A continuation of the discussion from my previous post.
"Okay, but also after death we wouldn't experience time in any way right? Hell wouldn't feel like we are being tortured for a million years because to judge how much time has passed you have to be in time. All of eternity would feel like a moment."
Precisely. Hell is not like being tortured for a million years or more. Hell is existence separated from God and His Love, which is our teleological end. It is vastly worse than torture of any sort, because it is more painful, and there is no hope of it ending. As you said, it's like a moment.
"Also would God be able to make the afterlife temporal?"
Well, in one sense, the Purgatorial sense, He has. In that He has made it so that those who are not teleologically sundered from Him but also haven't completed their penance yet may undergo a temporal penance, but in every other regard, they are locked in. You don't get to make choices in Purgatory, your will is already locked in, just as it would be in Hell or Heaven. And in the Limbo of the Fathers (the posited state of existence wherein the patriarchs of Judaism and the just pagans who died before Christ existed while "waiting" for Christ to die and open Heaven), there may also have been some sense of waiting and thus time.
If we enter into the realm of pure conjecture, I suppose it is possible that God could. At least, I see no major reason why He couldn't. Whether He will, I don't know.
"Going back a couple posts 'It's like filling up an infinite chasm, only an infinite Being can do it.'
It seems to me that not only could only an infinite being fill up an infinite chasm, only an infinite being could create an infinite chasm. So where did this infinite chasm come from?"
Well, you're correct in that the existence of an infinite chasm requires something infinite. But as a chasm is a lack, a void, a negation of something that was, nothing "created" the chasm. What it's caused by, if we can use that term, or even better, what it is, is a separation. It's the infinite separation that occurs between us and God when we choose to reject Him. It's infinite because God Himself is infinite, in rejecting Him as completely as we can, we draw away and strip away the connection we had, which results in that void. The Passion and Resurrection of Christ was God filling that chasm and establishing a way for people to return to Him.
"That's not what I'm saying. I'm meant why doesn't God just forgive people who really regret their evil ways? Why does Jesus need to die? The people who aren't really sorry for their actions would not be forgiven."
I'd say Christ came and died for several reasons. First, I'd point out that Christ's ministry entailed a great deal more than His death, in such a way that we should remember His teachings are very important to understanding the nature of that Sacrifice, and precisely how God wills for us to live, ie good lives. Part of those teachings address heaven, hell, morality, penance, etc. which is why we Christians now have these beliefs. Christ also established a Church, an institution He created so that we'd have a living teacher we could go to with questions on faith and morality in His absence, as opposed to leaving us just a set of Scriptures such as most religions have, which cannot answer questions, nor interpret themselves for our sake. Part of those teachings and that Church was the establishment of Sacraments, visible means by which God's grace, particularly the Grace of forgiveness, are imparted to us. Christ came in His mission not just to die, but to leave us with teachings, an authority that would continue to teach for Him, and these sacraments which would serve to aid people in their spiritual journeys to God. All of these are immensely important when you consider the sort of doubt and interpretative difficulties that beset so many human undertakings and religions. Christianity is not immune, either, as we can see with the Protestant movements attempt to create a Scripture alone mentality.
What this means is that those people who really regret their ways now have an established, ordinary means by which they can repent, confess, receive absolution AND receive a penance that fits their sins and is tailored to accomplish what penance is supposed to accomplish. They also have a moral guide and arbiter which can let them know when they've done something wrong, and what actions to avoid in the future, so they know what they should be repentant for, etc. Quite important to have, I think you could agree.
Now, I'm not saying God doesn't or won't forgive those who really regret their evil ways. I, and the Church, believe that those who genuinely repent and come to Him will not be denied, assuming they are invincibly ignorant of Christ. Likewise, those without access to those Sacraments, but who accept Christ and repent, again, I expect and the Church teaches would not be turned away. God is not limited by the Sacraments.
Second, I would argue that Jesus needed to sacrifice Himself, and that that sacrifice entailed death, because that sacrifice was a response to all of sin. In Christianity, existence itself is good. Life is good. Being is good. We believe that it was sin, ie evil, the rejection of this good, that brought death into the world. This is what Samuel was telling you about, the "wages of sin." Christ had to die because His sacrifice's intent and design was to remedy this evil. He died that we might live, and by dying He conquered death. Again, recall the imagery of the chasm, the void.
When God created, there was no separation between God and Creation, all was good, all existed, all lived. Then, humanity separated itself from God, corrupting the good of existence such that while our basic existence remained, our lives were no longer eternal. The evil we committed negated the good of immortal physical life. We came to live a short span of years, after which our existence altered, even in one sense lessened, as we would continue to exist in Heaven or Hell or Limbo (of the Fathers) or Purgatory or whatever, but do so without a body. Human nature, originally, was still a commingling of the spiritual and the physical, which we call the soul. We are meant to have bodies. Existence separate from our bodies is not what we were originally meant for, and is part of why our bodies will be resurrected and perfected at Judgment and the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ's resurrection is the very first instance of this, the very first filling of this chasm of death in God's Creation. Christ had to die because only the dead can be Resurrected and restored to the perfection of physical existence we had before the Fall. God filled the hole.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Is it Just to punish an innocent man?
There is some excellent, and very civil conversation and dialog occurring on this question, of which I have just begun to take part and will post here. Yes, the initial question is one that leads directly into whether it was Just for Christ to die for our sins. Many people initially thought it was a "trap" for that reason, interestingly.
My initial responses:
"Is it just to punish an innocent man?"
If you refer to punishing him for a specific crime so that he will not do it again or punishment in the sense of penance, wherein the punishment serves to rectify damages caused by the wrongful acts committed, then no, as an innocent person has no wrongful acts to rectify nor discipline for.
"Was it Just when Jesus died for our sins?"
Yes and no.
No, the Jews who set Him up were not acting in a Just fashion.
No, the Romans who washed their hands of it when they knew He was innocent were not acting in a Just fashion.
Yes, Christ's death, in terms of its nature as a sacrifice on our behalf was just. God was not punishing Jesus for sins He did not commit, unlike the human parties involved. Christ voluntarily took upon Himself the sins of humanity, negating their consequences of rejection of God by bringing them back to God for remedying, something only Christ, as Second Person of the Trinity, could do.
Because the nature of evil is a rejection or nullification of some good, only God could take the eternal consequences of these rejections without being damned. He can do this because God is an infinite source of good, which remedies the negation/rejection that evil entails. It's like filling up an infinite chasm, only an infinite Being can do it.
In case you're wondering, btw, how that works with justice in terms of God judging us, that would be the merciful aspect. Justice, however, still comes into play in the fact that even justified humans are still expected to perform voluntarily penance for their crimes, and that they will go through disciplinary measures, whether on Earth, or in Purgatory, before they enter Heaven. The difference, however, is that these consequences are temporal, not eternal, and thus are within our ability to discharge without recourse to damnation.
Those who do not die in a state of justification, of course, would presumably wind up in Hell.
The original poster has already replied to these with further questions to which I have also replied:
"I also don't get why the consequences of evil are eternal."
I thought I had made it clear that not all of them are, that there are temporal consequences and eternal consequences.
As to why there are eternal consequences in the first place, it's rather simply explained. In this life, here on Earth, we live in a material universe that operates according to certain principles and dimensions, one of which is temporal. We're temporal creatures because we live within a temporal system, and every movement of our will can be gone back upon so long as we live within that temporal progression. In other words, while an act, once completed, can never be changed, the will, once decided, can be altered. We can change our minds because our wills still have the potential to move, being in time.
After death, this changes. Once we're no longer living in this temporal existence, our wills, and thus our souls, are locked atemporally, ie eternally, into whatever relationship with God we existed in prior to our deaths. We cannot change them after that point because we're no longer agents in a temporal universe who have that luxury. Think of it this way: Life is like running along a vast plain, though it's more vast for some than others. Death, is like the cliffs at which the plain ends, and suddenly plummets. Once you reach the cliffs and leap, and we all must do so at some point, you cannot change your direction, speed, or anything else. These were all determined the moment you leapt, regardless of whether you now realize there's a big cushion waiting for you at the bottom, or a bunch of razor sharp spikes. At any time on our journey across the plain, we can change direction, and make for another point on that cliff wall. Once you're falling through the air, however, there's no going back.
"But it seems to me that it would also be merciful to just forgive us. Why couldn't God just do that?"
First and foremost, it is not merciful to completely isolate people from the consequences of their actions. God's mercy exists to preserve us from the eternal separation from Him that so many of our actions entail, He does this because He loves us, and thus wills for our good. God being goodness itself, willing for our good means He does what He does to try and bring us to Him, in so much as we allow ourselves to be brought.
But for God to just snap His fingers and say all is forgiven, you can do whatever you want without consequences would be disastrous! Evil actions are still evil, they still cause immense pain and suffering, they still destroy and negate goods in this world. As God wills for good, this is essentially intolerable to Him. Penance exists for reasons. First and foremost, it teaches a lesson, often through pain, of the negative consequences for a person for a certain action. Even more importantly, it should be designed and constructed such that it serves to remedy the effects of these evil actions upon the one committing them, and upon those who were harmed by it. Penance exists to foster harmony and repair problems caused by evil within communities and relationships, whether that be between the individual, family, friends, city, country, world, God, or all of the above. It does this also by serving as a way to combat habitual wrong doing, like addictions. It fosters self-discipline and fights the habit of sin that we all get into at times. And penance serves one final role in cleansing a person of the effects of sin, like a stain on the clothing being washed. If doing evil can be likened to getting dirty, repentance would be stopping getting dirty and determining to be clean. Penance is the actual cleaning of the clothes.
Remove the responsibility for individual and communal temporal penance from humanity, and you've removed humanity's own means for everything from community service to the penal system. More importantly, you've removed their metaphysical ability to wash off, as it were, and one of the most effective means of teaching lessons available to us, one honed by millions of years of evolution no less, that of suffering. Imagine a world wherein parents could not punish children or make them do anything to take responsibility for their actions. Imagine a world wherein communities, governments, etc. could in no way force members to behave, incarcerate them for the protection of the rest of society, nor even rehabilitate them. That is a world without temporal consequences for evil. I, for one, would rather we not have it.
Moreover, in terms of salvation, as nothing impure can be allowed in God's presence, the process of going through a cleansing and reordering of the soul in order to remove those habits of sin, the stains and blemishes left by it, etc. must still occur. It's logically necessary if what I have stated about God is true, that He is Good, and wills for us to have goodness, and tries to bring us to Him. As nothing evil can be in the presence of God, not merely because God doesn't like it but because God's nature automatically remedies it, temporal penance will occur on the path to Heaven, if not in this life, then afterwards. That's what Purgatory is. There is simply no escaping the fundamental fact of temporal penance's necessity and just nature for Christians.
Now, all of this answers why God wouldn't just do that. I felt it necessary to go in depth to answer for you, since the answer to why He couldn't is rather shorter and lacks exposition.
The reason why God couldn't just do that is because God's nature is both Merciful and Just, and it is not Just to remove all consequences for an action. As God cannot act opposite to His nature, a logical impossibility, He cannot be unJust. This is one of Christianity's inherent paradoxes. And it's probably my favorite. :-)
Stay tuned for more!
My initial responses:
"Is it just to punish an innocent man?"
If you refer to punishing him for a specific crime so that he will not do it again or punishment in the sense of penance, wherein the punishment serves to rectify damages caused by the wrongful acts committed, then no, as an innocent person has no wrongful acts to rectify nor discipline for.
"Was it Just when Jesus died for our sins?"
Yes and no.
No, the Jews who set Him up were not acting in a Just fashion.
No, the Romans who washed their hands of it when they knew He was innocent were not acting in a Just fashion.
Yes, Christ's death, in terms of its nature as a sacrifice on our behalf was just. God was not punishing Jesus for sins He did not commit, unlike the human parties involved. Christ voluntarily took upon Himself the sins of humanity, negating their consequences of rejection of God by bringing them back to God for remedying, something only Christ, as Second Person of the Trinity, could do.
Because the nature of evil is a rejection or nullification of some good, only God could take the eternal consequences of these rejections without being damned. He can do this because God is an infinite source of good, which remedies the negation/rejection that evil entails. It's like filling up an infinite chasm, only an infinite Being can do it.
In case you're wondering, btw, how that works with justice in terms of God judging us, that would be the merciful aspect. Justice, however, still comes into play in the fact that even justified humans are still expected to perform voluntarily penance for their crimes, and that they will go through disciplinary measures, whether on Earth, or in Purgatory, before they enter Heaven. The difference, however, is that these consequences are temporal, not eternal, and thus are within our ability to discharge without recourse to damnation.
Those who do not die in a state of justification, of course, would presumably wind up in Hell.
The original poster has already replied to these with further questions to which I have also replied:
"I also don't get why the consequences of evil are eternal."
I thought I had made it clear that not all of them are, that there are temporal consequences and eternal consequences.
As to why there are eternal consequences in the first place, it's rather simply explained. In this life, here on Earth, we live in a material universe that operates according to certain principles and dimensions, one of which is temporal. We're temporal creatures because we live within a temporal system, and every movement of our will can be gone back upon so long as we live within that temporal progression. In other words, while an act, once completed, can never be changed, the will, once decided, can be altered. We can change our minds because our wills still have the potential to move, being in time.
After death, this changes. Once we're no longer living in this temporal existence, our wills, and thus our souls, are locked atemporally, ie eternally, into whatever relationship with God we existed in prior to our deaths. We cannot change them after that point because we're no longer agents in a temporal universe who have that luxury. Think of it this way: Life is like running along a vast plain, though it's more vast for some than others. Death, is like the cliffs at which the plain ends, and suddenly plummets. Once you reach the cliffs and leap, and we all must do so at some point, you cannot change your direction, speed, or anything else. These were all determined the moment you leapt, regardless of whether you now realize there's a big cushion waiting for you at the bottom, or a bunch of razor sharp spikes. At any time on our journey across the plain, we can change direction, and make for another point on that cliff wall. Once you're falling through the air, however, there's no going back.
"But it seems to me that it would also be merciful to just forgive us. Why couldn't God just do that?"
First and foremost, it is not merciful to completely isolate people from the consequences of their actions. God's mercy exists to preserve us from the eternal separation from Him that so many of our actions entail, He does this because He loves us, and thus wills for our good. God being goodness itself, willing for our good means He does what He does to try and bring us to Him, in so much as we allow ourselves to be brought.
But for God to just snap His fingers and say all is forgiven, you can do whatever you want without consequences would be disastrous! Evil actions are still evil, they still cause immense pain and suffering, they still destroy and negate goods in this world. As God wills for good, this is essentially intolerable to Him. Penance exists for reasons. First and foremost, it teaches a lesson, often through pain, of the negative consequences for a person for a certain action. Even more importantly, it should be designed and constructed such that it serves to remedy the effects of these evil actions upon the one committing them, and upon those who were harmed by it. Penance exists to foster harmony and repair problems caused by evil within communities and relationships, whether that be between the individual, family, friends, city, country, world, God, or all of the above. It does this also by serving as a way to combat habitual wrong doing, like addictions. It fosters self-discipline and fights the habit of sin that we all get into at times. And penance serves one final role in cleansing a person of the effects of sin, like a stain on the clothing being washed. If doing evil can be likened to getting dirty, repentance would be stopping getting dirty and determining to be clean. Penance is the actual cleaning of the clothes.
Remove the responsibility for individual and communal temporal penance from humanity, and you've removed humanity's own means for everything from community service to the penal system. More importantly, you've removed their metaphysical ability to wash off, as it were, and one of the most effective means of teaching lessons available to us, one honed by millions of years of evolution no less, that of suffering. Imagine a world wherein parents could not punish children or make them do anything to take responsibility for their actions. Imagine a world wherein communities, governments, etc. could in no way force members to behave, incarcerate them for the protection of the rest of society, nor even rehabilitate them. That is a world without temporal consequences for evil. I, for one, would rather we not have it.
Moreover, in terms of salvation, as nothing impure can be allowed in God's presence, the process of going through a cleansing and reordering of the soul in order to remove those habits of sin, the stains and blemishes left by it, etc. must still occur. It's logically necessary if what I have stated about God is true, that He is Good, and wills for us to have goodness, and tries to bring us to Him. As nothing evil can be in the presence of God, not merely because God doesn't like it but because God's nature automatically remedies it, temporal penance will occur on the path to Heaven, if not in this life, then afterwards. That's what Purgatory is. There is simply no escaping the fundamental fact of temporal penance's necessity and just nature for Christians.
Now, all of this answers why God wouldn't just do that. I felt it necessary to go in depth to answer for you, since the answer to why He couldn't is rather shorter and lacks exposition.
The reason why God couldn't just do that is because God's nature is both Merciful and Just, and it is not Just to remove all consequences for an action. As God cannot act opposite to His nature, a logical impossibility, He cannot be unJust. This is one of Christianity's inherent paradoxes. And it's probably my favorite. :-)
Stay tuned for more!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Religion Discussion (Rebuttal)
Thank you for your kind words regarding my previous response. Your agreement makes proceeding much easier.
Before I attempt to make a case for the Church's divine authority, which I will undoubtedly have to do, I'll first attempt to answer your misgivings and doubts here.
You note that you doubt that the teachings of Jesus the Christ survived after the approximately three hundred year period before the codification of the Bible. You doubt this based on the Council of Nicaea, which defined explicitly that Christ was God, and that God was one Being, three Persons, in response largely to the Arian heresy. Your position is essentially that if Christians then didn't agree that Christ was God, and that was only 300 years after Christ, how can we be sure any teachings survived.
The first step in addressing this doubt is examining history.
First point. Historically speaking, the Bible was not codified until the late 4th century. But that doesn't mean no written testaments as to Jesus Christ's life and teachings existed. It means that Christianity didn't have a set canon of Scripture that was authoritatively held by all as inspired, revelatory material. The first Gospel concerning Christ's mission and ministry was written by about ten years after His death, well within the lifetime's of the 12 Apostles and His other disciples. The final Gospel considered legitimate was written by about 95-100 AD, and is thought to still be within the life of John the Evangelist (though it may have been assembled or written partially by his students). Paul's letters, however, quite possible pre-date all of the other writings of the New Testament, as they began with Paul's own ministry and evangelization.
So let's not fall prey to the error of believing that there were no written records of Christ's teachings, nor of His apostles' teachings.
Second point. When talking about oral traditions, particularly those of the early Christians, or the Hebrews, etc. it's important to realize that what we're NOT dealing with is the child's game of telephone. Exactly the opposite in fact. It is not as if the Early Christians were whispering secrets of Jesus' life to each other, passing them along with all too dimly recalled accuracy. The Apostles themselves were the ones teaching about Christ, and their writings support the fact that they personally instructed those who were to be their successors. In the Greek, these are known as the episkopos and presbuteros, and are often cited in the New Testament.
Moreover, these were teachings and traditions of immense importance to the Early Christians, beliefs which were frankly considered just as important as written Scripture. They were treated with immense care towards maintaining their integrity, it is not as if they were haphazardly handed down or fudged around with.
Third point. We have, thankfully, the writings of many Early Christians that attest to the various beliefs of Christians, both providing historical context and background information as well as further written evidence. You challenge that Christians before Nicaea were divided about whether Jesus was God. This is not accurate. The writings of Early Christian Fathers strongly attest to Christian beliefs held by the Church before their definitive definition by any council. For example, St. Ignatius wrote of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist before the dogmas concerning transubstantiation were completely defined.
It is, therefore, possible to know, both from Biblical writings and extra-Biblical writings what, precisely, the Church believed prior to the Council of Nicaea's codification of Christian dogma. When doctrines or dogmas are defined by the Church, it means that the Church has examined the revelatory materials it possesses (Scripture and Oral Tradition), and is clarifying some point of belief which has become confused. It doesn't mean the teaching is new.
Now, I wish to address specifically the nature of the doubt you've presented here, which is that, "if the people can't agree on even this point how can we be sure that any teachings did survive?"
I'd like to note that I believe your reasoning here to be fallacious. That people don't agree on something does not mean, or even indicate, that the original teachings didn't survive. After all, might not one side of the disagreement be the original teaching, as we Christians claim it is? That people have or had a disagreement as to their beliefs should neither be surprising, nor should it raise doubt as to whether orthodox doctrine is possible. Humans are fallen creatures, imperfect and flawed. We make mistakes. It's not only likely, it's assured that someone, somewhere, will make a mistake, and teach something incorrect that they believe to be true.
And this says nothing as to the authority of the Church. That is a seperate issue entirely. In the historical situation of Nicaea, we have the disagreement between the Arians and the orthodox Christians, and we have the Church authoritatively teaching that the Arians are heretics. We can know, via simple logic, that some Christians did believe Christ to be God, by virtue of the fact that the Arians didn't and argued with them. And likewise we can see the Church laying out an authoritative teaching on the subject.
Now, in regard to the Church's authority here, I'd like to raise an interesting pair of points, both regarding historical continuity. I think we can both agree that God is unchanging, and therefore any authority of His must be similarly unchanging. It cannot disappear, it cannot change its mind, etc. So when I claim the Church is authoritative, I am also claiming the Church can never be destroyed, and that the Church can never go back on those things it has taught authoritatively.
You ask how we can know whether any teachings did survive. I would note in the case of the Arian controversy that we can at least know that the Arians were wrong. Had the Arians been inspired by God and had His authority, they would have survived, instead of disappearing for centuries. Instead, despite being numerically weaker, and opposed to by the Roman imperial government at the time, it wasn't Arianism, but orthodox Christianity which survived, and even thrived.
Next, we must consider all of the time between today and the birth of the Church, wherein the Church has never once gone back on any of her teachings. We know the Church teaches Trinitarianism. We know also that the Church has never swayed or denied that belief, regardless of pressures put upon it to do so, and Arianism was neither the first, nor the last to doubt some aspect of the Trinitarian formula. The witness of the heretics themselves proves, historically speaking, that Christians have consistently believed in these things, and the Church has consistently taught them to be true.
And we return to that original argument, that humans are flawed creatures who inevitably make mistakes and errors. If it is true that humans make mistakes and errors, and I know of no one arrogant enough to claim that they do not, how can it possibly be that this Church has not only existed for 2000 years continuously, (despite some rather abysmal leadership and plenty of corrupt periods), but has maintained consistent teaching throughout that period? If it was merely human, it would have failed in some way. It would have disappeared, as has every empire before and most during it, or it would have contradicted itself.
Now, you bring up an interesting idea that Islam joined with remnants of those who didn't believe Christ to be God. But which people? Plenty of heretics denied this, not all of them Arians, and not all of them at the same points in time. I don't deny that Islam shares many commonalities with Arianism, but there's a 300-400 year gap between Arianism as a corpus of believers and Islam as a corpus of believers. Where'd it go in the meantime? Where was its authority? And if they're the same or related, and inspired by God, why do they differ then on several other key teachings?
Again, that there are differences of belief doesn't mean anything other than this:
That we need an inspired, authoritative teacher, which is a living institution, as opposed to a book or set of writings. Why? Because people make mistakes and believe things which are in error, and written works only rarely address, in very specific and convincing language these individual and personalized doubts and complaints. That there are doubts in the minds of some doesn't mean the Church isn't authoritative. It means that there had better be an authoritative Church to correct them!
I do hope and believe this has addressed your initial doubts and criticisms, and also made a beginning in regards to showing the Church to be authoritative. As with the last time, I shall post this on my blog as well. Your reply is already there. Have a great one, Mr. Diga, I hope to hear from you again soon with whatever we'll address next!
God Bless,
Before I attempt to make a case for the Church's divine authority, which I will undoubtedly have to do, I'll first attempt to answer your misgivings and doubts here.
You note that you doubt that the teachings of Jesus the Christ survived after the approximately three hundred year period before the codification of the Bible. You doubt this based on the Council of Nicaea, which defined explicitly that Christ was God, and that God was one Being, three Persons, in response largely to the Arian heresy. Your position is essentially that if Christians then didn't agree that Christ was God, and that was only 300 years after Christ, how can we be sure any teachings survived.
The first step in addressing this doubt is examining history.
First point. Historically speaking, the Bible was not codified until the late 4th century. But that doesn't mean no written testaments as to Jesus Christ's life and teachings existed. It means that Christianity didn't have a set canon of Scripture that was authoritatively held by all as inspired, revelatory material. The first Gospel concerning Christ's mission and ministry was written by about ten years after His death, well within the lifetime's of the 12 Apostles and His other disciples. The final Gospel considered legitimate was written by about 95-100 AD, and is thought to still be within the life of John the Evangelist (though it may have been assembled or written partially by his students). Paul's letters, however, quite possible pre-date all of the other writings of the New Testament, as they began with Paul's own ministry and evangelization.
So let's not fall prey to the error of believing that there were no written records of Christ's teachings, nor of His apostles' teachings.
Second point. When talking about oral traditions, particularly those of the early Christians, or the Hebrews, etc. it's important to realize that what we're NOT dealing with is the child's game of telephone. Exactly the opposite in fact. It is not as if the Early Christians were whispering secrets of Jesus' life to each other, passing them along with all too dimly recalled accuracy. The Apostles themselves were the ones teaching about Christ, and their writings support the fact that they personally instructed those who were to be their successors. In the Greek, these are known as the episkopos and presbuteros, and are often cited in the New Testament.
Moreover, these were teachings and traditions of immense importance to the Early Christians, beliefs which were frankly considered just as important as written Scripture. They were treated with immense care towards maintaining their integrity, it is not as if they were haphazardly handed down or fudged around with.
Third point. We have, thankfully, the writings of many Early Christians that attest to the various beliefs of Christians, both providing historical context and background information as well as further written evidence. You challenge that Christians before Nicaea were divided about whether Jesus was God. This is not accurate. The writings of Early Christian Fathers strongly attest to Christian beliefs held by the Church before their definitive definition by any council. For example, St. Ignatius wrote of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist before the dogmas concerning transubstantiation were completely defined.
It is, therefore, possible to know, both from Biblical writings and extra-Biblical writings what, precisely, the Church believed prior to the Council of Nicaea's codification of Christian dogma. When doctrines or dogmas are defined by the Church, it means that the Church has examined the revelatory materials it possesses (Scripture and Oral Tradition), and is clarifying some point of belief which has become confused. It doesn't mean the teaching is new.
Now, I wish to address specifically the nature of the doubt you've presented here, which is that, "if the people can't agree on even this point how can we be sure that any teachings did survive?"
I'd like to note that I believe your reasoning here to be fallacious. That people don't agree on something does not mean, or even indicate, that the original teachings didn't survive. After all, might not one side of the disagreement be the original teaching, as we Christians claim it is? That people have or had a disagreement as to their beliefs should neither be surprising, nor should it raise doubt as to whether orthodox doctrine is possible. Humans are fallen creatures, imperfect and flawed. We make mistakes. It's not only likely, it's assured that someone, somewhere, will make a mistake, and teach something incorrect that they believe to be true.
And this says nothing as to the authority of the Church. That is a seperate issue entirely. In the historical situation of Nicaea, we have the disagreement between the Arians and the orthodox Christians, and we have the Church authoritatively teaching that the Arians are heretics. We can know, via simple logic, that some Christians did believe Christ to be God, by virtue of the fact that the Arians didn't and argued with them. And likewise we can see the Church laying out an authoritative teaching on the subject.
Now, in regard to the Church's authority here, I'd like to raise an interesting pair of points, both regarding historical continuity. I think we can both agree that God is unchanging, and therefore any authority of His must be similarly unchanging. It cannot disappear, it cannot change its mind, etc. So when I claim the Church is authoritative, I am also claiming the Church can never be destroyed, and that the Church can never go back on those things it has taught authoritatively.
You ask how we can know whether any teachings did survive. I would note in the case of the Arian controversy that we can at least know that the Arians were wrong. Had the Arians been inspired by God and had His authority, they would have survived, instead of disappearing for centuries. Instead, despite being numerically weaker, and opposed to by the Roman imperial government at the time, it wasn't Arianism, but orthodox Christianity which survived, and even thrived.
Next, we must consider all of the time between today and the birth of the Church, wherein the Church has never once gone back on any of her teachings. We know the Church teaches Trinitarianism. We know also that the Church has never swayed or denied that belief, regardless of pressures put upon it to do so, and Arianism was neither the first, nor the last to doubt some aspect of the Trinitarian formula. The witness of the heretics themselves proves, historically speaking, that Christians have consistently believed in these things, and the Church has consistently taught them to be true.
And we return to that original argument, that humans are flawed creatures who inevitably make mistakes and errors. If it is true that humans make mistakes and errors, and I know of no one arrogant enough to claim that they do not, how can it possibly be that this Church has not only existed for 2000 years continuously, (despite some rather abysmal leadership and plenty of corrupt periods), but has maintained consistent teaching throughout that period? If it was merely human, it would have failed in some way. It would have disappeared, as has every empire before and most during it, or it would have contradicted itself.
Now, you bring up an interesting idea that Islam joined with remnants of those who didn't believe Christ to be God. But which people? Plenty of heretics denied this, not all of them Arians, and not all of them at the same points in time. I don't deny that Islam shares many commonalities with Arianism, but there's a 300-400 year gap between Arianism as a corpus of believers and Islam as a corpus of believers. Where'd it go in the meantime? Where was its authority? And if they're the same or related, and inspired by God, why do they differ then on several other key teachings?
Again, that there are differences of belief doesn't mean anything other than this:
That we need an inspired, authoritative teacher, which is a living institution, as opposed to a book or set of writings. Why? Because people make mistakes and believe things which are in error, and written works only rarely address, in very specific and convincing language these individual and personalized doubts and complaints. That there are doubts in the minds of some doesn't mean the Church isn't authoritative. It means that there had better be an authoritative Church to correct them!
I do hope and believe this has addressed your initial doubts and criticisms, and also made a beginning in regards to showing the Church to be authoritative. As with the last time, I shall post this on my blog as well. Your reply is already there. Have a great one, Mr. Diga, I hope to hear from you again soon with whatever we'll address next!
God Bless,
Religion Discussion (Reply)
Mr. Diga has now gotten back to me with his first reply to my initial posting in our discussion. I shall recreate it here, and then reply hopefully before the end of the weekend.
"ok, first i have to say that i love the fact that you gave such answer concerninng the bible.
i guess i agree with everything you said about the bible...
which brings us to the church... did the church have any divine authority?
well first i start by doubting that the teachings of christ did get to survive after the 300 years period. proof is, before Nicaea people were divided on whether Jesus is God or not... now if the people can't agree on even this point how can we be sure that any teachings did survive?
after Necaea there were still people that teaches that Jesus is not christ, and most likely the one that existed till islam all joined it... because it came with the same idea (Jesus being a prophet).
on another level i have to ask... 300 years of oral teachings... how accurate can it be?
what's to prove that what survived after Necaea is what Jesus taught?
i think this is enough for now... though i had alot more to say..
i'll wait to see what you will reply to me.
thanks for the time you are giving to answer
best regards,
diga"
"ok, first i have to say that i love the fact that you gave such answer concerninng the bible.
i guess i agree with everything you said about the bible...
which brings us to the church... did the church have any divine authority?
well first i start by doubting that the teachings of christ did get to survive after the 300 years period. proof is, before Nicaea people were divided on whether Jesus is God or not... now if the people can't agree on even this point how can we be sure that any teachings did survive?
after Necaea there were still people that teaches that Jesus is not christ, and most likely the one that existed till islam all joined it... because it came with the same idea (Jesus being a prophet).
on another level i have to ask... 300 years of oral teachings... how accurate can it be?
what's to prove that what survived after Necaea is what Jesus taught?
i think this is enough for now... though i had alot more to say..
i'll wait to see what you will reply to me.
thanks for the time you are giving to answer
best regards,
diga"
Sunday, June 21, 2009
On re-ordering
Continuing my musings from yesterday, I had originally intended to delve into another aspect of spirituality today, but instead find myself returning after some more thoughts occurred to me on the subject of order and cleanliness today before, during and after Mass.
I found myself thinking about the idea of re-ordering. I believe that cleaning a room is re-ordering it, ie a room generally starts out empty, has things put into it, usually in a pretty orderly fashion, and over time that order decays and the room becomes messier and more chaotic in arrangement. I think the same principle applies to our souls and spiritual lives as well, as stated previously. And so we have the process of taking a place which has become disordered and re-ordering it. Putting things away into their proper places, clearing away trash, cleaning, etc. all are part of that re-ordering process. What struck me about this process that I only briefly, if at all, touched on yesterday was that this was tremendously similar to penitence, particularly of the Catholic variety.
The first idea that struck me was the fact that re-ordering is essentially an opportunity not just to put back things where they were before, but to re-arrange. When you're cleaning up a room is the best time to re-arrange furniture, alter the decorations, etc. all of which can have a profound impact on how you view and use the room, which in turn alters your attitude while inside it. Penitence and penance offer us the same opportunity in our spiritual journeys. They not only provide us with that chance to return to a clean and ordered slate, but further grant us a moment when we can redirect ourselves to God and take stock of our situation. This is metanoia, the interior conversion of the soul, and it is a natural part of this process of repentance, and works well within the metaphor.
The next idea to occur to me was concerning how little I go to confession, particularly for a practicing Catholic. I often find myself working, or otherwise reticent to confess, and I have a particularly hard time bringing myself to repent if I do not believe I will be able to stop sinning whatever sin(s) are most particularly troubling me. I found myself comparing this with my own arguments over making my bed with my parents. If I'm just going to mess it up again that night when I go to sleep, why bother making it? I've unconsciously been applying this same logic (or lack thereof) to my spiritual life. If I'm just going to sin again, I can't confess because it won't be legitimate, even if I am repenting.
This attitude is particularly poisonous, and I think I've finally come upon the answer to it, at least for myself (though don't hold your breath on the bed making bit just yet...). When you live a messy lifestyle, you become more and more innurred to it, to the point where you tolerate more mess gradually, because you're used to it. Thus it becomes harder and much less likely that you'll ever clean up and re-order everything. The same is true of sin. The more you sin, the harder it is to repent and re-order your life. This is why habitual cleaning, and habitual repentance and penance are so important. By building up this continual process of repentance, this process of cleaning yourself, you make it so that you are less and less able to tolerate sin in your life. I found myself thinking of it in mathematical terms, which means it must be important, as I generally avoid mathematics like the plague. Picture an asymptotic line approaching infinity. This is the spiritual path for us on Earth. We cannot attain perfect holiness in this life. We are human, we do sin and fall, for some only occassionally, for others fairly often, for me, all the time. The objective of a penitential lifestyle where one is continually re-ordering and re-orienting oneself towards God is to gradually approach the holiness to which we are called and which God will perfect in us (hopefully) after our physical deaths.
And if you recall your old calculus lessons, yes, at first those asymptotic approaches demand some pretty radical alteration. They take some big jumps and re-arranging to truly effect, and these changes in lifestyle are not possible without God. Remember that each point on that line is another act of renewal, another act of penitence, another moment of re-ordering. Of cleaning. You're not going to go from one end of the spectrum to the other over night (or at least, most people don't), but you can do it by gradually building in yourself those habits of cleanliness, both in the interior and exterior, by which you can approach true holiness and communion with God and the Saints before you.
This is why confession is so important, this is why you should never wait years, or even months between confession, unless you've truly gone that long without sin (and if you have, bravo!). Each time you confess, you are cleaned off and re-oriented towards God. You wouldn't shower once every year or three, so why treat your soul with any less consideration? Making confession a habit, a practice and process of continual re-ordering, rejustifying, re-sanctifying of yourself to God is probably the first step for any adult Catholic seeking to grow in love and faith with God.
God Bless,
I found myself thinking about the idea of re-ordering. I believe that cleaning a room is re-ordering it, ie a room generally starts out empty, has things put into it, usually in a pretty orderly fashion, and over time that order decays and the room becomes messier and more chaotic in arrangement. I think the same principle applies to our souls and spiritual lives as well, as stated previously. And so we have the process of taking a place which has become disordered and re-ordering it. Putting things away into their proper places, clearing away trash, cleaning, etc. all are part of that re-ordering process. What struck me about this process that I only briefly, if at all, touched on yesterday was that this was tremendously similar to penitence, particularly of the Catholic variety.
The first idea that struck me was the fact that re-ordering is essentially an opportunity not just to put back things where they were before, but to re-arrange. When you're cleaning up a room is the best time to re-arrange furniture, alter the decorations, etc. all of which can have a profound impact on how you view and use the room, which in turn alters your attitude while inside it. Penitence and penance offer us the same opportunity in our spiritual journeys. They not only provide us with that chance to return to a clean and ordered slate, but further grant us a moment when we can redirect ourselves to God and take stock of our situation. This is metanoia, the interior conversion of the soul, and it is a natural part of this process of repentance, and works well within the metaphor.
The next idea to occur to me was concerning how little I go to confession, particularly for a practicing Catholic. I often find myself working, or otherwise reticent to confess, and I have a particularly hard time bringing myself to repent if I do not believe I will be able to stop sinning whatever sin(s) are most particularly troubling me. I found myself comparing this with my own arguments over making my bed with my parents. If I'm just going to mess it up again that night when I go to sleep, why bother making it? I've unconsciously been applying this same logic (or lack thereof) to my spiritual life. If I'm just going to sin again, I can't confess because it won't be legitimate, even if I am repenting.
This attitude is particularly poisonous, and I think I've finally come upon the answer to it, at least for myself (though don't hold your breath on the bed making bit just yet...). When you live a messy lifestyle, you become more and more innurred to it, to the point where you tolerate more mess gradually, because you're used to it. Thus it becomes harder and much less likely that you'll ever clean up and re-order everything. The same is true of sin. The more you sin, the harder it is to repent and re-order your life. This is why habitual cleaning, and habitual repentance and penance are so important. By building up this continual process of repentance, this process of cleaning yourself, you make it so that you are less and less able to tolerate sin in your life. I found myself thinking of it in mathematical terms, which means it must be important, as I generally avoid mathematics like the plague. Picture an asymptotic line approaching infinity. This is the spiritual path for us on Earth. We cannot attain perfect holiness in this life. We are human, we do sin and fall, for some only occassionally, for others fairly often, for me, all the time. The objective of a penitential lifestyle where one is continually re-ordering and re-orienting oneself towards God is to gradually approach the holiness to which we are called and which God will perfect in us (hopefully) after our physical deaths.
And if you recall your old calculus lessons, yes, at first those asymptotic approaches demand some pretty radical alteration. They take some big jumps and re-arranging to truly effect, and these changes in lifestyle are not possible without God. Remember that each point on that line is another act of renewal, another act of penitence, another moment of re-ordering. Of cleaning. You're not going to go from one end of the spectrum to the other over night (or at least, most people don't), but you can do it by gradually building in yourself those habits of cleanliness, both in the interior and exterior, by which you can approach true holiness and communion with God and the Saints before you.
This is why confession is so important, this is why you should never wait years, or even months between confession, unless you've truly gone that long without sin (and if you have, bravo!). Each time you confess, you are cleaned off and re-oriented towards God. You wouldn't shower once every year or three, so why treat your soul with any less consideration? Making confession a habit, a practice and process of continual re-ordering, rejustifying, re-sanctifying of yourself to God is probably the first step for any adult Catholic seeking to grow in love and faith with God.
God Bless,
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Cleanliness is close to Godliness
There are two aspects of spirituality that have been on my mind increasingly often these days. The first I want to address is that of cleanliness, or perhaps orderliness would be a better descriptor.
A little background:
I am a messy person. I always have been. I attribute this to my rebellious nature. Seriously. Of my siblings, I think I was probably the one who gave my parents the most grief, argued the most, fought the most and rebelled the most. At least directly to their faces. My little brother may have won out in the doing things behind their backs category. My dad, as you likely can imagine, existed in as straight arrow a fashion as he could, apparently for as long as he could before he eventually cracked and threw away every principle upon which he'd lived his life. As a former policeman, officer in the army, and son of a police captain and soldier, he lived a life of solid discipline. "Duty, honor and country," he'd say, generally on the same day he'd wake me up with an annoying fake bugle sounding Reveille to do chores all day long. He made his bed everyday, and said I could not make mine on the days he didn't make his. I didn't bother making mine anyway, but you can be sure I checked his bed (and called him any chance I had on hypocrisy). And that's my point. My dad was such a neat freak disciplinarian that I became messy because I hated having to clean all the time.
So I get mess. I like mess. To a certain point, at least. I hope, at least, that most people don't want to live in a shit hole or visit one for any particularly long length of time.
How does this relate to spirituality, particularly of the Christian sort? Aside from the truism, "Cleanliness is close to Godliness," I'd like to explore the effects of ordering one's environment and externalities upon one's soul.
For myself, I've found with time, and free from the influence of my cleanly parents, that I cannot reach an equilibrium with mess. I just can't get to a point where the mess is comfortable, but not a distraction, obstacle, or health hazard. I end up being too lazy to clean, too bored, too distracted, or whatever, but whatever my initial good intentions, I wind up shirking them and the mess mounts to the point where even I get sick of it and clean as best as I can bring myself to, before it all starts over again. In this I found a parallel with my (and I believe many other people's) spiritual lives, in that all too often we find ourselves letting small sins, venial sins, even mortal sins, build up in our souls like the clutter we allow to build up in our lives. We're too bored, distracted, lazy, or perhaps simply like it too much to do anything about it and clean up. But eventually we all seem to reach points wherein the mess in our hearts and minds is too much to bear, and we clean it up a bit. All too often I am afraid we resort to half-measures and corner cutting, both in our cleaning and our spirituality.
What is more is that I found that the way I treat my soul and the way I treat my environment not only seem to have similarities and parallels, but they seem to mirror each other. In other words, whenever I effect, or desire to effect a re-ordering and "cleaning" of my soul, I generally experience a desire for a re-ordering and cleaning of my environment and person. Conversely, when I become overcome with the urge to clean up the mess I've surrounded myself with in terms of laundry, books, papers, and other physical phenomena, I find not only that I have the urge, but that I've already begun to effect a spiritual metanoia. Even Saints like St. Teresa of Avila and theologians like C.S. Lewis have likened the soul to a house or a castle or a palace or a cottage, which God is not only creating, but that He intends to sanctify and enter into. When Go intends to live in you as not just a palace but a temple, it brings a new perspective to the notion of keeping your soul clean. If you're embarrassed when guests see you as a slob, imagine how you'll feel when God arrives and instead of a bright shining space, airy and lit with the light of love, filled with the arts of the talents you were given, He is shown into a damp, moldy crawlspace, without even a candle, which is filled with the refuse of your heart.
Perhaps the root of the truism is that these calls to cleanliness are linked to the call to holiness that consistently and constantly comes to us from God, and opening ourself to one opens ourself to the other. I think it is also the case that, because order is intrinsically related to morality and law and even reason, when one brings order to one aspect of one's life, whether it be internal or external, there's a desire and even an immediate reflection or continuation of that order in other aspects.
So when you clean your room, or your house, or other spaces, you begin the process of scrubbing out the dark corners and hiding places of your soul where you've hidden from God or let the detritus of immorality stain away. And likewise when you go to confession and do penance, you take the first steps on the path to cleaning up the rest of your life. I expect this is part of the reason monastic communities in religious of all sorts make cleanliness and order a fundamental part of life in the community. They could exist in a state of perpetual mess and disorder, like a commune of hippies or somesuch, but they do not. They understand that bringing order to one's surroundings helps bring order to the soul, and vice verse. So be clean in your castle's and in your interior palaces.
A little background:
I am a messy person. I always have been. I attribute this to my rebellious nature. Seriously. Of my siblings, I think I was probably the one who gave my parents the most grief, argued the most, fought the most and rebelled the most. At least directly to their faces. My little brother may have won out in the doing things behind their backs category. My dad, as you likely can imagine, existed in as straight arrow a fashion as he could, apparently for as long as he could before he eventually cracked and threw away every principle upon which he'd lived his life. As a former policeman, officer in the army, and son of a police captain and soldier, he lived a life of solid discipline. "Duty, honor and country," he'd say, generally on the same day he'd wake me up with an annoying fake bugle sounding Reveille to do chores all day long. He made his bed everyday, and said I could not make mine on the days he didn't make his. I didn't bother making mine anyway, but you can be sure I checked his bed (and called him any chance I had on hypocrisy). And that's my point. My dad was such a neat freak disciplinarian that I became messy because I hated having to clean all the time.
So I get mess. I like mess. To a certain point, at least. I hope, at least, that most people don't want to live in a shit hole or visit one for any particularly long length of time.
How does this relate to spirituality, particularly of the Christian sort? Aside from the truism, "Cleanliness is close to Godliness," I'd like to explore the effects of ordering one's environment and externalities upon one's soul.
For myself, I've found with time, and free from the influence of my cleanly parents, that I cannot reach an equilibrium with mess. I just can't get to a point where the mess is comfortable, but not a distraction, obstacle, or health hazard. I end up being too lazy to clean, too bored, too distracted, or whatever, but whatever my initial good intentions, I wind up shirking them and the mess mounts to the point where even I get sick of it and clean as best as I can bring myself to, before it all starts over again. In this I found a parallel with my (and I believe many other people's) spiritual lives, in that all too often we find ourselves letting small sins, venial sins, even mortal sins, build up in our souls like the clutter we allow to build up in our lives. We're too bored, distracted, lazy, or perhaps simply like it too much to do anything about it and clean up. But eventually we all seem to reach points wherein the mess in our hearts and minds is too much to bear, and we clean it up a bit. All too often I am afraid we resort to half-measures and corner cutting, both in our cleaning and our spirituality.
What is more is that I found that the way I treat my soul and the way I treat my environment not only seem to have similarities and parallels, but they seem to mirror each other. In other words, whenever I effect, or desire to effect a re-ordering and "cleaning" of my soul, I generally experience a desire for a re-ordering and cleaning of my environment and person. Conversely, when I become overcome with the urge to clean up the mess I've surrounded myself with in terms of laundry, books, papers, and other physical phenomena, I find not only that I have the urge, but that I've already begun to effect a spiritual metanoia. Even Saints like St. Teresa of Avila and theologians like C.S. Lewis have likened the soul to a house or a castle or a palace or a cottage, which God is not only creating, but that He intends to sanctify and enter into. When Go intends to live in you as not just a palace but a temple, it brings a new perspective to the notion of keeping your soul clean. If you're embarrassed when guests see you as a slob, imagine how you'll feel when God arrives and instead of a bright shining space, airy and lit with the light of love, filled with the arts of the talents you were given, He is shown into a damp, moldy crawlspace, without even a candle, which is filled with the refuse of your heart.
Perhaps the root of the truism is that these calls to cleanliness are linked to the call to holiness that consistently and constantly comes to us from God, and opening ourself to one opens ourself to the other. I think it is also the case that, because order is intrinsically related to morality and law and even reason, when one brings order to one aspect of one's life, whether it be internal or external, there's a desire and even an immediate reflection or continuation of that order in other aspects.
So when you clean your room, or your house, or other spaces, you begin the process of scrubbing out the dark corners and hiding places of your soul where you've hidden from God or let the detritus of immorality stain away. And likewise when you go to confession and do penance, you take the first steps on the path to cleaning up the rest of your life. I expect this is part of the reason monastic communities in religious of all sorts make cleanliness and order a fundamental part of life in the community. They could exist in a state of perpetual mess and disorder, like a commune of hippies or somesuch, but they do not. They understand that bringing order to one's surroundings helps bring order to the soul, and vice verse. So be clean in your castle's and in your interior palaces.
Spirituality
While I continue my discussion with Mr. Diga, I think I may devote a few posts to spirituality. These won't be nearly so heavy hitting as my usual posting (not that those hit that heavily), but more like musings or random thoughts.
In other words, more like a blog. Huh...
In other words, more like a blog. Huh...
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Religion Discussion
Mr. Diga and I have agreed to start with the question:
"what's to proof the bible is indeed trustworthy?"
Good question. My answer is that the Bible is a product of the Christian Church, not the other way around, and therefore, the question misses the reality of Christianity. The Bible is only trustworthy if the Church that created it is trustworthy, and the Church can only be trustworthy if it has some aspect of the Divine, which I would argue it does.
A lot of people nowadays make the mistake of believing that the Bible is the root source of all Christianity, but historically and practically, this is simply not the case. The Bible as we know it today came into existence some 350 years after Christ's death, and 50 some years after the Council of Nicaea wherein the basics of Christian dogma were codified in the Nicene Creed. Christians comprised a thriving and authoritative Church which was teaching on these issues well before they canonized the Bible, not to mention translated and promulgated it. For hundreds of years, Christians lived, taught and believed without a set Biblical canon, and without even all the books of Scripture. For the first 10-50 years after Christ, they didn't even possess written Gospels, and most communities likely lacked even Paul's letters. While the Old Testament would at least have been prevalent in those communities with Jewish members or backgrounds, the New Testament, those scriptures which are avowedly Christian, would not have been present.
Even in logical terms it doesn't make sense to treat the Bible alone as authority for Christianity. It can't be denied that Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus the Christ, and that Christianity first and foremost derives from Him, most particularly in the fact that all of Christianity's most basic (and controversial) dogmas stem from this Person's Divine and Human natures. The Trinity, hypostatic union, the efficacy of Salvation, all of these core issues go back to Christ. And Christ didn't write down any of His teachings that we know of, they were all delivered in oral speeches and parables to His followers and the crowds. If we go to the beginning, we don't find a book, we find oral teachings.
Same thing with the Apostles, who didn't go into a flurry of writing and recording after Christ's death (or even before it), but instead went into a flurry of missionary work, preaching the Gospel to any who would listen. It would be years before it was written down. So again, we must conclude that to treat the legitimacy of the Bible, we must treat with the legitimacy of the Church itself, and the person of Christ.
So shall we move on to that next?
(NB: English appears to be a second or third language for Mr. Diga, I will be posting his responses/questions/comments in the manner in which he posted them, As I do not wish to mistakenly misrepresent him by altering any of his text. I believe they'll be fairly intelligible, so it shouldn't present a problem. For future reference, I will also be posting his statements whatever they may be, in bold, and my own in normal font.)
"what's to proof the bible is indeed trustworthy?"
Good question. My answer is that the Bible is a product of the Christian Church, not the other way around, and therefore, the question misses the reality of Christianity. The Bible is only trustworthy if the Church that created it is trustworthy, and the Church can only be trustworthy if it has some aspect of the Divine, which I would argue it does.
A lot of people nowadays make the mistake of believing that the Bible is the root source of all Christianity, but historically and practically, this is simply not the case. The Bible as we know it today came into existence some 350 years after Christ's death, and 50 some years after the Council of Nicaea wherein the basics of Christian dogma were codified in the Nicene Creed. Christians comprised a thriving and authoritative Church which was teaching on these issues well before they canonized the Bible, not to mention translated and promulgated it. For hundreds of years, Christians lived, taught and believed without a set Biblical canon, and without even all the books of Scripture. For the first 10-50 years after Christ, they didn't even possess written Gospels, and most communities likely lacked even Paul's letters. While the Old Testament would at least have been prevalent in those communities with Jewish members or backgrounds, the New Testament, those scriptures which are avowedly Christian, would not have been present.
Even in logical terms it doesn't make sense to treat the Bible alone as authority for Christianity. It can't be denied that Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus the Christ, and that Christianity first and foremost derives from Him, most particularly in the fact that all of Christianity's most basic (and controversial) dogmas stem from this Person's Divine and Human natures. The Trinity, hypostatic union, the efficacy of Salvation, all of these core issues go back to Christ. And Christ didn't write down any of His teachings that we know of, they were all delivered in oral speeches and parables to His followers and the crowds. If we go to the beginning, we don't find a book, we find oral teachings.
Same thing with the Apostles, who didn't go into a flurry of writing and recording after Christ's death (or even before it), but instead went into a flurry of missionary work, preaching the Gospel to any who would listen. It would be years before it was written down. So again, we must conclude that to treat the legitimacy of the Bible, we must treat with the legitimacy of the Church itself, and the person of Christ.
So shall we move on to that next?
(NB: English appears to be a second or third language for Mr. Diga, I will be posting his responses/questions/comments in the manner in which he posted them, As I do not wish to mistakenly misrepresent him by altering any of his text. I believe they'll be fairly intelligible, so it shouldn't present a problem. For future reference, I will also be posting his statements whatever they may be, in bold, and my own in normal font.)
State of the Blog address:
Apologies to anyone who's actually been reading this regularly or semi-regularly. I keep having these several week long hiatuses when I either have writer's block, no motivation, or am too busy/tired. Or some combination thereof. Hopefully this most recent spat of nothing will be coming to end as I embark on a discussion of religion with a gentleman named Ahmad Diga, who put out an open invitation to any and all who wanted to discuss religion with him in a forum I frequent fairly often. I'll be posting our discussions, and labeling them as to whether they're mine or his, on the blog after this post.
Thanks for reading!
Thanks for reading!
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