doctrine here.
Is that the purpose of this blog?
Anonymous 6:04 PM
Sorry, Anonymous, but it IS whining. I am not promoting anything. I am simply answering questions and correcting mistaken ideas about my beliefs. Isn't that just too bad!
Constance herself sometimes asks me to explain Catholic beliefs and Catholic issues.
So if you are not happy about what I am posting here, buy all means take it up with Constance.
Bottom line. This is not your blog. This is Constance's blog. I guess that gives Constance the exclusive right to decide what people should - or should not - post here?
If you go to Constance's home page, you will see Constance's own description of this blog. A forum to discuss just about everything.
My perspective -- What Constance thinks
News and views of Constance Cumbey concerning "Radical Middle", New Age Movement, Communitarianism, "planetary humanism," "global governance," European Union, Javier Solana, Jeremy Rifkin, "New Age Politics," law in the USA, combined with life in general -- sometimes humorous, sometimes not!
Given the fact that the commenters on this thread have been minding their own business, having an interesting discussion and not interfering with you, maybe YOU are the one who should table it here and go down another trail of your choosing.
Susanna,
Just to reiterate I’m not what I’d term a Protestant—but I’m not a Catholic or EO either. I’m a Christ-follower. And for the record, Protestants do follow “tradition” for Scriptural interpretation in the form of adhering to the Trinitarian and Christological creeds of the first ecumenical Councils. Plus, the collective progressive revelation throughout Church history is drawn from, such as the philological work that unraveled the curious wording in Philippians 2:6. “True” Protestantism, just like “true” Catholicism, agrees in the important doctrines, such as Christology and the Trinity. The doctrinal disputes are in minor areas, never touching those—though, unfortunately, too many ‘major on the minors’. And it’s in these minor areas I think it reasonable to have differing opinions. (I’m setting aside “Apostolic Succession” here, as that’s a whole ‘nuther debate.)
I read carefully the link you supplied referring to the Fathers deeming Mary the new Eve. Yet, I don’t read any that proclaim or imply that Mary was without original sin or that Mary was sinless. To find these doctrines in those 7 Fathers is to impose those doctrines upon the texts. In other words, if one already adheres to those doctrines, these texts will be seen as not disagreeing; however, if one reads these at face value, neither of these are explicitly, or even implicitly found.
Just like the analogy of Jesus to Adam, the analogy of Mary to Eve is far from total. Eve was given a command of what not to do, she came upon a fallen angel (the serpent) who, in turn, gave her instructions wholly contrary to God’s prohibition, then Eve chose to obey the serpent over God. In stark contrast, Mary was provided no advance directive relative to her angelic visitation, the angel Gabriel visited her, after initial well-founded angst and ensuing discussion to overcome this, she unhesitatingly accepted. Thus, your reasoning for the fittingness for Mary to be immaculately conceived and without original sin I find to be without basis. I mean no disrespect to you or your belief system as I state this; when I analyze things related to faith-belief, I must be able to reason them through.
And the immediately preceding doesn’t even address the issue of Mary’s sinlessness, which runs contrary to 1 John 1:8, 10: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…If we say that we have not sinned, we make him [Jesus] a liar, and his word is not in us. (D-R). Now, of course, the context clearly shows it is Jesus who “purifies us from all sin” (1:7; 2:1-2), thus, Jesus is excluded strong statements of 1:8, 10. But He is the only exception that can be inferred here.
But, even besides that, the claim that Mary was pre-redeemed at conception seems oxymoronic. In its basic sense “redeem” means to exchange one for another. How could this be done proactively if there were to be no future cause for a need to redeem? In this case, if there’s no original sin and there was to be no subsequent sin, there’s no need for redemption, thus no need for pre-redemption. It’s only after sin that one needs a redeemer. Stated another way, if Mary were pre-redeemed, this would imply it was for sins she would commit in the future.
It is for all these reasons that I cannot get on board with the RCC’s exalted Mariology. That’s not to make her some minor figure, of course.
Craig,
Re:I read carefully the link you supplied referring to the Fathers deeming Mary the new Eve. Yet, I don’t read any that proclaim or imply that Mary was without original sin or that Mary was sinless. To find these doctrines in those 7 Fathers is to impose those doctrines upon the texts. In other words, if one already adheres to those doctrines, these texts will be seen as not disagreeing; however, if one reads these at face value, neither of these are explicitly, or even implicitly found.
First of all, given the posts of Anonymous 3:17 PM and 6:04 PM , I want to make it clear that while I have been willing to answer questions as to what Catholics believe and why they believe it, I am not trying to "convert" you or anyone else. If your were not BORN into the Catholic faith but are sincerely living to the highest good that you know, you will be saved....albeit, as I am sure you already know, all salvation is in Jesus Christ.
Now to the subject of the Catholic belief in the Immaculate Conception.
Although the belief that Mary was sinless, or conceived without original sin, has been widely held since Late Antiquity, the doctrine was not dogmatically defined until 1854, by Pope Pius IX in his papal bull Ineffabilis Deus. The Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8; in many Catholic countries, it is a holy day of obligation or patronal feast, and in some a national public holiday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception
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Most Protestants reject the doctrine because they do not consider the development of dogmatic theology to be authoritative apart from biblical exegesis, and because ( Protestants believe ) the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is not taught in the Bible. The formal pronouncement of Mary's Immaculate Conception by the Catholic Church in 1854 further alienated some Protestant churches largely due to its implication that not all have sinned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception#Protestantism
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The Fathers I cited were with regard to Mary as the "New Eve." Here are links regarding the Church Fathers on the Immaculate Conception.
The Church Fathers on the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
http://taylormarshall.com/2011/12/church-fathers-on-immaculate-conception.html
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The Immaculate Conception, the Bible, and the Church Fathers
http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/a115.htm
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Immaculate Conception and Assumption
https://www.catholic.com/tract/immaculate-conception-and-assumption
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In closing, just for the record, when I spoke of my concerns about the possible "degeneration" of our discussion to the "cliche'" Catholic vs. Protestant arguments, I was not referring to you. I was referring to people like the anonymous who trashed you and called me "a liar and a deceiver." Sad!
P.S. Craig
Re:And the immediately preceding doesn’t even address the issue of Mary’s sinlessness, which runs contrary to 1 John 1:8, 10: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…If we say that we have not sinned, we make him [Jesus] a liar, and his word is not in us. (D-R).
I did not say that the Church taught that Mary needed no redemption. I did say that Mary was pre-redeemed by the future merits of her son's work of Redemption.
Besides historical evidence and the authority of Tradition, several biblical texts can be offered t support the Catholic dogma of Mary's Immaculate Conception.
In Genesis 3:15, God states that there is to be an enmity between the "woman" and the serpent, and this enmity is shared between her seed and its seed. Her seed is the Messiah, who stands in opposition to the seed of the serpent. The mother of the Messiah is said to share the same enmity—total opposition—with Satan. If Mary, "the woman" had any sin, then she would not be in complete opposition to the devil. Some argue that the "woman" refers to Eve, but this can not be the complete meaning of the text, as Eve is always associated with her collaboration with the serpent, not her opposition to him. Only Mary, the new Eve, fits the description of the woman in Genesis 3:15.
God can "save" a person from a sin in two ways. By forgiving them, or by providing them the grace never to fall into that particular sin in the first place. An ancient analogy is often useful to explain this: A person can be saved from a pit in two ways; one can fall into it and be brought out, or one can be caught before falling into it. Mankind is saved in the first manner, and Mary in the second. Both are saved from the pit of sin. If Jesus wished to save his mother from the stain of sin, what is to prevent him?
It is our business Susanna when you promote your satanic cult on here shamelessly!!! You would love to see poor J, who has been damaged by her cult experience with WWCG, to join your nasty cult. You stated that!!!
Truth is you are a disgusting person who loves her religious cult more than the humble Messiah! If you read scripture, you are in danger of hell for this, along with your lukewarm heart!!!
Anonymous 11:42,
I can speak for myself, and Susanna told me that I should carefully consider my decision and only choose the Catholic church if I really believe in all of its teachings after careful ref
Remember that God does not like false accusations.
Should have written: "...if I really believe in all of its teachings after careful reflection on them."
Also Anonymous 11:42,
Here is a question for you. Do you think the sermons of the apostles as recorded by the early saints and martyrs is of any value to us as Christians?
I most likely will not join the Catholic church, anyway. It seems the more I look into it, the more I can see my timing is very bad. My timing would have been much better 50 or so years ago. I don't blame somebody who was born into a Catholic family for remaining in their faith, since it is about what you believe, and not only about the failings of humans inside of an organization. If somebody still believes in their childhood teachings, I wouldn't blame him or her for remaining a member but criticizing apostasies and infiltrations from within. It's about what you believe to be true and right, and it's not just whatever somebody does or says who has the same label as you. If there are RINOS, there are also CHINOS (Christians in Name Only).
Susanna,
In following the biblicalcatholic/apologetics link you provided, I must comment that the statements with respect to the Greek perfect tense-form are taken a bit beyond their intent in their analysis of the perfect passive participle kecharitōmenē, “highly favored” in Luke 1:28. A verb in the perfect can mean “completed action with permanent result”, or it may mean “past action with present results, not continuing further (or much further)”, or it may mean “past action with past results”—all depending on context. In other words, the time element—the extent of the duration, even whether it’s past, present or future (or consisting of two or more time elements)—is not a fixed part of the verb’s form. The context will determine how to understand/translate, but sometimes it’s not easy to determine definitively. I’ll provide a few examples for illustration.
In Luke 1:1, what is translated “have been fulfilled” is a perfect (middle) participle. The things ‘have been fulfilled’ and these things stand fulfilled. There’s no more ‘fulfilling’ to be done, but the finished product remains. The closest parallel to Luke 1:28 can be found in Luke 1:27. Here we have the perfect (middle) participle emnēsteumenēn (from mnēsteuō), “betrothed/pledged to be married”, and the same is found in Luke 2:5. Mary had accepted the offer of betrothal (completed action), and Mary was then in a state of betrothal (then-present continuing state) to Joseph. But, that state of betrothal did/does not extend into perpetuity, obviously. It was only speaking of her then-current status—a status that would change once she was officially married (Greek word: gameō, gamizō).
In Luke 2:12, the perfect (middle) participle esparganōmenon, “wrapped in cloths”, reflects a past action with then-current results that, using a bit of logic, will extend only until the time of changing the cloths. Were someone to use this verb for a mummy, then the results would continue much longer—or someone could raid the tomb and pull off the cloths, and the result would be of a much shorter duration. I hope these illustrations show how the time element is only determinable by context, but only to a point, for, if the context does not provide further illumination, we may not know.
I’ll provide two final examples, using a finite verb instead of a participle. In the wilderness, when Jesus answered the devil He did so with a perfect middle indicative: “It is written”. The Scriptures had been written (completed action), but the message of the writings stand (continuing results). The Scriptures to which He referred were not still being written; it’s their ‘state of written-ness’ He was referring to. This state will continue through the temporal realm, and, presumably, to and during the eternal. Comparatively, in response to the Jews’ request to change the inscription above the Cross, Pilate replies with two identical perfect active indicatives in a row, “That which I have written, I have written”. Thus, what Pilate had written (past action) and is seen right now by everyone (then-present results) he stands by (then-present results continuing into the immediate future). To provide a loose paraphrase: “What I wrote (past) and you see right now (present), I stand by (present into the future).” Of course, that future period would only extend to the time the Cross was taken down. This last example aptly shows the different temporal uses of the verb.
[cont]
[cont]
With this background we can compare with the following. Though I know he’s not your favorite, I’ll quote from Catholic theologian Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S. J. (Society of Jesus, Jesuit):
“This phrase functions here almost as a proper name; cf. Judg 6:12 for a similar use of an epithet. Though the pf. pass. ptc. kecharitōmenos is found in the LXX of Sir 18:17 in the sense of a “gracious man,” here it rather designates Mary as the recipient of divine favor; it means “favored by God,” another instance of the so-called theological passive (see ZBG § 236). She is favored by God to be the mother of the descendant of David and the Son of the Most High. Even though the pf. ptc. might express a state or condition of divine favor, that favor is to be understood of the unique role that she is to perform in conceiving God’s Messiah. In later scholastic theological tradition that favor would be classed as a charism, a gratia gratis data, “a grace freely given.” Beginning in patristic times, theological tradition understood kecharitōmenē in a fuller sense, which does not contradict the Lucan pf. ptc., but which certainly goes beyond it. The translation of the ptc. in the Latin Vg. as gratia plena heavily influenced the Western theological tradition about the fullness of Mary’s grace and was mainly responsible for the understanding of the word in terms of gratia gratum faciens, or sanctifying grace” (The Gospel According to Luke I-IX, The Anchor Yale Bible; [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974], pp 345-346, bold added).
In other words, Fitzmyer, in all intellectual honesty, felt that to interpret the ‘results’ of the perfect participle beyond Jesus’ conception would be going too far, given the context (Luke 1:26-38). And I have to agree. The miraculous conception of Jesus was the sole reason Gabriel came to Mary, for, besides the info about Elizabeth, this was all the angel had conveyed.
As for the original sin and sinless issues, I won’t rehash my 10:37 PM comment, which I feel adequately addresses this, except to restate my position relative to your “pre-redemption” claim, since that apparently was missed. I direct you to the last paragraph of the 10:37 PM comment, and I will add the following. If I have a winning lottery ticket, its worth is in its redemption value. I need to redeem it—exchange the winning ticket for cash—to extract its value. In the same way, when I sin, this can only be redeemed (exchanged) if I approach the Cross. But, if I don’t have a winning lottery ticket, I have nothing to redeem; and, if I have no sin, I require no redemption from sin. Hence, just like it would be nonsense to attempt to redeem (pre-redeem) a non-winning lottery ticket, it makes no sense to have a pre-redemption if there is to be no future sin.
With all due respect, I don’t see how your analogy of not falling into a trap addresses the issue in 1 John 1:8, 10, in which the Scriptures state that all will sin. This means Mary must have sinned—despite the writings of some of the Fathers. Unless we think the plain words of John’s first epistle are incorrect.
[cont]
[cont]
You wrote: …Some argue that the "woman" [in Gen 3:15] refers to Eve, but this can not be the complete meaning of the text, as Eve is always associated with her collaboration with the serpent, not her opposition to him. Only Mary, the new Eve, fits the description of the woman in Genesis 3:15.
First, unless I’m mistaken, the only express reference regarding what you address in this verse is Romans 16:20, in which Jesus will crush Satan under his feet in the future (though cf. 1 Cor 15:25-26 in this same regard). And when applying a NT reference to the OT, unless the NT makes an explicit reference to the text, changing the OT context—which the NT does quite often—it doesn’t seem proper to go back to the OT and impose our own changes upon it.
That said, Gen 3:15 is addressed to the serpent (see 3:14: “because you [serpent] have done this”), and “the woman” here is Eve. Let’s carefully go through the verse:
And I [YHWH] will put enmity between you [serpent] and the woman [Eve],
And between your [serpent’s] offspring and hers [Eve’s offspring],
He* [offspring of Eve] will crush your [serpent’s] head,
And you [serpent] will strike his* [offspring of Eve’s] heel.
First line: Note the future tense bolded above. As a result of the fall, from that point forward Eve and the serpent would have enmity toward each other.
Second line: This enmity will continue in the offspring of each—all future serpents and all future men and women.
Third and fourth lines: I placed the asterisk next to the two pronouns because Latin pronouns do not distinguish gender; however, I checked both the Hebrew (MT) and the LXX, and these agree that the gender is masculine and the person is singular. It’s possible, if not probable, that this was purposeful, so that the singular can be viewed as a collective singular (“they” and “their”, and further, to include women as well), AND it was also meant in a Christological sense (see Romans 16:20). The D-R translates it “she” and “her”, while the NAB(RE) uses “they” and “their” (see here). It seems clear the D-R translated this expressly to promote an exalted Mariology, despite the fact that the only NT reference to this verse (Romans 16:20) refers expressly to Jesus.
Craig,
Re: With this background we can compare with the following. Though I know he’s not your favorite, I’ll quote from Catholic theologian Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S. J. (Society of Jesus, Jesuit):…….
Actually, I don't know much about Joseph A. Fitzmeyer. It is Raymond E. Brown who is "not my favorite." Apparently, they knew each other. I won't hold it against Fitzmeyer. Actually, Fitzmeyer wrote a very interesting article entitled:
Joseph A. Fitzmyer. “Did Jesus Speak Greek?” Biblical Archaeology Review 18, 5 (1992).
http://cojs.org/joseph-a-fitzmyer-did-jesus-speak-greek-biblical-archaeology-review-18-5-1992/
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That said, the traditional translation of kecharitomene, is a little different than the one presented by certain modern translators.
While Catholics do believe that the title "full of grace" comes from the Greek word kecharitomene, they believe that the Greek word itself traditionally translates to mean a "perfection" and "abundance" of grace. In other words, Mary was proclaimed by the angel to be with a perfection of grace, which was a very powerful statement. How can Mary be completely and perfectly with God's grace, yet still have sin left in her? Luke 1:28 happens to be the only place in the Bible where anyone is addressed with the important title of "full of grace."
More on the Greek word kecharitomene.
Greek:
KE – perfect tense (prior event/occurrence/happening that is still existing/occurring or happening now)
CHARITO – a gift, something that is free or unmerited
MENE – a female receiver not giver.
The Greek word κεχαριτωμένη in reference to Mary denotes her status as someone who "found favor or grace with God" (Luke 1:30).
The translation "full of grace" (from the Latin Vulgate's "gratia plena")is valid:
"It is permissible, on Greek grammatical and linguistic grounds, to paraphrase kecharitomene as completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace." (Blass and DeBrunner, Greek Grammar of the New Testament)
'Highly favoured' (kecharitomene). Perfect passive participle of charitoo and means endowed with grace (charis), enriched with grace as in Ephesians 1:6 . . . The Vulgate gratiae plena [full of grace] "is right, if it means 'full of grace which thou hast received'; wrong, if it means 'full of grace which thou hast to bestow' " (A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, p. 14)
In Catholic Bibles (containing the Deuterocanonicals),there is kecharitomene (a girl who is full of grace ~ Luke 1:28) and kecharitomeno (a boy who is full of grace ~ Sirach 18:17 LXX).
https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/11627/translation-of-luke-128-greetings-favored-one/28335
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As I have said on more than one occasion during this discussion, the Catholic Rule of Faith is not Sola Scriptura. ( Please don't interpret this to mean that I am defining your Rule of Faith as Sola Scriptura even if I don't necessarily accept the opinions of certain extra Biblical experts that you might think are authoritative)
cont.
cont.
As far as Catholics are concerned, Jerome's translation of kecharitomene as "full of grace" is valid. Moreover, Jerome himself in his role as a Church Father would have had a significant role in preserving intact and handing on the Sacred Tradition that he had received from his predecessors.
The Apostolic and sub-Apostolic Fathers most of whom were bishops and martyrs (and the Catholic Doctors and medieval theologians who followed them later) did not believe the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception based on "modern" methods of exegesis. The Fathers and Doctors were clearly not "Sola Scripturists" as some modern non-Catholic Christians might be today. We know this from the way they used Scripture to demonstrate various Marian beliefs. These "biblical parallels" were compelling and sufficient for the Church Fathers (and the Church's Liturgy) who used such texts and types for Mary's holiness.
Where did the Fathers - especially the Apostolic and sub-Apostolic Fathers get such ideas about the Blessed Virgin if they are not found explicitly or implicitly in Scripture or passed on from Christ and His Apostles themselves? They certainly did not pull these ideas out of thin air.
The most compelling argument for the Immaculate Conception comes from the Fathers and early ecclesiastical writers who universally affirmed Mary's holiness and sinlessness (with few exceptions). The evidence for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (or Mary's personal sinlessness) in the Fathers and Doctors is not just good, but great.
There were a certain few Greek writers who doubted Mary's sinlessness. But they were not expressing an Apostolic tradition. They were expressing their private and singular opinions. Scripture and tradition agree in ascribing to Mary the greatest personal sanctity; She is conceived without the stain of original sin; she shows the greatest humility and patience in her daily life (Luke 1:38,48); she exhibits an heroic patience under the most trying circumstances (Luke 2:7,35,48; John 19:25-27). When there is question of sin, Mary must always be excepted." (Catholic Encyclopedia [1913], on "Blessed Virgin Mary")
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Re: With all due respect, I don’t see how your analogy of not falling into a trap addresses the issue in 1 John 1:8, 10, in which the Scriptures state that all will sin. This means Mary must have sinned—despite the writings of some of the Fathers. Unless we think the plain words of John’s first epistle are incorrect.
The Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God from Mariology by Carol, also excerpts from Immaculate Conception by Archbishop Ullathorne
cont.
cont.
Catechism 490-493: To become the mother of the Savior, Mary "was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such a role" [Vatican II, LG 56]. The angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation salutes her as "full of grace" [Luke 1:28]. In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God's grace. Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God [Luke 1:28], was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:
The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. [Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854): DS 2803]
The "splendor of an entirely unique holiness" by which Mary is "enriched from the first instant of her conception" comes wholly from Christ: she is "redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son" [Vatican II, LG 53, 56]. The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person "in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" and chose her "in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love" [cf. Eph 1:3-4]. The Fathers of the Eastern tradition call the Mother of God "the All-Holy" (Panagia), and celebrate her as "free from any stain of sin, as though fashioned by the Holy Spirit and formed as a new creature" [Vatican II, LG 56]. By the grace of God, Mary remained free of every personal sin her whole life long.
http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/ImmaculateConceptionMaryJuniperCarolMariology.htm
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Let us recall that Mary herself said, ‘My soul rejoices in God my savior’ in Luke 1:47. She clearly understood herself to be in need of a savior." Moreover, 1 John 1:8, refers to personal sin, not Original Sin because in the very next verse, John tells us, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins . . ." We do not confess original sin; we confess personal sins. And that is because Original Sin is not something we do; it is something we’ve inherited.
Six hundred years ago, the great Franciscan theologian Duns Scotus explained that falling into sin could be likened to a man approaching unaware a deep ditch. If he falls into the ditch, he needs someone to lower a rope and save him. But if someone were to warn him of the danger ahead, preventing the man from falling into the ditch at all, he would be saved from falling in the first place. Likewise, Mary was saved from sin by receiving the grace to be preserved from it. But she was still saved.
cont.
cont.
Also - when we say Mary was "conceived without sin", we mean that she was conceived without the stain of Original Sin. The essence of original sin consists in the deprivation of sanctifying grace, and its stain is a corrupt nature. Catholics believe that Mary was preserved from these defects by God’s grace; from the first instant of her existence she was in the state of sanctifying grace and was free from the corrupt nature original sin brings.
That said, being created free from Original Sin does not mean that Mary was predestined in terms of not having free will. She still had the free will to choose God's will or her own. Mary could have rejected the angel Gabriel's invitation. Mary could have sinned and lost it all. And in fact, isn't that just what happened with Eve? Eve was created perfect, with no sin, but she had free will, and she chose sin. Mary, however, was conceived without sin, and chose God. That is why we call her "Blessed among women," because she, while also being created without sin, chose better than Eve, who was also created perfect. In fact, in Genesis, Mary's Immaculate Conception is foreshadowed in the protoevangelium, which is Genesis 3:15. Genesis 3:15 says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
The enmity was both between satan and the woman and between satan and Jesus.
It is worth noting that Martin Luther believed in the Immaculate Conception before it was formally defined as a dogma of the Catholic Church.
When all is said and done I love what St. Augustine once said of God's omnipotence - and I am paraphrasing because I cannot recall the exact source:
The whole point of being God is that God can do anything He wants to do.
***********************************************************************************
Re: That said, Gen 3:15 is addressed to the serpent (see 3:14: “because you [serpent] have done this”), and “the woman” here is Eve. Let’s carefully go through the verse:
And I [YHWH] will put enmity between you [serpent] and the woman [Eve],
And between your [serpent’s] offspring and hers [Eve’s offspring],
He* [offspring of Eve] will crush your [serpent’s] head,
And you [serpent] will strike his* [offspring of Eve’s] heel.
Here, I must respectfully disagree. Catholics interpret this passage as the first promise of a redeemer for mankind.
* [3:15] They will strike…at their heel: the antecedent for “they” and “their” is the collective noun “offspring,” i.e., all the descendants of the woman. Christian tradition has seen in this passage, however, more than unending hostility between snakes and human beings. The snake was identified with the devil (Wis 2:24; Jn 8:44; Rev 12:9; 20:2), whose eventual defeat seemed implied in the verse. Because “the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8), the passage was understood as the first promise of a redeemer for fallen humankind, the protoevangelium. Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. A.D. 130–200), in his Against Heresies 5.21.1, followed by several other Fathers of the Church, interpreted the verse as referring to Christ, and cited Gal 3:19 and 4:4 to support the reference. Another interpretive translation is ipsa, “she,” and is reflected in Jerome’s Vulgate. “She” was thought to refer to Mary, the mother of the messiah. In Christian art Mary is sometimes depicted with her foot on the head of the serpent.
http://usccb.org/bible/genesis/3/
______________________________________________________________
When all is said and done, the reason why Catholics venerate Mary is because she points us to Jesus. i.e. "Do whatever He (Jesus) tells you" John 2:5 If Mary is not pointing us toward Jesus, Mary is not doing what she is supposed to be doing.
So there it is. Have a great weekend!
Susanna and Craig,
Guys, use some discretion because it's still a rabbit trail. A very long one.
Susanna,
We’ve just about exhausted this discussion, as now we’re restating some things already said. But, I must correct the record on a few points. The quote attributed to Blass and DeBrunner is not correct; it’s one writer’s extrapolation (Dave Armstrong, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism) of a section of their work (page 166). Unfortunately, this misquote is all over the ‘net. But, if we accept Armstrong’s quote as definitive for all Greek perfects, then we must envision Jesus forever wrapped in baby clothes (Luke 2:12, as noted above @ 9:38 PM). (To digress a moment: Unfortunately, much Catholic art depicts Jesus in baby clothes, dwarfed by Mary.)
Also, the words attributed to A.T. Robertson are correct, however, Robertson is citing Plummer—just for the record. (It bugs me when works are misattributed.) I understand you found these on the ‘net, so I’m not levelling blame at you—just correcting the record. And that quote by itself does not support an enduring “full of grace”.
I don’t disagree that “full of grace” is a valid translation. But I depart when it is understood to mean this grace extends ad infinitum and that this implies the Immaculate Conception and sinless doctrines that attend it. Yet, kecharitōmenē is no doubt unique wording applied to this woman, Mary, who is to receive and accept a singularly important role: that of the bearer of the unique God-man, the Messiah.
I agree that 1 John 1:8, 10 refers to personal sins, not original sin. This means that all have personal sin. This must include Mary, as there’s no exception listed here—except the one implied: Jesus. I’ve heard the Duns Scotus analogy before, and I like it. But, none can escape every one of these ditches (I’ve fallen into more than a few!), as Scripture aptly attests in various places.
I am unable to perform the mental and linguistic gymnastics required to accept that someone can be pre-redeemed from a non-redeemable event/thing—that Mary received pre-Redemption for sins she never did/will commit. Either Mary is “immune from all stain of original sin” and “remained free of every sin her whole life long”, thus not requiring “pre-redemption” (contradicting Scripture: Luke 1:47; 1 John 1:8, 10), or Mary was born in original sin and/or did sin at some point in her life, thus requiring pre-redemption (contradicting Tradition). Logically, only one of these can apply.
[cont]
Constance,
I'm torn, because I can CERTAINLY see 9:24 PM's point, BUT, at the same time, I don't want their discussion to end or be artificially shortened either.
PLEASE very, very strongly consider upgrading to a higher technical quality level blogspot where visitors can go to their personal choice of comment types (such as Marko and others recommended).
Thank you!
P.S.
To those who like to brazenly insult Susanna &/or her personal religious beliefs:
What, exactly, do you think you are accomplishing, may I ask?
We are (hopefully) ALL striving to continually improve our OWN level of understanding of things Christian and, NEWSFLASH:
We DON'T all start out at the same starting place with the same understanding abilities and subsequently share the same experiences etc throughout our lives and THEN come to different conclusions as to our religion of choice.
WE SHOULD HELP EACH OTHER GROW IN THE GRACE AND KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST AND DO IT IN AS CIVIL A MANNER AS POSSIBLE
[cont]
You wrote: Where did the Fathers - especially the Apostolic and sub-Apostolic Fathers get such ideas about the Blessed Virgin if they are not found explicitly or implicitly in Scripture or passed on from Christ and His Apostles themselves? They certainly did not pull these ideas out of thin air.
We don’t have the original writings of any of the Fathers. We have copies of copies. Were these all faithfully copied (and translated)? If we go by the example of Scripture and every other ancient document, the answer is a definitive “no”. (This is a point that text critic, Daniel B. Wallace has noted.) How much the writings of today differ is anyone’s guess. I feel sure they’re pretty close, but...is it possible some have tried to align these writings to a particular theological viewpoint? I’m not definitively standing on this point in order to counter what you wrote; it’s just something to consider.
I’d read that the exalted Mariology may have been advanced in order to help convert pagans who had female figures in their pantheon of gods. Perhaps this is true, perhaps not. If so, this may have begun around the time of the discussion centered on Christotokos (“Christ bearer”) vs. Theotokos (“God bearer”), with the latter settled on. But, isn’t that term an over-correction? It sounds blatantly Nestorian. An outsider to the faith could easily infer that Jesus was a god and not human at all (and, further, that Mary was a god, for in Greek mythology, e.g., it was not uncommon for gods to beget gods). Wouldn’t Theanthropotokos (“God-man bearer”) have been better, since it would combine both natures, yet secure Mary as the unique “Mother of Christ”, understood as the mother of the unique Divine-human Christ? Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Greek would understand it.
You wrote: …Another interpretive translation is ipsa, “she,” and is reflected in Jerome’s Vulgate. “She” was thought to refer to Mary, the mother of the messiah. In Christian art Mary is sometimes depicted with her foot on the head of the serpent.
The only Scripture that expressly speaks of ‘crushing Satan underfoot’, Romans 16:20, refers explicitly to Jesus, and the same is strongly implied in 1 Corinthians 15:24-26 and Matthew 22:44/Psalm 110:1.
I fully understand that as a committed Catholic you must hold to RCC Tradition. For me, as an outsider relatively new to the faith with no history of a faith tradition, I cannot ever join the RCC because of its exalted Mariology. I’ve no issue with extra-Biblical tradition, except when it contradicts the Scriptures we use as our base text—as per straightforward understandings. The Assumption of Mary, for example? It doesn’t contradict Scripture, so I’ve no issue with it. I’m not inclined to agree, but I won’t argue against it either.
Enjoy your weekend!
This does not read to me like mental gymnastics. I agree God can do whatever he wants. If he could create an old Eve, he could also sanctify a new Eve.
I confess I don't completely understand the whole idea of Original Sin, though. I have observed Protestants literally interpreting it as corrupted DNA. I don't know how common that type of Protestant interpretation of it is.
Anyway, this gave me something to think about:
Susanna said, "While Catholics do believe that the title 'full of grace' comes from the Greek word kecharitomene, they believe that the Greek word itself traditionally translates to mean a 'perfection' and 'abundance' of grace. In other words, Mary was proclaimed by the angel to be with a perfection of grace, which was a very powerful statement. How can Mary be completely and perfectly with God's grace, yet still have sin left in her? Luke 1:28 happens to be the only place in the Bible where anyone is addressed with the important title of 'full of grace.'"
Although I have decided not to join the Catholic church in its current state of infiltration and compromise, I continue to want to learn about my roots and history as a Christian. And I continue to be interested in the early church fathers who were closest to the apostles.
It would not feel natural to me to pray to Mary for intercession -- but I don't see any reason to neglect Mary as a historical Biblical figure, any more than we would neglect Noah or Moses or Abraham or King David. (And for sure Mary sinned much less than King David did. If she committed any sins, they have not been recorded. If she waivered from her calling and argued with God as Moses sometimes did, it has not been recorded. Noah and Abraham seem to have been recorded as having the kind of unwavering faith that Mary had. Solomon sure was compromised a lot by his many pagan wives. Samson succombed to Delilah. Mary has not been recorded as succombing to any significant temptation or wavering in her faith or compromising.
And I agree with Susanna that Mary can protect us from error. Jesus can only be the Son of God if Mary was also special. Her conception itself was miraculous. Does belief in her miraculous conception of the Son of God also seem like it requires mental gymnastics?
I also agree with the Protestants who point Jesus' reply in Luke 11:27, to the woman who said, "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you have sucked." He replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."
But to be fair to Susanna, she has repeatedly pointed out that Mary told the people to do whatever Jesus told them to do.
So I think on that point, Christians and Protestants can agree.
I think this has all been pretty well discussed. I don't mind the discussion, but I don't know that it needs to be belabored much more. I think we agree on the most important things, anyway. I think we agree Jesus' conception in a virgin's womb was miraculous. And I think we agree that whatever emphasis we may put on Mary or not, the most important part is to hear the word of God and obey it.
Since this thread is attached to a post that is already about the current Pope and already about Catholic theological teaching, I personally would like to continue discussing the Catholic church, because I am personally still very interested in it even if I don't want to join it.
If anybody else is not interested, then feel free just to move onto the latest blog post discussion thread, after this one. After all if you're not interested in the Catholic church, you did not need to have read the original blog post in the first place. Nor is anybody forcing you to read through the comments here. I personally like having a place to discuss my interests with others who are well informed, thoughtful and passionate about the issues.
So now in a new vein, I want to talk about another aspect of the (historical) Catholic church that I have lately found more and more appealing. And this aspect has to do with the arts. Because you see, I am a liberal minded person with an artistic temperament. By liberal minded I mean that I have a personality characterized by high openness. I am an oddball as a person with my personality type who is also a social conservative. I don't fit in anywhere.
Now, I want to pose a question. Is there only one personality type that is "the elect"? In other words, are all "high openness" personality types who have artistic temperaments elected to be damned? That's a ridiculous question, right? I would hope it would be perceived in that way, anyway.
But here's the thing. I think Protestant Christianity is unappealing to my type! I need art! And I'm very sensitive about symbols. I'm very intuitive about patterns and gestalts. You see, I perceive too much to be able to enjoy the arts if I can tell that they have occult influences. In fact I have become aware that the history of schools of art and literature that I learned about, actually has a hidden occult dimension that is mostly sanitized and not taught in college.
I could say so much about this huge topic if I had the time and energy.
And I don't know where I want to go with it, but it's been a growing discomfort ever since I went from atheist to Christian a few years ago.
And I do wonder if lots of people with my personality type are unsaved by conservative Protestant churches, and maybe it's not only because they are not "the elect".
Here is a closely related thought. I wonder how many people who mean well but are deceived will be saved once they are no longer deceived. In other words if they didn't make a fully informed choice, does it count? Maybe there were choosing between two false faiths and not a true one and a false one. And I'm *not* saying conservative Protestant Christianity offers a false faith. I'm saying the *media stereotype* of Evangelicals is kind of a false faith. But does the stereotype have nothing at all to do with compromise and infiltration in the Protestant churches, too?
I remember my disgust when all "values voters" cared about was abortion and gay marriage, but not Abu Ghraib and not lies and not bloodbaths of Iraqi children.
Now I have a better understanding. Now I realize abortion and gay marriage are a lot worse than I perceived before. But now I still do *not* think that Abu Ghraib was okay. Nor do I think neo-con lies and antics were all okay.
So if somebody is morally disgusted by certain things like Abu Ghraib, maybe it's because they still have a little residue of cultural Christianity plus a little bit of fallen but normal human empathy that is part of being made in God's image (even if corrupted and not sufficient for self-salvation).
So are all these people who are morally disgusted about genuinely bad things automatically not going to be "the elect"? And are all the "values voters" automatically going to be "the elect"?
Whereas the Catholic church, even now when it's so compromised, still has an air about it of being above it all and not in the pocket of the politics of just one country (the United States national security establishment). Although I do know that the Opus Dei and Knights of Malta European aristocracy has been very involved in the formation of the EU, so I'm not saying the Catholic church has not also been compromised by politics. But still the traditional *core teachings* in their essence (for the masses if not for the aristocracy) don't seem to be completely in the pocket of somebody's politics.
After all in Jesus' day, the Pharisees in the temples were often compromised, but Jesus still studied in the temples because of the historical *core teachings* of the Hebrews.
New World Order Occult Images in
Contemporary Christian Music (CCM)
"There is a startling abundance of occult imagery on Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) album covers, promotional items, and websites; so much in fact that it cannot be ignored. The same is true of ecumenical pastors and religious authors..."
http://jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/CCM/nwo_images_in_ccm.htm
----
Occult Religious Art - YouTube
"I made this video to point out all the occult imagery that is hidden in plain sight in Christian religious art..."
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Owzqgicrm-Q
Just musing more about mental gymnastics vs. straightforward exegesis from the text.
Other doctrines were worked out kind of deductively by early church councils. For example the doctrine of the trinity. If we were to reject the whole tradition worked out by early church councils way before the Catholic-Protestant split, and truly go back to the text of the Bible as if there were no history or tradition at all, would we still have a doctrine of the trinity?
Also thinking about Jesus statement that he was always with his Father from the beginning. And statements like one day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like one day. Everything is not straightforward, literal, logical or Newtonian in the Bible text.
P.S. to my 5:03 PM
(Whoops, sorry about that!)
J 1:49 PM
Now, I want to pose a question. Is there only one personality type that is "the elect"? In other words, are all "high openness" personality types who have artistic temperaments elected to be damned? That's a ridiculous question, right? I would hope it would be perceived in that way, anyway....
…..I need art! And I'm very sensitive about symbols. I'm very intuitive about patterns and gestalts. You see, I perceive too much to be able to enjoy the arts if I can tell that they have occult influences. In fact I have become aware that the history of schools of art and literature that I learned about, actually has a hidden occult dimension that is mostly sanitized and not taught in college....
If a person is damned, it is not because of his/her "personality type." It is because the person has freely and irrevocably chosen to "say no" to God by knowingly rejecting Jesus as Lord and Savior, by disobeying any of the Ten Commandments, and not obeying the Great Commandment ( love of God above all things and neighbor as self out of love for God.)
While God is the Creator and First Cause of all that is, He allows His rational creatures to act as "secondary causes."
Your love of the arts implies creativity and a love of beauty. Jesus is truly God as well as truly man. God is not only Love as St. Paul said, but God is also BEAUTY! Beauty is one of His divne attributes. As one poet put it, God is "the beauty that leaves all other beauty pain." A person who has ceased to love beauty has already ceased to love God.
It was the great Saint Augustine who wrote after his dramatic conversion to Christianity:
Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! Confessions
As for art, in purely natural terms of natural philosophy, valid art imitates nature. In Christian terms, if YOU are truly Christian, your art will also be Christian. And you will always humbly recognize that your creativity is secondary
creativity.
cont.
There is a joke about this concept of secondary to the effect that God and a scientist once agreed to have a "man-making contest."
As the story goes, God was once approached by a scientist who said, “Listen God, we’ve decided we don’t need you anymore. These days we can clone people, transplant organs and do all sorts of things that used to be considered miraculous.”
God replied, “Don’t need me huh? How about we put your theory to the test. Why don’t we have a competition to see who can make a human being, say, a male human being.”
The scientist agrees, so God declares they should do it like he did in the good old days when he created Adam.
“Fine” says the scientist as he bends down to scoop up a handful of dirt.”
“Whoa!” says God, shaking his head in disapproval. “Not so fast. You go get your own dirt.”
*************************************************
During the occult revival of the nineteenth-century, there existed what was called "satanic art" which included certain music, literature ( i.e. Huysmans' "LA BAS") poetry, ( i.e. Baudelaire's LES FLEURS DU MAL ) painting, etc. Among the occult/satanic poets were Baudelaire, Leopardi, Levi, Rimbaud, Huysmans and other 19th century literary figures who penned somewhat Satanic works.
As for occult paintings, some were to be found at the famous "salons" ( i.e. Salon de la Rose + Croix ) of Joseph Peladan who, for a while, was a good friend and colleague of the famous Gerard Encausse - a.k.a. "Papus." Unfortunately, many of the occultists of the 19th century outwardly went by the name of "Catholic"
while secretly embracing the occult.
Salon de la Rose + Croix
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_de_la_Rose_%2B_Croix
_________________________________________________
Joséphin Péladan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9phin_P%C3%A9ladan
_________________________________________________
Symbolism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolism_(arts)#Philosophy
__________________________________________________
Poète maudit (accursed poets)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po%C3%A8te_maudit
_________________________________________________
DECADENT MOVEMENT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decadent_movement
___________________________________________________
cont.
cont.
Most totalitarian regimes have made use of the arts for propaganda purposes and forbade any art form that failed to conform to the ideological vision being imposed on the people over whom the tyrants had gained power and control.
Interestingly, C.S. Lewis appears to allude to surrealist/decadent art in the third book of his science fiction trilogy entitled THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH. when Mark is made to view unnatural satanic art in the "objective room" - a scene which bizarrely resembles things like today's "sensitivity training sessions" that so many students and even professional people are required to endure these days. In the "objective room" one begins to recognize all the signs of a "Politically Correct" education.
The following is from THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH:
Meanwhile, in the Objective Room, something like a crisis had developed between Mark and Professor Frost. As soon as they arrived there Mark saw that the table had been drawn back. On the floor lay a large crucifix, almost life size, a work of art in the Spanish tradition, ghastly and realistic. “We have half an hour to pursue our exercises,” said Frost looking at his watch. Then he instructed Mark to trample on it and insult it in other ways.
Now whereas Jane had abandoned Christianity in early childhood, along with her belief in fairies and Santa Claus, Mark had never believed in it at all. At this moment, therefore, it crossed his mind for the very first time that there might conceivably be something in it. Frost who was watching him carefully knew perfectly well that this might be the result of the present experiment. He knew it for the very good reason that his own training by the Macrobes ( fallen angels/demons ) had, at one point, suggested the same odd idea to himself. But he had no choice. Whether he wished it or not this sort of thing was part of the initiation...….
…..Mark himself was surprised at the emotions he was undergoing. He did not regard the image with anything at all like a religious feeling. Most emphatically it did not belong to that idea of the Straight or Normal or Wholesome which had, for the last few days, been his support against what he now knew of the innermost circle at Belbury. The horrible vigour of its realism was, indeed, in its own way as remote from that Idea as anything else in the room. That was one source of his reluctance. To insult even a carved image of such agony seemed an abominable act. But it was not the only source. With the introduction of this Christian symbol the whole situation had somehow altered. The thing was becoming incalculable. His simple antithesis of the Normal and the Diseased had obviously failed to take something into account. Why was the crucifix there? Why were more than half the poison-pictures religious?……read more....
http://thecommonroomblog.com/2009/01/quote-from-that-hideous-strength.html
_________________________________________________
Also....
Modern Art Was Used As a Torture Technique in Prison Cells During the Spanish Civil War
http://www.openculture.com/2014/10/when-modern-art-was-used-as-torture-during-the-spanish-civil-war.html
Desecrating the Arts
Only by elevating morality and returning to faith and tradition will humankind be able to see another renaissance in the arts. Only then will we all see the beauty, nobility, and splendidness of what art can be, and what it was meant to be.
https://m.theepochtimes.com/chapter-eleven-desecrating-the-arts_2625642.html
P.P.S. to my 5:03 PM,
Constance:
As that post was done based on JUST reading the brief sentences in the Search Engine link summaries because of a very slow internet connection at the time, please delete it as the YouTube one turned out to be quite REVOLTINGLY different than it seemed it would be!
Thanks
As that unfortunate part of the post...
Susanna,
Thank you, interesting and informative, as usual! I need to read the C.S. Lewis science fiction series.
Modern art was used to torture prisoners during the Spanish civil war, huh? It doesn't get much more obvious than that! Clearly it's not very uplifting for humanity.
My understanding is that contemporary "fine art" is often used to launder money, too, which artificially inflates its price in many cases.
About art in the Catholic church but not in Protestant churches. I've been reading a history of crypto-Jews within the Catholic church and Protestant churches. It was written by a Catholic who got it from the archives of the Spanish and Portugese Inquisitions. According to him, the Crypto-Jews who started the Protestant religions found it easier to carry on their pretense if they did not also have to venerate the pictures of the saints who had for centuries been resisting the conspiracies of crypto-Jews against the Catholic church.
The book is called The Plot Against the Church, and it was written by Maurice Pinay.
https://christogenea.org/system/files/resources/PlotAgainstTheChurchComplete.pdf
Are you familiar with this book, Susanna?
In fairness to the historical crypto-Jews, they were forcibly converted. And I have crytpo-Jews in my own ancestry, way back in medieval England, who changed their name from Cohen to Franklin. This is only history, and it's clearly written from a Catholic bias. So I'm reserving my judgement about it. But looking at it in journalist fashion, it constitutes the Catholic side of the story. Of course it should be balanced with other sides of the story, too, for a more complete history. In our own age, though, I think the Catholic side of the story is not the side we ever hear. And that is why it interests me.
Adam Ruins Everything - How the Fine Art Market is a SCAM
Good news, aspiring artists! The world of fine art is manipulated financially AND extremely exclusive!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw5kme5Q_Yo
J,
I am familiar with THE PLOT AGAINST THE CHURCH and it is an anti-Semitic screed written in 1962 by a group of "Catholic" clergymen and released under the name of Maurice Pinay.
THE PLOT AGAISNT THE CHURCH
https://en.metapedia.org/wiki/The_Plot_Against_the_Church
_________________________________________________________
The forced "conversions" of Jews were no conversions at all.
The Spanish Inquisition which was established by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain should not be confused with the Roman or Medieval Inquisitions. Traditionally, the Jews were a protected minority.
The only Jews who could be regarded as apostate and/or "heretical" by Jewish standards would be the gnostic and later "Kabbalists" or the Sabbataean and later Frankist heretics.
Sabbatai Tsvi ( a.k.a. "Zevi") was a false "messiah" of the 17th century. Wikipedia is not the best research tool, but it a good jumping off point if you have never heard of Sabbatai Zevi.
Sabbatai Zevi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbatai_Zevi
___________________________________________
Zevi's successor Jacob Frank claimed to be the reincarnation of Zevi.
Jacob Frank
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Frank
___________________________________________
Frankism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankism
___________________________________________
Again, these aforementioned "Jews" are heretics by JEWISH standards as you can see from the articles.
J,
You wrote: Other doctrines were worked out kind of deductively by early church councils. For example the doctrine of the trinity. If we were to reject the whole tradition worked out by early church councils way before the Catholic-Protestant split, and truly go back to the text of the Bible as if there were no history or tradition at all, would we still have a doctrine of the trinity?
Yes we would. I’ll answer by analogy. Most people around the time of Christ believed the earth was flat. It was not until much later that that belief was shifted to the truth. The truth of a round earth has always been, but our recognition of it didn’t come till later.
There are a number of NT Scriptures that point to the Incarnation—to the human-divine Jesus. And there are a number of passages to support the Trinity. These would have been worked out at some point, most certainly.
But God is not illogical or self-contradictory. The Incarnation and Trinity both may be beyond our ability to fully understand or put into words (Paul calls the former a “mystery”—1 Tim 3:16), but this does not mean they are inherently self-contradictory or incoherent.
Regarding your love of the visual arts, let me state that there are few people who enjoy music more than me. It’s been part of my life since I can remember. There’s no doubt that some songs contain objectionable lyrics; however, my contention is that music itself is spiritually neutral. For example, the dramatic music in the movie Jaws, divorced from the screen, is not inherently negative, though it surely isn’t relaxing! For those who know the movie, it’s only through the visual of the shark that the music takes on an especially ‘evil’ connotation. Comparatively, the intro to Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells”—the portion we know well from the movie The Exorcist—has a very simple melody that, on its own, can be characterized as pleasant. Some music can be unnerving, depending upon the artist’s intention. And, there are plenty of pleasant pop songs with the vilest lyrics. But to reiterate, music—the notes on the page—is not intrinsically good or evil.
Comparatively, on the surface, I’d say art, generally, is the same. However, it’s not so cut-and-dry. Clearly, there is art made with the intention of depicting evil, and the viewer typically understands this. On the other side, there are other works of art made with the intention of depicting good. But for Christians (and Jews) we have to consider whether any such art would run counter to the 1st and 2nd Commandments. It is for this reason the earliest Christian art consisted of abstractions rather than actual images representative of God or Christ: the ichthus fish, dove, e.g.
John of Damascus (675–749) was one of many defenders of the use of icons. He made a distinction between “worship” (Gr: latreia), for God alone, and “veneration” (proskynēsis), for people, places, and icons. Also, his position was that the “veneration” was given to what the image represented, rather than the image itself. However, there is some semantic overlap between the two terms he uses. For example, in Jesus’ response to the devil in the wilderness we find:
…the devil said to Him, “All these I will give to you, if you would fall down [piptō] and worship [proskynēsis] me.” Jesus replied, “Away from me Satan! For it is written, ‘You will worship [proskynēsis] the Lord your God, and him alone you will serve [latreia]’.” [Matt 4:9-10]
Interestingly, it is true that latreia is only given to “God” or “the Father” during Jesus’ ministry, while proskynēsis is used of kings, Jesus, and other superiors—though latreia is most likely used in reference to both “God” and “the Lamb” in Revelation (possibly in 7:15-17, and probably in 22:3)—however, we’d think that Satan would ask Jesus for latreia, as opposed to proskynēsis, if such a strong distinction were to be understood in Scripture.
Craig,
I'm sure that WRT veneration vs. praying, God looks at intention, and intention is not just in an ancient Greek word. It is in the depths of the human heart.
There is nothing intrinsically good or evil about sounds or images. That would be magical thinking to suppose that there is. But sounds and images evoke emotions, thoughts, associations in people based upon semiotics, psychology and culture.
Take the rainbow, for example. It is nothing but a spectrum of light waves. As a symbol, though, it originally symbolized God's promise to Noah never to flood the whole world again. It has been transformed into a symbol of the LGBTQ agenda and the New Age agenda.
We are getting into the realm of interpretations here, because we are dealing with systems of signs. It's not just one sign. It's a whole system and a whole pattern. It's not just one word or one note or one image, and it's nothing intrinsic to any letter, word, image or note or sound.
It necessarily involves pattern recognition, as well as sensitivity to the connotations and associations that are evoked by symbols and signs. It is never only about the denotative meaning unless it were to be reduced to zero cultural resonance and something very dry.
Susanna,
That's a good point about apostate Judaism vs. Orthodox. After all, we Christians can be in a similar circumstance, with our elites who are only cultural/nominal Christians really being more Masonic and really being more interested in power.
J,
I pretty much agree with Craig at 7:08 PM.
First, I agree that we would have the doctrine of what we now call "the Trinity" even if no one had never coined the term.
The reason why is because what we understand as "the Trinity" is already revealed in the Bible by Christ using a lengthier and more detailed terminology. Tertullean, who first used the term "Trinity" did not invent the doctrine signified by the word Trinity. He simply coined the term as a kind of shorthand for the three divine Persons in one God revealed by Jesus as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It was Jesus who told the Apostles to "go forth and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit" (Matt 28:19) While the Church Fathers could not teach anything contrary to the revelations in the Sacred Scriptures, this does not preclude their "fleshing them out" according to further enlightenment that they received from the Apostles in order to promote a greater understanding of them.
As for "art," I believe that art....."secondary creativity"....is, in and of itself spiritually neutral. From ancient times it has been taught by the best of the natural philosophers that valid art imitates nature. When God made the natural universe, He pronounced it "good." Therefore, any art that is "unnatural" lacks "goodness" to the degree in which it is "unnatural."
Perhaps the measure of how far we have departed from the idea of art imitating nature can be found in the current idea of "life imitating art."
cont.
cont.
As for idols, anything can become an idol.....even ideas. For example, even the ideology known as revolutionary communism is what can be legitimately called a "metaphysical idol" insofar as it is militantly atheistic and seeks to set itself up as an ersatz religion and an ersatz "god."
Any creature that we prefer to the Creator is an idol.....including our very own selves.
Occasionally, C.S. Lewis could be quite sardonic when making a point.
In a question and answer period after one of his lectures, C.S. Lewis was asked which of the world’s religions gives its followers the greatest happiness. Lewis paused and said this: “While it lasts, the religion of worshipping oneself is best.”
No doubt each word in his response was selected carefully, as he gently challenged the assumptions of the questioner. When happiness is identified as the most important thing, it is the self we seek above all else. And by alluding to this ‘god’ in terms of worship and religion, Lewis makes a helpful juxtaposition. In fact, it is one steeped in an age-old creed professed by many: By jettisoning the divine, by getting out from under the tyrannical arm of God, we believe we are wholly free to pursue that which is pleasing, and that which we please.
Yet in this lies the danger, for even in matters of enormous consequence we may seek that which we think will make us happy, and not necessarily that which is true. We become our own god, the measure of all things. And yet reality, as Lewis alludes, doesn’t seem to back this theory up. “While it lasts,” he prefaces. In other words, self-satisfaction wrought at the expense of all else is always fleeting, unreachable, or unfulfilling. Instead of happiness we more readily find boredom and depression.....
https://rzim.org/a-slice-of-infinity/questions-and-answers/
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Regarding the use of icons, in ancient times Christian religious art quite often served as an educative instrument for people who couldn't read or write. And Craig is correct in pointing out the position of John of Damascus that the “veneration” was given to what the image represented, rather than the image itself.
The best poetic expression of the purpose of icons and religious imagery is to be found in the Paradiso of Dante's Divine Comedy where Dante, after inquiring about all the symbolic imagery that has been presented to him, is informed:
So Scripture stoops to your intelligence
It talks about God's 'Hand' and 'Feet' intending
That you should draw a different inference.
The same author, Maurice Pinay, wrote that 37% of Freemasons in the USA belong to the Southern Baptist Convention. (That was in the 60s.) I don't know how you come up with a statistic like that for a secret society, but...
Thanks for both of your thoughts about religion and art, Craig and Susanna. My ideas are nebulous, and I have not expressed them thoroughly or precisely. Whenever I have brought it up, I don't think people have understood my insight and shared it, with the exception of those individuals who have been newly converted after being very deeply steeped in something profoundly atheistic for a long time -- whether the arts or gaming or even revolutionary ideology. When the Holy Spirit changes your mind, you retain the memory of the contrast of the before and after.
For a long time I had ideas and images and stories come into the back door of my imagination, only to realize my imagination had become thoroughly occulted. I thought it was just my own ideas or at most it was coming from the collective unconscious, which I believed in after my experience, before my conversion. After a while, the more I went along, the more I had experiences of recognition frequently. Oh, that's my idea there. Oh, that's my idea there. Here, there and everywhere.
I see (what I thought were) my ideas more and more. Those kinds of ideas were perhaps most fully developed in recent pop culture in the movie, Avatar. I've seen my own nightime dreams and nightmares in other movies. I wish I could remember the title of one that really fully featured several of my dreams and nightmares.
But I see it even in the type of art that precedes Netflix series in the opening theme. It involves the dissolution of the individual into unity, but not static unity, a unity consisting of flux. An example is the imagery before the True Detective series or before the Netflix series about the Marvel heroes like Daredevil.
I can even see the same kinds of ideas and imagery in the PBS cartoons my son watches, especially Wild Kratts, (which he doesn't watch anymore).
As for literature and fine art, I can't even begin to talk about all of it. It would take one hundred PhD theses. And I don't have the time or energy to write even one.
And then there is postmodernist theory such as Deconstruction. One hundred more PhD theses.
I'm overwhelmed at the thought of even attempting to communicate it all.
And it's not just things like celebrities on magazine covers, holding their hands over their eyes, to point to the one eye symbol (the eye of Horus, I suppose). I'm actually talking more about themes than symbols -- although symbols definitely do tie into themes. But those kinds of obvious symbols don't even have to be there *at all*. It's so much more than a bunch of hand pyramid gestures (obviously). It's themes and patterns with overtones and associations in networks and layers. There are all kinds of discrete symbols, and they can be either new ones or old ones. They can be anything. Of course some are much more universally recognized than others. The best ones convey something popularly understood and are hiding in plain sight. Like the rainbow, for example.
My brother wanted to be a rock guitarist. After he had a born again experience, he threw away all his old recordings. He changed his music. Now he is part of a creative gospel music community in Tennessee. I couldn't understand why he did it. He did it while I was still in college. But he said his old music was only depressing. He was a Christian while he was in his rock band, but I think maybe a little bit of a lukewarm Christian. He lived a clean life but still idolized many rock guitarists and admired the personas of many rock stars. His band mates really wanted to live the rock n roll lifestyle, even the married ones, most of them. They gave him a hard time about his chastity. They even asked him if he was gay. But it was after his born again experience that he threw out all his old rock recordings and completely changed the kind of music he played.
I suppose his story is just one story, but I can very much relate to it, only after being converted myself, though. I threw away my old notes and many of my old drawings. I got rid of many of my books, too. I did this because I wanted to do it as part of cleaning house. Nobody ever told me I had to do it. If anything, people have been very lukewarm and soft with me whenever they've spoken to me about this type of thing.
Of course I don't want to be Puritanical. I think the KJV suggests more Puritanism depending on how "imaginations" is interpreted.
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2 Corinthians 10:5 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)
5 And every height that exhalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ;
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2 Corinthians 10:5 New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)
5 and every pretension raising itself against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive in obedience to Christ,
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2 Corinthians 10:5 King James Version (KJV)
5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
One last thought and then I'll drop it. I once applied for a job to do church restoration art. The guy who was hiring was from Europe. He made his living traveling around and restoring the art in Catholic churches. He hired local artists on a temporary basis. In my interview with him, he told me he was not looking for a college trained artist. He wanted somebody who was good at old-fashioned drawing. He didn't like my portfolio from my art classes. He liked the untutored artists with natural skills.
Thinking about this reminded me of just how much artistry and craftsmanship used to be channeled into our places of worship historically.
J,
In my most recent comment above, I was attempting to write somewhat neutrally with regard to art/icons. In getting technical about John of Damascus’ delineation of the two terms, I may have gotten a bit tedious. I only did so, because I’d come across these differences in discussions with non-Trinitarian monotheists, who were trying to claim Jesus wasn’t worshipped, and I knew these delineation didn’t hold true in the Scriptures, at least. But, overall, I’d say John of Damascus’ position is fine.
My position with respect to art and music is likely more ‘liberal’ than most Protestants. Years ago I obtained a copy of an artist’s rendition of John the Apostle as found in Codex 676 prefacing the Greek of the Gospel of John, as well as copies of two Greek manuscript pages. I framed them all and have them in my living room. At this link you can find the icon of John by scrolling just about half way down (images 19242-19425). If you cannot find it, at least you can see Matthew in the second row. Click on the image, then see it displayed below the panes.
The verbiage accompanying the icon of John on this 13th century manuscript reads:
…The photograph is of the apostle John, as he is sitting in the “Cave of the Apocalypse” on the island of Patmos, Greece. This is the traditional site where John wrote both the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation.
The wording at the top of the icon says, in abbreviated form, “St. John, the theologian.” John as an old man is looking over his shoulder and he sees three lines coming from the corner. These represent the Trinity and in the Cave of the Apocalypse visitors can see the three cracks in the cave ceiling that this icon represents. John is writing his Gospel in this painting, as he is being directed by the Triune God.
In the middle ages, New Testament manuscripts began to have miniatures or icons of the evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) as frontispieces for each gospel. As a rule, the scribe who wrote the text out would not be the same person as the artist. There would be nothing on the backside of the icon, and often the icon would have a background painted in gold. Many of these miniatures were cut out of our handwritten manuscripts and sold separately by the thief. Codex 676 is fortunate to have the icons of Matthew, Mark and John still within its covers.
These sorts of icons adorn the front of a number of theology books in my library.
Similarly, I also have a photo of the Monasteries of Meteora. And, tangentially, I have a pen and ink original of Venice that a local artist had just penned when I visited there many moons ago.
Well, one more thought, because I just remembered the name of the movie that featured several of my dreams and nightmares: Arrival from 2016. I dreamed of an alien that looked like the aliens in Arrival. I also dreamed of a language that was not static but was comprised of shifting symbols that never held still, like the language of the aliens in Arrival.
I suppose by random coincidence this could happen, because after all, isn't it said that there is nothing new under the sun?
But that's not really what I believe, although I know it could be rationalized that way.
I think something makes the collective imaginary change spontaneously among many individuals at the same time, who don't all necessarily copy one another, although more people copy it over time once it gets more established. I think some of it is possibly demon influenced, and it is not possession, but it is still some form of influence.
Can you imagine a PhD thesis about that? (Smirk)
After all, if you are not with Christ, you are against him. And I was not with Him at the time. If you're worldly, don't you have to be influenced by the devil and his minions, without any horror movie scenario being necessary? It's just part of humdrum daily life in this world, isn't it?
Craig 2:36 PM,
Point well taken, and it sounds like you have an awesome book and art collection :)
J,
Regarding "deconstruction," which is simply a "critique" which "deconstructs" or demolishes the traditional meaning of words.....I would respond by saying that since "deconstruction" is itself a word we can also deconstruct deconstruction after which we may then safely ignore it.
Just remember that at the end of the day, the devil cannot be as bad as he wants to be. Because no matter what sinister games he tries to play, he must always necessarily play with "God's dirt."
And God has the most interesting ways of transforming the devil's weapons into His own weapons.
Susanna,
I agree with the second two paragraphs you wrote.
I'm afraid I can't agree with the first. One would think it would be true, but sadly it's not.
Notice it has even spread to teachings about the legal profession in India. I recalled my English professor saying her husband, a legal professor, was also dealing with Deconstruction.
Deconstruction theory: Its importance in law
http://www.legalservicesindia.com/article/2217/Deconstruction-theory:-Its-importance-in-law.html
"Application of this theory in legal studies helps in basically three different ways. Those are:-
First, deconstruction provides a method to criticise critical legal doctrines.
Second, deconstructive techniques can show how doctrinal arguments are informed by and disguise ideological thinking.
And thirdly, deconstructive theory provides a new kind of interpretive strategy and a critic of conventional interpretations of legal texts."
Here is deconstruction being used by CNN regarding the Second Amendment. The problem is that whatever you say about the English language will affect everything that is language based, and that includes the law.
Of course you are correct, Susanna, that the very concept of deconstruction ought to be self-deconstructing right out of the gate. But the problem is that in reality, it makes language malleable by power. It's supposed to challenge established power. I think the powers that be can do whatever they want with deconstruction, though. And make indoctrinated students and professors and even journalists and lawyers and judges into their useful idiots in some cases.
Deconstruction tries to get rid of the Law of the Father. It is very explicit about this as a goal. Of course, historically, the problem with getting rid of "El Cop-po" is that you wind up with El Guapo (The Three Amigos kind but not as easily defeated). And if this keeps going, that's what we will be in for.
27 words: Deconstructing the Second Amendment
https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/10/politics/what-does-the-second-amendment-actually-mean-trnd/index.html
https://www.thebubble.org.uk/culture/literature/an-introduction-to-deconstruction/
"...Derrida showcased the constructed quality of such assumptions, reading those as representations; often strategic and politically motivated. Thus the realm of Law, the law of the Father, the dictum of God, were all seen as representations with their implicit constructedness that sought to pass off as natural and given. In short, the major forms of knowledge and power were revealed as constructs; historically determined and determinable, circulated through systematic strategies of representation Derrida called 'discourses'. 'Structure, Sign and Play' thus inaugurated a phenomenal academic study that sought to deconstruct the hegemony of the 'givens'."
Translation: Derrida said that law itself, the law of the Father, and God are all made up but passed off as something to take for granted. But they should be treated only like cultural creations, because everything is only a cultural creation, anyway. Therefore let's no longer allow these accidents of history to oppress us. Let's get rid of the entire castle in the air by blowing up the foundation and saying it was always full of holes to begin with.
One of my professors used to ask the class, "How can we weaken Western civilization?" but only in the context of interpreting Hamlet or another work of literature. Everybody responded with bland expressions and no comment to such wild-eyed statements. After all, it was just a class, and he was just a funny looking little guy whose papers nobody read except a handful of other academics.
This particular professor had studied directly under Derrida as a graduate student in California. He was the only one who talked quite that way. He was very smart and very nice. I used to think maybe he just needed to feel important or grandiose or non-establishment and to symbolically play at being a rebel.
J,
I didn't mean to come across as flippant on deconstruction.
Of course, we can agree to disagree about Derrida on certain points (and still be friends LOL), but in my opinion, to put it simply, deconstruction is self-contradictory. Derrida uses a lot of verbiage to hide that fact. What really clinched it for me was when I discovered how Derrida's deconstructionism was being applied to the Sacred Scriptures.
Derrida's work in the 1970s has been described as a Nietzschean free play of signifiers. Derrida's work in the 1990s has been described as a "religion without religion."
Critical theory, by the way, is a Marxist construct. Heavily influenced by Marx and Saussere, Derrida wished to use deconstruction to battle inequality. Through literary criticism, Derrida would fight his battle. The cloven hoof peeps out, however, via his assumption that all concepts come in binaries that are opposed to one another.
Great shades of the Marxist dialectic: Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
Derrida has been described as the IDEALIST who thinks that the whole world is a text and who thinks that philosophy is just another type of literature.
Deconstruction is a critique of the relationship between text and meaning originated by the philosopher Jacques Derrida. Derrida's approach consisted in conducting readings of texts with an ear to what runs counter to the intended meaning or structural unity of a particular text. The purpose of deconstruction is to show that the usage of language in a given text, and language as a whole, are irreducibly complex, unstable, or impossible. Throughout his readings, Derrida hoped to show deconstruction at work.
Many debates in continental philosophy surrounding ontology, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, hermeneutics, and philosophy of language refer to Derrida's observations. Since the 1980s, these observations inspired a range of theoretical enterprises in the humanities, including the disciplines of law:3–76 anthropology,] historiography, linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychoanalysis, LGBT studies, and the feminist school of thought. Deconstruction also inspired deconstructivism in architecture and remains important within art, music, and literary criticism.
While common in continental Europe (and wherever Continental philosophy is in the mainstream), deconstruction is not adopted or accepted by most philosophy departments in universities where analytic philosophy is predominant.…..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction
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cont.
cont.
While IDEALISM originated with Plato, the Idealists of the "Enlightenment" went way farther off the reality reservation than Plato. Aristotle provided the corrective. What was true in the natural philosophy of Aristotle, moreover, was incorporated into the great Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Of course, theories like Derrida's are among the consequences of the so-called "Enlightenment" philosophies beginning with Rene Descartes. These philosophies were a form of modern Idealism which erroneously rejected realism. Among the consequences was an embarrassing disconnect between the internal world of the mind and the external world of the senses.
Their chief error according to the late great Mortimer J. Adler in his book TEN PHILOSOPHICAL MISTAKES was in claiming that man was capable of directly perceiving his own ideas independently of sense experience.
The truth of the matter is that we are NOT capable of directly perceiving our own ideas. The reason why is because (as Aristotle taught) "all knowledge is rooted in sense experience." "There is nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses." IDEAS, are the FORMAL SIGNS produced by the mind of things reported to the mind by the senses. WORDS are the INFORMAL SIGNS used to describe the FORMAL SIGNS/IDEAS in the mind.
Once this is understood, the student of philosophy can move onto the next key teaching of Aristotle which was to the effect that a person whose function it is to be taught must embrace a handful of truths that require no proof because they are self-evident. These truths are called AXIOMS. The GIVENS. And in the absence of these truths that require no proofs, we would not be able to prove anything else.
Among these Axioms are:
1. BEING ( Existence exists)
2. Before anything else can be predicated of a thing, being must be predicated of it.
3. A thing cannot simultaneously be and not-be in the same species. ( a.k.a. the law of contradiction).
4. Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. ( If A=B and B=C, then A=C - This is the foundation of syllogistic logic.)
5. The whole is always greater than any of its parts.
6. The one is prior to the many
****************************
Axioms are the truths that anchor the mind into reality. As Aristotle taught, a person can pretend to reject these Axioms, but he will wind up in a philosophical abyss of error and/or self - contradiction.
A good example of this would be Rene Descartes and his "I think, therefore I am."
He is sardonically described by other realist philosophers as "reversing his ontological predicates."
Descartes' system of "radical and universal doubt" described in his DISCOURSE AND METHOD has a certain resemblance to Derrida. Because in order for Descartes to doubt as radically and as universally as was necessary to validate his system, he would have had to subject his system to the same system of doubt. as it is, in DISCOURSE METHOD, we find that Descartes created a little "provisional reality" for himself because he was apparently afraid that if he looked into the abyss, the abyss would look back.
cont.
A vital feature of Derrida's work later in life is the notion of undeconstructibility. In Derrida's thought, deconstruction exists in the interval between constructions and undeconstructibility. The primary exemplar of this relationship is the relationship between the law, deconstruction, and justice. Derrida summarizes the relationship by saying that justice is the undeconstructible condition that makes deconstruction possible. However, the justice referred to by Derrida is indeterminate and not a transcendent ideal......
http://religion.wikia.com/wiki/Deconstruction-and-religion
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Say what? Either Justice is undeconstructable or it is not. Moreover, on what grounds is Derrida assuming that justice "is indeterminate and not a transcendent ideal?" If this IS what he is assuming, he is doing so on grounds that he never communicates to us.
Whatever legal constructs have been invented by men since the days of Moses, The Ten Commandments are simply a formal codification of the Natural Law which can be summed up in terms of "Do as you would be done by." We are told "the law of God is written on our hearts."
Moreover, the Ten Commandments are not collectively the minimum of law which must be obeyed in order to qualify as a good Jew or as a good Christian. They are the minimun Law which must be obeyed in order to qualify as a HUMAN BENG!!!
The first three Commandments have to do with loving and serving God. The last seven Commandments have to do with love of neighbor.
In all of creation, only MAN is able to infer the existence of a "Supreme Being" from "the things that are made." Human beings may have often been mistaken in the object of their worship, but they were NOT mistaken in their notion that worship should be directed SOMEWHERE.
In all of creation, only man has free will and the ability to opt against himself.
That man has free will is a moral Axiom...that is...self evident. From the very beginning, there have always been laws. Beginning with the law against eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. This is how God revealed to Adam and Eve that they had free will...that they were not compelled by any necessity. It hardly makes sense that God would have "legislated" against something that Adam and Eve were compelled to do out of necessity.
Now while Derrida may be able to get away with "deconstructing" certain man made legal doctrines, when he gets into attempting to "deconstruct" truths which are self evident, then he has wandered off the reality reservation - which is probably one of the reasons why deconstruction is not the "norm" in most philosophy departments in universities.
Susanna,
I may not have made it evident enough that I don't care for Derrida or deconstruction.
No, deconstruction was not taught in the philosophy classes I took. No other postmodernist theories were, either.
Yes, deconstruction is definitely a part of cultural Marxism.
I only intended to demonstrate the influence of deconstruction but not to claim the influence was merited.
I have not known anybody to take it seriously. I have only known people to either dismiss it or to enjoy it mischievously. People seem to understand it is all a game.
I love your discussion of law. I'm too tired to comment much on it right now, though.
I took a few philosophy classes, and if there is one thing I remember from them, it's that for every argument, there is always another argument. That said, it is very hard to argue with axioms without undermining one's own argument. It's about like using language to say language can't mean anything.
Deconstruction and other postmodern ideas came to the fore in my wishy washy generation, Generation X. Not that these ideas aren't still percolating around in the world and having an influence.
But I don't see any philosophy at all as being the philosophy of the Millenial generation. I see them as having groupthink, as their only security. If you never got a sense of security from your parents, you don't believe in God, and you don't believe in American exceptionalism, and you haven't been taught to reason, what's left? The group. And that is exactly what Common Core teaches them to rely upon, the group.
I've found that while they are advocating any position it's impossible to talk to them about more than one side at a time. Plus they grew up in households that watched either Fox or MSNBC, and the idea of old-fashioned journalism telling both sides of the story has been lost.
I don't think they need to be called snowflakes. I think they need God.
My thoughts about the law are these. There will never be any such thing as lack of authority and hierarchy. The only question is whether it will be a partially moralized authority and hierarchy, or whether it will only be a matter of Might Makes Right.
To "deconstruct" the law may seem to be anti-establishment, but in reality, it is more likely to just be a stage in a dialectic. Order out of chaos. Crisis = opportunity.
People prefer safety and security. It is a very basic human need. It always will be.
Undermining morality has a similar effect in the long run. If we won't be responsible, we won't be free, either. Eventually.
We can see this culturally. When we lost morality, we gained political correctness to fill the vacuum.
We can see it in recent history. After 9/11, we lost privacy.
Nobody will want to walk around for long living in a society with deconstructed law and order. It will only be a phase, replaced by a new order.
That was the whole point of cultural Marxism, to undermine Christianity so that we would find Communism appealing to, give us some hope in our despair. Hope and change! Cultural marxism was never supposed to be the goal in itself. It was always cleverly dialectical from the beginning.
And Marxists really don't care if women are liberated, either. More human trafficking and porn come out of Russia than any other country.
It was all about an elite taking wealth and property and ruling other people. It was never about anything else.
All the silly theories are much like a weasel dancing around to confuse and disorient a rabbit before going for the kill.
J,
As I see it, the "dialectic" is simply a modern version of what is said to be part of the occult "Great Work" - the "reconciliation of opposites" - all tricked out in pseudo-scientific terminology.
W.L. Wilmshurst hints at this in his book THE MEANING OF MASONRY.
If you want to understand why I reject the dialectic, see Axion #3 at my 7:52 PM post.
When you combine SOMETHING with NOTHING you don't wind up with a new SYNTHESIS.
Neither do the SOMETHING and the NOTHING cancel each other out.
When you combine SOMETHING with NOTHING, what you wind up with is the same old SOMETHING you started out with.
The dialectic may look good on paper in terms of abstractions, but in terms of where the rubber actually meets the road, it fails.
UNITY OF OPPOSITES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_of_opposites
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Contrary to what many occultists teach, the universe was not created on the basis of "opposition." It was created on the basis of "complementarity."
By the way, Karl Marx was said to have been a Satanist as well as a member of a secret society in Germany known as the "Doktorklub."
Susanna,
I don't believe in any metaphysical dialectic. I know it is an occultic idea. I only think people in the world use a type of dialectic to shape their geopolitical games, including Communists and Masons.
I knew Marx was a Satanist. He actually wrote Satanic poetry. It creeped me out a lot when I learned about it a couple of years ago. I wonder why this is historically suppressed knowledge about Marx. It's also suppressed that in the revolution it wasn't just aristocrats who were targeted but Christian churches and monasteries, just like in the French revolution.
There would be signs of spiritual warfare in the world if those signs weren't sanitized and edited out. Then more secular thinkers might have to become believers.
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