The Unread Apologist

The End

2010-11-26T20:09:00.003-05:00

Hello everyone. Haven't done much here in a while, so I'm thinking I will archive all my posts and eventually delete this blog. I am planning a far less ambitious blog with a far more universal appeal and more limited scope. Basically, I'm not going to write anything that can't fit into a tiny space. More specifically, 420 characters.

That's right. I'm going to try to fit every post into something that can fit in a Facebook status update. Because that's about all I think I'm likely to commit to in writing regularly. Maybe it will increase later on. I dunno. But I'm too lazy apparently to continue writing full length blog posts. My American attention span simply can't cut it, I guess.

So cheers, and hopefully the few of you that read this will check out the new blog at:

http://evan420.blogspot.com

The Triune War

2010-06-09T12:25:00.000-04:00

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=36797

Ponder this story for a moment, if you will.

There has been throughout history a certain recurrence of war between life itself and death, and it is chiefly represented in the battle over the family and the child. It is also the battle of each Person of that Sacred Trinity which the Christian holds dear.

The first was the Battle of the Father and Moloch, a dance of death fought from Jerusalem and Tyre in the East to Rome and Carthage in the West. It is the war of a wroth Father God to preserve His own people against the mad gods who desired nothing less than to devour them through their children. It was a war echoed in the hearts of Rome, and more importantly in the hearths of Rome. For while the Romans knew not the Father God of the Hebrews, they did at least make fatherhood and family into gods, gods greater than the others of their varied pantheon. And it was this divinity of the family that refused all surrender and all peace with Carthage, the city of the slaughtered innocents.

And in that Roman struggle, as in the Hebrew struggle before it, we see something amazing. That as each of these disparate tribes was conquered, they conquered the conqueror; as each tribes hope's were consumed, each tribe brought an end to a darker hope. That the Hebrews, though broken by Egypt, yet escaped and conquered Palestine. That when broken by Assyria and Babylon, they were yet freed by Persia, and fought all the empires that sought to tame them. But even more it was Rome, Rome the Mighty who we find prostrate but unrepentant at the feet of Carthage. At the feet of Hannibal, grace of Baal. And though crushed, though defeated, though hopeless, Rome was still the army of life, still the guardian of the family, and would never make peace with death. From ruinous defeats untold throughout Italy, Rome triumphed, life conquered, even as it was about to die, it conquered finally, and fantastically. It left no stone standing of Carthage, salted its grounds and burned its fields, and put to the sword the works of Moloch.

Thus ended the first battle between God and the Demons, as Chesterton calls them in th Everlasting Man.

The second comes in the Battle of the Son and Ha-satanna. Again Rome and Jerusalem are the focal points of history, and again, the battle between life and death found its root horror in the slaughter of innocents. For the coming of the Jewish Messiah and the Christian God was presaged by the butchering of hundreds of children throughout Palestine by King Herod "the Great." Again at the pivotal time of history, infanticide found its expression in the ancient war of life and death, and this battle would find its climax not at the walls of death, but instead at the gates of Sheol and on the lonely plain of Calvary. For again did the forces of life struggle against death, and like in the first, life was conquered, life was vanquished. And like in the earlier wars of life and death, but surpassing even them, was life truly killed. For Rome was never beaten to death in that it always lived. It was conquered, but not vanquished. And the Jews may have been brought to bondage numerous times, but there always remained Jews to be bound. But on the day when the world turned black, and Jesus the Christ hung on a cross, life was not merely beaten down or bonded, life was ended. Christ died, death won, the slaughter of innocents that began 33 years earlier culminated in one final, and one even more grave slaughter. The slaughter of a man no longer an infant, and yet still innocent.

But the battle did not end. For Christ, though dead, again lived. The Crucifixion was the triumph of death over life, but it was the Resurrection that was the triumph of Life over Death, and in it death was destroyed more completely than ever Carthage was wiped from the Earth. And wherever Christ's banner, the banner of His death, the banner of the Crucifix went, death was toppled. From the Thuggie cult of India, to the human sacrifices of the Aztecs, Christ conquered all such dread terrors.

And following Christ, who rose to Heaven to join His Father, we had sent to us a Guide, the Spirit of Truth, the very Spirit of the Life we adore.

And now it is the Spirit's war, and it is a war which has escalated. For so were the innocents slaughtered by the hundreds in Carthage, and the thousands by Herod, now they are butchered by the millions. And while before they were sacrificed for some dark purpose, for some unthinkable objective that had to be purchased in human blood, now it has become even less and so even worse. It is the unwillingness of the world to be responsible for itself. It is the final assault on this God of Fatherhood, of this familial deity, of this the God of Father, Son, and Spirit. This is the final rebellion, this is the final war, and we are in the pinnacle battle. And while before the dark purpose of this sacrifice was to invoke demons against gods, or the Demon against the God, now this final sacrifice is of Men battling God, and it will indeed be the last struggle, for there is none left to challenge life. But who shall stand for it? Rome and Jerusalem stood in their times, but now they are failing. Christ on the Cross stands eternally, but what if none shall follow? The death that entered the world through sin was defeated by Christ, but if we elect to reject Christ, if we war with life itself, then death will be our victory and our defeat.

It will be, if you can forgive the pun, the ultimate in Pyhrric victories.

God the Father and God the Son have waged this war, and planted the first and most important victories in human soil and in human hearts. The first victory ensured that the past was not horrific, and that the future could be bright. The second ensured that so long as man followed God, life would never wane. The third victory, the final victory, is the one that God will fight in us, as God once fought through Jerusalem and Rome. And this time it will not be the wrath of the Father, but the inspiration of the Spirit that will guide us. This is the war to end all wars, the chance to rebuild that which has decayed, and defend that which is defenseless.

But from where shall the battle be waged? For both Rome and Jerusalem are besieged, and even now are falling. Rome's soul is burning, and Jerusalem's is divided. The West is immolated in its own self-destructive tendencies, for the West has come full circle back to Carthage, full circle back to Moloch. This is the last struggle of a long dead god, who has found one last arm to stretch out and bring death to others. For just as Carthage's own obsession with the practical darkness, with the material and commercial worlds, with its own practical endeavors wrought its final downfall, even as it stood, foot on the throat of Rome, so too shall our civilization fall. We shall fall to decadence, we shall fall to practicality, we shall fall to Moloch, who has devoured our children. We have given up our families to the idol not of gold or bronze, not worked in strange or terrible faces, but to the idol of glass, the idol of the mirror, the idol of humanity, worked in our own face, and our own image, which is the most frightening of all. We have become the premier cannibals, the connoisseurs of evil more repugnant than any that has gone before it. Humanity has become the idol to which we sacrifice our young, and we no longer do it with even any pretext to purpose, but out of mere inconvenience, and we have no further to look for the most horrific demonstration of the Truth of Christianity's doctrine of Original Sin than to see what humanity has become left to itself after too much secularism.

Man and God now war, the Spirit of Life with the Man of Death. And the Spirit shall win, and the Final Day shall come, and all we have wrought will be shadows and dust, and the long arm of Moloch will fall. And with it shall fall the West, where once the hope of Mankind lay.

Christians, what is there for us? Our society has become the veritable culture of death, and we stand in the midst of battle. And even as we speak, as you read, as I write, our world is battering down all others. We are destroying Africa, we are laying waste to Asia, just as we have laid waste to Europe and North America. China has become so a part of our modern Moloch, that they are not even cannibalizing their society just in figure of speech, but in literal action. Africa too is reeling under the hammer strokes of the secular world's solutions, that of the common choice to end the future of humanity. As Europe is dying, so Africa will die, left to this course. As we have slaughtered, so China is slaughtering.

We have come to the final battle, to the world at war, to the last stand.

So stand! Stand and fight and go not quiet into that long night. For life and love and light themselves are what we have at stake. And the only path we have to walk is that of battle.

These priests, they are fighting, and they are winning. And just so, we see the very demons who demanded the deaths of our most innocent and beloved throughout human history making their presence known in the horrific and blasphemous assaults upon their faith and character. If any doubts that this is a war between demons and the Spirit of God, reread this article, go see for yourself the trenches of this war, and then start praying.

Religious syncretism and a watered down truth.

2010-05-26T10:42:00.001-04:00

The Dalai Lama has written an op-ed piece for the New York Times with the title of "Many Faiths, One Truth."

On the face of it, the article's title is sound. There are many faiths. There is only one Truth. All well and good. But the article's content makes it clear that the Dalai Lama believes that all of these faiths point the way to the Truth. He even seems to imply that none are better than any others.

In reading Mere Christianity lately, I noticed Lewis make two points that I think are understated in today's world. The first was that as a Christian, as compared with an atheist, I am free to believe that every religious tradition in the world that concerns itself with God has at least gotten one thing right. There is a God. All atheists must deny this central, core truth, and thus all religions, while any member of a religion may at least agree with other religious that the divine exists. The second is that as a Christian one necessarily believes that Christianity is right and the other religions wrong. Or in other words, that only Christianity presents wholly accurate, completely true information about God to the greatest extent possible for man to know. And of course, we here at the Apologetics Knights firmly believe that the Catholic Church is the arbiter of this information, the teacher through whom we learn it, and thus the holder of the most complete revelation of God.

From reading this op-ed piece, it seems that the Dalai Lama finds such a belief naive, or equivalent with religious intolerance. I find this to be an interesting assertion, and one that is certainly incompatible with the Christian world-view. I think it requires a critical examination of what religious intolerance is, as well as how it could possibly be naive to believe one thing as true, and thus admit that another thing is false.

Now tolerance is a funny thing, in the modern world it seems to be given many meanings which it does not in fact have. In the words of G.K. Chesterton, "Tolerance is the virtue of men without principles." In other words, he notes that those who are the most tolerant are those with the fewest positive principles. A Christian cannot tolerate human sacrifice. Neither can anyone else who believes in principles of human dignity and life. Tolerance does not mean agree with. It does not mean like. It does not mean consider the same as or equivalent to something else. Tolerance means only that you permit and endure. And somethings we simply cannot, like the aforementioned human sacrifice. Thus I find it difficult to see how exactly the Dalai Lama reaches the conclusion that believing Buddhism superior to other religions is similar to or the same as extreme religious intolerance. One can believe one's religion to be more reasonable, more true, more righteous, etc. and not seek to kill or forcibly stop the practitioners of other religions, even if one might otherwise try to convert them. If a religion is intolerable, I think you'll generally find there's a reason why it is intolerable, one which is viscerally compelling for the mass of men.

Now, I think any reasonable person will admit that religious intolerance is problematic. Killing people who don't agree with you is not good. Forcing people to convert is not good. Many religions, including Christianity, have had people who engaged in these practices, and they are generally condemned. Certainly they were sinning according to Church teaching. But does this equate to believing another religion is as valid and true as your own? How can that possibly be?

Christianity teaches that Jesus Christ is God. Islam and Judaism deny this. Buddhism simply doesn't care. Hinduism and Buddhism both posit a cycle of suffering and reincarnation, with no end save escape to Nirvana, a state of non-being where the individual melts into a pantheist world-soul and ceases to exist. Christianity, Islam and Judaism all argue that the universe does not run in such a cyclical metaphysical way, that we are headed towards a definitive end from a definitive beginning, and that that end will be either some sort of paradise or some sort of torment. To the extent that Buddhism has paradises, they are all designed as stop overs, not end goals. Places from which enlightenment is easier to achieve, though of course how enlightenment, ie detachment from all desire and thus all suffering, is supposed to occur in a hyper-luxurious environment is beyond me. Buddha didn't become enlightened by sitting in his palace, nor by being an ascetic for decades. To the extent that Hinduism has paradises, they are all part of the cycle of rebirth, and the only definitive end is the end of everything that is.

These are just cursory complaints that anyone could make upon superficial analysis of these religious systems. They do not agree. Because they do not agree, it cannot be true that they all have the same grasp of the truth. This is not intolerance, this is strictly a logical conclusion. These religions teach things which are, in fact, contradictory to each other. Therefore they do not all teach the same thing, and either none of them have anything right (atheism or some other religion) or only one of them has it all right, and the others only have bits and pieces right.

If we wanted to go more in depth, it can be understood that there is a much more fundamental issue at stake exactly where the Dalai Lama believes the most similarity exists. Compassion. It is easy to see the thread of compassion interwoven throughout the world's religions. And it is to be expected, because compassion is one of the most obvious facets of human experience. It complements the sufferings which we all undergo. It is neither particularly marvelous nor unexpected that every religion and anti-religion has picked up on compassion and embraced it. Compassion is and always has been universal, because nearly all of us feel empathy and sympathy with those who are suffering at any given time. We all suffer, we all can understand, and we all want to help those who are suffering. Yet each religion approaches compassion in a different way. For our purposes, it will be most instructive to compare the Buddhism of the Dalai Lama with the Christianity of this particular author, and for two reasons. The first is that the author was at one time a Buddhist, though of the Zen sects, not the Vajrayana, and thus has more intimate knowledge of Buddhism in general than of Islam, for instance. The second is that it only makes sense to compare the nature of compassion within Buddhism as compared with Christianity because the Dalai Lama is Buddhist and is writing from that perspective, while I write from the Christian.

Let me tell you about the Buddhism I know. The essential points are fairly easy to grasp. Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama in what is now India centuries before Christ was born. He was born a rich prince, yet was exposed to various degrees of suffering which convinced him to become an ascetic monk. After decades of asceticism in the mountains, he returned to seek a middle path. While meditating, he came to understand what Buddhism calls the Four Noble Truths: Suffering exists. The cause of suffering is desire. There is a way to escape suffering. The way to escape suffering is the Eight-fold Path. The Buddha believed that the root cause of all suffering was desire, and that it was better to escape suffering than not, thus we should snuff out our desires. What this becomes in practice is an attempt at destroying selfishness by destroying the self, Zen in particular as well as Theravada Buddhism both focus on helping the individual person become an arhat, an enlightened one. Mahayana Buddhism is a much more popularized version, and focuses on Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who aid humanity in achieving nirvana by various acts of compassion.

The Buddhas in Mahayana set up paradises. The Boddhisattvas are beings just short of the enlightened, who have chosen to remain unenlightened out of compassion for us, to aid us. The strain of compassion in Buddhism comes largely from the idea of these Boddhisattvas, as well as the Jakarta tales which told of previous lives of the Buddha and the compassion he showed within them. Yet at the same time, Buddhism maintains two things that make its compassion different from Christian charity. Buddhism still holds to the fundamental ideas of Hinduism, that we are reborn over and over, that all being is essentially one being. In other words, brahman and atman are still concepts in Buddhism, and they essentially mean that every living individual is in fact the same being as the world itself. Thus the first point is that all individuals are in fact the same being and the second point is that Nirvana, far from being salvation of the Christian variety, is in fact annihilation of the individuals into the original one.

Christianity says something strikingly dis-similar. Christianity says that God is separate from Man, and that men and women are separate from each other. Christianity says that our unique and individual existence is good, that annihilation would be the most horrific of evils, and that compassion is in fact superseded by charity, that love which wills for the good of another, even if it means giving of one's self. Not annihilating the self as in Buddhism, giving of the self. I must still be me and you must still be you, for me to love you as Christianity teaches.

Certainly Christianity has a place for compassion. The Corporal and Spiritual works of mercy are textbook acts of compassion. We could even argue that God becoming a human, the Incarnation, is the greatest act of compassion conceivable. That God would go so far as to be in solidarity with Man's suffering and so to help alleviate it, this is a powerful statement, and one that is practically antithetical from Buddhism. For Christ, when He came, did not teach us a way to escape suffering, nor offer us a path to a heaven on the way to annihilation. Christ, instead, stated simply that to follow after Him we must take up our Crosses, and walk. Those who followed Christ were not promised an escape from suffering, but instead more suffering, the suffering that God Himself knew on Earth. Christianity teaches that we are to embrace suffering and in so doing bring good to others. That is Christian charity, what everyone else calls love.

And I maintain, and have done so since I left Buddhism, that no Buddhist can truly know this sort of love and remain a Buddhist. Not simply because it requires that one accept suffering and transform it instead of run away from it, but because philosophically, Buddhism simply cannot accept the basic premises of Christianity. How can you love, really and truly, if you are not separate from the other? This is not a self-giving love, because your self is the same as their self. I don't love others because they are the same as me, that would be purest narcissism, and not self-giving or sacrificial in any way. It is no sacrifice for me to give something to another if the other is also me, and ultimately that's what Buddhism contends. Furthermore, nirvana itself is opposed to love. For love desires the good of another, and Christianity makes no bones that existence is fundamentally good. Yet nirvana is the active seeking of annihilation of one's own existence! This is neither compassionate nor loving, it does not alleviate suffering save by alleviating one of existence. Just as Christianity cannot accept the ideas of euthanasia, assisted suicide, etc. since they seek to alleviate suffering through the killing of a person, so it cannot accept the idea of nirvana, which seeks to alleviate suffering through the annihilation of one's being. No part of this can work with Christian charity.

The Dalai Lama, you will observe, does not mention the Crucifixion at all in his words on compassion in Christianity. He talks about the material aid given: the food, the healing, and His teachings on mercy and compassion towards others. Not one word on what Christians consider the greatest act of both compassion and love in human history. This is because the reality is that the Dalai Lama doesn't think Christianity is right. He does not believe Christ is God, he does not believe that Jesus died for our sins and redeemed Mankind. How can he? The central message of Christianity destroys the Buddhist philosophy, they are wholly contradictory. Without this belief, Jesus can only be evaluated based on the things He said and taught up to the Passion story, yet these are all a prelude, a dance towards the Death that was the mission. Every teaching is bracketed by prophesies about His upcoming betrayal, torment and execution. Every miracle points out something for the Apostles for after His death.

It is true, all religions and even non-religious philosophies admit compassion. They even glory in it. But this does not make them the same, nor does it mean they have the same grasp of the Truth. Certainly there is common ground, and certainly humanity needs to be united in certain aspects against very dangerous and very real threats. To this I believe we can all agree. What I cannot agree to is the negation of key points of each religious paradigm for a superficial understanding of compassion. This neglects the reality of Buddhism, and it neglects the reality of Christianity. The sort of unity we'd have with watered down Buddhism and watered down Christianity would be equally watered down. Our strength is in our conviction, in our principles, and that goes for every religious body. We believe firmly that something is true and right and good. We will stick to that belief, otherwise what is the point? To do otherwise would be to tacitly admit that what we believe is false. Live and let live, yes. But do not abandon your beliefs or your search for the truth, do not lose your convictions. Certainly you can learn from other religions and about other religions, you might even become convinced that one is right and leave your current one, but once you abandon any idea of an actual truth to be known and begin to believe all religions are the same you'll abandon all of them as well as the truth, for if all are the same, why be one as opposed to another? Why be part of any of them? That is the inevitable conclusion of a watered down truth. That there ultimately is no truth.

Fulfilling the Law

2010-03-24T10:21:00.000-04:00

"Why did Jesus say I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it? But then we as Christians today do not follow rules like in leviticus. Like stoning of homosexuals. Or that a raped woman can be bought for 50 shekals. The invading of other nations and parts about crushing babies skulls against the rocks. Or that Christians are crazy because if God told them to sacrifice their only son they would.(Isaac) Even if these laws are void under Christ for some reason. How do we reason that God allowed these laws or commands to beging with. Also how does Christ fulfill the law, yet we have changed from following alot of the Old Testament laws."

Because the entirety of the Old Testament was leading up to and preparing for the arrival of Christ. The ancient Hebrew people were being slowly reformed and refined morally speaking, from people who would fight clan wars and destroy every member of a family for the sin of one member of that family (look at the rape of Dinah, for example) to a people who would follow a moral code more along the lines of "an eye for an eye," which we find in a lot of the laws of Leviticus and such and eventually to a code of forgiveness and grace and true justice in the coming of Christ.

Jesus is not an alteration of God's will, He is not saying that God's will has changed, He is the fulfillment of the plan of which the Old Testament records the preparation. Everything that came before Him leads up to Him, prepares for Him, and makes ready for Him. Which is why those laws are not abolished but fulfilled, and in fulfillment we understand them differently.

The only way to understand the Old Testament properly is through Christ, He is the lens by which we can understand God's revelation, because God's revelation is focused on Him. Lacking Him, we'll never truly understand the bulk of Sacred Scripture.

Which means when it comes to answering your questions, we need to look at the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. Just this past Sunday we had the Gospel reading about the woman caught in the very act of adultery, whom they brought to Jesus to test Him concerning the law of stoning. What was His response? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. We Christians understand that thanks to Original Sin, we all sin, we all make mistakes. Christ came so that even with our sins we might know His forgiveness, His grace. Christ came so that we may be slaves to sin no more, and as a result, we can always repent in this life and return to Him. This is the ultimate truth which the Hebrews were being prepared for that we see in Christ. Forgive. Do not condemn, but instead let sins be forgiven and let sinners go and sin no more.

Likewise, when we speak about raped women being bought, we must understand it in light of the New Testament. To the ancient Hebrews, women were considered property of their fathers. The rape of a woman was thus a crime not only against her but against her father, her whole family. Such a crime might provoke, again, a genocidal response, exactly as it did in the case of Dinah, because the tribal nature of the times meant that a sin against the family had to be met by the whole family, and if you left any men in the opposing family alive, they were honor bound to try and destroy your family in response. This is applicable to the arguments about genocide in the Old Testament as well. The Hebrews were being gradually brought away from this system, but they still had to survive in a world where it was the rule for many centuries. So amongst themselves, it was made law that a raped woman had to be bought and MARRIED, thus preventing family feuds and blood debts from destroying the Hebrews before God had a chance to being Christ to us. Instead of the families being divided, they would be united. And yes, the prospect might have been rather miserable for the woman, and maybe even for the man, but the alternatives were worse.

We however understand from Christ that marriage is about the union of two persons of equal dignity and worth, and that in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, slave nor free. Every person is equal in the eyes of God, regardless of status or gender or country in this world. This is an equality that we could only know with two perfect examples of humanity; Christ the suffering servant, and Mary, meek and obedient. In these two we see the perfection of masculinity and femininity, and we see that finally we can understand Man and Woman such that we no longer need understand women as property to provide them with protection, nor do families who understand forgiveness need to fear the blood debts and tribal warfare of the ancient world.

Likewise, war by the time of Christ had become something between nations, not between tribes, and so the difficulties of leaving any member of a tribe alive to seek revenge and retribution had become moot. Likewise, there was no longer the danger that the Jews would be tempted to be unfaithful to God, their polytheistic tendencies, which God had also been trying to prevent by making sure they weren't tempted by polytheists, had at last been weeded out by the Babylonian exile, and so it was no longer necessary that they be at war with polytheist tribes in Canaan and elsewhere who tried to corrupt their faith. Thus the two main reasons why the Hebrews had to fight to destroy every male of an opposing army, tribal warfare and resistance to polytheism, have been removed. Instead we are now called to the fulfillment of warfare against idolatry, which is spiritual warfare centered in Christ and following His path, taking up our crosses, and dying to ourselves.

The reference to Abraham and Isaac is an interesting one. In the passage it says, "Isaac said to his father: My father. And he answered: What wilt thou, son? Behold, saith he, fire and wood: where is the victim for the holocaust? And Abraham said: God will provide himself a victim for an holocaust, my son."

Christ is the victim of the holocaust, the offering, Kasie, Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Again, we see Christ fulfilling the New Testament. Any Christian asked by God to sacrifice his son would know that such a test is a trial of faith, for God never tempts us to evil, for He is good. An evil act like murdering a child is not His will, His will is to reveal to ourselves and the world the depths of our faith. And like with Abraham, He will provide such that we do not have to commit any evil.

There is more that can be said regarding Old Testament laws, but I am not a scholar of them, so for fear of mis-speaking I will keep it short and simple. It is my understanding that there are differences in the laws of the Hebrews. Some, like the Ten Commandments, are considered laws given by God Himself and of a far more eternal and binding nature, while others are not of the same level of authority and power, but more laws made for the governing of their society at that time. Certainly the Jews seemed to have developed a fairly legalistic approach to viewing them. Christianity does not abandon the Ten Commandments, but it does consider the commandments of Christ to accurately and completely sum them up and thus fulfill them. Christians are not, however, bound to the various dietary or dress requirements unless they so desire, for example, since those are not the same sort of laws as the Ten Commandments. The need that those laws fulfilled has been met, and after Christ is no longer relevant to us spiritually or materially.

Hope that helps.

Apologetics Knights

2010-03-19T19:49:00.003-04:00

For those of you wondering, I am still blogging, but my recent writings have been posted on the website of the Apologetics Knights, a Catholic apologetics group of which I am a member. Check out our site, www.apologeticsknights.org if you get the chance. I'm still planning on blogging here, and potentially linking the two sites eventually, or posting simultaneously on both, but for now this blog will be for debates and discussions, the other for current events and media apologetics.

Also, look forward to the return of the debate with Mr. Diga sometime soon.

Cheers.

On Angels

2010-02-24T14:05:00.001-05:00

"What does it mean to be created in the image of God? How do we differ from the angels. Jesus says we were created a little lower than the angels. But I often hear that human beings on reserruction will exalted above the angels. For example...Paul says that we will actually judge angels. How will we judge angels if they are invisible to our sight our whole life. And does this imply that we are somehow exalted above them or merely fellow servants. "

What it means that we are created in the image of God is that we are beings with the ability to love in the way God loves. This is most important in regards to our ability to reason and to will, both of which are necessary to love in the way God loves, who is both Reason and Love.

We differ from the angels in several important ways. First, we are corporeal, they are not. This means that we are souls, they are not. We have the commingling of a physical body with a spiritual component, while they are entirely spiritual beings. This results in them not being bound or limited by physicality. So they do not die, do not eat, do not sleep, etc. They are not limited to any particular shape, indeed one could say best that they have no shape save what they let us see them have. They are often depicted as powerful warriors or fierce beasts in the Old Testament.

The second difference, and this is more crucial, is that while angels and humans both have reason and will, they differ in key ways. Angels, because they are not physical or part of the material universe, do not exist in Time as we do. Their wills, as a result, are fixed, they have made their decision to be with God or not with God, and this decision is set from the moment of their Creation. There is no time for them to change them in. And related to this is the issue of their reason, which is perfect in a way human reason cannot be (since human reason is in part bound by our material cognitive processors, the brain). Angelic reason is thus more certain and clearly aware of everything. When they made their choices, the angels had rationally concluded to do so in a way to make even the most logical humans seem infantile. There is no going back on a conclusion reached in this way, via the epitome of logical reasoning.

It is thus that we are inferior to the angels, in terms of pure splendor, might, power, etc. We are finite, infintessimally small creatures in comparison, bound to weak, sickly bodies, and we are Fallen. The majority of the Angels never fell, and never know disease or weakness, and exist eternally in the communion of the Saints, so they are with God always.

Yet because the Angels never fell as a whole, and because those angels who did cannot ever repent, in another sense humanity has been blessed far beyond the Angels, for humans can always repent of their sins and rejections of God and return to Him, a boast not even the great and mighty Angels can make. And what is more, God Himself, in the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus the Christ, came to Earth and lived as a Man, a human person, an honor and privilege that the Angels have never known. When His faithful are Raised and Glorified at the end of the world, we will receive glorified bodies like to Christ's own Body after the Resurrection, the perfection of what we are into what we were meant to be. This too, none of the Angels can boast, and in this way, in sharing in the majesty of Christ, particularly in the Eucharist and eventually in Heaven itself, we are above the Angels. But make no mistake, all of us, every one, is a servant of the God, the Most High. None of us is anything more.

And in the case of those Fallen Angels, the devils and demons, we will stand with Christ, as His faithful sheep, as judgment is passed against them and all who did not come to Him. Whether or not we can see them will be, at that point, moot.

Satan and the Snake

2010-02-23T12:23:00.001-05:00

"And what is up with the snake in the garden of eden. Did Satan really morph into a snake or is it some Hebrew explanation of how Satan is sneaky like a snake. And if it wasn't a real snake then why did God condemn it to eat the dust of the earth...by losing it's legs I presume. It seems like a literal snake that had legs at some point.
That's another one that athiests throw at you. "Do you really believe a Satan was a talking snake" is usually the jibe."

If we understand the Creation story of Adam and Eve as mythical and to have certain allegorical and symbolic meanings, then it yet remains to trace and illustrate each symbol and its meaning so that the story's inherent truths are revealed.

Adam, for example, is a name that means both Earth as in dirt, or dust, and Mankind, or humanity, etc. Adam could be an individual human, as the story says, or he could be a representation for all humanity, or an individual human who was all of humanity, etc. There are layers of meaning, but in each case, Adam's role is that of a representative of Mankind.

Eve, by the same token, is the Mother of Nations. She could be an individual person in a more literal interpretation of the story, she could also be a symbolic figure of the earliest women, or the earliest mothers, etc., or even of the earliest woman of the Hebrew people, from whom the tribes of Israel descended, the Ishmaelites descended, and spiritually the Christians descended.

The fruit that they ate of is specifically called "the knowledge of good and evil." There are few more blatant examples of symbolism in any kind of literature anywhere. Adam and Eve ate from the tree whose fruit is the knowledge of good and evil. This too can be understood to have a symbolic and spiritual meaning, for example, the act of disobeying God has the fruit of experiential knowledge of evil, something Adam and Eve, ie all humanity to that point, had not yet known. They knew, intellectually, that God did not want them to commit a given action, in the symbolic terms of the story, that action was probably something sinful, certainly something proud.

The snake in the story, if interpreted literally, is just that, a snake. It is a talking snake, certainly, and it has been understood since the earliest days of the Church to be a reference to Satan, the enemy of humanity, for its role in tempting Eve to eat the fruit of knowledge, by promising her equality with God. Hence the nature of the sin being pride, and the realization that it was the Devil, who fell through his own desire to be equal to God.

But we don't have to understand the story literally, which means the snake too is a symbol, a representation of the way the Devil operates, which is to whisper slyly in our ears and tempt us to disobey the commands of God which we know in our heart we should obey. If you think about it, the voice of temptation always has the softly sibilant aspect of a serpent's hiss, which is probably why the snake was selected as the animal to represent Satan in the story.

As for God's condemnation of the snake, the Hebrews did not have a natural explanation for the origins of any creature, let alone the snake. What they did have was an understanding of the world as they saw it in spiritual terms. They understood that humanity had been born to a paradise, Eden, and lost it through sin. They saw human misery and difficulties, the hard work needed to survive and the pain associated even with child birth, as consequences of this Fall from Grace, and so they are. And they saw a natural enmity between women, who were the ones organizing and running hearth and home and serpents, who could slide under tent flaps and door ways and hurt those inside.

Remember, the Hebrews were largely a desert people, and they lived in an area of the world filled with dangerous, poisonous animals, of which the snake was a primary example. The snake was extraordinarily dangerous to them, and thus the Hebrews would likely have been very wary of it. Just look at the story of the serpents that afflicted the Israelites in the desert after they escaped from Egypt and disobeyed God. Serpents were an excellent example of a dangerous animal, particularly to women who were generally at home or with the children all the time, and had the same slithering and soft sensibilities of Satan.

As for losing its legs, the Hebrews again would not have a naturalist explanation for the snakes unusual shape. They would see most animals having arms, legs, wings, etc, while the snake has none, and so would explain it through a myth, not through science. Yet there is still some interesting fruit to be had in examination of this idea, since Satan himself is often considered "earth-bound" so to speak. Satan, because he fell, is no longer able to be a part of Heaven, and some Christian understandings link him specifically to the planet Earth. Read CS Lewis' Space Trilogy to get an understanding of this concept. As such, the snake again makes an excellent allegorical representation because the snake too is earth bound, it cannot rise up to the heavens, it cannot even run on two feet, it must wriggle through the dirt, lowest of the creatures the Hebrews would be most vitally aware of. An excellent representation of Satan if I do say so myself.

The most common atheist challenge to free will:

2010-02-21T14:04:00.001-05:00

"Another question. How do we believe in predestination and free will. I often hear. 'If God is all knowing than you have no free will. For example if you have the choice between two pairs of pants and God already knows what one your going to choose than you had no choice in it.'
Now I don't make this up but I hear it from other people who are usually athiest and agnostic or even Christians who just don't believe that God is all knowing. How do we answer this as Catholics?"

This is a very common argument, I've heard it myself, and it's simply a misunderstanding of what knowing entails on the part of atheists who make it.

The Church has not explained in precise detail just how free will and predestination cooperate, only that they do. There are several theories within the Church, stemming mainly from St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Molinas and St Augustine, and so there are three theological branches dealing with it: Thomism, Molinism and Augustinian. Thomists and Molinists each tend to focus more on one aspect than another, the more heavily predestinarian are the Thomists, the more heavily will focused are the Molinists.

The Church has not declared one or the other or neither or both to be correct, largely because she has not needed to. Most times when the Church defines a dogma for the faithful it is out of need, in opposition to a heresy which has become too common or a misconception that is spreading, etc. Hence the dogmatic declaration of the sacramental presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist via transubstantiation when that was challenged by Luther and consubstantiation, hence the declaration that Christ is both fully human and fully divine in response to things like Arianism and Gnosticism. It is most likely the case that both Thomism and Molinism have part of the truth, but miss out on something. As for Augustinian thought on the subject, I can't say I have been educated in it, so out of ignorance I shall hold my tongue.

The easiest response to the challenge you quoted is to note that knowledge does not equate to will. In other words, they are assuming that God's knowledge is predicated on God willing, that God knows an event occurs because God MAKES the even occur, but this is an assumption that they bring into the equation with them. It is NOT part of the meaning of knowledge, nor is it implied. It's something they read into it.

The reality is that the knowledge of God of our actions could be predicated on several things. It could be predicated, as St. Thomas Aquinas taught, on God's nature, as He is outside the universe and able to observe it in its totality all at once. It could be predicated on the fact that God is immanent within the Universe, and so is at all places and times simultaneously. It could be both. It could be neither.

If, for example, it is one of those two, or both, then God's knowledge is based on our actions and therefore not the cause of our actions. In other words if God knows what we will do tomorrow because He is observing us today and tomorrow and yesterday in the same instant, then our actions are not necessarily caused by Him. Knowledge, then, does not mean CAUSATION. It merely means knowledge, and the atheist claim is refuted.

Some believe that this facet of God's knowledge being contingent upon our actions means that God is not truly omniscient, or that it creates a logical problem, though I do not agree. I believe omniscience refers to the ability to know all things which logically can be known. If God has created actors with legitimate choice, then what logically can be known is always known by God via observation of His Creation, since the only way to know, logically, what an actor with legitimate choice does is to observe it.

No matter how you slice it, predestination is a belief of the Church, and in its essence is the understanding that because Heaven is atemporal, and God knows every event of our lives in one moment, whereas for us it takes a lifetime, God knows who is in Heaven with Him, and because our existence in Heaven is predicated on accepting the Grace He offers us, His will is intrinsic in the process. It is the degree to which His will is present, and its forcefulness, that Catholics can have legitimate disagreement about. We all agree that God's will and grace must be present, and that the human will must be present. That our will must be present is also a teaching of the Church, for the Church says that Love is an act of the Will, and that we were created for love. We could not have a genuine love for God if we lacked a will, yet this is why we were created. So, in some way or other, we have a will, thus we are made in the image of God.

Is the Resurrection a Fabrication?

2010-02-18T17:45:00.000-05:00

"What is this stuff all about Jesus not really dying on the cross and just entering a coma like state, only to wake up out of it on the third day. There's all these claims that Christians made it up that he died and rose and went to heaven. Do we have only the Bible to rely on for those facts?"

This is a heresy that is fairly old, and pops up now and again when people are improperly educated. The problem, of course, is that Jesus did actually die on the cross. While conceivable that a man could hold out against all the agonies of normal crucifixion, it's not likely, and any theory that He did neglects one important thing: The Romans were extremely efficient killers. Extremely efficient. They were probably the most ruthless and effective killers in history until the modern day and the Hitlers, Stalins, Maos and Pol Pots came along. They did not allow criminals whom they had crucified to survive, which is why they traditionally broke the legs of victims to make sure they eventually asphyxiated, and why they also stabbed them with spears to make sure they were dead, and not anything else. This also had the effect of bleeding them to death if the holes through their wrists/hands and feet, and the whippings to their backs hadn't done that yet.

And remember in Christ's particular case, He was executed as a rebel against the Roman empire. They would have been particularly scrupulous about making sure He was dead. They would have actively worked to prevent any of His followers rescuing Him or somehow helping Him, to become once again a source of rebellion and discontent. They also would've worked to make sure He died and stayed dead, again out of that same Imperial pragmatism. The Romans were shrewd and skilled administrators. They had no love for local leaders who might challenge their rule. And in strict observance of historical fact as far as we can tell, they did make sure He was dead, and they did post guards around His tomb to prevent His followers from staging anything like what actually happened.

Nope, historically speaking the odds are astronomically high that Jesus Christ died on that Cross. High to the point of utter certainty, in fact. As far as historical evidence goes, we don't have all that much, and by that I mean we have more evidence that Jesus Christ died than we do that Julius Caesar died. The Bible, certainly gives its share of evidence, and frankly, the historical validity of the Gospels is well established in scholarly circles, and while the dating of them is somewhat in doubt, that they provide historical information is not. It is only those who cannot see them as anything aside from faith documents and Scripture that reject their historical validity, and that's a dogmatic stance, not a historical one.

There's no reason to disbelieve the Gospel writers and yet to believe any other historical document. They had human authors, so if you can trust a human in history to write something true and accurate to any degree, you can trust the Gospel writers. If not, then you can't trust anyone, ever, anywhere.

As for Christians making this up, that's ludicrous. Remember that of the original Apostles, ten of them DIED for this belief, one spent his life in exile, and the last committed suicide after betraying Christ. I'm not saying that being a martyr makes you automatically right, now, but what I am saying is that if it was made up by Christians, the Apostles are the likely authors of the lie, or at least were guaranteed to be in on it. In that case, they would know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the religion they were creating would be based on a false principle, and that as a result it wasn't true and they were likely doing it to gain power or money or respect or whatever.

But what they actually DID gain was death at the hands, again, of the worlds most efficient killers. And in each instance, they were offered the opportunity to recant of their beliefs and claims that Christ was Risen, and thus save their lives, and they refused to do so. Likewise, those not of the Apostles who nevertheless claimed to have seen Christ also refused to abandon their beliefs, even in the face of, and after, torture and then execution. For a lie? For something they KNEW was untrue, and the rewards of which would not be available to them after death? That's the silliest and most ridiculous claim ever.

No, the Apostles, right or wrong, really and truly believed that Christ had died, and Risen, and that they had seen Him and talked with Him after His Resurrection and that they saw Him Ascend into Heaven. And we must ask why. What could make these men, from disparate backgrounds and walks of life, some of whom didn't particularly like each other, and all of whom rarely showed why Christ selected them until the end, agree on something so radically impossible? What they believed was nothing no one would have believed at that time without having seen it.

And then look at the evidence of what happened afterward. Those same followers of Christ were out of their minds with fear that the Romans, those brutal killers, would execute them too. And then, as of nowhere, they burst out into the world and set it on fire. There's never been a missionary effort like that of the Apostles, who were utterly manic in their obsession with spreading the Gospel. They preached everywhere, all over the world, and reached every audience they could. They spoke to people whose languages they didn't even know, they converted people everywhere.

Why? For a lie? No. No man has ever been so motivated for a lie. The only truly likely explanation is that the Apostles really believed that Christ had Risen, and this gave them the courage and love to proclaim it to everyone, even in the face of death and torture.

And finally, there's the basic theology of it. There's absolutely no meaning, nor theological importance, in a Crucifixion where Christ doesn't die. If God exists, and He is the God we Christians have always said it was, then the conquest of Death was logically part of the plan, and that meant dying and Rising again. It was part of the conquest of the consequences of Sin, it freed Man from the doom of Hell, and from the final Death, it promised us the Resurrection of the Body for ourselves, not just Christ.

As for our sources, yes, we have the accounts of the Gospels, four separate accounts compiled into the Bible that are both historical, and inspired scriptural literature. We also have the oral tradition of the Church, the spoken teachings of Christ and the Apostles, of which the Gospels only capture part of the message. And we have historical writings of Roman historians who record the spread of Christianity with an alarming speed, and the measures taken by the Romans to stop it which only increased its growth.

There was a Jew in the Sanhedrin in Christ's time named Gamaliel who said something important about the Apostles when they were preaching of the Risen Lord. He said that if they were of Man, then they would fail eventually and fall away or die out. But if their message and purpose were of God, then nothing could quench it and they would never die out, and that is exactly what we've seen. The Church, despite periods of persecution, inept leaders, terrible corruption, low attendance, rank heresies attacking her, etc. has never fallen. She has been reformed, certainly, she has in some senses been resurrected, but she has never been vanquished. If she were of Man, this would not be possible.

The Poverty of Wealth

2010-02-15T15:57:00.000-05:00

"But what if the parents are poor and they start having to many kids isn't that unfair to the children."

Ok, there are a lot of fundamental issues involved in this question/statement, so it's difficult to know where to begin. I think I'll have to start by asking what is a greater poverty, lack of material possessions, or lack of selfless love and giving of life?

Before we can address the issue of fairness, we have to address this issue concerning the true nature of poverty. Westerners, and particularly Americans, live in the most powerful, affluent, decadent society ever created by Mankind. Only the Roman Empire could compete in terms of relative affluence, and I'd say the average American has vastly more than the average Roman ever did in terms of material wealth. And yet, the vast majority of human history has been dominated by societies which are poorer than American society, while the families within those societies consistently had far more children than industrialized and wealthy nations today have. That's right, the poorest epochs of human history have also involved larger families.

The reasons for this are numerous, and here are some basic utilitarian ones. Agrarian societies that have a more vibrant farm and rural life tend to need more children for the extra hands to man the farm. Early industrial societies likewise involve families flocking to cities and needing more money, so children with income potential were a boon to any family trying to survive in this new environment. Not to mention the fact that while contraceptives and abortions still occurred, they were nowhere near the norm they are at today.

The fact remains that despite poverty, families have historically been able to have more than one or two children, in fact greater numbers of children often was an aid to the family, not a problem. It's only relatively recent child labor laws that have altered that in many respects, and the artificial construct of a "childhood" in the modern world which never existed before. By this I mean that children were only children for a short while, the things people now write off as childish behavior in teenagers being acceptable would never have been two hundred years ago, let alone two thousand years ago. Human persons have the ability to live adult lives much earlier than they now are expected to, now they are expected to be immature and hedonistic for at least 20 years before they grow up. Which of course feeds into the problem, which is not poverty, it's selfishness.

The reason the richest societies in the world have stopped having children isn't because they can't afford them. This is a myth perpetuated by those who would rather not face the truth. And the truth is that these societies have become more enamored of material wealth and possessions than they have of family and children. The question people ask themselves, and the excuse they rationalize to allow for their behavior is whether they can afford to have children and maintain the same level of pure selfish materialism that they have enjoyed prior to having children. Families used to exist and function just fine with half a dozen kids and their parents living in two room homes. Now mansions are virtually empty and devoid of life because the people who live in them cannot sacrifice their comforts for children, or they have one "designer baby," and stop there, spoiling their child rotten and condemning that child to the same expected level of wealth.

We have constructed a world in which material wealth is all that matters, and having children gets in the way of amassing more of it. Children mean sacrifice, they mean loving someone more than you love the things in your life, the luxuries and pleasures. And children, as joyous and pleasurable as they are can also be big, messy pains. They break things, they keep you up at night, they get sick and require you to stay home, etc. The converse, in a world where contraceptives and abortions are plentiful is far more attractive to people used to living in perpetual pleasure and wealth. So they do. And in so doing they've created a new poverty, a poverty that involves the loss of one of the greatest joys of existence, which is sharing in the Creator's joy, and self giving in love. The real question we need to start asking ourselves is not whether we can afford to have kids, it's whether we can afford NOT to.

Now, there was a concern in your question addressing the subject of fairness. The fundamental problem with any question of the fairness of a given action is that fairness itself is non-existent. The belief in something being fair is based on a human sense of entitlement to a given thing or action. If we believe ourselves entitled to something, and yet we do not receive it, we believe ourselves victims of unfairness. The fact of the matter, however, is that upon examination it must be admitted that humans are entitled to virtually nothing in this life. Our very existence is, if one is a theist, a GIFT from God, not an entitlement. And even if one is an atheist, it still has to be admitted that our existence can be nothing more than accident, it is certainly not something we are entitled to. So what does fairness really mean, since it cannot mean we're entitled to something?

If it is to mean anything valuable at all, fairness must refer to whether something is Just or not. Which means that having children is probably not part of it to begin with. God, who is Just, has blessed human kind and desires us to be fruitful and multiply and share in the ability to give life and create. Anyone making the argument that giving the highest good is unjust is going to have a difficult time.

So when you ask whether it would be somehow unfair to children whose parents have lots of children as opposed to a few, even when they are poor and cannot provide all the material comforts of modern Western society, I have to say no. Children, indeed human beings, are not entitled to material comfort, and the act of procreation is in fact giving someone the great gift of existence, the highest good there is. Therefore, it certainly cannot be said to be unfair to the child or children born into a large, poor family. If anything, I'd be more worried about the children born to wealthy parents who are not taught the joys of family life, of the value of large families and sharing in Creation with God. They are the ones most likely to grow up spoiled, selfish, and weak. Children who live lives with the great wealth of a strong, vibrant family, seem far likelier to be less spoiled, less worried about material things, more interested in the value of family, etc. They're vastly more lucky than those born into the poverty of materialism.

On Natural Family Planning

2010-02-14T12:17:00.000-05:00

"What exactly is Natural Family Planning and how is that better than using the above [contraception]."

Natural family planning, in basic terms, is a means of spacing out the birth of children using methods that are natural instead of artificial, part of our sexual reproductive nature, more respectful of our human persons, open to life consistently and involves a higher discipline and love. I would say it is better for all of the above, and this is why:

When I say that the methods are natural, instead of artificial, I mean that there is nothing involved in the process save the married couple themselves. Nothing foreign is inserted into the relationship to try and keep procreation from occurring. No pills, no condoms, no surgeries, no spermicides, etc. Nothing artificial comes between the two people, no barriers are present, no forced with-holding during the sexual act occurs. Natural family planning also does not follow a mere calendar in regards to a woman's fertility, it's not like you have sex during two weeks of the month and you don't have sex the other two weeks, which would be a fairly faulty system.

What it does involve is both the husband and the wife learning a lot more about their bodies and their reproductive nature, and working with each other instead of just erecting barriers between themselves. Natural Family Planning simply will not work if there is a lack of respect between a couple, or a lack of closeness or interest. It will not work with a lazy love. Instead, the couple must both actively study their bodies and know when they are most fertile and least fertile, using means that are scientifically proven and again natural, like the quality of vaginal mucus. I have heard that learning and following the NFP system brings husbands and wives closer together, and I believe it. It involves a far greater degree of mutual understanding than any artificial form of birth control.

NFP also involves the practice of abstinence, instead of barriers or other artificial contraceptives. So during those periods when use of NFP methods has brought the couple to be aware that they would be most likely to conceive, they abstain from sexual intercourse. This is where a lot of people have a problem with NFP, they do not want to abstain. But abstinence as a sacrifice for the person you love has a lot of merit, any sacrifice for love does. It shows a depth of commitment, and a strong will for the other's good. This is also, by the way, part of the reason why the Church only allows for the practice of NFP when the couple has grave reasons for not wanting to have a child at that time, like a true lack of the resources to provide for him or her. It's only a sacrifice for the other's good if selfish motivations are not present.

Abstinence also promotes more interior discipline, something necessary to every Christian's spiritual life. Discipline better enables us to accept the sufferings of this life that Christ has promised us, and also aids us in performing charity even when our natural inclination or feelings try to steer us away from it. Practices which promote interior discipline (discipline of our inner lives and selves, as opposed to our superficial lives) should never be shied from, and we should always examine what makes us uncomfortable when we come face to face with them and wish to not follow them. Christianity does not, after all, promise an easy life, or one free of trials and pain. Discipline is part of our defense in these instances. If we are shying away from it, we must wonder why, and how we will persist in difficult times if we cannot make sacrifices now.

This is in basic terms how it comprises part of our sexual nature. A woman's period of fertility has certain indicators and lasts a certain amount of time, and the time a man's sperm will remain viable in the uterus also lasts a certain amount of time. As human persons, we have the will to abstain or to have sex, we have a choice. We are not merely animals following rote instinct. Our sexual nature is part of our human nature, and thus intimately connected to our wills, and so to love, our will to bring good.

NFP unites all of these factors through closer union and understanding of each other's sexuality, the practice of abstinence when a woman is more fertile, and closer union in love making when she is less fertile. It takes our sexual nature, and instead of denying it, or separating an aspect, or trying to change it, which all natural contraceptives attempt to do, it embraces them and works within their boundaries. Thus NFP never completely closes the act of love making to the possibility and potential for life. God is never barred, nothing is ever denied by barriers or a refusal to give part of one's self. The system is admittedly not "perfect" as a result, the successful practice of NFP means about a 97% chance of not conceiving, and this perceived imperfection to those who would rather practice artificial forms of conception is actually a sign of its perception to those of us who understand and admit that sexuality is first and foremost about pro-creation, about human beings joining God in the Creative act of new life. We would not deny it, and we proudly admit that NFP is always open to this process. That's really its best point, and why it is acceptable practice at all.

Hopefully that answered your question a bit more fully.

On Contraception

2010-02-11T13:31:00.004-05:00

Mr. DeMers has passed along some more questions for me that I will attempt to answer. I intend to answer in a one post to one question ratio, so things don't get too long winded or out of control.

"Why won't the church let married couples use condoms or use birth control."

For a variety of reasons including, but not limited to, the fact that condoms and other artificial means of birth control attempt to remove the pro-creative aspect from the sexual act, and also prevent the couple from truly giving themselves to each other in the intimacy of love making.

If we understand existence to be good, and things which enrich or aid existence to also be good, then we have to admit that sex, which allows human people to bring new life into the world, and life facilitates existence in a material universe, is positively awesome. Sex is an extraordinary and amazing good. This, however, doesn't mean that it is always good or that it is always used well, as it was meant to be. Sex, like all other goods, can be abused and mistreated, which deprives it of some facet of the good it is supposed to have. That's evil. The deprivation of a good it should have had.

Condoms and other forms of artificial birth control are sinful primarily because of this deprivation of the good of reproduction. If the Church is right when it teaches that existence and life are good things, then the Church by extension must teach that the sexual act, which has procreation as its first purpose and its highest good, must be open to that good always. Otherwise, what we are doing when we have sex is taking sex and depriving it of its purpose and its good. We're abusing it, most likely just to get pleasure out of it, which is a disordered understanding of the act itself.

The sexual act in the Church's teaching is also an act of perfect self-giving. A husband and a wife are supposed to be giving themselves completely to each other in love, and the sexual act is a physical expression of that. That is why unity is its second purpose, sex is meant to bring and hold a married couple in close congress and union. Human persons were always meant to exist as both spiritual and physical beings, that is the nature of our soul, of our existence. The sexual act is an act of union that is both physical and spiritual, and involves (or should involve) the whole person, not a mere piece or portion of them. Anything less is the essence of objectification. You are taking a human person and objectifying them, using them for your gratification, and reducing them to one piece or portion of the whole that they are to do so.

The conscious decision to use an artificial contraceptive means that one or both of the couple is consciously deciding to hold back a part of themselves, the reproductive part. Since sex is meant to be a union of the WHOLE person to another WHOLE person, voluntarily through love, any with-holding is a rejection of that union. Artificial contraceptives bring people to say, "I love you only enough to use you for my sexual pleasure, but not enough to truly give you my whole self, my whole being." It isn't love, in effect. It's use, which is more truly mis-use, and becomes abuse because it's mis-use of something which should never be mis-used.

Love is the willing of good for another before yourself. The usage of such contraceptives mean that the will of one or both persons is not for the good of the other, their relationship or their future child (they certainly aren't willing for good there, since they're attempting to deny that person the chance to exist, the basis of all goodness).

And these are the primary reasons why the Church does not and cannot allow the usage of artificial forms of birth control. As I said, it's not necessarily limited to this, but they're the most important reasons, others include the fact that many artificial forms of birth control involve an actual, physical barrier being placed between you and your partner, which is a direct rejection of true union. As well as the idea that we need to "protect" ourselves from what is supposed to be an act of love.

A Question on Satan

2010-02-09T01:42:00.002-05:00

Having not posted in ages, I figured that it would be a great time to start up again when I got this excellent question from an acquaintance who has written in before, a Mr. DeMers. Sorry to those with questions or comments I hadn't seen because I had been inactive, I'll attend to them soon.

Why did God create Satan/Lucifer to begin with if God knew he would rebel and usher in a rebellion in heaven and tempt and bring sin to mankind? I understand the free will bit. But couldn't God of avoided it altogether since he is all knowing. By creating those who would not rebel since he knows they won't. It almost seems unfair to say "Oh you have free will, but if your not on my side you get sent to everlasting torture in hell and I'm speaking for angels and mankind alike. See we can't say God didn't know Lucifer would rebel because I'm sure as Catholics we believe God knows the future. Anyway if you have time to respond that be great, because the free will, all knowing, always present, throws me off sometimes and answer to this would really help me grow in my faith. I also get asked this question and I think I get kind of a warped logic about that God Simply IS and you cannot be seperate from God because he simply is Life. So if you rebel against Life/Light/Love itself you damn yourself away from his presence which is all of the above. That's the closest answer I've got for myself but I"m not to sure of it. Could you help me out?

You're very close to the answer, so you've done quite well so far I'd say. This is a difficult question for a lot of people, you're not the only one who has struggled with it (as I'm sure you've realized from people asking you about it).

Let's start with a basic issue. Putting aside whether God knows everything about what we would subjectively perceive as the future, and putting aside HOW He knows, which is vastly more important to the present question, let us assume that He knows Satan (his name is not really Lucifer, he certainly is not the bringer of light) will rebel.

You say you understand the free will bit, but if you truly understood it, why would you expect God to avoid it? Were God to only create those who would not rebel, He is in fact not allowing for free will, but actively stopping those who would exercise that freedom to err from being.

Remember that God really IS, that God's essence is existence itself, and that existence is GOOD. You're on course when you note that you cannot exist without God, the entirety of the universe, everything that is, including Satan, can only exist because God wills for it to exist. And willing for existence, willing for that good of existence, this is Love. Love is willing for the good of another, no matter the cost to one's self. And willing means choice and action, not mere desire. It's not that God just wants good for others, it is that God is actively pursuing and creating good for others, He's even creating the others.

Asking God to avoid creating beings, period, is going to run into problems because it is contrary to this fundamental aspect of His nature. And asking God to avoid creating creatures with genuine, real freedom of choice is asking God to create creatures who cannot will to love Him. Remember that the entire point of Creation is to give us, the Created, a chance to love God, to will for His good, no matter the cost to ourselves, and thus have a relationship with Him, as He wills good for us. If God never gives anyone who rebels a chance, well Kasie, you wouldn't be around. Nor would I. We would never have the chance either.

Of course, you and I are a bit different, after all, we can repent, we can change our minds.

Satan, however, cannot change his mind. Angelic reason is perfected to the point that an angel cannot change his mind, he has already completely and perfectly considered his course of action and its consequences prior to making it. And angels are beings that exist outside of our understanding of time, thus not really giving them time to reconsider or change their course of action. Satan's rebellion then, has no hope of repentance, Satan has chosen, has willed, and will never, ever change his mind.

Should God then have prevented this by not creating him? By not willing for Satan's good? God would not be God in such a case. The problem of evil, the problems of evil, are not remedied by a denial of love in any aspect, not the creative, not the redemptive, not the active. God created, creating is good and part of God's nature, do not ask that He stop. Satan rebelled, and God knew he would. Satan cannot be redeemed because he cannot repent and return to God, but this does not mean that no good can come from him.

God's omnipotence, if it means anything, means that He can turn even evil into good, and this is shown to us most plainly in the Passion of Christ. We can never consider murder, torture, betrayal, abandonment and the other sins of the Passion to be good things. They are all objectively evil acts perpetrated against Christ, in some cases by people who were among His closest and best friends. Yet look at their result. Because of these evils, the greatest good in human history blossomed, and salvation became possible for humanity, and true freedom, which we had not known since the Fall. Christ's murder resulted in our redemption. Christ's obedience to the Father to submit to sinful actions resulted in our chance to obey the Father and break the bondage of sin.

The Passion was Satan's great triumph, it was the leading of Man to reject God yet again, to murder Him, to seek His death, just as he had lured us to seek our deaths in the Garden. The Resurrection is the ultimate end of every triumph of Satan, through death to life, through evil to good, through deception to truth. So it will always be for those who let God into their lives. The Enemy will never win.

As for damnation, let us not pretend that God is damning anyone. God does not damn. We damn. We choose whether we wish to be with God or not in our lives by doing the things we do. If we live a life which radiates love and is filled with Grace because we will for God and communion with Him, then we're choosing Heaven. If we live a life which does not radiate this love, and rejects God because we will for our own desires and pleasures and not for God, then we're choosing to reject Him. In rejecting Him, we reject His good, and His offer of salvation, and thus we demand Hell for ourselves, and it really is a demand. God offers, over and over again, to let us come home, to forgive and heal and love. And we, rather like children, demand to have our own way. Well, the ultimate end and challenge of true freedom in the name of love is that we have to be willing to let people make choices. That's why we cannot just seek to prevent their choices because we know their choices will be wrong. That's not true freedom, and thus it is not true love, love cannot be forced.

It's wholly inaccurate to cast God as the petulant child who stamps His feet and sends us to torment and horrors unspeakable because we won't be His friend. We are the spoiled ones, we're the ones who are obsessed with our addictions, our desires, our whims, even when we're aware that they're not good for us at all, and not good for others either. We're the ones who don't give a damn, and don't care about each other. We're the selfish ones, the petulant ones, the whiny ones. Look around you and you'll see it.

And yet God has given us the chance to be, to live, to know the sheer glory that is life, even in this Fallen state. Would you truly ask Him to rescind such good for any being?

An Open Letter to the Church

2009-10-27T21:25:00.000-04:00

It's a lonely walk to salvation, or so it seems. Wide and easy is the path to Hell, both in Scripture, and in observation of the world. Many are on their way to Death. And so few seem to walk the path to Life. Something has been missing in recent years even among those who, on the face of it, walk that path. A recent Pope said that what each parish needs is a committed group of orthodox, lay parishioners who would take up a core, leadership role in their communities. I don't know that each parish has this. I know that my parish has it, and still the Church seems weak, unable to accomplish the mission required of her.

I decided this day to ask certain people whom I love in a way new and mysterious to me to walk with me on the road to salvation. It occurred to me that I, despite thinking in the communal terms familiar to Catholics, still primarily viewed my salvation as precisely that. My salvation. I saw salvation as an individual affair. Not to the same degree as so many Protestants seem to, but still to the point where I realized that I was still alone, even when I should have been encompassed. At this I marveled, because I have lately found myself in awe that in my life I know such Saints as I do, slowly suffering martyrs for God and those they encounter. I do not jest when I say that I am surrounded by people whom I can actively see God turning into His next generation of the Elect. Right before my very eyes, though often they cannot or do not see it. Compared to them I count as almost nothing, but each one is like a tiny beacon burning brightly, but alone, in a barren landscape. They talk with me of the encounters they have with others, how people they don't even know come to them with thanks and praise for the hope and guidance they have given.

Why do they walk alone? Why do they shine alone? Why do they speak with me, a man far removed from their lives and situations? Why do others even more removed turn to them for guidance? Why, in rare instances, do they even turn to me?

Where are the people in their lives who are dedicated to walking the path to salvation with them? Not just those who are dedicated to Sainthood, but those who have made a committed effort to joining them in the struggle, so as to have partners and friends, confidants and comrades, a living community of Saints to blaze like the sun instead of scattered stars. They would illuminate the world with their brilliance and draw others to them like moths. Imagine a world where every parish had an ever growing community of such Saints, men and women wholly dedicated to serving God together, as real friends and family, as opposed to the mere distant politeness we observe today in the average parish? I myself am no less guilty, of the most orthodox families and people in my parish, I have met only a few, am friendly with only a handful of individuals, and find myself while polite, still quite distant, from those who should be my greatest allies, people who come up to me after Mass or catechesis to ask me questions, or compliment me (generally quite undeservingly) on a lesson or discussion.

These people should be my allies, there, I have struck the very core. They should be but they aren't, I don't pray with them save in the Mass, I don't know them, speak with them often, know about their families and their individual struggles. Likewise they know nothing of mine. We're politely distant individuals walking the loneliest road to the same place. Why don't we help each other along?

We all feel the need for such aid, in truth. That's the exact reason why people do approach these friends of mine who are living Saints, why some even approach me, weak alternative though I am. People need, instinctively, this aid in their lives. People need to walk the path to God communally, and that means reaching out to others on that path to join together. Consider, however, the methods. Most of these Saints I know from Internet apologetics. They are an entire generation which has learned to seek community not just in their neighborhoods and parishes, but across the globe. Where are the people in their lives who should be providing for them hope, counsel, and succor in spiritual darkness, when the path grows too dim to see? Why are they turning to the anonymity of cyber-space, to complete strangers? Thank God for the weary, happy few who encounter living Saints. Pray to God for the salvation of the deluded many who encounter the charlatans, crack pots and veritable demons of our age, as they prowl about seeking the ruin of souls.

What the world needs, what we need is not just committed groups of lay Catholics in the parishes, it is bringing those running the race to the same course, and letting them chase together the prize, encouraging and instructing each other along the way. We need to stop standing as islands of piety in an ocean of secularism, or fonts of charity in a desert of greed. Instead, we must transform our parishes into cities of God, with each citizen feeling connected to the whole, looking out for the good of the others as well as themselves, that when one stumbles or falls, there are hands ready and waiting to pick him or her up.

The barriers to this transformation are many. The rapid disintegration of the family, which was once the backbone of such a community. The ever decreasing amount of civic society and expanding trends in solitary entertainment as opposed to social connections. The expanding tramp of the work place into the sacred spheres of home and church and family. The cries in crescendo of consumerism, capitalism, even communism and all the other chants of the modern world vie for our attention and distract us from both the path to sanctity and relationships with others. The Internet, which has proven itself a formidable tool in both evangelism and apologetics has also lent itself to the growing lack of connection with real people in a real environment. The importance of basic, local human connections; the value of a well-timed hug or smile; and forthright, person-to-person conversation about who and what truly matters simply cannot be understated. We have less and less of it. Yes, in our digital era, information goes farther and faster, at the cost of all human warmth, familiarity and with the increasing danger of viewing people not as people, but as disembodied voices on which we can vent ourselves without qualm.

These problems, however, are not insurmountable. Starting first with the people we love, and expanding ever outwards so that our love encompasses everyone willing to shelter within it, those of us with both eyes on the coveted crown need to begin building these communities. Like the first monks, we need to find those of like mind, and walk together, work together and will together. It really is that simple, and it truly can be done. As today's Gospel illustrated, even from a seed as tiny as that of the mustard tree, a wonderful bounty can grow. Even from a bare amount of yeast, much dough can be leaven. We are called to this task, to the revitalization of the community of Saints, to the fruition of the Kingdom. Beginning today, I will seek God not alone, but in company. In the fellowship not only of the Communion of Saints in Heaven, but of those on Earth. Never again in the impersonal and immaterial way of this world, or in my previous and shallow understanding of the Church family, but in the way of the Church Triumphant to which we aspire. Together we Rise.

The Creation Myths and Evolution

2009-10-06T12:11:00.002-04:00

While I've addressed the Creation myths in earlier posts on this blog, I've been queried specifically as to how in particular one can understand the accounts to be mythical, and where the line is drawn with regard to those myths and the historical narratives found elsewhere in the Old Testament. And the corollary to this issue being the question of how evolution and Creation can possibly co-exist.

In addressing the first issue, we have to understand the historical context of the book of Genesis. The book of Genesis is not a single book. Think of it as a microcosm of the Bible itself. While we call the Bible, the "Book" essentially, we all know and understand that it's made up of dozens of books from various times and places, and with varied influences and styles of literature. It even involves different original languages for its different texts (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic). We know, therefore, that approaching the Bible as a monolithic work is a flawed basis for any sort of exegesis. Proper hermeneutics really begins with a grounding in the historical context of the work in question. The "Book" of Genesis leaves us with a similar issue. Unlike many of the other Books of the Bible, it doesn't exist as a whole piece of literature written for a specific purpose. For example, Exodus was written to relate the details of the escape of the Hebrew people from the Egyptians and their subsequent trials in the desert, etc. Leviticus and Deuteronomy tend to focus on the legal and societal regulations for the Hebrews. The later books tell the history of the Hebrew state, and show its frequent apostosization and repentance through the eyes of the prophets, and then its eventual destruction. Genesis, however, does not confine itself to one story, one pair of eyes, one main character or even one segment of a story. It's not just the story of Abraham, as Exodus was really the story of Moses, and it's not the story of Adam, even while Adam's lament is more potent than Isaiah's. Like the Bible, Genesis tells several stories, through the mouths of several authors and voices.

Historically, Genesis was written at a later date than the rest of the Pentateuch. But the stories of Genesis are much older even than Exodus. Genesis is essentially the written compilation of an oral tradition that stretched back not only thousands of years to Abraham, but to the dawn of the human collective memory with "Adam" whose name is not only "dust" but also "Mankind," and Eve, who is the Mother of the World. Which is precisely wherein we can see and draw the line between the portions of Genesis that comprise myths of the Hebrews, and those parts which are more historical narration, and we can see in the Hebrew psychology the very necessary connection between them.

Before proceeding, we have to understand what myths are, and what they are not. Myths are stories designed to relate a truth or truths to the audience. They are most often used to explain natural phenomena or unexplainable events. They may be and often are based on historical persons or events, but they do not have to be. They generally refer to the past. They are not lies, they are not history, they are not scientific accounts. They do not relate scientific facts. They are not textbooks.

To fully appreciate this, we have to understand the difference between facts and truth. A fact, for the purpose of our discussion here, is a thing which is demonstrably and verifiably, particularly through science, to be true. It is a fact that apples fall from trees in our experience, it is a fact that Evan is writing this article, it is a fact that water is a molecule comprised of two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms. All facts are true. But not all truths are facts. I claim that it is true that there was an event in primordial antiquity wherein the whole of humanity as represented by its progenitors "Adam" and "Eve" Fell from Grace with God and into the imperfection we know today. But I do not claim that the names "Adam" and "Eve" were the factual, ie actual, names of those progenitors. The names are, as already noted, as symbolic as they are anything else, for all of humanity at its beginnings. Nor will I claim it factual that the first sin was the eating of a particular fruit, nor that there was necessarily a talking serpent, even while it is true that the first sin was one of disobedience and a desire to be like unto God, and the first temptation had at its root Satan, who is the oldest pretender to that particular throne. I claim that it is true that God imbued humanity with a unique spirit, creating a soul which is a commingling of the material and the spiritual such that we can never be complete as either one alone. But I will not say it is a fact that we were molded out of clay. These are examples of the truths taught by the Creation myths that cannot be treated as factual stories or claims.

So how do we know where the line is drawn between history and myth? It is simple. The Book of Genesis relates multiple stories, the figures in which are either easily identifiable as mythic in proportion and stature, or historical. Abraham, for instance, is an historic figure. We know that when Abraham's story begins, we're dealing with a narrative of the history of the Hebrew people. We also know that Adam and Eve's story exists particularly to explain certain truths understood by the Hebrews (the Fall, the Soul, etc.) while not being necessarily entirely factual. So what about the materials in between Adam and Abraham, and the persistent geneologies presented that would seem to indicate factual history?

The Hebrew people placed a tremendous importance on family, and upon lines of relations and relatives. Part of this importance can be seen in the very first historical Hebrew, Abraham, to whom God promised a family which would have more members than there are stars, while he and his wife were so old as to make natural conception impossible. Complex and all encompassing geneologies were important to the Hebrews in likely many ways, but the way which this author is most confident of is in their ability to link each Hebrew to another Hebrew, and so propogate the belief of their nation as a whole family, fostering a stronger sense of community. Then there is the notion of descent and kinship, particularly in the case of the descendents of David and the promised Messiah. The Prophets knew that the savior of the Jews would come through the line of David, who was the greatest of their Kings. It was important to the Hebrews that their first great King be connected to their last and greatest King, and likewise that David's line should stretch back to Abraham, father of their people, and that Abraham's line should stretch back to Noah, whose line stretches back to Adam and Eve. It's a contiguous union of humanity, and it's the human part which is most important, for the Hebrews, and for Christians now.

Remember the two principle truths of the Creation myths already discussed? The Fall, and the Soul. Both of these things were things common to all humanity, ie all the descendents of Adam and Eve. It is important to have a direct connection, even one that is mythical, with those original humans, both for the purposes of theology concerning Christ's redemptive sacrifice, but also in understanding our own nature as fallen Creatures with unique souls.

The Patriarchs of the Hebrews prior to Abraham are largely mythic persons. In ancient days, these names were related via story telling, not from written records of any factual reliability. This isn't to say it's not true that there's an ancient connection, indeed all current science that I've seen indicates that humanity had a common origin point, it's to say that the names and supposed ages are matters of story and myth. They explain the relationship of the Hebrews to Adam, they explain the Hebrews' place in the world, and particularly for them, their unique relationship with God. Why the Hebrews for all the covenants and promises? If you asked them back then, you'd likely see that they believed their connections to Adam and Eve were part of it, and the stubborn Godliness of their forebears.

A quick note on Hebrew numerology before we continue. Remember that numbers for the Hebrews were not merely means of counting, they were highly symbolic references to other things. Three and seven, for instance, were numbers relating to God. Forty is another powerful number, as is twelve, and of course twelve times twelve, or seven times seven, etc. are even more powerful. They refer to things like God Himself, or God's time, or all of time, and a complex study of them must be taken into account when examining the numbers used in the Bible. The numbers are not always meant to be facts, but they do have hidden truths. Seven days of Creation is not factual, but that doesn't mean the use of the number seven doesn't have particular meaning and importance that is true. So too the numbers of years and ages of the mythical Patriarchs should be taken into account, though I admit I lack the education in Hebrew numerology to tell the meanings and possible interpretations therein.

Thus we come to Noah. Are we still in the mythical portions of Genesis? Noah is major confirmation of this, for his story is yet another story of explanation. Buried in the communal memory of Man is this idea of a Flood as cleansing as Baptism. Particularly it is buried in the minds of Mesopotamia, and is referenced in the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Sumerian mythic figure who was said to have met the man who survived the Flood. What's the historical context? The Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Mesopotamia, is the ancient cradle of human civilization, and the region from which Abraham and the Hebrews originally hailed. It is an area wherein the yearly flooding of the rivers was both a cause of tragic death, and the means by which the river plains were saturated with nutrients allowing farmers to bring about crops and keep the population sustained and even growing. Floods were conceivably and quite justifiably the perfect symbol of death and rebirth to those people, and the story of Noah not only explains the horrors of the great Flood which cleansed the Earth and gave Man a second chance, but also grants the hope of God's promise that floods would never again destroy Man. A promise very much needed by those peoples.

Not only that, of course, but we can see in Adam, and in Noah, and in many other Patriarchs of the Hebrews some reflection of Christ, who was the new Adam, Christ who saved Humanity from an even greater peril and turned the waters from destruction to salvation, etc.

And finally we come to Genesis 11, the story of Babel. Still myth? Well, is it a story which attempts to explain some natural riddle or event which was not otherwise understandable? Yes. It does. Placing oneself into the Hebrew family at the time of the telling of such stories, one of the first questions might be why it is that people, if all are descended from Noah in a fairly short stretch of time, have so many differing languages and customs. Remember that the Hebrews were often a people apart, and would encounter many other nomadic and settled peoples in the Mesopotamian region. Every area would have different customs and languages. Why so different? The story of the Tower of Babel attempts to explain the sundering of Mankind into so many confused and distinct fiefdoms. Does it do so factually? No. We can all likely agree that no tower could ever threaten to enter the actual Heaven, and certainly we could never actually threaten God. But is it true? Is it at all conceivable that humans had the arrogance in the depths of our past when we all lived closer together to challenge God, or that human pride encompassed trying to build massive monuments to our own glory, and so we estranged ourselves from our brothers? Why yes, I do believe these are quite conceivable. In fact, I'd say the past is riddled with examples of human leaders mad with their own legends and building massive monuments to themselves. The Pyramids, the gardens of Babylon, the tomb of the first Chinese Emperor, Chiang Shi Huang (might have mis-spelled that one), etc.

And so chapter eleven closes with more geneologies, linking up humanity's scattered remains with one particular man. A man named Abram. And at that point we not only see that we're no longer working with stories designed to explain problems and answer questions, but that we're looking at a fairly detailed historical description of one man's life, family and covenant. The style of writing changes, the voice of the author changes, the length and details of the narrative itself become longer and more in depth. There's a marked change in literary style between chapter eleven and chapter twelve, and that's not even getting into the theological distinctions of the small stories versus the main story of the age.

Now, as already mentioned, the corollary to all this is the question of Evolution and Creation, and how the two can possibly co-exist. When understanding the Creation accounts as myths, it is possible to be both a Christian who believes that God created everything, and also an Evolutionist who believes that the current theory of evolution offers the most reasonable and simple scientific solution to the specification of life. Science doesn't contradict Genesis, nor Genesis science, because the myths in Genesis, like all myths, were never meant to relate scientific facts. They relate truths, principally spiritual truths about our relationship with God. There is no reason why God, who is outside of time, could not or would not create slowly as compared with quickly. In fact, there's a great deal to be said for God allowing the universe to develop based on a rational scheme, simply because He Himself is Rational, and created us to be rational and wants us to understand His Creation to the best of our abilities.

The only major caveats to understanding the co-existence of Evolution and Creation are in the two principle truths already discussed. We must admit, as Christians, that humans are specially created souls, ie that they are physical entities commingled with a unique spirit given from God, and that our Creation was the highest of God's Creation, that we are Stewards of the whole Earth. This is something that science, necessarily, cannot comment on. Science can no more measure the soul than it can offer moral or philosophical comments on whether we are "higher" or "better" than anything else. And we must admit as Christians that as those special Creations of God, we chose to reject Him and so Fell and changed the world. What the world was like before that Fall, we have only glimpses and dreams to tell us, and one ancient story. What it is like afterwards, we have all of modern science and religion to describe.

"Why did Jesus have to die and why is it so meaningful?"

2009-09-23T21:45:00.002-04:00

(Click the title to see the original Facebook thread this is from. There may be contextual issues of understanding and references that do not make sense otherwise. I will attempt a long version at some point so that such points become moot, but for now, enjoy!)

As promised, I'm going to attempt to answer this for you. It's something I've written on several times, each time adding a bit more as I understood more, so I should be able to give you a fair amount. My only concern is length. I could write, if not a whole book, then a decent sized chapter in a book, on this very question. My purpose here will be to give you a basic overview in Christian philosophical and theological understanding of these issues, so that you can lay the groundwork for understanding the details, should you choose to go into them further.

As Pamela has already begun with the notion that God meant for man to be happy, I will begin there as well, for continuity's sake, if nothing else.

And to do that, I'll have to address some differences between what we mean when we say, "happy" as opposed to what is commonly understood by happiness. Christians understand happiness to be the teleological end of Man, in that Man's nature and purpose is happiness, and that happiness is achieved through communion with God, who made Man, in a loving relationship. Happiness to Christian theology is NOT an emotion, nor is it related to pleasure and suffering, the two emotions most commonly related to it.

Which is why Bob would object that if we're meant to be happy, why is there suffering, while Pamela would respond that plenty of suffering people have been happy. Both are responding with equally valid points given their world views. The issue is that they see the world so differently that they will talk right past each other.

Bob's objection, however, is the one that most concerns us, because it's the most relevant to Christ's sacrifice, and thus to YOUR questions. Why is there so much suffering on Earth if we were meant to be happy, and presumably that pleasure would be a part of that (which is hardly an unsafe assumption, all things considered)?

The Christian response is that Adam and Eve, who are not only the first two humans, but also representatives of all of humanity (even in the ancient Hebrew, the word Adam means simultaneously "dust" and "Mankind," while Eve means, "Mother of Nations"). The characters in the second Creation myth are to be understood not only as two actual people (though all the events may not have happened literally, as they are myths) but even more importantly as the entirety of humanity. And the point of the story, more than anything else, is that humanity fell.

The Christian belief is that humans were created completely and totally good, and that there was no sin in the created world. The Christian belief is STILL that humans and all created things are baseline good, something we will return to shortly. The Fall, without getting into too much detail, was the result of humans choosing through their own wills to go against God's will, and this is often described to have occurred through pride and a desire to be independent, as well as temptation from the Devil, ha-satannah. Prior to the Fall, the Earth was perfect. No suffering, no spiritual death (damnation), not even physical death. No natural disasters, no calamities, etc.

The Fall is considered an event which is atemporal. In other words, while it occurred within the flow of time, its consequences were felt both before it and after it, in such a way as to distort reality itself. Pam offered a computer program analogy, and it really is the best possible one currently for explaining it.

Imagine that a brilliant computer programmer creates a program which is a virtual Eden, and places within it actors who have the ability to affect their program, a la the One in the Matrix, for instance. This is Creation 1.0. The actors within the program who have the ability to alter the program then do something drastically against the original programming of the system.

If the original programming of the system was designed so that these actors and the original programmer could interact in a meaningful way through their mutual assent, then this action on the part of the actors in the program would be something contrary to that programming, such that it alters the entire program. With the alteration of the program, Creation version 2.0, everything changes, and nothing changes, from the perspective of the entities within the program. To their best ability to perceive, the world never changes. When a computer program is changed, like Facebook, for example, the old materials that accumulated before the update don't remain in the old format, they take on the new format. Someone joining Facebook for the first time would never know there was an old format that was over written. Someone using Facebook through the updates would notice the changes, but never be able to go back to the original, and never be able to show others what it was like, because despite the update happening at a finite moment in time, the effects apply to the memory cache and to future usage.

It's the same for us. The Fall "updated" our reality, such that Adam and Eve went from being sinless and living in paradise to living in a world with suffering and disasters, death and disease and corruption of every good thing. And everyone coming after them, coming after the "update" has always and only known the updated version, never the original. And as they look back on history, all they'll ever see is the effects of the update on the original materials, never the original materials as they were supposed to be and once were.

Now, the first question I would ask here is why? Why did the Fall do this, and what was the most important ramification?

So we have Creation 1.0, wherein no one ever dies, everything is perfect, etc. Remember how I said Christian believe humans and everything else is baseline good? That is because Christianity believes that things, ie entities which participate in the act of existence, are good because the act of existing is good. Anything that exists = good. This is largely because all goodness requires that a thing exist in order to apply.

The reason we believe God is Good, is because we conclude that God is the act of existence itself, (the arguments for this I won't go into, as I'm trying to be as brief as I can). Because God is the act of existence itself, we believe that every thing that exists, exists because God wills for it to exist, and that only God could end that existence.

This means that Goodness, for Christianity, entails every thing in the world, and the world itself. Evil, on the other hand, is the negation of goodness. Which means that THINGS are always good, but actions and choices can be good or evil. I can choose to deny something good, for example by taking someone's life, a good thing, and destroying it. That's evil, the act itself. And I am injured by it, but I remain existent and thus baseline good. I can also choose to embrace something good, like having a child, and nurture a new existence, which is good. The act is good, and it's good for me.

Now humans exist, but we're not quite that simple. Christians believe that entities can exist but not be physical, like God and angels and demons. These are entities which exist, yet are not physical. They have no physical life, but still exist. Humans, however, have both an existence, and a physical life.

So we exist in Creation 1.0, and we have physical bodies. Our existence, as I've noted, is solely dependent on God's will. But our lives, as they are not our actual existence, but the, shall we say, manifestation of our existence here, are within our own power. In Creation 1.0, our lives are neither ending nor corrupted by any sickness or problems. We have perfect physical bodies to go with our untainted spirits, and that commingling of body and spirit is what we call the soul, which is the true human nature, spirit and body together.

Back to Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve disobey God. Remember for a moment the elements of the myth: They eat of a tree which has a particular kind of knowledge, knowledge of good and evil, as its fruit, and which they are told they will die if they eat of it. This is a myth, it's not necessary to believe that there was an actual tree or a talking serpent, etc., but the lessons and truths are still intact, even if we don't believe the alleged facts. The truth is that humanity at the very edge of its collective distant memory, passed on a story, even then very old, about how things were once better, and then changed, and that that fall involved disobedience against God, which gave to us a knowledge of good and evil which we didn't have before, and brought the consequence of evil, death, into the world.

What is this knowledge of good and evil? Good question! It's not the ability to morally evaluate something, as some interpret the story, because Adam and Eve in their dialog with the snake clearly seem to know that it isn't right to eat the apple, even if they don't understand why God has commanded it. That knowledge is more likely the experiential knowledge of evil, and the realization of the loss of good that that knowledge would entail necessarily through the eating of the apple they weren't supposed to eat. In other words, it was knowledge of evil because it was the only evil thing they could choose to do, and again, it probably wasn't literally the eating of an apple. The true rebellion was in disobedience, it was in the desire to be "like God," that the snake awoke in humanity, the act itself could have been any number of things.

Why is death the consequence? Death is the consequence because life is the greatest good of humanity which is directly within humanity's power to alter. In other words, the entities in Creation 1.0 have the ability to alter the entire code of the software, they can change anything in the program itself, but they can't change the hardware, and they can't delete the program. So they can destroy their own existence within the program, but only the Programmer can destroy the computer itself and delete the program itself. Which means that humans can deny the second greatest good, life, but that they can never assault their own existence, because their existence is willed for constantly by God, and for Him to remove that willing would be for God to do evil, which He logically cannot do.

Thus God always wills for us to exist, and when we rewrote the program such that all the good things in the world were corrupted, we altered everything that existed save our own basic existence. Life itself ended in death, and everything in the world changed to reflect it, with natural disasters and tragedies, disease, famine, war, etc. Death, like all evils, is not a thing in and of itself, but the negation of a good, life. We have life, a good, and then it ends, because we corrupted the original programming.

Thus we have why the Fall did this, and what it's mosts important ramification was. The Fall did it because disobedience to God, who is the source of Good, thus entailed that all good things in our world came under assault and corruption, and the most important ramification of this is our own loss of immortality.

What we often call this is the fall from Grace, meaning that prior to the Fall, we had a nature which was focused upon Love, selflessly, with God and each other, and afterwards we not only became more selfish with each other, we became selfish towards God, and turned away from Him, so losing His Grace, which helps guide us towards goodness.

That, btw Bob, is why all humans are accountable for Original Sin. It doesn't mean we are all GUILTY of that sin, it means that that sin affected the relationship of the entirety of humanity with God. We became deprived of the Grace we need to have our end in God, and thus happiness in the Christian world view. While we're not individually guilty for that first sin, we are guilty of our own sins, and we've all been a part of that sundered relationship.

Which brings us to Christ. Why do we NEED Christ, and what was so momentous about what He did?

We need Christ to bridge the gap that developed between God and Man, so that Man could return to God and no longer be deprived of God's Grace. This bridging would allow Mankind to once again have its telos fulfilled, we could commune with God in Love, and have that happiness.

Now, Pamela has already touched somewhat on this subject, in that there is an apparent contradiction between mercy and justice.

Humans are still good, remember. We exist, and so are good. But we're deprived of Grace and we do evil things, making our relationship with God antagonistic. And our actions are evil, which means that as a Just entity, God cannot allow them to go without redress. But because we are still good, God still loves us, and desires for us to have our end be with Him. So Justice demands that evil be redressed and addressed, but Mercy pleas that humanity be brought back to God.

As Pamela said, the solution to this is that God Himself must address and redress the grievances of evil in the relationship, since humanity is simply incapable of restoring the relationship and curing itself. And this isn't a "snap the divine fingers, all is forgiven, humans can come home" sort of deal. Justice DEMANDS that the consequence of sin, ie Death, be met, it's the logically necessary effect of the actions we committed. Now, God, being Loving, cannot ask a member of His Creation to die for this, even if one of us were capable in our nature of taking on the consequences of the entirety of our species.

Which leaves God as the one who has to do it. And as Pamela noted, Justice also demands that a HUMAN meet the consequences, as it was humans who entailed them. So God had to become a human to do it.

That is where Christ enters the picture, the God-Man, the being who is 100% God and 100% Man, and so can bridge the gap between humanity and the Divine.

Skipping then a huge amount of material, we will fast forward to the end of Christ's life, and the momentous events of the Passion.

What happens? The God-Man, according to both ancient prophecies of the Hebrew people whom God prepared exactly for the purpose of His eventual coming, and according to His own words and statements, was executed for crimes He didn't commit, in an expression of many of the worst sins we're capable of. He was murdered, plain and simple, the sin in which the consequences of Death are most obviously and keenly realized, and murdered in an exquisitely brutal fashion.

And so Christ, the God-Man, did what He came to Earth in the first place to do, He came to die at the murderous hands of His own Creation. He had to die, He had to die at human hands, and He had to die unjustly, and He used that to His advantage to deliver His final lesson on pain, that we must embrace it to meet God, not flee from it, and thus find our happiness with God. For God Himself suffered horribly, and that is where we will first encounter Him. And that, Bob, brings you full circle. Why is there less happiness and how can Pamela speak of Joy in suffering? Because humans chose for evil and so brought about the corruption of pleasure and the proliferation of suffering, and God Himself embraced suffering so that we might come back to Him.

Christ dies upon the Cross, and His last words are words of forgiveness. And all of Creation 2.0 shudders, the sky goes black, the earth quakes, etc., for the program has literally killed the Programmer. God-Man died and the whole of humanity's sins were laid upon His shoulders in those hours of evil, so that He took upon Himself the punishment of every person who would turn away from Evil and come back to God throughout all of human history, both before and after. For the Passion and the subsequent Resurrection are also events that are timeless. Like the Fall, they rewrote Creation, beginning at the Passion and ending at the Resurrection.

And that's where we answer the final branch of the question. Why is it so meaningful? Not only is it meaningful because Christ takes our sin upon Himself and its consequences, thus allowing us to be re-united with God, but because of what happens AFTER the Death of the God-Man. Remember, Death was the consequence of Human sin, Human rejection of God. Death came into the world through human hands. But the God-Man who died also Rose. Death itself, which had conquered all life and corrupted all physical existence, was conquered in turn by the God-Man, and Creation 2.0 became Creation 3.0, the Earth entered into a new program. And Creation 3.0 existence such that Humanity's will was respect, it's choices remained, and the world yet knew the consequences of human sins, yet humanity could, if it willed to join with God, return to Him and His Good, and know the happiness it was meant for, which would end, ultimately, in the conquest of Death for all those who joined the God-Man, and in the perfection of all that was once perfect and then Fell, the New Earth that will occur after the Last Judgment.

It is meaningful because not only do we now have hope of coming to know God as we never had before (at least from our perspective) but because we also have the hope of a world and an existence as we were meant to have it all along. For humanity was always meant to be both body and spirit, united as I said in the human soul. It is our greatest hope to be united with God and have our spirits with Him united again with the perfected Bodies that were once ours.

And that is the short version, haha.

PS: Another twist in the Justice/Mercy issue is humans doing penance, but we can address that later.

Religion Discussion (Second Rebuttal)

2009-07-27T18:19:00.002-04:00

Worry not, I completely understand lacking the time or the right words to complete a debate. Feel free in the future to take as much time as you need. I'm glad that you didn't have any doubts that Christians had teachings, that's a good point to agree on.

You challenge that there were teachings that exist and say that Christ was not God prior to the 4th Century, but again, as I've already demonstrated and argued, the mere existence of a contrary opinion doesn't invalidate or render nonexistent the orthodox belief and teaching. It would be no better were I to argue that because there were those at the time of Muhammed who didn't believe he was a prophet, we cannot trust any teaching now that says Muhammed was a prophet. That someone disagreed back then only means that people disagreed.

Now as to the teachings regarding Christ's divinity, as far as I'm aware there was no formal challenge to the notion prior to Arius, which is why his heresy was such a big deal. And again, the Church works off of the teachings of Christ Himself through the Apostles, that is the deposit of faith from which inerrant teachings come. Whether individual humans, who I'm sure you can agree are fallen and fallible, taught something is less important than what Christ taught and what the Church taught. If they even did teach it, which again, I'm not aware of. The major heresies before Arianism had to do with gnosticism and were actually a rejection of the material universe, not Christ's divinity.

And it seems to be implied that there were written teachings, a la Scripture, that declared Christ to be not divine, prior to the 4th Century, on the level of the Scriptures that were later approved by the Church for the Biblical Canon. As far as I'm aware, all Scripture comporting this or the idea that the material world was evil (gnosticism), came in the second and third centuries, AD, nowhere near to Christ's life and the lives of the Apostles.

I am also glad we can agree that the early Christians were not playing telephone. As to the idea that the teachings would be changed either because someone intentionally changes them or because someone mistakenly changed them, sure, that happens. It happens now, and it happens then.

The difference, Mr. Diga, is that those are mistakes made by individuals. You'll find no instance wherein the Church itself taught one thing, and then changed its mind and taught something else that contradicted an infallible teaching. The Church never does it in 2000 years of history. The individuals who do it, yes, some made mistakes, and again we have a Church that can teach for very reason of correcting such errors. Those who purposefully corrupted the teachings to suit their own ends or attack Christian can certainly not be called Christian, nor are their teachings Christian. And again, those teachings are known because they are contrary to what the belief of Christianity was. The Church taught, it clarified, it corrected all these errors and assaults, weaving a path along the razor's edge between truth and falsehood, avoiding dozens of theological and philosophical pitfalls throughout the centuries.

Nor does either possibility allow one to conclude, as you did, that, "no teaching could have survived by oral speach." This is a non sequitur, you've concluded it, but without premises which make the conclusion valid.

Your skepticism does you well, Mr. Diga, but I wonder why you haven't applied it to your own religious structure. In your example, you note that Muslims would trace through every scholar the path of a teaching. If this is the case, you've done two things. First is that you've demonstrated that a teaching can survive being passed orally. Second is that you've put implicit faith in those writing that they heard this from someone. How do you know they actually heard it? That it is written down someone doesn't make it either more factually correct, nor more likely to be the actual message, nor more likely to contain revealed, divine truth. It only makes it easier to trace. Your own argumentative style would cause problems for Islam as well. Nothing in the chain of Muslim scholars proves anything in and of itself, nor can claims of goo reputation of trust worthiness demonstrate anything conclusive about their passed down teachings.

As for Christianity, we can see the passing down and maintenance of Christian belief in the writings of the Church Fathers, and we can see orthodox Christian teaching in the authoritative documents of the Church itself. Yes, at a certain point, one chooses to have faith either in a person or an institution. We both fall into this category, and must both concede that we do. The issue is more truly, which of us has selected the right thing to place our faith in, and why.

And yes, there were plenty of Early Christian writings before Nicaea.

I never said that Christianity prior to Nicaea didn't have divisions, Mr. Diga, I noted that the divinity of Christ was not one of them, a point I've reiterated above. The major issues prior to Arianism were the Gnostsic heresies, which focused more on materialism and dualism than Christ's divinity. More importantly, again, the mere presence of disagreement does not render teaching invalid, nor mean that the correct teaching was not passed on. Further non sequitur.

It's interesting that you mention Muslim scholars who were "believers in Christ." Tell me, Mr. Diga, what would you say if I made claims about supposed "Muslims" who believe that Muhammed was not God's prophet? Or believe that Christ is God?

Would they actually be Muslims? Or would their claim to being "Muslim" be false due to the nature of Islam? Based on what I know of Islam, I would wager that their claim would be false, if they don't believe that Muhammed is God's prophet, and Christ was a prophet before him, they cannot be Muslim. Likewise, someone who rejects Christ as God can hardly be called a Christian, and for the same reason.

As for the alleged "gospel" of Barnabas, Mr. Diga, your skepticism again would serve you in better stead were you to direct it at your own claims and beliefs. Let us do so.

Prove that this so-called gospel was written by Barnabas, prove that it came from the 1st Century, prove that it accurately represents Christ's life, and prove that it is not just a corruption of Christian teachings by Muslims in order to prove Islam.

For example, you'll need to overcome certain hurdles. First is the fact that there are no references nor occurrences of this "gospel" before the 16th Century, or possibly the 7th. Second is the fact that none of the canonical Gospels, which all date from the first century in every range given, agree with it. Third is the fact that its trustworthiness is even denied by some Muslim scholars, a telling point given your own claims about determining trustworthiness in the Islamic system.

You are wise indeed not to trust this book, Mr. Diga, since it's not at all trustworthy. It's even less reputable than the Gnostic gospels. You shouldn't see it as confirmation of anything regarding Christ or His teachings, as it is vastly more likely to be a fabrication of Islam used against Christianity, particularly in Spain.

Now, you disagree with my arguments about the Church's authority based on what? Where does God say that He will only give authority to His prophets? I've not seen that in any writing of any prophet that Christians and Muslims agree is legitimate.

And as Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, and Jesus claimed that He was giving authority to a Church, your argument is self-defeating. If God gives authority to prophets, and a prophet gives authority to an institution, the institution would have that same authority. And if Jesus is not just a prophet, but God Himself, then we have an even stronger authority granted the Church.

I understand that you have the ability to disagree, Mr. Diga, I would appreciate it if you'd give slightly more reasoning behind your disagreement. I really do need to know what your basing this on, so I can address it. As I've already said, your claim seems to defeat itself straight off the bat.

As to your questions, first, the Church's authority exists within the Church, it is completely and utterly irrelevant where national borders are. Even the Vatican City is not the Church's authority itself, it's merely the state wherein the Pope resides, so he may not be held hostage by any one nation (which was a major issue in the earlier half of the 20th Century). The Church speaks in three ways. Through Councils. Through the universal teaching of all its Bishops. And through infallible Papal instructions. Again, nations do not come into it.

To the second, slavery exists even now, but slavery died out in Europe in the period spanning from approximately the 500s to the 1500s, which is due precisely to Christianity's influence and the Church's power in Europe at this time. In fact, the Church is on record multiple times in this era decrying the enslavement of free Christians by Muslims, and teaching several times over that the stealing of people for slaves was morally reprehensible. Slavery thrived in the Roman Empire (and earlier), and it burst back onto the scene with colonization and imperialism (aided and abetted by both scientists and religious who saw natives and indigenous peoples as less human or sub human).

Only Christianity began the teaching that all humans were created equal by God, whatever their lot was in life, and only Christianity began the teaching that all humans could be saved by God, that God loved everyone, and that every human person had value, worth and dignity. These ideas are generally the natural antithesis to the institution of slavery, particularly as it is known now. Nor has the Church "stopped" teaching about slavery. The Church never stops saying something is wrong. If the Church has infallibly taught it once, it infallibly teaches it for all time, regardless of whether it is reiterated in Councils. It is up to those of us in the Church to continually follow the Church's teachings, just as Muslims must continually follow the Quran, without waiting for updates to its teachings, nor requiring extra editions, or repetitions.

Your third point is not even worth addressing. You've begged the question. You cannot assume Muhammed was a prophet, and use your assumption to prove that the Church can't have authority. You're begging the question as to whether Muhammed actually IS a prophet. Obviously, I say he is not. So you'll have to prove it.

Shall we debate whether Muhammed is a prophet next? I look forward to your arguments proving this in your next post.

In contention to one of your final points, I did not argue that the Church is right because it is old. I argued that the Church has demonstrated continuity of teaching and belief, wherein it has never contradicted itself, and has been existant without pause. No other religious system can make such a claim. Both Buddhism and Hinduism continually alter and adapt their teachings, the claim that they have orthodoxy which remains consistent is impossible to determine. Islam isn't as old. Most pagan beliefs have died out and been revived at various points both before and after Christianity.

And Arians and Muslims differ in teachings, Mr. Diga, because they're not the exact same religion. Arianism quite probably influenced Islam, but it is not the same thing as Islam, and that plus the gap between Arianism as a corpus of believers and Islam as a corpus of believers puts paid to the notion that this is a contiguous belief of a major religion.

"i disagree, when you look at the christians world and teachings you are right.
but look at islam, the prophet mohamad's teaching and the Quran which is the book of God is enough to get you through any choice without commiting mistakes... in short, the prophet pretty much told us about everything we need. the remaining stuff could be figured out by men. it's as simple as what did the porphet had to say about this."

Is it? So Muslims never make interpretive mistakes? Muslims never disagree as to the meaning of passages in the Quran? Some Muslims don't interpret certain sections to be about, for instance, the conversion of pagans by warfare, while others do not? Some Muslims don't claim that Islam demands war with the West, Jihad, others say this is a misunderstanding of the nature of Jihad. Some Muslims say leadership of the Islamic world should be through the Prophet's family, do they not? Others disagree, yes?

The "prophet" certainly did not tell you everything you need. Islamic scholars have been interpreting the Quran from the very beginning, as well as the Hadith and other important works in Islam. If the remaining stuff could be figured out by men, they've done a rather paltry job of it.

One could equally claim that the Bible is sufficient to get one through any moral choice without doing evil. It's quite clear about most things, after all. But that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of nuance and layers of meaning which need clearer explanation and interpretation. If the Quran is really God's book, I would be amazed if it were so simple as to lack any thing at all which could not be misunderstood or misinterpreted. After all, God Himself is continually misinterpreted and misunderstood.

I hope you enjoyed this portion of our discussion, I look forward to continuing it! I certainly understand that we are both seekers of the truth, and that all our discussion occurs as part of that search, and as part of the testing of conclusions we've arrived at in that search.

Until next time,

Religion Discussion (Second Reply)

2009-07-27T16:41:00.001-04:00

"hello Evan,
sorry my response took so long... i just couldnt find the right to do it.

my response to the first point is that i had no doubts there were teachings

before there was the autorised versions in the late 4th century...
however, i must ask what about the teachings that existed and said christ

wasn't God? didnt those exist too?
--------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------
second point, i have no doubt they weren't playing telephone... you just have

to admit some stuff get changed on purpose because some would want the

teachings to go bad and some would do it by mistake... whatever the case...

no teaching could have survived by oral speach.

maybe giving you an alternative example would give you a better look at it:
when muslims deal with something that is supposadly said by prophet

muhamad they go through every person that has narrated it.
meaning: how did the author narrate this saying? person a told person b

who told person c who told person d..... who told person x that he heard the

prophet say: ...
the muslim scholar would have to investigate every person that is in that

chain to make sure he was a trustworthy person, this way and only this way

would we know that what we are taught is what was said by the prophet

himself.

where can we find that in the oral teachings of the early christians? what's to

prove they passed everything right?
what's to prove the documents we have that are supposedly writing by the

disciples of christ are trusyworthy.. do we have a chain of trusty ppl passing

it from one to another... or do we have the surfacing version after the nicaea

convention?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Third point, i must disagree. the christians were divided before nicaea and

were still divided afterwards. proof, the scholars in the 6th century that

believed in christ as a prophet and were waiting for a new prophet to

come... of course you wouldnt hear of those persons in christian teachings

because they didnt believe in christ as a god. the people that were

believers in christ as a prophet and lived to meet mohamad believed in him

too. i can mention waraqa bin nawfal who has studied scripture and was the

only follower of christ in mecca and salman al farisi who spent time as a

servent among few scholars that told him to follow the prophet to come...

i can give you another example, though i wouldn't consider this source

trustworthy but just to make a point: birnaba's gospel which is said to be

written by birnaba, adresses the idea that Jesus is not God but rather a

prophet and it even talks about Mohamad being a prophet. however,

birnaba's gospel isn't considered divine by muslims. but we look at it as a

comfirmation that christ's teaching were lost.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

your point on church's authority:
though you make some good point however i must disagree... the only

authority God gives is to his prophets, anyone disapproving the prophet

simply has no authority.
another idea which comes to mind is the authority of the church and its

teachings.
number one, where is its authority now if everything is ruled by seperated

countries?
number two, slavery existed all the way up to the 20th century. which means

that at some point the church had the authority to put an end to it and never

did. did christ teach us to take slaves? if no, how do u explain that the

church never ended slavery. if yes, why has the church stopped teaching us

about it?
number three, if the church had a divine authority, we wouldn't have prophet

mohamad (he came because we needed someone to guide the way)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
on a seperate point, you talked about the church existing since a long

consistant period of time... this point is doomed to fall because there are religions that date back to more than the church does...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the idea of a gap between the arians and muslim is a good point.. i add to it the fact that the last scholar, whose servent was salman al farisi(someone i mentioned earlier), told him that he knows no one that believed the same things he does, therefore salman should go and try to find the prophet to come...

why do they differ in teachings... i guess the basic idea which is to believe in God and in christ as a prophet would have been enough to say that they had the same basic ideas.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"we need an inspired, authoritative teacher, which is a living institution,

as opposed to a book or set of writings."
i disagree, when you look at the christians world and teachings you are right.
but look at islam, the prophet mohamad's teaching and the Quran which is the book of God is enough to get you through any choice without commiting mistakes... in short, the prophet pretty much told us about everything we need. the remaining stuff could be figured out by men. it's as simple as what did the porphet had to say about this.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

i hope you understand that this, the stuff i write are not to prove myself right or just to argue. i am just pointing out stuff and trying to find the right path. i hope it is the same for you. i hope i give your readers something interesting and helpful

may God lighten your path,

DIGA"

Is it Just to punish an innocent man? Pt. 6

2009-07-09T23:32:00.002-04:00

"Isn't it possible that the universe had no cause? If not why not?"

It is not possible that the universe had no cause, because the universe exhibits motion in terms of existence. It's expanding, and as far as we can tell, it did not exist as it does now before the Big Bang. If it moves to exist, something else must already have existed for it to be able to do so.

"How? I see no reason to think that the uncaused cause is God."

Well, I didn't want to drop a massive amount of information on you all at once. We'll go step by step, if that's alright with you.

So let's say, for argument's sake, that we've agreed there is no uncaused cause, and we now must examine what that uncaused cause is. My first argument after that would be that we know the Uncaused Cause is a being, since only a being could have chosen to create, and there's no other way an Uncaused Cause would create. As it cannot be caused to create, and thus cannot be forced to do anything, it must choose to do so.

We'll progress from there at the next juncture.

"Why?"

Because if we are correct that something caused the universe, then the universe is not an accident. It exists the way it exists because something created it to exist that way. Instead of an accident with neither reason nor purpose, it is a work of art with both.

"Wait a second, maybe science can't prove a deistic God, one that doesn't interact with the physical world and is above it like you say. But a theistic one, that does interact with the physical world like the Bible and Christianity says should have some sort of evidence."

No, science cannot prove any sort of God, because science depends on repeatable, testable, empirical evidence. Miracles, particularly historical ones, do not fall into any category of scientific analysis. And they do not generally leave very much hard evidence for scientists now to examine. Those that do, and there are a few, cannot be treated conclusively, since a skeptic can always find reasons to doubt.

"For instance the story in 1 Kings 18, where Elijah prays to have God burn his sacrifice. If that happened every time, that could be explored via the senses and be capable of repeated observation. But for some reason it doesn't happen every time. Why doesn't it?"

Because miracles are not natural phenomenon. They are supernatural events, there is absolutely no reason why they would, or even should, occur in laboratory conditions where they can be repeated and tested and observed. God acts as He wills, not as we do.

"I changed my view of the entire universe and my place in it, it was an incredibly humbling experience."

Except, of course, that the experience of going from a positive belief to a position of skeptical disbelief is not the same as going from a position of skeptical belief to one of positive belief. For the first, what is required is not evidence, it is anything that makes you doubt in such a way that your mind at the time cannot cope. For the second, what is required is not only a vast building up of evidence, but a movement in your interior, a conversion of the heart which is brought about by God.

So I ask again, how is this comparable?

"It's not pure subjectivity. I believe in things that can be proven through the scientific method. If I believed in voices that only I can hear that would be subjective."

No, you believe in things that have what you deem to be strong evidence, as you said before. You depend on your own subjective analysis to determine what is strong or not. That you believe empiricism proves anything means that you believe in pure subjectivity. Empiricism itself is purely subjective. Empiricism depends on the input of the senses, which are dependent on each individuals brain. They're as subjective as the "voices" example you provided. Each are stimuli interpreted by a brain, and frankly as legitimate as the other.

Moreover, your dependence on empiricism is only partial. Have you performed the experiments yourself? Have you gone through the whole corpus of modern science and tested it all yourself? No? Then what you're really relying on isn't even your senses, it's your personal trust for a system which you, in all likelihood, will never examine completely, nor truly test. You choose to believe it and accept it, which is why it's subjective.

"Because there would be evidence that there is a god."

There's evidence here that there is a God. But do all convert? People suffer on Earth, do they all convert? People are spoken to by God here on Earth, do they all convert? I'm telling you right now that God exists and loves you, are you going to convert as a result? Again, you seem to think you're entitled to as many opportunities as it takes, and this type of thinking only makes it impossible for you to actually love God. You're own attitude would make conversion, at any point, impossible. If you think yourself entitled to it, you'll never get it.

"The reason I don't believe in God is not because I hate God or because I only want to care about myself."

We're not talking about belief anymore. We're talking about conversion, which is more than belief, it's love. People cannot love God in the self-sacrificing way in which He loves them if they are selfish and believe themselves entitled.

"It is because there is no evidence of God."

Interesting claim. Can you prove it?

"And that is not the only reason. Sometimes the only thing people need to change their mind is time."

If it's not the only reason, what are the others?

The thing people need to change their mind is God.

"Maybe I misspoke when I said "should." It would not be just to constantly get another chance."

But then it must end at some point. If it ends at some point, why not death, when it would logically end anyway, since there's no more time left for decision making?

"But constantly giving another chance is something that an infinitely loving god would do."

That's an assertion, one I've already shown to be false. An infinitely loving God would want people to be with Him, out of their own love for Him. If they choose to not love Him, that's that. If it would not be to just constantly give them more chances, what would it be?

If you're just going to make these claims, you need to back them up.

"And it's something I hope I would do myself."

I don't think you've thought that through particularly well.

"Also, although it would not be just to always be given another chance, it would also not be just to have someone be tortured for eternity for any reason."

Who said anything about torturing people, or about there being no reason? Don't project your own false preconceptions onto Christian theology. Hell is neither about being tortured, nor do people go there without reason.

"Why couldn't God make an afterlife that's temporal and then once we chose to go to Heaven and accept God we go there and if we choose Hell we go there and if we choose nonexistence we can cease to exist?"

Why would God make an afterlife that is just like life? What is the point? At some point, we still have to be allowed to make a decision, why extend it? If a person didn't choose God in this life, despite all the myriad opportunities, why would they choose Him in the next? Again, what you seem to misunderstand is that the attitude of entitlement you're speaking from is the very attitude that prevents self-sacrificing love of God. A person who loved God wouldn't need such an afterlife. A person who didn't love God could never benefit from it, since they would still not love God. If this life was not enough, there's no EVIDENCE to believe another one would be.

And again, non-existence is not an option. Ending our existence would be evil. God is Good. Ergo, God will not allow our existence to end. And as only God can end it, God would have to directly act to end them. Thus our existences will not end.

"Why is our existence continually willed by God, but our life not? Why does God put our life in our control but not our existence?"

Because we have to be able to choose to love Him or not love Him, of course. Suicide is the ultimate rejection of good, the most potent and eternal sin. It is the sin that makes all other sins impossible, to paraphrase Chesterton. It's the fullest rejection of God we can make.

Our existence is willed by God because our existence is the very base line of goodness. In that we exist, we are still good, albeit corrupted, and we can be redeemed. If we cease to exist, we cannot be redeemed. Not only would our telos be unfulfilled, but the very good of our existence would be lost.

Now, our lives are willed for by God. God wills us to live, but allows us free choice. That only extends to the realm of our souls, ie the realm in which we live. Our choices then, can effect our lives, but our existence itself is metaphysical, it's beyond just this life that we live.

"It wouldn't be taken from us, we would be giving it away."

No, it would still be being taken away. You do not own your existence. You do not own your life. You do not own your body. Everything you are is a gift, or more accurately, a loan. God is the source of your existence, your life and your body, they were His first, and He is their author and origin. You get to use them, but you do not own them. You'd be taking from yourself, and from Him.

There is, after all, a reason why suicides are said to take their own lives. They're stealing from the one who gave them.

"God wouldn't be the one doing it, we would if we chose to."

God is the only being capable of doing so, so you're quite wrong there. God is the act of existence itself. Only God can choose for existence to end for a particular being.

"It's our choice, in the same way it's not God's fault if we choose Hell over eternity with him, wouldn't it not be God's fault if we chose nonexistence over eternity with him?"

Fault is irrelevant. We don't have that power, nor can we, as we are caused and contingent beings.

"Does that mean it is better to exist in Hell than not exist at all?"

It means existence itself is the first and foremost good we can know, and that to end existence would be the most paramount act of evil.

So yes, existence in whatever state is morally higher than to stop a being from taking part in the act of existence.

Is it Just to punish an innocent man? Pt. 5

2009-07-03T11:16:00.001-04:00

"Well give me some examples."

Ok. In metaphysics, for instance, we'd examine the nature of being. Everything that is, including the universe itself, demonstrates a movement from potential to actual existence. Ie, everything begins and changes. This leads us to question what allows this movement from potential to actual existence, for what reason do these things exist, what most people think of as a cause. In the case of the universe itself, when we ask this question, we have three possible answers, the universe caused itself, the universe's causes regress infinitely into the past, or something outside the universe caused it.

In the first case, nothing can cause itself, this is a logical impossibility, since something would have to exist before it exists to cause itself.

In the second case, infinite regression is another logical impossibility, as without a starting point from which to begin progressing, we could never exist at this moment. Our existence in the now requires a definitive starting point from which the universe can begin the progression through its causes and eventually reach us. Otherwise there's an infinite wait until now, and so we'd never reach it.

The third case is logically possible. Due to our rejection of the first two possibilities, it's the only logically viable solution, making it the one we choose via argumentum ad absurdum reasoning. There is also the possibility of some unconsidered option, so we leave that open to consideration as well. However, I've never thought of one, and no one else in the last 4,000 years has either, so I don't worry about it so much.

That third option dictates that something outside of the universe caused the universe. We must ask again why that thing exists, whatever it is. Again, because nothing can regress infinitely, and because nothing can cause itself, we must conclude eventually that some being outside the universe is uncaused, ie it exists without causes, eternally. No beginning, no ending. This being's essence then would be equal to its existence, such that instead of having potential existence and actual existence, (like everything else that begins and changes), it would be purely actual existence, pure act of existence (thus eternal and immutable).

From there we go further to reach the conclusion that this is God, but I don't want to get too far ahead of our discussion.

"I think that a reasonable standard would be the same standards we hold for gravity and electricity. Can you offer as much evidence that God exists as there is that electricity and gravity exist. If so what?"

That gravity and electricity exist are evidence that God exists. All of science is evidence of a rational Creator. The simple fact of the matter is that the universe does not have to operate along rationally intelligible principles that we can understand and follow to conclusions like the theory of gravitation. As the anthropic principle notes, the only reason we can even ask these questions is because the universe is the way it is. But the reason WHY it is that way can be answered in only one of two ways. Either it's pure accident, or it's rational design.

If I am correct that the universe is neither self-caused nor infinitely regressing in naturalistic causes, but caused by something else, the idea of it being accidental becomes exceedingly improbable, possibly even impossible.

Now, regarding your notion concerning the "standards" of gravity and electricity, these are both empirical standards, neither of which offers definitive proof, and neither of which are logically applicable to a being which is extra-natural or super natural. Empiricism measures only what can be explored via the senses and repeated observation. It's quite useless here.

"Christianity to atheism, I was a Christian for about 18 years, then for a I started really questioning my beliefs and about a year later I became an atheist."

Then how precisely is this the same as converting to Christianity?

"Evidence as strong or stronger than other things I believe in."

IE, pure subjectivity. Evidence stronger than other things YOU believe. Again, the problem of evidence is that it's all subjective.

"What I meant was I think everyone should be given the opportunity, even after they die."

Why? Why should they? This sort of mentality, again, just demonstrates a self-centeredness. If their life wasn't enough, why would they convert in the afterlife? If they are selfish enough to believe they SHOULD always get another chance, then they're never going to be selfless enough to love God.

"That's my point, the afterlife should exist in time."

Except you're running into a logical problem. If the afterlife is to be Heaven or Hell, they cannot be temporal. It's only states that are not those two that can have temporal aspects, since both those states are contingent upon one's relationship with an atemporal being. God could make some seperate afterlife that's temporal, but if the end God desires for us, teleologically, is HEAVEN, then eventually He has to say we've had our shot and we go where we've chosen to go. Infinite progression would thwart the entire purpose of Creation.

"Why?"

I have already explained this. Our existence is continually willed by God, and thus outside our control. This is the metaphysics of our being, being stems from the being which is pure act. So long as it causes us to have actual existence, we will have it. Our physical body, and thus our physical life, is contingent upon certain material points, not just metaphysical being. Thus our physical bodies can be killed, thus ending our lives. And it so happens that we as individuals have that ability, though we shouldn't exercise it.

"You're right. What I meant when I said assume was make a logical conclusion."

Then I agree, as you probably gathered.

"Why will he allow us to die if we want, but not stop ourselves from existing?"

Because God will not allow for our existence to be taken from us, it is the greatest gift He has given us, and only He could remove it. And He will not because such an act, existence being the principle good, would be evil. And God will not do evil, as His nature is good.

"Why is it so important to be able to claim to be independent?"

I'm not sure I've ever understood why it has been so important to humanity to be free. What I do know is that observing us, it does seem to be the case, even among Christians. And it's not just independence but a seeming equality with God.

"Where did Satan come from?"

He's an angel who, when the angels were presented with the ability to choose to serve God or themselves at their creation, chose to serve himself. He was the greatest of all the angels, reflecting most fully God, and it was through this, and the same desire for equality and independence that he choose to go his own way.

Is it Just to punish an innocent man? Pt. 4

2009-07-03T11:11:00.002-04:00

"What evidence is there?"

All kinds. Everything from nature itself to metaphysics. As I was discussing with John, the problem is that the nature of evidence is quite subjective. What one person accepts, another may not.

"They might have had the opportunity, but no reason to. And now that they have a reason to believe in God they don't have an opportunity."

That's never true, there are always reasons to believe. And I rather doubt experiencing horrific agony and separation from God would leave them to LOVE God. It is about more than just belief that God exists, after all. It is about loving Him and following Him. Mere belief guarantees nothing.

"I did it through research and thought, looking at the evidence."

You changed your mind from what, to what, after how long a period of time?

"If there was strong evidence, yes."

That doesn't answer the question. I could present tons of evidence, but there's no guarantee that any evidence is strong. A skeptic can shoot down ANYTHING, any sort of evidence, whether it be empirical, metaphysical, experiential, etc.

"I think I should be given the opportunity, even after I die."

Why should you? Sounds pretty self-centered to me. And if you're that self-centered, there's no reason to believe you'd convert no matter the chances you're given.

And logically, how could you? You're not going to exist in time as you do now, no matter what, after you die.

"How do you know which ones are heretical?"

By examining history, Church Tradition, Scripture, logic, etc. It's easy to trace the historical Church, and it's easy to note the points at which heresies sprang up, and what they rebelled against and whether it was believed prior to that time.

"But you also said that existence is good, thus the rejection of good entails and ending to existence which is good."

And I ALSO noted that it is not within our power to end our existence, as that is continuously maintained by God. Our lives are within our ability to end, our existence is not.

"Assuming is necessary in life, the best course of action is to only make logical assumptions and not illogical ones."

Depends on what you mean by logical assumptions. It's logical to believe certain things, like that you need to eat and drink and sleep. But those aren't assumptions so much as conclusions based on axioms. Now the acceptance of those axioms should be done with good reason still, not just assumed.

"What if we wanted to stop existing?"

Too bad. You can't stop your existence, and God won't stop your existence.

"Is pride good? If not then how did humanity have it when humanity was good?"

No, pride isn't good. When humanity was good, humanity still had the ability to make choices, as we do now. According to the spiritual truths presented by the Bible concerning the Fall, what is perhaps the most important aspect of the Fall was the temptation of Man to be like to God, in the sense that by rebelling against God, it was the only way humanity could claim to be independent the way God is. In the pride of seeking equality with God, we fell, and so lost God's Grace and corrupted the good of our lives.

"Is that desire good? If not then how did humanity have it?"

Humanity has always had the ability to choose. And the temptation arose through the influence of an entity most know as Satan.

"Is selfishness good? if not how did humanity have it?"

Humanity always had the influences of its animal nature because humanity has always been the commingling of body and spirit, called the soul. Animal instinct may in part have contributed to this selfishness. But again, the initial temptation sprang from Satan, and was received well by humanity.

"Maybe in your discussions, but pretty much every person I have met defines God differently."

Ahh, but do they have ACTUAL philosophical discussions, or are they just chatting about God?

"I don't think I understand, could you clarify?"

Ok. Have you ever heard the arguments regarding the Uncaused Cause?

"Does the fact that these religions are younger than Christianity change the fact that these people happily sacrificed themselves?"

You haven't demonstrated that they did. Moreover, the fact that they're all related to Christianity undermines your point, since it could be that very Christian influence which caused it.

"I don't see why the fact that Christianity was the first (but not only) religion to have happy martyrs is convincing."

It's not meant to convince you completely. It's merely one point among many small points which build up to a gradual understanding of Christianity. It was also meant to illustrate a specific point in our discussion, as I recall.

Is it Just to punish an innocent man? Pt. 3

2009-07-01T15:39:00.002-04:00

"Come on, this whole conversation, heck, all of religion is pure conjecture. There is no evidence for any of it."

Depending on one's usage, certainly. If we speak of conjecture in terms of drawing conclusions based upon evidence, but not evidence which is proof, and we consider proof to be of an infallible sort, then yes, it is conjecture. But by the same definition, science is conjecture, religion is conjecture, philosophy is conjecture, and every thing else in existence is conjecture, since a skeptical person can find reason to doubt EVERY thing.

You, however, seem to think there's no evidence for religion. You're mistaken. That you don't accept it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, which is the entire problem with evidence of any sort. So your understanding of conjecture refers to how I was using it, drawing conclusions without evidence or solid grounds, even if being rational. Religion doesn't fall into the same category as this sort.

"It seems incredibly cruel not to. By keeping the afterlife out of time God is robbing people of being able to make a choice. Not only that, he is robbing them from choosing him."

Robbing? No. It is not robbery to give a person a gift that only lasts a certain period of time and then expires. Don't presume to entitlement of choice, none of us is entitled to anything.

As for robbing them from choosing Him, nothing could be farther from the truth. Did they not have ample opportunities to choose while alive? I find the words of Abraham to the rich man in Christ's parable quite fitting,

"And he said: Then, father, I beseech thee, that thou wouldst send him to my father's house, for I have five brethren, That he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torments. And Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. But he said: No, father Abraham: but if one went to them from the dead, they will do penance. And he said to him: If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe, if one rise again from the dead."

By what means do you think people would change their minds after the whole of their lives have been spent in denial? Do you think it easy to convert? To deny and sacrifice everything you were before, to sacrifice your very self for God? A God who promises you not riches, or comfort, but pain in this life and an ethereal salvation in the next? Or for the one in Hell, the God most likely to be blamed for one's present circumstances?

Do you think you could repent under such circumstances? Forgive me, for I rather doubt it.

"Okay, so it only occurs when we reject him as completely as we can?"

That is the nature of mortal sin. Mortal sin is sin which engenders a complete rejection of God. It requires that we commit a gravely evil act, fully aware of that evil and choosing it as freely as humans are capable of choosing anything. Failing to meet one or more of these characteristics, it would be a venial sin, which doesn't entail a complete rejection. Of course, build up enough venial sins, and you'll arrive in the same state of separation.

"Which church?"

Your question doesn't make sense. There's only one Christian Church, of which there are multiple schismatic sects and heretical sects. Those which are schismatic may be called Churches in as much as they possess valid authority from Christ, but as they share common belief in dogmatic principles, they are united in belief. Those which are heretical lack valid authority and lack common belief with the Church, hence their nature as heretical as opposed to orthodox.

If you desire a name, the Church would be called Catholic because of its nature as a universal institution.

"Just because Life is good does not necessarily mean that good is life."

You are thinking in terms that are exceedingly minute. Life is NOT the same as existence. Rock exists, rock doesn't live. The universe exists, the universe doesn't live. Existence is good, the principle good in fact, the only objective good we can know. Life, as an expression of existence is also good. But not the principle good of existence.

"It's like how all dogs are mammals, but not all mammals are dogs."

No. No, it's not. Your analogy refers to one set which is a member of another set. Life and goodness are two sets that are not members of the other.

"Now you seem to be saying that good is life, otherwise the whole rejection of good means death would not be a valid argument."

I am saying that life is good, thus the rejection of good entails an ending to life which is good. If that which is good is corrupted, some measure of it is lost. Do not draw conclusions which do not follow from my statements. That's not solid reasoning.

"But you also said that existence is good, which, I'm assuming means good is existence."

You shouldn't assume, assuming is unwise, particularly in logical discourse.

"So then, that means that rejection of good means non-existence. Which means you can't be in hell. Because in order to be in hell you have to be."

The only problem with your conclusion is that you neither understand hell, nor understand existence.

Humans exist because God wills for us to exist. We were created for a teleological purpose which is Love, just as everything else was created for that teleological purpose. Taking part in the act of existence requires the continuous willing of the being whose nature is existence itself. We completely lack the power, through choice or anything else, to end our own existence because our existence is utterly dependent upon this entity. We can commit suicide, but that only ends our Earthly life. We can commit suicide because our physical life is contingent upon our physical body's survival, which is within our power. Our metaphysical existence is contingent upon God's will, which is not without our power to alter, as it is immutable.

While we rejected God in sin, and Fell, and thus brought about the corruption of the good of our lives that is death, no human action or choice can alter the immutable will of God that we exist. Only God could possibly end our existence, and God will not do so since, as you've no doubt realized, God is Good, God does not do evil, and stripping us of our very existence would be the evilest of acts.

"Why did it do that?"

Plenty of answers to that. Pride, for one. A desire to be equal to God, for another. Of course, those are rather related. At the most basic, I suppose we'd have to say that humanity decided to follow a selfish desire as opposed to a self-sacrificing desire.

"Did God's plan change?"

God's "plan" does not refer to a blueprint or chart of the acts in time that God wants us to go through or plans on us reaching. What is meant by this expression is that God possesses all knowledge that can be possessed, and God exists outside of Time, such that all moments in time for us are one eternal moment to Him. At the moment of Creation from our perspective, God not only created but brought to its teleological conclusion everything. So no, no changes in the plan. The "plan," like God, is.

I also posted for my debating partner the essay on the Trap of Heaven and Hell, since she seemed to have a rather dichotomous view of the subject, as did others present, to which she replied:

"This brings up an interesting question."

I enjoy interesting questions. :-)

"If God were evil would you follow Him?"

I'm afraid this doesn't make sense. The word "God" has a specific meaning in philosophical and theological discussion, which is what we're having. It refers to that Being whose essence is equal to its own existence, and nothing else. If I'm right that existence is good, then this being logically cannot be evil. Asking a hypothetical question that entails a logical contradiction is meaningless and can't be answered legitimately.

For God to be evil, existence would have to be evil, and then I would be logically brought to suicide or whatever means I could think of to terminate my existence, beyond my abilities as I may know it to be.

"That's not true, martyrdom is much older than Christianity and is seen throughout history in many religions including Islam, Bahá'í, Sikhism, etc."

Islam, Baha'i and Sikhism are not only younger than Christianity, but greatly influenced by Christianity. Islam is a resurgence of the Arian heresy mixed with elements of Arabic paganism. Sikhism is a movement from the 16th Century in India that coincidentally (or not so much) arose out of a region that had both Christian missionary influences and Islamic aggression. If you study its teachings, you'll see quite a few adaptations towards the Christian/Islamic position. And Baha'i is even younger as I understand it, and is yet another syncretic religion. Hardly examples which demonstrate your desired point.

Now, martyrdom is, indeed, older than Christianity. People were willing to die for causes, certainly.

But you've missed two key points. First, is that I am talking about joyous martyrdoms. IE people who were happy to be brutally murdered, and for the reason of the love they had for God. Second, is that I'm referring specifically to a comparison with the Roman religion(s).

It is completely true that Christians were happy to be made into human candles for God, something that the Romans did not understand, as they had no notion of it within their own religion. Name the glorious martyrs for Jupiter, why don't you? Or the martyrs to Diana and Apollo among the Greeks? Where are the martyrs for Moloch, all we have for him are murders.

If you can provide evidence of a history and tradition of joyous martyrdom among pagan religious traditions prior to Christianity, I'd be happy to examine it. But as far as I'm aware, such a tradition doesn't exist. The closest I expect you'd get is Judaism.

Is it Just to punish an innocent man? Pt. 2

2009-06-29T14:52:00.001-04:00

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.

Is it Just to punish an innocent man?

2009-06-28T11:03:00.002-04:00

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!

Religion Discussion (Rebuttal)

2009-06-27T14:14:00.001-04:00

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,

Religion Discussion (Reply)

2009-06-27T11:07:00.001-04:00

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"

On re-ordering

2009-06-21T19:07:00.002-04:00

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,

Cleanliness is close to Godliness

2009-06-20T20:55:00.003-04:00

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.

Spirituality

2009-06-20T20:53:00.002-04:00

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...

Religion Discussion

2009-06-17T13:52:00.002-04:00

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.)

State of the Blog address:

2009-06-17T13:49:00.002-04:00

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!

Faith

2009-05-17T00:11:00.003-04:00

Let's talk a bit about faith. Few words have as potent an impact on the minds that receive them. Christians and other theists tend to view faith through rose colored glasses, happily ensconced in our convenient views of faith in God and the joys it brings. Non-theists, on the other hand, have a rather more cynical view of the subject, seeing faith in God (they rarely acknowledge any other type) as a delusion in need of treatment at best, and a disease capable of destroying the human race at worst. Thank you, radical fundamentalism. To a certain extent, both theist and atheist camps are responsible for the degradation of the concept of faith. I have an announcement to make for both parties.

You're both wrong.

Being a Christian, specifically of the Catholic variety, I will hereby confine myself to Christian theism (being the only one I'm specifically qualified to engage in apologetics for, even if only in my own mind), and Christianity's usage of the term "faith," as compared with atheist/agnostic usage of the term.

While I often complain about the problem of people redefining words to suit their needs, I'm going to have to be guilty of it myself. The issue, of course, is that there's no hard line. One cannot say the word means what it means with no room for discussion, since, of course, usage determines meaning in language. If a word is used in a new way by enough people, that word gains a new meaning, regardless of whether purists are happy over it. Because usage determines meanings, resources such as dictionaries are never perfect authorities, they merely reflect compiled usages of words.

When it comes to what the dictionaries tend to say about "faith," we see this:

1.	confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.

2.	belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

3.	belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.

4.	belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.

5.	a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.

6.	the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.

7.	the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.

8.	Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.

(Dictionary.com)

Having listed all the definitions to be found in the first dictionary entry at dictionary.com, I'd like to highlight two.

"belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact."

and

"Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved."

I want to highlight these two because I believe that these are the two usages closest to those most prevalent among Christian theists and atheists today, particularly those of the fundamentalist/militant variety. I say "closest" because there's a singular problem in the usage of both camps in regards to their respective definitions.

In the atheist camp, which uses the first definition provided of the two, the word "proof" is often disregarded, and the word, "evidence," inserted. This is a major problem. Proof (and there's no way I'm appealing twice to the dictionary in one post), refers to something that is both 1) evidenced, and 2) accepted. If I provide compelling evidence of evolution, and a Creationist accepts it as proof of Evolution, then Evolution has been proven to that person. If, however, I provide evidence of Evolution, and a Creationist rejects it, then Evolution, despite its overwhelming evidence, wasn't proven. This is, in fact, very similar to the issue with regards to "faith" that I wish to address. Proof is a term that is, ultimately, subjective. The subjective individual decides what will qualify as proof for him or her. Thankfully, at least in the scientific world, things are often approached as objectively and rationally as humanly possible (putting aside the empirical axioms necessary), which results in logical, compelling evidence being taken as proof in a more universal fashion. But that is still the result of individuals accepting what has been evidenced. Failing this, it can only be thought of as evidence so drastically overwhelming and compelling as to be completely irresistable.

The reason the substitution of "evidence" for "proof" is a major problem is because it changes the implications of the word "faith." If someone has a belief that isn't based on "proof," then it is a belief that may very well be based on evidence, but that evidence may not be 1) accepted by others or 2) be utterly overwhelming and compelling. If it fails on either count, that evidence cannot be proof, and this the belief is a matter of faith by the definition. This is fine, it's what the definition offered is supposed to suggest. And contrary to a somewhat popular belief among atheists today, this does not only apply to God, or the supernatural. Faith is a concept that applies across the board to anything we believe, that others don't accept as proven. There are many objects to faith, each must be analyzed based on its individual merits and dealt with accordingly.

Now, to claim that faith is belief without evidence is to claim something completely and utterly impossible. Not only is it a misrepresentation of faith, it's an insult to what should be apparent to anyone with even an iota of common sense. And that is the foundational fact that underlies all beliefs: There is no person who believes something without a reason. I do not say believes without reason, ie without rational, logical reasons for belief. I mean that people always have some reason for believing what they believe, no matter how delusional, psychotic, stupid, irrational, personal, logical, scientific, environmental or genetic it may be. There is always a reason. Without fail. This is an absolute truth of belief, and it is apparent to anyone thinks about it for more than 5 minutes and actually analyzes the beliefs they hold.

This notion of "belief without evidence," is a perversion of the definition of faith used by some atheists to attack Christians who don't have a subtle enough understanding of the terms to tell the difference. Most frightening of all about this; however, is that so many atheists believe it to be true. Too many atheists have become convinced that to be a theist, to have faith, one has to utterly abandon all rational precepts, and devote oneself to believing in something while completely devoid of reasons for belief. This, of course, is absolutely absurd to any educated Christian, and thus the reason why so many atheists today are shocked when they meet just such a person. I cannot begin to relate the amount of atheists I have met who have been shaken to the core of their disbelief by the realization that theists can and do have reasons for their belief, and yet this is still faith. It is my belief that this realization is the trigger of at least some hope in them. If not hope of conversion, at least hope that not all theists are trigger happy lunatics with no reasoning behind them, and can be spoken to and worked with like any other rational adult person.

It is my own fervent wish that atheists who hold to this false notion of faith will read this and realize that they have been misled, either by their own experiences or by others who have come to believe this untruth, and wake up from it. I do not ask for your belief in what I believe, I simply ask that you hold us to a fair and rationally defensible definition of the word we both so often employ. Or, if I'm lucky, you'll accept the definition I will eventually offer, because then we can actually speak to each other with a common understanding of terms. Whichever may be the case, I believe that this aspect of the debate should be settled to the satisfaction of any fair minded and rational audience, theist or atheist alike. I hold no grudge or dislike for atheists or atheism, and I wish it understood this is not meant as an assault upon atheism. It is frustrating for me as a Christian apologist that there is such a huge gap in understanding and commonality between our usages of a simple word, and it is equally frustrating for me as a person who questions everything and loves to debate and analyze with logic to see rational people lured into a trap designed to delude them into believing that a theist cannot have reasons for belief.

I hope any atheists who are reading this will forgive that I addressed their side of the issue first. If it is understood this is not meant as an attack on atheism, I trust it will be easier for them to accept and bear with me as I proceed now to note the problems with the current fundamentalist Christian usage of the word "faith." Believe me, it is my opinion that both sides in this debate will have their feathers thoroughly ruffled before I am through.

As it has been some distance worth of text between this space and the original posting of the definition, I'll repost the second definition, the more specifically Christian one, here:

"Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved."

Now, to the issues at hand. First and foremost, to my fundamentalist Christian brethren, and even some other Christians out there who are much more rational. You need to stop listening to, and letting atheists set the tone for any discussion of faith. I've just finished explaining why there's a major disconnect between what is commonly being labelled "faith" by atheists, and what is at leats a fair and reasonable usage of the term. Don't play by such rules, or you'll deserve to be caught in the absurdly illogical trap you will find yourselves in.

More pressingly, the Christian problem with this definition is not that it has become perverted through a substitution of concepts, it is that this definition is simply not being adhered to. I suspect it is related to a reaction of anti-intellectualism among fundamentalist Christianity today, wherein people are suspiscious of anything that seems to have come from the academic world or the intellectual elite. If I cannot begin to express the atheists who've been shocked to meet a Christian who used logic and had expressible and rational reasons for belief, it is only because you all have so impressed upon the psyche of the atheist world your incredible penchant for spurning reason in all its forms.

You are wrong because you have abandoned reason. Your understanding of faith is faulty because so many of you believe merely what you're told, without exercising the rational faculties of your God0given minds. You either believe what your pastors and parents tell you about faith without examination, or you believe what atheists tell you about faith, equally without examination. The only ones you have to blame for the state of modern, fundamentalist Christianity are yourselves.

Non-Christians reading this, please forgive the digress as I delve into a touch of Scriptural hermeneutics on the topic of faith. And worry not, my own definition is on its way.

Faith, as the above definition highlights, is a concept involving trust in certain promises made by God and known largely through the Scriptures (for the Protestants in the audience, only through the Scriptures). This is all fine and good. Most atheists are, frankly, not going to care. They lack a belief in God, and couldn't care less about the supposed promises of the great Mespotamian Sky Daddy. This definition is meaningless to them. And frankly, it's meaningless to you if my observations are correct. It is my intent to rehabilitate it by offering an alternative I believe can be accepted by both parties.

For the Fundamentalists, the rehabilitation begins here. Faith in Scripture certainly involves belief in things that we cannot prove, particularly in an empirical sense. God cannot be proven via science. We can't perform experiments to demonstrate Him. We can't see Him with telescopes or bounce radio waves off Him, etc. God is unseen. God is immaterial. God is unprovable. Thus faith is involved. But Christian faith goes a step beyond the idea that faith is just belief which cannot be proven. To demonstrate this, and rehabilitate faith, we'll need to address several topics. First is the issue of "Sola Fide," or "faith alone." Second is the problem of believing faith and belief to be separate, which occurs in two ways.

To the first: Sola Fide is the doctrine that Man is saved by Faith alone, and that humanity cannot earn salvation. To avoid any larger unnecessary debate, I will make it clear right now: No Christians since the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians of the 4th Century have believed that humanity can merit salvation via their own actions. Not the Catholics, not the Orthodox, not the Protestants. No Christians, period.

But there is a fundamental difference between how certain of these sects express the notion of faith alone. We Catholics, for example, are careful to note that 1) it is Grace that saves, 2) it is through faith, not by faith, that we are saved and 3) that according to the Church, according to Scripture and according to Tradition, works are a fundamental expression of living faith. In other words, a person cannot have faith without having works. Without going into long exegesis, this is expressed most particularly in the letter of St. James 2:14-20, wherein such faith without works is compared to the empty words of those who wish warmth and food upon those who are cold and starving, yet do nothing to provide it. Furthermore, it is pointed out that faith without works is dead. Not just empty but dead. And finally a very important point: That even the devils believe in God, but such belief avails them nothing.

What does this mean for us, Christian, attempting to arrive at a rehabilitated understanding of the theological usage of the word faith? It means that faith, according to the Scriptures, involves a second requirement besides belief, which must be met before faith is achieved. That requirement is action. Thus we are now at a point where I can offer my own definition of faith:

To have faith is to believe/trust/or accept and then act upon.

For the atheists reading this, it should already be understood as a necessary condition of belief that one has a reason for belief, even if that reason is personal, or does not serve as proof for anyone else for some other reason. The issue of proof should be understood going in, thus removing the need for a further statement of a lack of provability. Likewise, I urge atheists to consider the implications of the second condition of faith in terms of its applications outside of the theism/atheism debate.

For example, if you have faith that a friend will mail a letter for you, that means you both believe that your friend would do so, and that you have acted, are acting, or are willing to act on that belief. If you just believed it, you only say you believe it. If you have faith, a component of action has entered into the equation. And this is true of every single instance wherein the term faith is used, again both in the context of our debate, and outside of it. I challenge anyone who has an issue with the proffered definition to provide an example they believe invalidates it, and I'll gladly take up the challenge to revision or rebuttal. Honestly, I don't expect many attempts, I believe this definition to be as perfect an understanding of the word as can be achieved by human means.

For the Christians reading this, I simply urge you to meditate upon the letter of St. James, particularly the passage already cited, and also to remember the one abiding truth we should all be able to agree on regarding our faith: It is transformative. Faith is such that it should be visible in the things a person does (hence the acting based on our beliefs), and that visibility should be the sign of the interior transformation that faith effects in humans through the power of God's Grace.

Now, to the second set of problems from the fundamentalist camp: I have seen (far too many times) people claiming one of two things in response to the atheist question, "why do you believe in God?" Those statements are:

1) I believe because I have faith!

2) You have to have faith to believe!

I have saved this until last because I needed to first outline the problem of a raw bones view of sola fide, and thus rehabilitate the notion of faith being predicated upon belief and action from belief, before I could address the fundamental flaw in this type of simplistic thinking.

You are repeating yourself, and thus not answering the question asked.

Given the definition of faith as "belief in something that is then acted upon," or one of the variant forms involving trust or acceptance, or even that of a belief which cannot be proven, it becomes intellectually vacuous to tell someone asking why you believe, that you believe because you have a belief which cannot be proven, or conversely that you must have a belief which cannot be proven to believe.

This is nonsensical, and as noted before it is exactly why atheist think the vast majority of Christian theists are utterly mad.

To answer the question of why one believes, you cannot answer that you believe because of faith, or that you need to have faith to believe.

You cannot believe because of faith, since to have faith, you must already believe, trust or accept the truth of Christianity. Likewise, you cannot use faith to believe, since you cannot have faith until you believe. When you answer like this to a rational atheist, they're going to see the absurdity of such circular and self-defeating propositions, and view faith as something absurd. This simply contributes further to atheists believing faith is something that cannot be evidenced, as opposed to something that cannot be proven. When Christian theists, by and large, cannot or do not provide any evidence or reason for their beliefs besides just talking about "faith," then it's difficult to blame atheists for believing faith to be something that cannot be evidenced. Very difficult, in fact. Were I an atheist, I expect I'd be caught in the same trap.

When asked why you have faith, you must answer with the reason why you believe, even if it isn't a very "good" one. For example, do you believe because you had a personal experience and felt God communicating with you in some way? Then say so! While you shouldn't expect anyone else to believe because of your experience, you still shouldn't be afraid to say that you believe in God because God revealed Himself to you in some way. Personal experiences are a valid reason for personal belief. They're just not great reasons for someone else to believe, lacking such an experience or other reason of their own to work in support.

If you believe because you were taught to believe, or raised to believe, then say so! I myself am a "cradle Catholic." I was born in Catholicism, raised in it, Confirmed in it, and I fully intend to die in it. I have no shame that my parents chose to teach me to love God, and you shouldn't either. And if you, also like me, have reasons to believe such as logical conclusions and arguments, or evidence you see in nature, or even a belief that God and the supernatural are part of what makes life worth living, etc. don't be afraid to share that too. It's not proof, but proof can't ever be provided, so it's not worth worrying about in this debate. Answer honestly, and answer joyfully. Answer with the love of Christ.

Great question!

2009-05-16T08:01:00.000-04:00

"I am not saying that Catholicism is false, but why would a Christian not obey the ideals of Sola Scriptura? The Bible is the only reliable word of God."

Because Sola Scriptura is:

1) Illogical
2) Unhistorical
3) UnBiblical

It's illogical because it is circular reasoning, and thus a fallacious epistemology. You cannot take a book as authoritative without circular assumptions regarding the nature of that book. Moreover, when you take a book like the Bible as "sole authority," what you're really doing is saying that YOU are the sole authority, because the reading of a book like the Bible involves interpretation. When an individual claims Sola Scriptura is their rule of faith, that means their personal interpretation of Scripture is their rule of faith. Hardly logical.

It's unhistorical because no one prior to Martin Luther considered the Scriptures to be the sole word of God. Christians for 1500 years understood that there was Scripture, and it was valuable and important, but there was also Tradition, of equal importance and value because it is the mate of Scripture, it's Christ's teachings passed down orally. Without both, there's no way to check an interpretation for errors. Likewise, it's unhistorical because it neglects the entire period wherein Christianity existed WITHOUT the Bible as we know it. Christians had Scriptures, but they weren't a set canon, and they differed by region. And particularly early on, there wasn't anything written in the New Testament. Even the earliest estimates would have it seem that for a decade after Christ's death, nothing was written of the Gospel. And that's the early estimates, not the late ones. How is it the historical practice of Christianity that only Scripture can be relied upon?

And finally, Sola Scriptura is unbiblical. NOWHERE in Scripture is there any indication that Scripture is the sole authoritative source for Christian doctrine. Nowhere. It's absolutely and completely impossible to demonstrate Biblically, making Sola Scriptura a contradiction in terms. If all Christian doctrines must come from the Bible, that's a Christian doctrine in and of itself. Yet it is not Biblical. Sola Scriptura fails according to its own test.

Now, I'm certain you're going to give me the verse from 1 Timothy about Scripture being inspired, profitable for teaching, correcting, debating, etc.

But this verse says nothing about Scripture being 1) sole or 2) authoritative. It says that Scripture is a useful resource that's inspired by God. I agree completely. But that doesn't make it the sole authority for Christianity. And it technically leaves us with the problem that the verse itself, written as it was before most of the New Testament, refers to the Scriptures of Timothy's youth. The Old Testament. It leaves us with absolutely no way to know WHICH books are to be part of Scripture, either Old or New since, again, neither had a definitive canon at that point in history.

Lastly, the Bible DOES have certain things to relate concerning what is to be our authority after Christ ascended into Heaven. The Bible never mentions itself, but it does mention the Church. Christ never mentions leaving a Bible. Christ does talk about leaving a Church. Thus Sola Scriptura fails its own test again.

Fun Debate!

2009-05-14T15:47:00.001-04:00

Starting with post #29, Mr. Adam Kennedy and myself have entered into a debate with some relevance to the entitlement series I've just finished posting. Stop by and check it out.

That Hideous Sense; Part V

2009-05-14T15:42:00.002-04:00

4: "The Problem of Evil."

The Problem of Evil has been solved quite a few times by Christianity. Augustine solved it in the 4th Century AD, and his solution still works. Aquinas as well, and even I have solved it elsewhere. That being said, I will not here go to the full lengths necessary to deal with the Problem of Evil in its entirety. What I wish to deal with focuses on the main part of the Problem of Evil, that question asked, generally in our childhood, of "Why do bad things happen to good people?" or perhaps, "Why is there suffering?"

The reason I have saved the Problem of Evil for last is not because I believe it to be any more troublesome or valid than any of the preceding arguments, but because the preceding three arguments are all related. They all stem not only from our sense of entitlement, but from the Problem of Evil itself. At the end of the last section, we were left with the realization that the "genocides" of the Old Testament are skewed to our modern sensibilities because we have a false conception and sense of entitlement, both in regards to our lives, and to fairness. And it is at "fairness" that we must now look, and it's relationship with suffering.

One thing I wish to absolutely note about the idea of "fairness" in human terms is that it is, of course, about entitlement. Let us examine, to gain some perspective on this, the challenge of why God allows anyone, or even in particular, an innocent baby to die in the womb, or to die as an infant, having never experienced life. Why, exactly, is this a challenge? It is perceived as not being fair, and somewhere along the way, people have gotten it into their heads that God is about being fair, or that life is about being fair. And yet what is fairness?

Something being fair is something that is perceived as entitled. If it is not fair that someone dies young, it is because we have a perception that that person is entitled to a long life, that that person deserves a good life.

Now one Christian reply to this question of why people suffer, or why do people die young, etc. might be that old idea of sin. That death or suffering are punishment for sin. That we do not deserve a long life, happiness, pleasure, etc. etc. because we are sinners, and what we deserve is actually death and punishment. We have done no good to earn any of these things, we do not deserve them. We recall that they are gifts, as I noted before. This is indeed one side of the coin, and it can be argued reasonably well. One can note that our entitlement here is so purely selfish that it blinds us. For the Christian, one might stress that Christ called us expressly to selflessness, not to selfishness, and thus we must destroy and disavow this sense of entitlement.

But in our particular case here I noted that we would examine the instance of even a baby in the womb, or an infant. Surely these poor innocents cannot be said to have earned punishment and death, even if they did not earn the gift of their life. These children are innocent of all willful evil, and thus are not deserving of punishment. But then, if they are innocent, death is not a punishment. Now we must look at the opposite side of the coin. Our sense of entitlement is selfish here as well. We believe that all humans are entitled to life, that they deserve to have it. But humans are not capable of living forever in our present forms (And it would be a horrible thing if we could. Pause to contemplate, if you will, the results of a world where no one ever died; the poverty, over crowding, starvation and general misery would be immense). Even Christians must be justified, sanctified and glorified by and in Christ to have ever lasting life. We are not entitled to life, we realized as much before. It is just as much of a freely given gift to us as the Grace that saves us from our just and deserved damnation. It is a freely given gift, not something we are entitled to. And thus, all sense of "fairness" fails. It cannot be unfair that some people die young, or even as children, because there is no entitlement to a lifespan of a certain length. Likewise, it cannot be unfair that people suffer, or that people experience what an observer might consider to be a less worthy existence. Without our sense of entitlement, which is baseless, there is no fairness to debate, and there is no Problem of Evil.

Now, I noted before that we would examine the possible relationship between "fairness" and suffering. And indeed there is one. It is one of the oldest philosophical relationships there is, and one which is the source of at least one major world religion. I am speaking, of course, about Buddhism. We can first note this relationship by realizing that both suffering and fairness are generally rooted in selfishness. When you believe yourself to be entitled to something or deserving of something, you suffer when you do not receive it. When you want something, and you don't get it, you suffer. But selfish desires and self entitlement fail when examined in the light of selflessness which is the meaning of Agape love, the love we Christians preach. They also fail in light of everything we have already observed in these essays. If you'll forgive the expression, by what "right" are we so selfish? By what "right" are we entitled? The heart of the Problem of Evil is entitlement. Not only in that it is our sense of entitlement that makes us believe we deserve that which we do not deserve, but because in so doing, it is entitlement that becomes the source of much of our suffering, not God.

Solve the problem of entitlement, and the problem of pain loses its... shall we say, "sting?"

That Hideous Sense; Part IV

2009-05-13T11:11:00.002-04:00

3: "Why is there so much genocide in the Old Testament?"

And now we have reached, aside from the Problem of Evil, perhaps the greatest argument in the modern atheist arsenal against Christianity (and I suppose against Judaism and Islam as well). For the atheist points out that our God, who is supposedly Loving and Good, seems to order that quite a lot of people (and peoples) be butchered throughout the Old Testament.

And this is a great argument because it is quite strong. It is, on the face of it, paradoxical to our eyes that a God who is Love would order the deaths of various peoples. It is even more paradoxical that the God who supplied us with the 10 Commandments would seemingly order His people to violate one of them.

I agree with the atheist, this observation of God is not only paradoxical, it is contradictory. What I don't agree with, however, is that the argument has accurately described God! Again I am struck by the hideous strength which entitlement exerts over our thinking. Before, I said that all the goods in our life are gifts given by God. All those things that are rights or perceived as rights, are in fact gifts. The previous two problems dealt with two powerful examples of those alleged rights and the problems of entitlement that they entail.

Now what we must contend with is the principle problem of this issue. It is the principle problem because it is the greatest good! Thomistic philosophy states that existence is in and of itself Good, that Good and existence are fundamentally related to each other. For all other rights, we have so far identified them as Good things in our lives, but now we have come to the "right to life" and we must admit that it is not only the foremost good in our life, but it is the foremost good because it is our life. It is our very existence on this Earth, and thus is the most powerful and relevant Good available to us. And it is the thing that we are most likely to feel entitled to as a result. If all else can be taken from us, we still have our lives. Yet if even our lives be taken from us, what have we? Western liberal thinking has enshrined the right to life as foremost of the first three, the great three, rights. The rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; but happiness and liberty are automatically forfeited should we lose life. Life is the principle liberty, the greatest good. It is the thing that liberal philosophy most wants us to believe we are entitled to, that we deserve, and that our possession of it should be utterly inviolable. And against it stands, I believe somewhat ironically, Christianity.

Now certainly Christianity has used the expression "right to life." But Christianity has a peculiar advantage over the strictly secular world in doing so. Christians in the United States arguing about the right of children in the womb to live can do so because they live under a political system that works in terms of rights. And Christianity as a system can (and has) embrace the idea that all humans intrinsically have worth, and that we are equal, precisely and only because Christianity has taught this since long before "rights" existed, for it is what God Himself revealed to us. But none of this means that we have the "right to live." We have no such thing. As usual, the Christian concept is quite the opposite, what we have is the lack of the right to murder. "Thou shalt not murder," so often mistranslated as "thou shalt not kill" is the heart of the issue.

This commandment does not mean that we are entitled to life. Life is a gift. To paraphrase Chesterton, it is the birthday gift of being born. It is a gift, and it always will be. And what we have is not the right to it, but the lack of a right to unjustly suspend or end it. And this refers to all human lives. We have no right to unjustly end our own lives, nor those of our children, nor those of our neighbors, nor those of the infirm, etc.

"A-ha!" cries the atheist! "I have you now! You have admitted that we do not have the right to kill others unjustly, that we do not have the right to kill our children or our selves! So why is it that the Old Testament portrays not only genocide, but even commands that children be killed in certain situations?!"

And entitlement strikes again. For modern sensibilities, even if they accept that they do not have a right to live, still operate under the flawed assumption that they are entitled to a certain sense of justice. This is not the case. There is only one Justice, it is the objective Justice of God. Killing in the Old Testament falls under several categories. Some of the killings are murders, and you will note that God Himself reacts quite strictly to those. Some of them are not murders but are what atheists term genocide, and what the Hebrews understood as punishment. The Hebrews record in their Scriptures not only that God told them to kill or enslave a town or population, but that God gave them specific reasons for doing so. These people were not innocents being executed unjustly as is so often alleged by the atheist camp, they were sinners and those who rejected God. Not only were they not entitled to the gift of life, but they had taken their gift, and used it only to spurn God and fight against God's people (it should also be noted that just about every city destroyed was given the opportunity to peacefully join the Israelites).

In addition to this, we also have the situation arising where these people were worshiping other gods, and God (rightly if we examine the later history of Israel) noted that such worship would tempt His Chosen People. God is a jealous God (another often misunderstood phrase, which we should do well to note means that God is not tolerant of unfaithfulness, or in other words, sin, which is a natural outgrowth of His dual properties of being Good and being Just), and commanded the end of the worship of false gods among His people, and even that they prevent this by going so far as to destroy those whose gift of life God no longer chose to grant.

Some people, with modern sensibilities, would normally believe those people executed in this manner to be innocent of any crime, and would consider God to be a horrible monster. This is based not only on our sense of entitlement to life, but also entitlement to what we believe is justice. Because we are not objectively knowledgeable creatures, it is not only likely, it is expected and obvious that we will never be able to determine what is truly just. We do not know the perfect reality of any given situation, and any attempt on the part of atheists to argue that God here was not Just or that God was cruel or contradictory, etc. must be met with amusement. If an atheist cannot demonstrate to us objective morality, how much more unlikely is it that an atheist is going to be able to demonstrate to us objective Justice? And most especially objective Justice of events that occurred thousands of years ago? Their argument is easily dismissed, and with it, this argument as a whole. It is simply another problem of entitlement, though one doubly difficult to deal with, since it involved perhaps those two that are most important to us, life and fairness.

And that, will bring us to the last and final difficulty presented by atheism and related to entitlement, in the final piece of this series.

Mary and the Saints in Catholicism

2009-05-12T21:06:00.003-04:00

This one will be in the form of a sort of dialog addressing common questions/misconceptions about Mary and the Saints. Apologetics 101 right here!

The first issue I'll address is that of the often noted complaint of many Protestants that Catholics place Mary on too high of a pedestal, despite her being a human, born of human parents. Most specifically we are often challenged on hymns or praise directed towards her, or prayer (which will have its own section, as it's quite important).

I do not disagree that Mary was human or born of human parents. In fact, I don't think you'll find any Catholic who would disagree with that, haha, though there are some crazy schismatic groups who are a bit nuts on Mary. But I would like to challenge this idea that hymns or praise of a human are out of place.

And I would like to challenge it based on the idea of glorification. Glorification in Catholic Theology is, in a sense, the last part of the process of salvation, and it is when we have died and entered into Heaven, we are glorified in addition to being justified and sanctified. You will find that Paul goes into this topic in depth in Romans chapter 8, but it is also present in other Epistles from the Apostle. I would like to examine a couple quickly in order to help illustrate an important point.

First, Galatians chapter 1, verse 24. Paul states, "And they glorified God in me." He says this while relaying his conversion experience, his missionary history, etc. and how he was called by God away from persecuting the Church to proclaiming the Church. And he says of those who heard of this remarkable conversion that they glorified God in him.

I would like to suggest that what this statement means was that in all of the Saints, in all holy men called by God, driven by the Spirit, etc., and in all who are glorified by God when they have been saved, that when we give to them glory and praise, we are also giving glory, honor and praise to the God who glorified them. For they would not be glorified without Him. If we honor them, how much more must we honor the One who made them and called them? And if we honor the One who glorifies them, is it not right and fitting for us to glorify them as well, for that is what God Himself has chosen to do?

Next, II Thessalonians, 1:10 and 1:12 in which Paul says, respectively, "When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be made wonderful in all them who have believed; because our testimony was believed upon you in that day." and "That the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Again we see this interesting idea of God being glorified in His Saints. God being glorified in people, not just on His own, but also that in His servants His glory is also made manifest, thus making it right and proper to glorify them and through them Him. The second verse emphasizes this especially by noting, as I said before, that this is a dual property. "That the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God, [...]." Christ's name is glorified in His servants, in all of us when we act as true Christians should. And at the same time, we are glorified in Him as a result. Again I say, to those whom God has glorified, it is only right and fitting that we also glorify them, for God has raised them up.

Now, how does this relate to Mary? In Catholic theology, all of the Saints, those whom we know to be in Heaven, they are all considered glorified by Christ, in Christ, through Christ. Mary is also a Saint, making it right and proper for us to give her honor, glory and praise, for God Himself has done so. Moreover, there is a certain added dignity to Mary's position. Mary does have a unique role in all of human history, and is really only comparable to Eve in terms of all women in the world. Eve is the daughter of God through whom disobedience entered into the world, and Mary is the daughter of God whose perfect obedience brought the new Adam, Christ the Redeemer into the world. No other woman can ever make such a claim, no other woman can ever rightly be called the Mother of God. Which means, in the final analysis, that Mary is not only a glorified Saint, but also a person with a certain added dignity due to our recognition of her vast historical importance, and most especially to her critically important obedience. Had Mary refused God's Will, which was always within her power as she had Free Will just as we do, she would've disrupted God's entire plan for our salvation. No other human born of human parents was as singularly instrumental in any work of God's, not to mention in the greatest work of God, our Redemption. Therefore, I find I must object that it is only fitting that we afford to Mary the highest respect and honor given to any human born of human parents. We do not equate her to God, of course, but we do place her above all others, for only Mary can be said to have been perfectly obedient to God's will, and only Mary as a regular human can be said to have been crucially important to God's plan for our salvation.

To delve further into the topic of respect, we also should examine the words used to describe how Catholics regard Mary, the Saints and God:

Due to the inadequacies of the English language there are often misconceptions on this point. In Greek (and Latin, I believe the terms became mingled linguistically), the words dulia, hyper-dulia and latria are the words used to apply to the Saints, Mary and God respectively. Generally they are approximately translated as Respect, Reverence and Worshipful Adoration. Notice the gap between Mary and God and the linguistic relation between Mary and the Saints. We respect Saints, and revere Mary, both things we can do to people because they are varying degrees of respect and we must respect even those who are on Earth, so obviously we must respect those God has chosen to Glorify. God has Glorified them, therefore it is fitting that we also give them proper respect, as I've said like four times now. Both are based off the word dulia, whereas to God alone the word latria is applied. Latria is true worship, true adoration and full glory given, a huge difference in degree from the other two, but one that is simply not as noticeable in the English language, I'm sad to say.

As for Mary in particular she was just a human on Earth, like us, so how did she find such favor with God? Catholics do not believe that Mary is in any way divine, she is not God, at all, never was, never will be (I think you know this, but I like to be sure). So why did God find favor in her? Clearly Mary played a special role in God's plan for us, she was the mother of Christ, a unique position in the whole of human history. But before that, what was she? Just a woman to be sure. So what was there to find favor in? We know that humans are sinful, stained creatures whom God doesn't generally find favor in. Does anyone ever receive a greeting like Mary's, "Hail Mary, full of Grace," "Hail Mary, most favored one!" in the rest of the Bible? Mary was special, but still human. Full of Grace, most favored, highly favored, what does this mean? It means that Mary, because of her special role, was preserved from sin by God. Mary, as Ark of the Covenant, from the very moment of her conception was cleansed from sin by God through Christ to be the hallowed Vessel that would carry the New Covenant, Christ Jesus. We know that on our own, we are as nothing to God, that our good deeds are like dirty rags, that our obedience is ever failing, and our humility weak and fragile. There is nothing in us to favor. Thus Mary could only have found favor with God through God Himself working to preserve her from the failings of the rest of us. By freeing her from Original Sin and pouring Grace into her, He effectively kept her from sinning at any later point in time to preserve her purity for Christ. Yes, she's just a woman. A woman who found favor with God.

Next, I'll address the misconception that Catholics do not believe Mary needed a savior.

Catholics teach that Mary was born without sin, but not that she didn't need a Savior. In fact, we believe that Mary was born without sin because she had a Savior, her Son who made her specifically and especially for her role in His life, in His plan, etc. Mary is not only the new Eve, the obedient daughter who helps to remedy the flaws of the disobedient daughters, but she is also the new Ark of the Covenant, the sanctified vessel in which God Himself resided for nine months. Here is something to consider. I think you would agree that to have an intimate relationship with God, we must be sanctified, that is, we must be holy and without stain of sin. For most of us, this sanctification first occurs when we become Christians. For Mary, this sanctification occurred when she was conceived, because she would have to be sanctified to serve as the vessel for Christ who was God. And what means, exactly, were present for her sanctification outside of miraculous intervention?

If we analyze the nature of sin, and understand that sin generates a proclivity towards sinning more, it doesn't make sense to make Mary a creature suffering from the burden of Original Sin as we ourselves do. Proclivity towards sin in the Theotokos? If she were to make sacrifices for the remission of her sins in the Jewish fashion, there is still no reason that she, as a sinner then, wouldn't fall right back into sin, losing her sanctification and thus losing the special characteristic logic tells us would be needed for someone to bear God within her, intimately bound to her life. Mary must be protected from sin, and protected in such a way that her Free Will is never compromised, for to do so would be to make her a slave, which is a horrible and detestable notion to God. The only possible means for this are to create Mary without any blemish of Original sin, to ensure that she doesn't develop our proclivity towards sin, and then to shower her with Grace so that she always knows and desires the path of God instead of the path of sin. In this way, Mary can choose to follow God's Will, and thus not only retain her Free Will and not violate the divine plan for all Creation, but at the same time, set for us a perfect example of obedience to God's Will, even when we know the consequences will be dark (remember in normal circumstances Mary would've been disgraced, ostracized, even stoned for becoming pregnant with a child that wasn't her betrothed's, yet still she obeyed with no thought for herself).

And again, referencing my earlier argument, there is no other time in the Bible when any human is addressed as "Full of Grace", or as "Highly Favored One," by an angel, a messenger of God. No human who is sinful is worthy of such a greeting, and no human who is sinful ever receives one. Mary is very different, she is not sinful, she is full of Grace, and Grace is rather contrary to sin.

As I said, we certainly agree that Mary needed a Savior. But we, perhaps, disagree in the action of salvation. To use a popular Catholic analogy, most humans are like blind people who have fallen into a pit. We are trapped, stuck and buried, unable to escape on our own, basically helpless. For us, the Savior is the person who can see and comes along and pulls us out of the hole, and even brings light to our eyes that we may see for ourselves and avoid future pitfalls. But this is not the only way in which the Savior can save. For the Savior can also save by guiding the blind around the pit, preserving them from it in the first place, and saving them without them ever falling. It is in this way that Mary was saved. She was saved by a preemptive act of the Grace of God, in order to make her the perfect vessel God required for His plans, the perfect example of obedience, and the perfect mother for His Divine Begotten Son.

Catholics are often challenged on why we have need of intercessors (who we pray to) when Christ is our mediator with God. So next, I will address this issue.

This is an excellent question, and one which is, I think, based on a misunderstanding of prayer, intercession, and mediation.

Let's start with prayer to make sure we have a firm grasp of what it means in Catholicism. In Greek, there are several words for prayer, of which we will examine two, proseuchomai and deomai. Proseuchomai is prayer that carries with it the connotation of worship, it is prayer reserved for God alone. This is the word Christ uses when He teaches the Apostles the Lord's Prayer. Deomai is prayer in the form of requests for aid, entreaties, begging, etc. Deomai carries no connotation of worship, and is used throughout the Bible as people make requests of each other. The problem arises when translated from Greek into English, both words are translated as prayer. If you examine an English dictionary you will see that both definitions I have listed here have corresponding definitions for the word pray. You will also see that the etymology of the word pray comes from the Latin precari which simply means "to ask."

When Catholics pray to the Saints and Mary, we are not using proseuchomai, far from it. Catholics use deomai prayer, we ask those in Heaven to ask God for things on our behalf. In other words, we use deomai to request of the Saints and Mary that they use proseuchomai on our behalf. We also use deomai to ask of our friends and family to use proseuchomai on our behalf (which is exactly what you do if you've ever asked someone to pray for someone or something). And we of course use proseuchomai on our own behalf as well.

So in reply to the first part of the question, while we certainly have a God to pray to with Christ as our Mediator, this does not preclude in any way prayers to the Saints, for it is a different prayer altogether, and one that is not worshipful, but instead a simple request, and a request for prayers at that!

Now, this does not address why we pray to the Saints and Mary, nor does it demonstrate why there is any necessity for intercession from anyone else. There are many answers to this, many possible replies, etc. My personal favorite is the one given right below this paragraph. But one thing that I have to note before continuing is that we do not actually believe that intercession from Saints is necessary. You do not have to ask for the intercession of the Saints or of Mary as a Catholic. While we have many beautiful prayers that involve Saintly intercession, we also have many beautiful prayers that do not involve the Saints at all! And there is always free form prayer, which is the prayer I use the most. We don't claim it is absolutely necessary to ask for intercession. But we do believe it to be a very important, possibly even essential part of a strong spiritual life, because we are all part of the Mystical Body of Christ.

Like it or not, by virtue of the fact that we are Christians, even though we are currently walking around on Earth, we are connected through Christ to all the Saints who are alive in Christ in Heaven. We are still one Body, the Church, just in different states of existence. To deny a spiritual relationship with other parts of the Body is tantamount to the eye saying to the foot that it needs it not. We are not in this alone. We have our brothers and sisters walking the Earth with us now, and we have our brothers and sisters waiting for us in Heaven (we also have our brothers and sisters who are performing penance in Purgatory, but that's a whole other issue, haha). The mouth cannot say to the hand that it doesn't need it, the eye cannot cut off the foot, and we cannot say that it is wrong to have a relationship with our Saintly brethren. It is essential for a healthy body that all parts of it work together as they are meant to, if the arm ignores the brain, or the foot ignores the leg, there can only be pain and trouble for all involved, for the entire Body. And now, let's look at at another, perhaps more practical reason, why intercession is a good thing.

I ask you to consider this: Christ links our Faith and our Prayers, yes? Whatsoever you ask in my name will be given, whoever asks with faith that his request will be answered will have it granted to him, right? There is a link between our faith and our requests. And in times of great duress, it can be very difficult to have perfect faith in God, to see past our doubts and distress and rely on Him and know He will aid us. We are, after all, only people, people with imperfect bodies and minds. It is to be expected of us that at times doubts seep into our hearts and cloud our faith, damaging our prayers. But those who are in Heaven, in other words those people whose Faith we know to have been so great that they are already Glorified, Perfected in Christ, do they have such doubts? Such worries? Such clouding in their hearts? Of course not, they have been Glorified. So we turn to them, knowing that these people have a Faith which can never doubt and never fail, and we know then that even if we doubt and fail, we have those supporting us who will never. That is one reason why we pray to the Saints, and even more so to Mary for Mary was one whose faith never wavered even in life.

Next up, is the idea that Catholics believe that the Saints desire glorification from us, as well as the objection that we, as Christians, are not to take glory in men, but only in God.

First point is that we are not suggesting that they desire glory. It isn't that they desire, ask for, demand, etc. any glory. It is that God has glorified them, and in accord with His will we also glorify them.

Second point is that glorifying in men is different that glorifying men who have been glorified by God. Glorifying in men means that we are glorying in things that come from men, or in things that are entirely human in origins. This doesn't mean that we cannot glorify those whom God has glorified, for that is something that is from God, not from men.

We also have the objection that Mary cannot be the Mother of God because it implies that a portion of God was "unmade" before Christ. This is really a more minor issue, and easily addressed.

The Son proceeds from the Father, or is, as better put, Eternally Begotten by the Father. But unless you are going to suggest that Christ was not God, Mary is still the mother of Christ, who was 100% God (The Son). If Christ was God, something I'd assume we agree on, then Mary was indeed the Mother of God. This doesn't mean that Mary was necessary for The Son to exist, or that the Son wasn't the Son before He was born of Mary, it merely means that God became Man, remained both God and Man, and had a mother as a result. A mother who is rightfully called the Mother of God.

A further objection is occasionally offered against Mary as being sinless in that God used sinful humans for various purposes in the Old Testament, and that God was not specific nor picky as to who He wanted for His vessel. I will here address the flaw of treating men like Moses, Samuel, David, Jonah, etc. like Mary.

God used those unworthy servants (they were not vessels at all) for very different tasks than the one He had for Mary. First of all being that Mary was a vessel, while the gentlemen listed were prophets, kings, judges or patriarchs, etc. Their roles were not that of a vessel for the object of a divine covenant, they had different jobs.

In fact, in stark contradiction to the above objection, God was very specific as to the kind of vessel He desired to carry the tablets of His first covenant.

Exodus 25: "10 Frame an ark of setim wood, the length whereof shall be of two cubits and a half: the breadth, a cubit and a half: the height, likewise, a cubit and a half.

11 And thou shalt overlay it with the purest gold within and without: and over it thou shalt make a golden crown round about: 12 And four golden rings, which thou shall put at the four corners of the ark: let two rings be on the one side, and two on the other. 13 Thou shalt make bars also of setim wood, and shalt overlay them with gold. 14 And thou shalt put them in through the rings that are in the sides of the ark, that it may be carried on them. 15 And they shall be always in the rings, neither shall they at any time be drawn out of them.

16 And thou shalt put in the ark the testimony which I will give thee. 17 Thou shalt make also a propitiatory of the purest gold: the length thereof shall be two cubits and a half, and the breadth a cubit and a half. 18 Thou shalt make also two cherubims of beaten gold, on the two sides of the oracle. 19 Let one cherub be on the one side, and the other on the other. 20 Let them cover both sides of the propitiatory, spreading their wings, and covering the oracle, and let them look one towards the other, their faces being turned towards the propitiatory wherewith the ark is to be covered."

God was very specific as to the materials and their quality that were to be employed to create the Ark of the Old Covenant. For the sake of some stone tablets and the law, God demands the purest gold, rare wood, very exact measurements and specific decorations, etc. This was for some pieces of stone and written commandments. Christ was the New Covenant. His Flesh and His Blood are consecrated things offered up for us, He Himself notes this at the Last Supper. Christ was far greater in stature and importance than the first Covenant, and as a material object, He far surpasses the stone tablets and the law. And as a result, He also requires a far superior Ark, one which is capable of carrying Him. Christ requires a hallowed and specially made Ark, just as the Tablets of the Old Covenant required a hallowed and specially made Ark.

Finally, I will address the flawed misconception that Catholic prayers to the Saints are similar to pleading with the dead for favors.

This is a misunderstanding of prayer to the Saints. We are not pleading with the dead for favors.

What we are doing is asking for those who are alive with Christ to pray to Christ with us.

The idea is neither for us to not pray to Christ, nor is it to pray to the "dead." Those who are Saints are not dead, they are living in Christ, the fulfillment of His Promise of Everlasting Life to His followers.

If one will agree that Saints in Heaven are alive in Christ, and part of His promise to His followers of Everlasting Life (He even says in the Gospels that there are those with Him who will never taste of death), then that will remedy the first misunderstanding. Then if you understand that we do not expect the Saints to have any power of their own, and that it is assumed, automatically, when we petition a Saint that the Saint will pray to God, and not work some power through him or herself, and moreover that we are not supposed to neglect praying to God ourselves, this will be completely remedied.

As a final point regarding praying to the Saints, do remember that when Paul was writing, there were not particularly many Saints to pray to. Other than Stephen and Dismas, I cannot think of many Christians of note who would've been Saints when Paul was writing. But what Paul does do is encourage people on Earth to pray for each other. Paul himself often asks the communities that he writes to to pray for him and other missionaries, etc.

What this means is that if you accept the idea that the Church transcends just those of us currently walking the Earth, and also includes the Spiritual presence of the Saints, for example, then Paul asking the Earthly members of the Church for prayers is not at all dissimilar from our asking the Spiritual members of the Church for prayers. We are still all one Body, and it is only right that the parts of the Body help each other, love each other, etc.

That Hideous Sense; Part III

2009-05-11T14:09:00.002-04:00

2: "Why does the Bible condone slavery?

This question is quite possibly more pervasive, problematic and pernicious than the previous (why doesn't God heal amputees?), but it is still an argument based upon entitlement. The basic tenets of the slavery argument, as it will be called from here on out, is that it is always immoral to own slaves, thus Biblical allowances or dealings with slavery mean that the Bible has condoned that which is immoral, making the Bible and all which relies on it (most atheists suffer from the delusion that Christianity, like Islam, is a religion of the book, we have Sola Scripture to thank for this) faulty and immoral. The only reason I say that this argument is more dangerous for the Christian is because few people are willing to actually analyze slavery. Slavery is a taboo subject, and suggesting that a further examination of slavery's morality, or its historical continuity (or lack thereof), to determine whether it is acceptable or not is automatically rejected. It is rejected, of course, because modern entitlement has preconditioned Westerners to think that freedom is the highest good, and that if you are a slave, you have lost this most precious good, and thus slavery must be evil. This is false, as we will soon see. This mindset is prevalent amongst Christians and atheists alike, who do not wish to be viewed as supporting slavery, thus they continue to assume that slavery is immoral without inspection.

This assumption, however, does not stand up to scrutiny. In fact, just in a basic sense, we have several major problems to address within it.

The first is the most practical. It is, "How do we know that slavery is objectively immoral?" The second is almost as practical, it is, "How do we know that what we think of as slavery is the same as the slavery found in the Bible?" These two questions must be addressed before any progress can be made on this particular question. They are also very difficult questions for many atheistic challengers to the faith to answer.

Morality is always a tricky subject. To say that something is immoral, in the manner of this argument (that slavery is always immoral), requires objective knowledge of both morality and slavery. When a religion claims that some act is immoral, the religion makes this claim based on divine teachings, for only divine teachings can possibly be objective sources of authority on whether an issue is moral or immoral. But when an atheist makes recourse to claim something is good, evil, or immoral, that atheist is attempting to use an objective adjective when he or she doesn't know the objective truth of the subject in question. He or she cannot even entertain the pretense that they do, because they cannot rely upon God. They have no recourse to objective authority, and thus their claims are problematic. The atheist who can objectively define morality does not exist, and no claim concerning morality from an atheist is ever truly troublesome for the Christian. Atheists simply have no ground to stand upon in this area.

Now, there are certainly plenty of philosophers now and in the past who've attempted to construct objectively moral systems without appeals to the divine, based upon various principles and axioms that they've established. In the case of slavery, the most likely recourse would be to appeal to the idea of humans having an objective right to liberty, such that slavery must be immoral, as I stated earlier. The problem, as we know, is that this alleged right is indemonstrable, leaving the objective morality claim weakened to the point of collapse.

Should an atheist attempt to skirt this by making a relativist argument, such that slavery has become evil now, or that our morality has changed to make slavery immoral, etc. then they have (in addition to making an absurdly fallacious claim) violated the terms of their own argument. For their argument is that the Bible is wrong because it supports a practice that is always immoral. If morality changes, or if slavery's morality has changed, then the Bible didn't support an immoral thing when it was written, and any attempt to force such an interpretation upon it is mere anachronism, and fails easily. No, the question is objective. The subject is objective. And the atheist has no recourse outside of appealing to a sense of human rights.

Now, one could say that while the atheist may not have an answer, the theist cannot demonstrate that slavery is moral either, now can he? Even aside from its false shift of the burden of proof, this argument is hardly any trouble. The theist can, and this particular theist will, demonstrate that being a slave is not necessarily an objectively evil thing. Indeed, this is easy to do, as Christianity has always posited that the very nature and purpose of our existence is to exist in a relationship of perfect Agape Love with God and our fellow humans. And the nature of Agape love is such that, contrary to philia love which asks us to make brothers of all Mankind, agape demands that we make masters of all Mankind, with ourselves the slaves. This is self-sacrificing Love. Surrendering the self, one's desires, ambitions, motives, wants, needs, even one's life or will, for the sake of others' good. This is agape. And slaves, interestingly enough, have an incredible opportunity in their bondage. By virtue of the fact that they are slaves, they are presented with the opportunity to live a perfect Christian life. The slave is placed into a situation wherein obedience, humility, and self-sacrifice are not only encouraged, but demanded, just as Christianity demands them from us.

Indeed, this is precisely what I believe the Apostle Paul noted when he wrote about the relationship of slaves to masters and masters to slaves in his epistles. He reminds slaves that they are servants, and that service is neither demeaning, nor is it evil. Service is the highest and the holiest calling of human kind. It is no shame, nor is it wrong to serve others, though it is best to choose to do so instead of being forced to do so. The interesting point of slavery is that slaves do still choose. There has yet to be a system of slavery in this world where the slaves were absolutely without choice. Even in the American institution of slavery, slaves rebelled, ran away, etc. They had a choice, and they exercised that choice. And like all choices, theirs had certain intendant risks and variables that they measured before choosing. But Paul's exhortations were not to run or to fight, Paul's instructions were to recall that we can also choose to serve and be content, and that choosing to serve is what agape love is all about. How can slavery be wrong if slaves can express the greatest love of all, perhaps more than anyone else?

This has brought us to the Biblical perspectives on slavery. One obvious flaw in the argumentation of atheists regarding this subject is that their understanding of slavery is tied into, and rather rightly so, the slavery of the 16th through 19th centuries in the Western world (particularly the American institution of slavery). All of us tend to agree that the slavery practiced in the American South was immoral. It is a historical fact, even, that the Abolitionist movement grew out of Christianity, and that it was the arguments and strengths of Christianity that really brought Abolitionism to the fore in the 1800s. Now the atheist, in his ignorance of the reality of Biblical teachings on the subject, will take this to be a contradiction. To the atheist, this is like scenting blood in the water, for behold! The Christians, who believe in an objective and unchanging morality, have said that the American institution of slavery was immoral! Therefore slavery has always been immoral, and Christianity and Christians used to support it! Ahh, they rush to the attack, and headlong in their rush, they forget one or two tiny little facts.

Unfortunately for them, those tiny facts prove to be quite relevant to the argument at hand. The first fact is that the American institution of slavery was a peculiar example of slavery, and not at all the same as slavery in the ancient world, nor even close to the slavery in the Bible. These things are all quite different. Our second fact is that the Christian teachings regarding slavery found in the New Testament do more than simply describe the conduct that slaves should engage in, as I noted above. Paul also notes that there is proper moral conduct that the owner of a slave should follow. Paul says that slave teachers should not abuse their slaves, and Paul reminds all Christians that they are spiritually equals, that before the sight of God, they are all human. And let us not forget Christ's own words that in Heaven, the last shall be first and the first shall be last, said just as He washed the feet of His own Apostles, the conduct of a slave.

There is a standard of proper conduct for masters as well as for slaves in Christianity. Both groups are called to act in Christian fashion, which for the masters might mean that they release their slaves (In some cases that may well prove to be the worse alternative, as mere liberation might also result in our former slaves having no shelter, clothing, food, money, education, etc. Indeed, this is a problem still relevant in our own society, 150 years after the abolition of slavery...), but at the very least it means that masters must treat their slaves well. They are not to be abused, and they are certainly not to be treated as non-human, for in the Christian perspective, they are still HUMAN, they are spiritually equal, they are Brothers and Sisters in Christ. This is never to be forgotten in Christianity.

The problem with American slavery wasn't that the slavery itself was horrible (though to our modern sensibilities, obsessed as we are with liberty it seems that way), but that the institution of it was horrible. Christianity rejected American slavery because American slavery had rejected Christianity. Slaves in the United States were dehumanized in a way never before seen in the world. Not only were they treated strictly as property, but their very psychology was warped to reflect this. They were abused in horrific fashion, not only through physical means (like the whippings or back breaking labor) but also through psychological or emotional means. Women raped or forced to have sex with white masters, families sundered, the relationship of husbands and wives ignored, etc. etc. All of these are abuses that Christianity does not permit among its members, and it was American slavery that perfected them. Thus it was American slavery that brought down upon itself the power of Christianity and others, and in the end result it was American slavery that lost.

We can also see the other side of the coin. While Christianity was working against the institution of slavery from the outside in the Abolitionist movement, it also worked to support the slaves from within. It is well known that American slaves embraced Christianity in a very real sense, identifying with the Christian message and coming to understand the Christian view of service and suffering. We must conclude, if we are to be historically unbiased, that Christianity is not only largely responsible for ending slavery, it is also largely responsible for keeping those enslaved strong and with some sense of purpose and value in their lives. Slavery did its best to turn men into mere beasts of burden (and nothing more) in the United States, and the only thing that stood in its way was Christianity, both in the minds and hearts of the slaves themselves, and also in the legal/moral battle waged over the system.

With that, we have mainly addressed the two concerns that marked our foray into the slavery argument. But so far there has only been scant reference to entitlement.

I noted earlier that it is our obsession with liberty that brings us to the conclusion that slavery is horrible, because it strips us of the liberty that we desire. This is the entitlement at the source of this complaint. While the atheist who makes this argument will fail because of the two questions already covered, the reality is that this argument isn't even truly worthy of being dealt with fully in such a manner. This argument is entirely dependent on this idea that humans are entitled to freedom, that they are entitled to liberty, and most of all that this freedom and liberty are what the libertarian philosophers say they are. But we have already seen that everything to which we previously felt entitled to is, in fact, a gift, and something we are not entitled to at all.

This slavery argument attempts to stand upon legs which it doesn't possess, there is no entitlement to freedom, there is no right to liberty, and there never has been. The only relevant right here is again the one Christianity has practiced all along. And it is that we have no right to abuse our fellow humans, but we have every right to serve them. As always, entitlement fails. And once we realize that there is no right to freedom, we are forced to admit that there is no legitimate argument against Christianity here, and there cannot be a legitimate argument against Christianity here.

Now, it is interesting to note that in the long history of the Church, there have been several Councils which spoke out against slavery, indeed, the practice of slavery virtually vanished from Europe in the Middle Ages thanks to the Church. These Councils universally decried the capture and enslavement of free Christians by pirates and slave traders from the Barbary Coast, and argued that such actions were, in fact, objectively immoral. Should anyone attempt to use these arguments to declare that slavery is always objectively immoral, I must note for them that they will have one simple problem to overcome. That the Church's actions in those cases reflect exactly what I have said all along. That no one has the right to strip another of God's gift of liberty where that gift has been given. Taking a free man and unjustly enslaving him is wrong, because it rejects a gift of God to that person. Beyond that, where is the evil?

Christian Suffering, Pt. 3

2009-05-10T15:02:00.001-04:00

If you're Catholic, especially if you grew up Catholic, or maybe even if you know a good amount of Catholics, you are probably familiar with the expression, "offer it up."

You're also probably aware, if you've heard this expression and were even remotely curious as to what it meant, that it is an expression encouraging us to endure our suffering here and offer it up as a sacrifice for those suffering for their sins in Purgatory as they are cleansed and prepared for entrance into the Kingdom.

But what does this really mean? If you're like me, you've never thought about it beyond that point, you just know that's what it is. To me though, this now begs the question of WHY? Why offer it up? After all, wasn't Christ's pain, Christ's suffering, Christ's sacrifice enough? Wasn't THAT the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, that we may be forgiven for our sins? The answer is, of course, an emphatic yes. There are no more sacrifices necessary for our salvation, there is nothing we must do except accept the precious gift of Salvation, which comes in the form of Blood, the Blood of a New Covenant, shed for us and for all so that our sins would be forgiven.

So then why? We have the sacrifice of Christ, the pain of Christ, the Blood of Christ, the Lamb of God. Why would we offer up our own pain as a sacrifice?

The reason is simple. First, we must understand Purgatory, which is not a place where people suffer to be forgiven of the sins, it is a place where people go to experience the temporal punishment for their sins, and be purged of their effects on your soul. To enter Purgatory, you must be in a state of Grace and friendship with God, this means all your sins were forgiven, your sin was paid for by the Blood of Christ. But your temporal punishment is another matter. Consider it this way, the child who plays outside in the mud gets himself covered in dirt, and then runs home to his mother. As dirty as he is, she will not let him inside the house until he has been thoroughly scrubbed. Certainly she will forgive him for ruining his clothes, making himself dirty, and disobeying her when she said to stay out of the dirt, forgiveness isn't the problem, but the fact remains that the child must be cleaned, and scrubbed, and will later be punished for his actions.

Purgatory is where our brethren in Christ go for a period of time partly as penance for their sins, and equally as a final scrubbing of the remaining dirt of sin, while the guilt of it has long since been forgiven. Why do we sacrifice our own suffering for them?

Because we are called to be like Christ.

The final point regarding pain and the Christian path is that once we endure pain, once we forgive others for pain, and once we thank others for the gift of pain, we can finally turn and say honestly to God that this pain we accept, this suffering we GLADLY bear. And then we ask with our whole hearts that we be allowed to bear temporal suffering so that our brethrens, our beloved brothers and sisters of Christ might be released from any more suffering, that our pain be their pain.

When we can sacrifice our pain, when we can offer it up, truly, with joy, with hope, with love, we will join Christ in His example on the Cross, join Him in the second greatest act of love we can perform for our brothers and sisters (the first of course being to give up our very life for their sake), that of taking their pain upon ourselves, as Christ took our sin upon Himself. Therefore; take up your cross, and walk.

Christian Suffering, Pt. 2

2009-05-09T22:14:00.000-04:00

When I think of the most painful things in my life, I do not think of physical injuries. I think first and foremost of the pain of emotions I have felt, bone deep sorrow and raging anger, and worst of all betrayal that makes you feel as if your heart has been ripped out from your chest, and you have become some hollow, lifeless doll. Offered the choice between having my fiancee cheat on me and being stabbed I would gladly choose to be stabbed. To me there is no comparison between them, the pain of the heart far surpasses the pain of the body. Then I think of the pain of the soul, the pain of sin. When I dwell on the sins I have committed, the pain that wells up from the wounds I have inflicted on my soul is incredible. And it too is tied into emotional pain for it is of the soul, just as our emotions are linked to the soul. Many Christians have seen the Passion, have witnessed what is supposed to be an excellent portrayal of the brutal physical pain of Christ's torture and death. But how often do we think of the other pains Christ had to endure for our sake?

What is pain to the Christian? To the person called by God to take up his cross and follow in the example of Christ? Our God suffered excruciating pain for us, both the physical pains of the nails, the thorns, the spear, the whips, the blows, etc., but also having to suffer the horror of having His best friends reject Him, the people He loves betray Him, and what seems like the totality of His existence turned upside down. And then add to that the horrible spiritual anguish of assuming all of Mankind's sins for all Time unto Himself, a being who had never known the pain of Sin, never known the alienation from God it brings. For Christ, who was God, to assume the full sum of all of humanity's rejection of God, the fullness of humanity's alienation from God, Man's rejection of Him, Man's betrayal of Him, must have been the greatest, most horribly unimaginable pain of all.

This is the God who died for us. But more than that, this is the God who accepted the betrayal of one of His chosen few for us. The God who accepted the three-fold rejection of His chief follower for us. The God who died with only His Mother, and a couple of His many followers to be there for Him. The God who bore the full brunt of humanity's pitch black sin while doing so for us. We Christians need to understand that pain is part of the Christian path. To take up our crosses and follow after Christ means not that we run from pain as Buddhists do, nor that we deny the pain and try to be strong, but instead that we embrace the pain, understand that we are weak, understand that we will be betrayed, hurt, attacked, and persecuted for our beliefs. And when we can understand that, we will truly be able to draw on the strength of God, to help us bear up in the worst times possible in our lives. It will be the truest monument of our faith, the greatest testament of our love. And when we can do that, we will know what it meant for Christ, and for the Apostles, to rise from the Dead, triumphant over sin, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

When you understand the gift of pain, when you can not only forgive, but THANK the person who attacks you, when you can smile through your tears at those who hate you: Then you will have become just a little bit more Christlike. And if everyone can become just a little bit more Christlike, maybe we can remove some of that pain from the world.

Christian Suffering

2009-05-08T09:28:00.002-04:00

I am a member of my local parishes ministry for young adults, and every week we have a meeting and discuss something, usually something we've been reading. This ranges from a Bible study to reading books of importance to the faith, such as the Theology of the Body.

Currently, we're reading G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, and in the course of our most recent discussion, the issue of pain arose. While it's fresh in my memory, I'm going to take this opportunity to post three meditations on the nature of suffering in Christianity that I believe essential to a proper understanding of pain. These are somewhat old, so I may at some point update them, but I believe for now they will suffice. Today we will begin with the first, and shortest, meditation. It is on the idea of enduring pain, which is the first step on the path.

"What is pain to the Christian? Recently a fellow Christian told me he desired for Christ to come soon and end the world. His reason was because he was tired of people insulting Christ, and Christians, tired of people sinning, etc.

Beware Christians, for such attitudes reek of selfishness. The mission of the Church was, is and ever shall be to spread the Gospel to all nations and thus prepare for the Second Coming. Christians, when it comes to pain, humiliation, even our intolerable adversary and our penchant for incredible sin, we must endure. Endure the hardships of this life. For our mission is not complete, and many millions, possibly billions of people are as yet unaware of the glory of Christ. If you can endure all this world might throw at you and bring the Gospel to just one more person all of your endurance will be well worth it. And would you honestly be able to look Christ in the eye if you choose to escape your suffering but fail to bring the Good News to one of your brothers? I know I would not be able to face up to Christ were I to fail Him in such a way..."

Questions from Mrs. Kussman and others

2009-05-05T11:46:00.002-04:00

This was a great discussion we were having on Facebook, good enough that I thought I'd repost it here for anyone who stumbles across it. The debate was still going on but has largely died down now. As always, click the title to see the original.

"Have any of your prayers ever, in actuality, been answered?"

Yes. With a high degree of accuracy to my requests and a high number of such instances.

"Is every single word written in the bible factual, truthful and unambiguous?"

No, yes, and no. The Bible is not a monolithic entity, it's a compilation of books, some of which are compilations in and of themselves. While all of it contains inspired truth, not all of it is factual. For instance, the Genesis myths of creation, or the parables of Christ, these are not meant to be factual accounts of history or science, but stories that relate moral and spiritual truths. While they may have a factual basis, in and of themselves they are not facts.

"If Mohammed, Allah's prophet, came down to earth tomorrow, would you remain a Christian?"

Yes.

"why?"

For the same reason I'm not Muslim now. Islam is illogical. It's a combination of Christian heresy and Arab pagan beliefs. If Mohammed magically appeared and told everyone he was right, I wouldn't believe him based on that, when his entire religion is already absurd. That an event is supernatural doesn't mean that it is of GOD.

We've had deceptions in Christianity too. I can recall one story of a woman who was possessed by a demon, and did miraculous stunts in church, and deceived her whole parish. She'd levitate and speak in tongues, etc. and people thought she was of God, when the reality was that she'd made a pact with a demon for power, and was using it to deceive, by her own admission.

"What are your chances of getting into heaven?"

Whatever God wishes them to be. Such a question cannot be answered by a human mind.

"Why do you think is it impossible to prove anything whatsoever of a supernatural nature?"

What it is impossible to do is prove anything whatsoever, natural or supernatural. The concept of "proof" is frankly absurd. Nothing or almost nothing is provable, as skeptic philosophy has shown numerous times. What little we can prove without any sort of doubt or challenge cannot be called either natural or supernatural, since either one reflects a presupposition in the mind, a baseless assumption without proof. If we get beyond that, then everything is provable.

The real challenge most atheists attempt is to challenge theists to prove God using empirical means, ie science. This is impossible because empiricism and science deal exclusively with observation and study of the natural universe and its properties, it cannot, by definition, reveal anything concerning the supernatural, if the supernatural exists.

"Is it possible that the devout Catholic, Adolph Hitler, could be in heaven if he had truly repented prior to his death?"

*sigh* Adolf Hitler was not a devout Catholic, Adolf Hitler was self-excommunicated, in a state of mortal sin much of his final years, and his writings were very much of a heretical and Protestant nature. He may have been raised Catholic, but he left the Church.

And yes, if he had truly repented he could be in heaven. However, he'd spend a huge amount of time in Purgatory first, so I doubt he's there yet, if he did repent. And I expect he won't be there any time soon.

"Where was your soul prior to your conception?"

Where is a question that doesn't apply to the spiritual.

"To what sorts of depravity would you descend if it were proved there was no god?"

Non-existence cannot be proven, your question is meaningless.

"Why doesn't god show himself anymore?"

Your question cannot be answered, since it precludes God showing Himself, which He does.

"When do you think Christ will come back to earth?"

When two qualifications are met:

1) The Gospel has been preached to everyone, whether they accept it or not.
2) When no one expects or predicts it.

"Why was little or no faith needed to believe in god during Old Testament times (god appeared to humans regularly) yet today christians have to rely on 100% faith for their belief?"

Your question is nonsensical. Faith is a function of belief, you cannot rely on faith for belief, because you are relying on belief in God to have faith in Him by living His commandments.

And faith has always been necessary.

"How would you prove that god exists - without using arguments that someone from another religion would use to prove their god exists, and without reference to the Bible?"

If forced to do so, since I normally don't bother attempting such things, I would argue based on the nature of movement in existence.

"What is the difference between a dream, or hallucination, and a vision from God?"

A dream is a set of images formed in the subconscious while sleeping, which were collected by your mind either as memories/vague impressions of your surroundings or as issues which your mind is unconsciously working out while you sleep.

An hallucination is a delusional vision in which the mind tricks itself into believing it perceives something with the senses which is not real, hence the delusional aspect.

A vision from God is a perception which is based on reality, it is not delusional.

"Why is your god the only valid god?"

You're mistaken. God is the only valid God. All the gods of the world are perfectly valid as gods. Don't confuse the terms.

And the reason for that is because God is that entity whose essence is equal to His existence. No other being is as such.

"By what method do you determine the difference between the voice of God, and the voice of the Devil pretending to be God?"

By being skeptical of all such voices and not trusting myself to be any sort of authority.

"If Christ did come back to earth, what would be your minimum requirement for proof of his authenticity?"

That He come back in the manner He said He would.

Questions from Mr. DeMers

2009-05-04T23:23:00.000-04:00

"If theistic evolution is true doesn't that mean things had to die before Man was officialy cursed in the Garden of Eden with death?"

The Fall is an event that occurs essentially outside of time as we know it. Think of it this way. Imagine the entirety of reality is a computer program, all of the Earth is just a big set of data programmed to function along certain lines and according to certain rules. Initially, this program is perfect, it doesn't have any bugs or problems. But some of the variables built into the program have the ability to alter it's basic structure, such that one action can alter the entire program.

The Fall is such an action. Think of it like a patch, or an updated version of the same program. It rewrites the code for the entirety of the program, not just that moment or the following moments, but all of the program; past, present and future.

The Resurrection is another such action. It is a further update designed to remedy the problem of the Fall, and it's effects are ALSO felt throughout the program from beginning to end, simultaneously.

Now, science only studies what we can observe or piece together through empirical data. So DNA, fossils, etc. all serve to provide us with information on what came before. But the two updates of the Fall and the Resurrection have always (from our subjective perspective) been part of the mix. The nature of these alterations are such that those of us WITHIN the system never realize their effects, precisely because they're a-temporal.

Think of it this way. If someone went back in time and killed Hitler as a baby, you would grow up your whole life learning about how the Great Depression had facilitated World War II between the Soviets and the Western World, or some other such madness, because WW2 as we know it would not have happened. From WITHIN the temporal system, you would never know there was a change, because for you there never WAS a change, you're part of that same time line. So evolution involving the death of creatures is to be expected, because we have never known a reality that DIDN'T have the Fall's impact upon it. We should not expect to find immortal animals, etc., nor should we have a problem with animals dying before the Fall's temporal moment.

"Making God using death as a means to create life. Taking away from his fairness and righteousness?"

I think a lot of the problems people have with death are from a failure to understand what death is. Death is not the end of our existence.

"Do you believe Adam was a fully devoloped man or some ape descendant?"

First point, apes are NOT our ancestors, evolutionary speaking. Apes and humans SHARE an ancestor. Modern apes are just as modern as modern man.

Second point, I believe that Adam was human, not whatever preceded humanity. Now, I rather doubt he was what we'd call a homo sapien, but he was still at least a homo something or other.

"How far back do you believe evolution goes? Where we apes or fish?"

All the way back to the beginning, after life began.

"Was Eve really taken from Adam's rib? Or did she evolve seperately?"

Neither. I suspect Adam and Eve both arose out of the same tribe of hominids such that they were a unique new species, but still capable of interbreeding with their predecessors.

"Or did mankind evolve until we finally got to Adam?"

You need to remember that "Adam" and "Eve" are names that are more than just individual names. Adam means both "earth" and "Mankind." Eve means "Mother of all." Adam and Eve are as much a representation of ALL of humanity at their time as they are of two individual persons.

"Have you heard of the gap theory? That between God creating the heavens and the earth and the earth being void and formless that it was the 4.5 billion years scientists always talk about. Then after that it was literaly seven days and 6,000 years."

Yes, I've heard of the gap theory, and the accompanying God of the Gaps argument. I came up with the same idea when I was something like 10 or 12. I've since moved on.

First point, gap theory is a type of fallacy. The only time the positing of a supernatural answer is valid is when argumentum ad absurdum reasoning has demonstrated the absurdity and invalidity of all possible natural explanations. This has not occurred in regards to the gap theory.

Second point, scientists state that the Earth was not void and formless for 4.5 billion years, they say that it was the EARTH, which is a form, and not void, for 4.5 billion years. The universe has been around for something like three times that length. And it was never "literally" seven days and 6000 years. Remember, "seven" is a Biblical number indicating God's time. It doesn't have any real meaning, even within the context of the story in terms of science or history, because "day" is just a vestigial measure of time using solar cycles. Since the sun didn't even exist until the 3rd or 4th "day," it's impossible to take it literally.

"Is it possible that God just created everything at a mature state so in actuality it appears to be billions of years old, but was actually younger? Or did it go through the actual time to age."

Is God in the habit of intentionally deceiving people and getting them to believe falsehoods, or is God the God of Truth?

"6,000 years. Alot of fundamentalists claim there is no way around the fact that the bible says it is 6,000 years old. And that the earth is to.
How do we explain this in light of evolution and science?"

We explain it by noting for our fundamentalist friends that they're treating myths, which are not historical or scientific, as evidence for historical and scientific claims. The purpose of the Bible, and the purpose of those myths, is not to date the planet Earth. Their purpose is to give insight into our relationships with God.

"Also why does the Bible say in Genesis that they lived to be hundreds of years old?"

Dude, they're myths, what do you expect?

More Q&A

2009-05-01T01:13:00.002-04:00

"4) How much authority has the Pope been given? And can the Pope still make mistakes? And if I could further extrapolate the question, how much authority have priests and bishops been given? I know that if a priest rapes a child, it is not a reflection of the Church as a whole, but how do you determine then that one thing the priest says is "of the Church" while another thing he says should be ignored?"

Haha, he's been given enough. His is the authority granted to Peter by Christ in Matthew 16:18. He is the Steward of Christ's Kingdom, and thus has the authority of the King while the King is away. He likewise has certain powers of binding and loosing.

Papal infallibility is a tricky subject.

The Pope can and does make mistakes. Popes are human, Popes sin, and Popes are held accountable for their mistakes before God. The Catholic Church does NOT teach that Popes are impeccable, ie faultless, sinless, etc.

The Pope's authority is such that it is a teaching authority. He is able to teach infallibly on matters of faith and morality, because his office as the Pope is the universal leader of the universal Church. The Church's infallible teaching authority is on matters of faith and morality, the Pope shares in that authority because of the nature of his office and the authority Christ granted it.

This authority is VERY specific in terms of how and when it can be used. The Pope is not infallible all of the time, in fact, Popes are only infallible on exceedingly rare occasions. To teach infallibly, the Pope must teach AS the Pope. If he is teaching as a bishop, or a priest, or a theologian, etc it is not infallible. The authority comes from God through the office, nothing less will suffice. Likewise, the Pope must explicitly declare that he is teaching in such a fashion, no off the cuff remarks, no maunderings, no brainstorming, no pensive thoughts, etc. are considered infallible. There's no guy with a notebook following the Pope around and copying down everything he says to turn into doctrine. The Pope cannot teach infallibly on any issue that is not an issue of faith or morality, of course. Likewise, the Pope cannot change or reverse any already held infallible teaching of the Church.

Priests and bishops serve a specific function of service within the Church. Bishops are the spiritual successors to the Apostles, having received their Ordination in direct line from the Apostles through the working of the Holy Spirit and the laying on of hands of one previously so ordained. Priests are the servants of Bishops, extensions of the Bishops authority, and further workers for Christ.

Their ministry is to the Body of Christ. They are espoused to the Church just as Christ is espoused to the Church. Their vocation is to serve as alter Christi, or in other words, they are to serve as Christ served, ministering the Sacraments and teaching the people as He did.

The Sacrament that priests and bishops under go is one of authority. Ordination leaves what we call an indelible mark upon the Soul. Once a man has been ordained, the Holy Spirit has worked upon him in such a way that only the Holy Spirit could reverse. Once you're a priest, you're always a priest, just as once you are married in Catholicism, you're married until you die or your spouse does. It is through this working of the Holy Spirit that the priest can exercise some of Christ's authority in administering the Sacraments, they serve essentially as a channel for God's Grace, as Christ did on Earth, claiming no power in and of themselves, but only through the working of God.

This is the VERY short form, you've asked a big question right there. All of these are fairly short answers, but this one I'm trying to keep as short as I can.

Priests are, of course, human, as are bishops (popes with a small p, that's where the word first came into use in the Church). They are human, they sin, they make mistakes, and none of them have any sort of infallibility. The way we know whether what they say is correct is because all Catholics have access to the explicit writings and teachings of the Church, things like the Catechism, the Councillar writings, etc. If a priest says something strange, I can look up in the Catechism or the Code of Canon law, etc. and see whether what he said lines up with Church teaching. If it does not, I can disregard it unless it has some other value.

One purpose that bishops are supposed to serve is as checks against such problems. They have more authority than priests, and thus more responsibility. It is their responsibility to ensure that their priests are not teaching heterodox or heretical ideas to their parishioners. Thus a Catholic lay person, like myself, could go to the Bishop with a worry or a complaint about one of the priests. The advantages of a hierarchy is that we have channels of authority through which to make appeals. If the bishop won't listen, we can even appeal to the Pope, like in the Latin Mass issue, when the Pope forced bishops to allow it.

If it is an issue of legality, such as a priest raping children, we can also go to the police, of course. I'd encourage such, even if the bishop is doing something about it. Such things are disgusting.

"5) What is the Church's stance on the Trinity? Do they view the Holy Spirit as an active force in this world, or more as a concept? And do they consider all Biblical phenomena as literal or some as metaphorical (with special reference to the Books of Genesis and Revelations)."

We believe in the Trinity. I'm not really sure what you're asking in that first part, lol.

Yes, the Holy Spirit is active in the world. It is through the Spirit's power that Grace is spread, the Sacraments effected, miracles occur, etc.

The Church allows for different interpretations of the Genesis myths, if that's what you're asking. It does NOT teach specifically that they are scientific history, but it allows people to believe that if they want to. Most of us don't.

The Church certainly understands that some writings of the Bible are mythical, others are poetic, some are allegorical, others are historical narratives with specific focuses and intents. The Church doesn't treat the Bible as one monolithic work, and therefore has no problem with recognizing these differences and others in the various works. And the Church does not claim any scientific authority in its teaching authority.

The Church likewise doesn't have any problem with the discoveries of science, so long as those discoveries are not used to try and alter theologically held truths. In other words, the Church has no problem with the Big Bang, so long as it is not suggested that God was not involved in the creation of the Universe. The Church has no objection to evolution save that it must recognize that Man has a specially created Soul. Due to the nature of these theological reservations, science can never actually say that they are not true. Science cannot test and experiment for the soul, nor determine if God was involved in the Big Bang. Such things lie outside of empiricism, and science only works within empirical boundaries.

Thanks to this, the Church has no problem with Catholics understanding works in the Bible that are myths in a mythical sense. We certainly still believe that Mankind is Fallen, that the myths of Genesis, for example, contain many truths, but we're not always going to treat it like a perfect historical work describing the exact events of the morning of the world. I like to think of it this way. The Church's interpretations draw out the revealed truths of these sections, without need of altering the myths. So we can read them as we'd read any other mythic poetry: However we want. Those truths will remain the same because the Church has preserved them for us. So long as we don't attempt to apply them to science, for example, there shouldn't be any problems. Poetry rarely speaks to science, haha.

The Book of Revelation, is an interesting one. It is viewed as prophetic in many ways, but it also viewed as a coded message with several underlying meanings. One is that it is an encoded letter from John to Christian churches designed to only be intelligible to Christians due to the Roman persecution. Another is that it actually shows us the nature of the Mass in a coded, poetic form. For myself, I would not be surprised if all three were true. Scriptural writing is never simple and easy to understand, and God, far from being the simplistic, one-trick-pony writer that many assume Him to be when they take everything in the Bible literally, writes on several levels at once. Christ often teaches on several levels at once, why would God do any differently when inspiring men?

I recommend Scott Hahn's book on Revelation if you want to study that one a bit further. While I haven't yet read it myself, I've heard it is an interesting examination of the work. It's entitled the Wedding Supper of the Lamb, or something along those lines.

Further questions from Mr. Laing:

2009-04-30T16:06:00.002-04:00

"2) Ok, so it might be impossible to find contradictions between Catholic doctrine and what the Bible says based on the premise that the Bible was compiled by the RCC, but the Roman Catholic Bible has a few extra books in it (not including the Apocrypha) that my Bible does not have. When and why did this happen? And which version is closer to the original Bible compiled in the fourth century?"

Well, a slight correction to that first part. The Catholic Bible doesn't have a few extra books in it, many (not all) Protestant Bibles are MISSING some books, generally the Deutero-Canonicals.

This happened at the time of the Protestant Revolution, and was performed by Martin Luther. Here's the basic run down.

Martin Luther translated the Bible from Latin to German. The Church strictly controlled the translating of the Bible because it is a massively difficult work to translate accurately. And any inaccuracy in the Bible would be quite problematic for people's understandings. Luther, of course, needed the Bible for his premise of Sola Scriptura, and so translated it anyway (and rife with errors, some of his own intentional creation, an issue for another day).

When he translated it, he removed several books and parts of others that he believed were not Canonical, and almost removed more. Those that he did remove are called the Deutero-Canonicals, and are part of a secondary tier of Scripture in the Jewish faith. His removal was based on several variables.

Rewind to Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered much of the known world, including Palestine, and spread Hellenistic civilization and the Greek language all throughout his conquests. One of Alexander's alleged ambitions was the collecting of all the world's religious manuscripts and writings into his library in Alexandria, Egypt. To this end, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek was commissioned for 70 scholars to work on. What they produced is called the Septuagint.

Fast forward to Jesus Christ. It is widely thought, based on internal evidence from the Scriptures and supported, I believe, by archaeological findings, that in Christ's time, both the Septuagint, Hebrew versions of the Scriptures, and possibly Aramaic language scriptures were in use. Without a doubt, Hebrew and Septuagint language Scriptures were.

At Christ's time, there was no set Old Testament canon. The Jews had never developed a set canon, and instead just had varied Scriptures, much like the Christians later did. They had different translations, and those translations might have different works. For example, the Septuagint had the Deutero-Canonicals, but not every set of Hebrew Scriptures did (archaeological evidence used to suggest that NO set of Hebrew Scriptures did, but I believe they've now found some that do, so nix that, haha).

Christians largely made use of the Septuagint, particularly because, after the initial converts were all Jewish (and used the Septuagint themselves anyway), the Church had a huge influx of Gentile converts, most of whom spoke Greek (as Greek was the popular language of much of the Eastern Roman Empire, thanks again to Alex the Great). They had further support in doing so, because we know from the Gospels that Christ Himself used the Septuagint, or at least we know that Christ used the Deutero-Canonical books which the Septuagint contains.

The problem came in that the Christians were very effective at using the Deutero-Canonical books to influence Jews to convert to Christianity, a perceived threat by the leaders of Judaism at the time. So the Jews, for the first time ever, had their own Canonical "Council," the Council of Jamnia in about AD 70. There, they decided that they would not use the Septuagint, and used only those Hebrew Scriptures without the Deutero-Canons. Now, Jews could simply reject any argument from the Deutero-Canon made by a Christian on the basis of those books not being part of their Scriptures.

Likewise, at the Canonical Councils of the Church in the 4th century, the Church decided that as Christ and most of Christianity used the Septuagint and the books it contained, they kept them, and those are the books they had translated into Latin, published, promulgated, etc.

Back to Martin Luther. Martin Luther had a similar problem to the Jews. The Deutero-Canonical books contained evidence that supported several teachings of the Church that Martin Luther rejected. Of course, Martin Luther thought only Scripture was authoritative, but here in Scripture was evidence for those beliefs. Problem. So Martin Luther reasoned that because the Jews didn't accept those books, they weren't a legitimate part of Scripture, and so he excised them. Problem solved. Most other Protestant sects also removed them, though the King James Versions of the Bible kept them, but removed them to a separate section labeled, "the Apocrypha." That's why some Protestant Bible have them, and others do not.

Of course, that brings us to a whole new issue of authority, and Martin Luther's lack thereof, but I'll try to avoid that.

The Catholic Church, when it responded in Council to the Protestant Movement, re-affirmed the Canon of the Bible that it declared was inspired. This was the Council of Trent, and all Catholic Bibles must contain the Canon decided by this Council. I would argue that it is the superior compilation. But that's hardly a surprise, lol!

"3) What is the Virgin Mary's significance? Is she divinity, sort of a goddess? Or just some highly respected figure? And why do Catholics pray to her? I thought you only pray to God? And where the Bible says that Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Him, why do Catholics pray to saints and the Virgin Mary instead of directly to Jesus?"

Mary is a very complicated subject, haha. Her significance is that she is the Mother of Christ, who is God, and thus the Theotokos. She has several distinct roles, in more symbolic and theological language, such as being the New Eve, as Christ as the New Adam. She is the Queen of Heaven (logical result of being the Mother of the King of Heaven, especially in the Davidic tradition). She is the Ark of the New Covenant, a hallowed vessel specially created to carry Christ. As a result she is believed to be ever-Virgin, born without Original Sin through a pre-emptive working of Christ's Grace, and preserved as sinless throughout her life by God's Grace and her own will working in perfect harmony. Etc., etc.

No, she is not a divinity. We believe in One God, the Father the almighty, maker of Heaven and of Earth, etc. etc. etc. Mary is not God, nor is she a goddess.

She is the most respected figure in Catholicism short of God. Catholics have three words they use for reverence and adoration. Unfortunately, they don't translate well into English, which is what causes a lot of these misunderstandings. In Latin they are dulia, hyper-dulia, and latria.

Dulia is the type of respect given to the Saints. Hyper-dulia is the reverence given to Mary. Latria is the worship and adoration given to God alone. But in English, these words could all be translated much the same way, as English often doesn't allow for nuanced meanings in translations.

You can see, just by looking at the form of the Latin that the reverence for the Saints and Mary is of the same type, but different in degree. Mary gets the hyper form of that reverence, while God's adoration is singular in type and degree.

As for why we pray to her (and to the Saints, let's not forget), this is easily answered. First, the word pray.

In English, this word simply means, "to ask." Over time, it gained the specific connotation of being for God. But if you read Shakespeare, for instance, you'll see them go, "I pray thee, tell me...." and other things like that, because that's all pray means. So, again, we have a translation problem. In Greek, we have two words for prayer which are used in the New Testament. One is deomai, the other is proseuchomai. Deomai is the kind of pray which means "to ask" the way you might ask a friend for money, or a cousin for a favor. Proseuchomai is the specific kind of prayer that is reserved for requests of the divine. So when Christ teaches the disciples how to pray to God? He uses the word proseuchomai, and teaches them the Lord's Prayer.

Catholics maintain this distinction in the types of prayer that are possible, and thus understand that we can pray to anyone in the sense that we can ask others for anything, and that we also pray to God, in a way that it unique to Him alone.

Mary and the Saints act as mediators of a sort. When we pray to Mary or to the Saints, we are not praying to them with the expectation that through their own magical powers they will aid us. Nope. Nothing like that. What we ARE doing is asking them for their intercession on our behalf.

Intercessory prayer is a powerful theme in the New Testament. Paul writes in almost every letter asking for the prayers of the Christian communities on his behalf, and offers his prayers on theirs. One of the greatest acts of Christian love is offering our prayers for others, and the Church teaches that the Saints and Mary, as glorified and perfected Christians now alive as part of and through Christ's Heavenly Communion, pray for us just as we pray for each other.

When we pray to them, we are asking for those prayers to be directed to a specific end. We don't expect any action through any power of their own, we expect that they will ask God on our behalf, and join their voices to our own, with the added bonus that they are not distracted by the problems and doubts that afflict us here, and are that much closer to Christ. It is still God who answers these supplications, and still God's power at work, and we don't consider anyone else to be divine.

You are correct that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, no doubt about that. And no one can come to the Father save through Him. Likewise, none can come to Him without the Father's calling to them, the initial spark of Grace in all conversions.

But Christ never tells us that we have to be limited in how we approach Him, and how we come to Him. Mary and the Saints help us in that task, offering us examples of humans who lived lives of amazing virtue, serving as role models who are a little closer to the humanity we know so well. Trying to live exactly as Christ lived can be a very daunting prospect, even though it must be our goal. The Saints show us various ways to achieve that, and highlight God's Grace working in their lives, so we know that it can and will work in ours. Likewise, their prayers and intercessions help to bring us closer to God in the spiritual realm as well. For Catholics, we are never alone, we are always part of God's Community, Christ's Body. We're the Communion of Souls, and I could be the only Catholic alive on Earth and still be part of a greater Body and linked to Christ.

One more thing I would like to note is that Catholics are not supposed to pray to the Saints and Mary without praying to God directly. It is not "instead of" praying to Christ, it is "in addition to" praying to Christ. ;-)

Questions from Mr. Laing

2009-04-29T15:03:00.001-04:00

"1) You said something about the Protestant Church having changed or altered their doctrine before, implying that they were either wrong before or that they are wrong now. But according to my knowledge, the Catholic Church has changed in minor respects too. Maybe not in terms of doctrine, but there were things that they felt rather strongly about and don't anymore."

Yes, the Protestant sects altered their teachings on the morality of contraception about 100 years ago or so.

The Catholic Church has changed in minor respects, absolutely. And this is to be expected of any Institution that is alive and able to aid us. An institution that must be able to adapt to certain changes in the people it serves must be alive to do so. So yes, the Church does change in very minor aspects. It alters the form of some rituals, but it doesn't alter the substance, and we'll go into that more later.

But there are two crucial aspects in any religion that the Catholic Church will not reverse its teachings on, and those two things are Faith and Morality. Those are the two areas where the Church claims to be capable of teaching infallibly, and any such infallible teaching cannot and will not ever be reversed. Such teachings are, on occasion, added to, of course. This is because at times, actions that are new in terms of their morality appear in human history, and we must address them. Or because new questions or issues arise in issues of faith.

The Church functions rather like science. It builds upon a stable foundation of infallible doctrines drawn from Revelation. It does so slowly, and only when confident of the truth of those teachings. And it cannot simply change any of them on a whim or with the times, etc. just as a scientist cannot decide he doesn't approve of the laws of gravity, and try to change those. And just like science, we do add new doctrines when we discover them or learn of them.

"For example (and I don't know any of the details, this is just some vague memory of a history class during high school) they used to do all their services in Latin and pray in Latin too, a 'rule' which they strictly abided to. But now they don't do the whole Latin thing anymore. Why did they change? The Church should not need to change because of popular demand, should it?"

Great question!

Ok, short lesson on the Rites of the Church. The Catholic Church is composed of just over 20 Rites. In the Early Church, Christianity was more locally based, each community developed largely on its own because of the difficulties of travel, especially within an empire that was hostile to one's religion, made it difficult for total unity. Doctrinally, each of these early Churches stayed together for the most part. Some heresies, like Arianism, were problematic, which is why the Church used Councils, like Nicaea, to bring together the Bishops of those local communities and address those differences.

As time went on and the Church became much more united and communication became easier, those Churches kept a lot of their cultural identity and traditions, especially in terms of their language, and the trappings of the Mass. This is when they evolved into the various Rites of the Catholic Church. Each Rite is an entity within the Church that is fully Catholic, but also has a distinct set of cultural traditions and language all its own. The Eastern Churches also have various Rites, the Eastern Orthodox foremost among them.

What most people think of as the Catholic Church is actually the Latin Rite or Roman Rite, which is why many people call it the "Roman Catholic Church." That name, however, is an insult from Anglicans, and serves to alienate the non-Latin Rite members of the Church, the Church has never called itself that.

The Latin Rite is the Rite to which I belong, and it is the largest of any Rite in the world, due to its missionary workings and origins. While in the East many Rites developed in separate communities and cultures, the Western Church was dominated by the Latin Rite from the beginning, such that France, Spain, Germany, England, Ireland, Italy, etc. were all part of that Rite from the earliest part of the Middle Ages. And as most evangelical efforts from Catholicism stemmed from those countries and their globalization efforts, that is the Rite that spread and grew the most. The other Rites in the Catholic Church are Churches that returned to the Catholic Church AFTER the Great Schism, when the Eastern and Western Churches divided over authority. Some Rites that left, then came back.

The Latin Rite, of course, had its own cultural elements and language, as you've noticed. And yes, it used to be that Latin was the language of the Mass, and Latin still IS the language of my Rite, and the Western Church. What changed some of that was a movement in the 60s and 70s towards "modernizing" some of the rituals of the Church, which culminated in the Second Vatican Council. This Council effected some changes, nothing doctrinal, but there were those in the Church who took it too far, and misinterpreted what the Council called for.

What happened was this. At one time, all throughout the world, if you went to a Latin Rite Mass, you'd have the exact same Mass in substance and form throughout the world. You could be in Portugal, the Philippines, Japan, India, South Africa, the United States, Chile, wherever. Other than the sermon, which the priest writes himself, it would be EXACTLY the same. It was a truly universal language for the universal Church, and it meant that a Catholic of the Latin Rite could be at home anywhere in the world.

But at the same time, fewer people were learning Latin, and many bishops felt that Latin was becoming a barrier to people understanding the Mass and Catholicism, because so few spoke it (never mind the fact that each Mass had a Missal book with Latin and the native language's translation so people could follow along if they didn't know Latin). So they effected a change from Latin into whatever language was the popular language in their community. In America this is generally English or Spanish. In Italy, Italian. In Spain, Spanish. In Brazil, Portuguese, and so on and so forth. With this alteration, came some other minor alterations in the FORM of the Mass, certain things said in different ways because of the differences of language, movement of one part of the Mass to another area, etc.

What did NOT change is the SUBSTANCE of the Mass. The Mass is still the Sacrifice of Christ, the Eucharist is still His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Only the language and cultural trappings presenting this Sacrifice changed. And are slowly being changed back.

After these changes, in many areas, several problems arose. Mass attendance declined drastically, sometimes as much as 75%. And vocations to the priesthood also dipped dramatically, resulting in us now experiencing a priest shortage. And at the same time, a movement began to grow in the Church to "bring back" the Latin Mass. As I said before, some bishops went beyond Vatican II in what they did, and outright forbade the Latin Mass, even though NOTHING said there could not be Latin masses, and nowhere was it decided to end the Latin Mass entirely. Some bishops simply refused to allow it.

That's why, about a year ago or more, Pope Benedict XVI issued a proclamation expressly denying Bishops the ability to deny those in their dioceses who want to have the Latin Mass.

So, thankfully, it's on its way back in.

So in summation, they changed those trappings because of a perceived communication barrier, and are now bringing it back because of the way it hurt the Church. And no, the Church should never change its teachings on faith and morals to appease popular demands. Faith and Morality are absolutes, they don't change. But again, when something new appears, like stem cell research, that humanity has never encountered, we DO have to provide the moral guidance on that issue, and thus the Church, as a living Institution, must develop teachings on those issues with its infallible authority.

Apologies

2009-04-29T15:01:00.002-04:00

So I've been out of my writing habit lately. Just as I was attempting an ambitious writing project, a series of works on the Sacraments, I lost all my inspiration to write. Frankly, I'm disappointed in myself. Anyways, this block continues, at least in regards to my intended pieces. My ability to answer questions and so forth remains though, so for now I'll post some Q&A segments from people who've contacted me.

The First Crusade: Just War?

2009-04-17T14:42:00.001-04:00

Yes, I know, I've only posted on article on the Sacraments. I've had a form of writer's block for much of the week, they'll come when they come, I suppose. Until then, I've decided to continue posting arguments and debates I've written for other purposes and places. Enjoy!

Ok, let's start with Just War theory in Catholicism. The Catechism, paragraph 2309 states:

"The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

* the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
* all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
* there must be serious prospects of success;
* the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good."

Now let's examine the history of what happened.

A brief overview would show us that the Holy Land was up to the Arabic invasions, part of the Byzantine Roman Empire for almost a millennium. A good 700 years at least, the Caesars had ruled Palestine. This is historical fact.

Now, Mohammed and the Arab tribes he united, waged a lot of war. The expansion of the first caliphate's empire was impressive in speed and scope. From the conquest of Mecca, Mohammed and his followers turned to the rest of Arabia, made inroads up the Palestinian coast, along the North African coast, and into Persia.

Since we're dealing with the Crusades, we'll address specifically the wars between the Arabs and the Byzantines. What we have is pretty clearly a war of aggression on the part of the Arab nomadic tribes and a defensive war on the part of the Byzantines, indeed, the Byzantines were on the defensive for almost the entirety of the time between about 700 AD and 1453, when Constantinople finally fell to the Turks.

As this war progressed, Byzantine possessions were falling everywhere, Byzantine works of art, culture, religion etc. were being destroyed, Byzantine subjects mistreated, etc. all the usual turmoil of a war not just between empires but between cultures. Remember that the battle was at least partially religious in nature, and partially commercial and territorial. That the Arabs were the aggressors in all senses cannot be denied, they were previously nomadic tribes living in the Arabian desert, continually raiding one another, and trading amongst themselves. As much as they were fighting to spread Islam and control the Dome of the Rock, they were also fighting to gain access to lucrative trade routes, and more civilized territory.

And the Byzantines were, of course, no less self-interested. They were fighting to survive and hold onto their possessions and their trade, and their culture and ways of life.

Entering into this already twisted tangle were the Turks, who worked at conquering both the Arabs and the Byzantines, and who converted to Sunni Islam. It was under the Turks that things really got interesting, as they came to dominate the aggression against the Byzantines.

So what happened? Well, as things worsened for the Byzantines, as the Arabs and Turks were proving dramatically more effective on the field than the traditional Byzantine armies, the Byzantine emperor appealed to the Pope for aid. At this point, the Schism of 1054 had already occurred, and the West and East sections of the Church had already fallen out over authority and the Filoque clause. The Byzantine Emperor appealed anyway, a significant step, given the estrangement. The Pope then appealed to the Kings and Nobles of Western Europe, asking them to send aid to the Byzantines. The possible reasons for this call to aid are many, from establishing Catholic authority in the East, to protecting a brother Christian nation, to protecting Western Christian caravans and convoys of pilgrims (the fighting between the Turks and Arabs was as much of a problem in this instance as anything else), to a fear that Muslim invasions into Europe would only grow worse if the Byzantines fell (recall that at this point, the Muslims had already invaded into Spain, Sicily, France, etc., and had only truly been turned back at Tours). They still held much of Spain, particularly in the south, and controlled a lot of the Mediterranean, and it's entirely possible the Pope was worried about further invasions. A still further possibility was the desire to send Europe's knights off to do something other than kill each other, as the collapse of the Carolinian dynasty had led to internecine warfare.

My own belief on the subject is that it was a combination of all of these factors, and no single one was likely particularly dominant. But that's speculation, of course.

So, the Crusade itself. Armed pilgrims and warriors from Europe depart for the Byzantine Empire, which, incidentally, promised aid and supplies for those soldiers, and then reneged on its arrangement (they had some cause, since a group of peasants and lesser knights had already caused massive problems for the Byzantines in terms of supply). The cooperation lasted through the siege of Nicaea, and ended after Antioch.

Finally Jerusalem, and the siege which ended when Genoese ships were dismantled to be used as siege engines. The accounts of slaughter in Jerusalem are hard to substantiate. Several are riddled with liftings of language from the Bible, and others are accounts from non-eyewitnesses. And it certainly wasn't a "kill all Muslims" sort of situation, either, there are numerous references to living Muslims, to accepted surrenders, etc. Certainly it was a bloody end to the siege, assaults on walled cities always are.

So we return at least to the prominent question: "Was this a justifiable war?"

Certainly the damage to the Byzantine's by the Seljuk Turks and the Arab caliphates before them was lasting, certain and grave. The conquests were continual, and the only respite the Byzantine's knew was through the Crusade's efforts. And equally certain is that the Byzantines were on the defensive, fighting for their provinces which had been conquered or were being conquered. And finally, it is certain that the Crusade was a response on the part of Western Europe, particularly the Frankish kingdoms, to a call for aid from the Byzantines.

As to whether other means were tried, or effective, in ending the fighting, I do not know. I suspect, however, that they were certainly not effective, if tried, that much is obvious. Whether diplomatic means would be taken seriously by anyone at the time, given the unceasing aggression against the Byzantines I find quite doubtful.

As for the serious prospect of success, the First Crusade could hardly be called a doomed effort. It succeeded in relieving the Byzantines, capturing Jerusalem, etc.

The final aspect is the most interesting. Did the use of arms promote or create a greater evil than the one being defended against? In the first Crusade, most of the war was a series of battles and sieges progressing through Anatolia and into Palestine. Did they promote or incur a graver evil than the wars already raging? No. They were typical of any war of that period in their scope and means, thus they didn't use excessive force nor involve some graver evil.

Now, if there was a whole sale slaughter of Muslim citizens in Jerusalem analogous to a genocide, then there'd be a problem. But even the most colorful accounts which revel in bloody "glory" recall stories of Muslims being allowed to surrender and live and leave, etc. I would argue that it was a siege, like any other, and the city was pillaged, but that there was no whole sale slaughter of all Muslims or anything like it.

So yes, I'd say the First Crusade represents a possibly just war.

Excuses....

2009-04-15T02:00:00.002-04:00

So Tuesday was a waste of a day. Hoping to get to some serious writing Wednesday. Night all...

The Sacrament of Penance

2009-04-13T11:39:00.002-04:00

Catholic teachings are so inter-related that, while I may only want to go into Confession, doing so requires an explanation of Catholic teaching on the Graces, Justification, Sanctification, Salvation, Sin, Purgatory, Contrition, Penance, etc. In other words, any attempt to explain a Catholic position on one issue requires at least some understanding of several others to grasp it. Yet another reason why we're so misunderstood I expect.

With that being said, I will now attempt to begin outlining some important points concerning the above concepts as they relate to Catholic Confession. This will be done in an expository fashion,

As previously noted, I have to explain several topics that relate to Confession before I can get into Confession itself. We'll start with Faith.

I have seen many varied definitions of Faith before. I will here provide mine, which I do not believe specifically contradicts or conflicts with anyone else's, but which I do think will illuminate a particular difficulty many have with Catholicism.

Faith is something that is believed/trusted/accepted and acted upon. I add the final part regarding action, because we are told, for example, that even the Devil believes. Yet the Devil is not saved. Moreover, we are told that Faith without "works," or in other words, Faith without action based upon it, is dead in the Letter of St. James. In my personal opinion, Faith is something that changes us, and I have yet to meet the Christian who actually disagrees with me on this. As part of that change, Faith inspires us to act in a manner different to the manner we acted before we had it. In fact, I will go so far as to say that even the act of willing to have Faith, the very choice to have Faith, is the first act of Faith. I believe it is utterly impossible to have Faith divorced from action. They necessarily go hand in hand for Faith to be legitimate, or for it to be living, as St. James says. Keeping that in mind, let us progress to the concept of Grace.

Catholics actually have several names for Grace, and understand it to work in various ways in different situations, which is why we have the seperate terminology. Here we will treat with one form in particular, that called Sanctifying Grace (not to be confused with Actual Grace, a common problem).

Sanctifying Grace is the Grace we receive in Baptism, it is the gift of God that results in our salvation. We receive it because we choose to repent and turn to God. Thus we have Faith, that Faith is what allows us access to Grace, for without both belief and acceptance of Christ's redeeming Sacrifice, we cannot access His Grace. When we perform the act of Faith and are Baptized into the Church, that is when Sanctifying Grace is poured out upon us by God, and we are freed from the power of Sin and cleansed for God. Our Faith, and our choice, are inspired by God, to turn us away from sin and towards Him. We must then choose to accept His prompting and come to Him. This is how we first receive Sanctifying Grace.

Please note that water Baptism is only one of three forms of Baptism, and is called the ordinary form. Sacraments in general are the ordinary means of receiving Grace. By ordinary we mean that they are the normal ways, but we do not say that Grace cannot be received through any other means. It's all up to God. Therefore, let's have no one taking my comments regarding any of the sacraments out of context. If someone dies on his or her way to baptism, for example, we do not believe such a person was not baptized, we consider him or her to have been baptized by desire instead of water. Likewise, if someone is martyred for his or her faith in Christ before they can be baptized, they are considered to be baptized in blood.

However, because of the above outlined understanding that Faith and Action (works, fruits, etc.) are inseparable, we do not divorce Faith from the action that the Faith prompts. Someone who says "I have faith" and doesn't act upon it to be baptized in any way (see John 3 and Matthew 28 as to why baptizing is considered so important), we would question whether they truly had Faith at all, as per James' letter. A person who claims Faith, yet chooses to not engage in the rite by which all Christians become Christians, a rite commanded by Christ, and a rite that is a visible act of Faith (at the very least) to all of us, would be suspect as a result.

Progressing onwards, then, we must now tackle the issue of sin. Sin is, in essence, a rejection of God to one degree or another. It is also an inherently criminal action, for it violates the law of God, and is evil. Catholics have an understanding of difference in degree of sin as well. Catholics do not subscribe to the idea that all sin is equivalent, and for the following reasons:

For Catholics, there are mortal sins and venial sins. Mortal sins are sins that involve Grave matter (something important, usually outlined for us in Scripture as sinful), willful rejection of God, and knowledge that what you're doing is sinful. To further go into this, let us consider the following hypothetical examples (these will be somewhat extreme, their extremity is meant to highlight the principles involved, not because I have some realistic expectation of these things happening).

#1: Let us say that I am somehow forced to commit murder, and forced in such a way that I have no way to stop myself (maybe some kind of drug, or mind control device). I have committed a gravely evil deed, that being murder, the killing of an innocent person for no justifiable reason (like self-defense). But I did not choose to commit the evil deed. Because choice is always linked to culpability, we cannot say that I am fully culpable for this action. In other words, we cannot reasonably say that God would truly be Good and Just were He to condemn me for a deed that I did not choose to commit. And likewise, I have not voluntarily separated myself from communion with Him through this act, as it was not an act I choose to do.

#2: Let us say again that I have murdered someone. But in this scenario, I come from a culture in which murder is not considered wrong, a society which teaches from birth that murder is perfectly normal and fine, warping the conscience. In other words, I do not know that murder is wrong, nor do I know that I will be punished for it, that there is a moral rule against it, etc. I am utterly unaware of the fact that killing some random person for no reason is morally wrong. In this case, we Catholics again believe that some of the guilt of this action, evil as it is, is exculpated because of the offender's ignorance of the evil nature of the act. One must wonder, if the person knew it was evil, would the person still have done it? We believe that a Just and Good God would not necessarily condemn someone who was unaware that what they were doing was wrong. In like fashion we might consider a child who does something wrong without knowing it. Do we kill this child for the offense, lock him in his room, or beat him bloody? Of course not. We teach the child, perhaps scold him a bit, etc. but the punishment is far less severe than it would be for a child who knew it was wrong to do something and did it anyway.

#3: The last situation is the most difficult. Because it involves the gravity of a particular matter, I have saved it for the end. Gravity of sin is very difficult to judge. We are very certain that some sins, namely theft, rape, adultery, murder, idolatry, blasphemy, and aposticization, are objectively grave. They are, by their very nature, objectively and totally evil as a complete rejection of God's gift of goodness, and to perform them (willfully and with an awareness of that evil nature) is tantamount to a total rejection of God, who is Good. There are more sins than those lifted above that are considered grave matter, of course. The question, however, is what sins are not considered Grave matter.

When Protestants and Catholics fight about the Catholic gradation of sin (this happens occasionally) it has been my experience that what we're really fighting about is the idea of gravity of sin, and not whether a sin might be less or worse based on our knowledge or free choice of it. So I will attempt to provide an example of an action that is not gravely sinful.

Let us say that I am being mugged, and my attacker draws a knife on me. And as a result, I break his wrist and elbow in rapid succession to prevent him killing or injuring me. I am fully aware that the techniques I would use on him (after years of martial arts training) will hurt him severely, and I am also well aware that causing physical injury to another person is bad, even with the intention that I am only protecting myself (the fact remains that I have hurt someone to an excruciating degree). Catholics would consider my sin here to not be grave matter, for several reasons. First is that my action is not, in and of itself (at least as far as I am aware), objectively and totally evil. Hurting someone is not on par with taking a person's life. Moreover, Catholics, like most Christians, understand morality to work in terms of intentions, means and ends. My intentions here were to hurt the mugger, but for the purpose of defending myself, not out of pleasure or superiority, etc. My actions were wrong in that they hurt someone, whereas the perfect Christian might gladly surrender to a mugger (turning the other cheek), and the means are physical techniques that leave our mugger severely injured, and hopefully myself unharmed. This is not an action that I believe can be seen as gravely sinful, and thus I do not think it would qualify as a mortal sin.

And so we continue to the other kind of sin in Catholic theology, known as Venial sin. Sometimes our sins are small, or unwilling, or unrealized (as illustrated in hypothetical form above), thus they cannot qualify as mortal sin, and may not qualify as sin at all. In those cases where they do qualify as sin, though they damage your relationship with God and with those against whom you sinned (if against someone other than God alone). While these smaller sins won't kill the Grace inside you, they will do other things. They will attack the charity/love in your soul for God, as well as damage your relationships, etc. And by committing many of these lesser sins you can still do so much damage that you deteriorate into a state of mortal sin as well.

Mortal sin is so great a rejection of God (again, due to it being willful, knowledgeable and grave) that it will not just damage or offend the charity/love in our souls, but kill it entirely. It does this because sin is contrary to the Will of God. By knowing something is terribly wrong, and choosing to do it anyway, you have set yourself in total opposition to God's Will, which is a Will always oriented towards Love of God and Love of Mankind, Good, and Justice. If you have rejected God's Will, you have also rejected your acceptance of God's Salvation, which is naturally part of His Will for us, I think we Christians all agree, and it is that Will which allowed us to receive Grace in the first place. By rejecting God's Will, and God's Salvation, you have cut off that force which connected you to God's Grace. You have assaulted and mortally wounded your faith. This is how we destroy our connection to Sanctifying Grace, and in so doing, place ourselves under the power of sin again.

In a nut shell, this demonstrates the Catholic understanding of salvation as a process, not as a moment. Catholics believe that our initial Faith Justifies and Sanctifies us, generally through the baptismal act, whatever form it takes. The justification of our Faith is accompanied by the pouring out of God's Sanctifying Grace upon us, this is what makes Baptism a Sacrament. It is, and this is what is meant by "Sacrament," a visible outpouring of God's Grace upon us. We believe that mortal sin, because it demonstrates that we are rejecting completely the Will of God, corrupts our souls again, removing our initial Justification and Sanctification, necessarily, as a being who sins cannot be sanctified (holy) or justified (you have sinned and not yet repented, your actions have not demonstrated faith, they have demonstrated an antagonism towards God, thus the Faith that justified you is no longer even present). To remedy the problem of mortal sin, then, we finally arrive at the Sacrament of Confession, the ordinary means by which God's Grace and forgiveness is received by a Catholic.

First and foremost, let us address a couple of things that Confession involves, its history, and then make some clarifications as to what Confession is not. Both are extremely essential to properly understanding Confession, and both result in confusion, misunderstandings and arguments on the subject.

First, the Sacrament itself generally consists of going into a small room with a screen of some kind between you and the priest. The priest recites ritual phrases, and you first express that you are repentant for your sins and wish to confess, asking for forgiveness. You tell the priest how long it has been since your last confession, and you tell the priest the sins that you've committed (I've found it's best to write them down before hand, because it can be difficult to remember once you're there). Upon telling the priest your sins, you say the prayer called the Act of Contrition, and the priest absolves you of your sins in the name of the Holy Trinity and with the authority of Christ (John 20). That is the end of the Sacrament of Confession itself. After the Sacrament, the priest usually assigns a penance for you to undertake, often some prayers said for a specific intention. This penance is voluntary, no one can or will make you do it, it is left to you to do as an individual, and it serves a several specific purposes which I will go into soon. Failure to complete the penance, however, qualifies as a further mortal sin, nullifying the Grace you've just received. Understand that the voluntary assent to penance is implicit in going to Confession in the first place, and soon we'll see why.

Before that, however, I want to address several misconceptions and the history of the Sacrament itself. First off, for some common misconceptions.

Misconception #1) It is through some power of the priest that we are forgiven, and not the power of God. This is absolutely false. In Confession we are confessing to Christ, and the priest is only there to act as a physical stand in for Christ whose physical body is in Heaven. The priest in and of himself has no special or magical powers, he merely has a special authority, vested in him by Christ through the Sacrament of Holy Orders. This is Scripturally traceable to John 20:23, where Christ tells His Apostles that He is giving them the authority to forgive people their sins. The power for this action comes from God, it is His Grace that works in us in the Sacraments, and it is on Christ's authority that priests are able to transmit this Grace.

Misconception #2) It is our act of penance that results in forgiveness or absolution, or in other words, that we are only forgiven once we've said a certain number of Our Fathers and Hail Marys. This, too, is absolutely false. As noted above, the Sacrament of Confession results in absolution for the penitent Christian, before penance is assigned, let alone completed. Penance exists for an entirely seperate purpose, and is unrelated, utterly, to our forgiveness. I wish to say this again, absolution is not dependent upon penance, though failure to complete penance just results in further sin. I am most emphatic on this subject because this is the source of several accusation towards Catholics that we think we can "earn" forgiveness. This could not be farther from the Truth, I assure you.

Misconception #3) That it doesn't matter if we are truly repentant or not, we are still absolved. This, again, is false. Contrition is necessary for the Sacrament to be valid. The priest may pronounce the words of absolution, but the power of it, the grace, comes from God, and is only going to be effective on someone who is truly penitent and sorrowful for his or her sins. Period. If you make a false confession with no actual remorse or repentance, you have only worsened your sin by lying to God about your penitence.

Misconception #4) That Confession is a license to sin and then just confess again. Of course, false. Part of the Act of Contrition, the prayer that closes the Sacrament is a solemn promise to go, and with the aid of Christ, sin no more. Part of the purpose of repentance, which as you recall is necessary for the Sacrament to be effective, is that a repentant person does not intend to just go and sin again. Such an attitude is obviously not penitent, and would render the Sacrament invalid. So no, Confession is not a license to sin, for to treat it as such would mean that a person was not repentant, in which case the Sacrament doesn't result in absolution.

And now that we've addressed some of the biggest misunderstandings surrounding Confession, let's look at the history. Catholics are often attacked on the subject of Confession, because it is allegedly not Biblically based. Or more specifically, confessing to a priest by yourself isn't Biblically commanded. And this is true, in so far as it goes. Leaving aside arguments about the validity of relying solely on Scripture, let us look at exactly how the form of the Sacrament of Confession evolved in the Church.

The Rite I described above is the "modern" form of the Sacrament. In other words, private confession with you and the priest is the newer form of the Sacrament. But by newer it should be understood that it is at least 1500 years old. Moreover, private confession with a priest has always been allowed in the Church. And for certain more public sins, like apostasy, early Christian writings are very clear that people would confess publicly before the entire church community (including the priest, of course). Moreover, the confessing of sins in general is Scripturally backed and even commanded. James 5:16 says, for example, "Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much." And I John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity." Note that in both of these examples, they are epistles (letters) written to Christian communities. In other words, these are instructions from the Apostles, in the Bible, to Christians who have already been Baptized, to confess their sins, in one the injunction is made to confess to each other, in the other, to simply confess, it does not specific as to whom. Moreover, early Christian writings like the Didache, the Letter of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch's writings, Irenaeus's writings, along with Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, and more support the confessing of sins. The practice of confessing our sins goes all the way back to the Apostles (who wrote the Didache) their earliest successors (like Ignatius of Antioch), etc. The history of Confession, thus, runs throughout the history of the Church, though the form of the practice has changed from being more public to being more private.

Why change from the often communal confession of the past to the more private confession of the present? Why confess to the priest still and not just to God? Why is confession to each other, important enough that James specifically commands it? What is the value in Confession, aside from the claim that it brings absolution for our sins? Well that's next, so stay tuned.

In Catholicism, Confession is considered extremely important. I like to argue that while most of the Sacraments are not considered "necessary" for salvation, they are considered "essential." Confession is not strictly necessary, in that someone may very well be baptized and not mortally sin afterwards, and then die, in which case Confession wouldn't be necessary, as Baptism cleanses us of sin. But most of us do sin, even mortally, and for us, having a means of receiving forgiveness and sanctifying Grace that we can easily access is vitally important, and thus essential to our faith lives, essential to the point of being necessary for our forgiveness in ordinary circumstances. Let's look again, in brief, at the Sacrament....

The first step, and most important part of Confession is repentance. Obviously, as without repentance, the Sacrament has no effect.

Next is the action of confessing. Again, for Catholics, Faith and Action are undeniably and unalterably linked. It is action that demonstrates and breathes life into Faith, it is action that shows that our Faith as altered us. When a person has mortally sinned, that person has willfully and knowingly rejected to follow God's Will on some gravely important matter, thus demonstrating that they do not have living Faith. The act of repenting, the act of confessing is the action that demonstrates that a person's Faith has begun to rejuvenate at the behest of God, even under the strain of his or her sin. Moreover, the act of confessing is very important in that it requires of us and allows for us to experience several critical things.

First, it lets us face them in their entirety. To confess our sins means that we must honestly and contritely examine our consciences and our past deeds, identify our sins, and vocally admit them to another person (we're drawing closer to the why of confession to another), and at the same time to God. This is an incredibly powerful experience, and it requires not only a great courage from the Christian penitent, but also an amazing quality of Faith, to look our sin in the eye, confess to it, freely admit to our guilt, and trust that Christ has forgiven us for even our most horrible actions. It brings us quite literally face to face with our own worst selves, and even better, reminds us of the ever present, and all powerful grace of God that can forgive anything we have done.

The benefits do not stop there either. Confession also encourages an amazing sense of humility, one of the most important virtues a Christian can cultivate in his or her spiritual life. Because confession demands that we admit and own up to our failings to another person and to God, there is no room for pride, no room for arrogance, no room for selfishness or conceit. You are stripped bare of all egotism and humbled before God in Confession, and then you are Justified anew and washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb. There are no excuses, and no vanities in legitimate Confession, there is only honest, humble, repentance, and the Sacrament encourages these qualities the more we partake of it. Many great Catholics, like the late John Paul II, have been known to frequent Confession monthly, weekly, or even daily. This is not because they are committing horrible atrocities every day, but because for the humble Christian, even the slightest of sins is too much, and any chance outburst of anger or lust or sin in any of its many forms demonstrates to us that we need to remain humble and loving. Confession encourages this, and those who practice it regularly are amazing examples of Christian humility in their daily lives as a result.

And now we reach the last part of this expose, that being Penance. Penance is one of the most misunderstood teachings of the Catholic Church, due mainly to its confusion with absolution by some. Penance can even be used to describe the entire Sacrament itself (it is alternately called the Sacrament of Confession, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or the Sacrament of Penance, as in the title). When this is done, penance is used in the sense of a person being penitent, not in that the action of penance is required for absolution, as I have already noted. Penance is also the purpose of Purgatory as well as Indulgences, resulting in further misunderstandings and confusion on both subjects. I will address both here.

While our forgiveness is not dependent on performing penance, penance is important and often assigned by our confessors. Penance is oriented towards healing the damages done by sin on our lives. What damages are these that are not healed by forgiveness itself? Such problems as addiction, or family feuds are two excellent examples. While we can be forgiven for our sins by God in confession, and realign ourselves to His Will, it is indisputably true that while we are under the power of sin we develop bad habits that can easily lead us to sin again after confession. If your sins were watching pornography and masturbating, not only will you be at risk for a sexual addiction, but your psychological understanding of the beauty of sexual intercourse and the value of the opposite sex as more than just objects of lust are in danger from your sin. One purpose of penance is to repair these damages by forcing you to perform actions that are opposite to those sinful ones you were performing earlier. Thus your penance might be aimed at repairing your relationships with the opposite sex and removing from yourself your treatment of them as objects of lust.

If your sins are, for example, linked to fighting with your family members, your penance might be to ask forgiveness in person from each and every family member you've fought with, or to say prayers for them for every time you've been angry with them or upset with something they did. This is the primary purpose of voluntary penance, it is to remedy the effects of sin upon our selves, and not just our souls.

There are more purposes to penance though. The next purpose of note is that penance is indeed a form of punishment. Catholics do not deny that Christ's death on the cross removes from us the Eternal punishment of Hell that is the wage earned by our sins. However, while Christ has taken upon Himself the Eternal consequences of our sins, there are still the temporal consequences to be dealt with. That there are temporal consequences seperate from both the Eternal consequences and from forgiveness itself, we can see by looking at King David. In the case of King David, he sinned concerning Bathsheba and Uriah. When confronted by the prophet Nathan, David repented and God forgave Him. And yet, God still, despite forgiving David of his sin and not damning him to Hell, carried out the temporal punishment He had decided upon for David, that of taking his ill-begotten son from David. Scripturally, the idea that forgiveness does not relieve us of responsibility for temporal consequences for sin is quite sound. Christ takes for us the Eternal penalties of sin, that is what we know from Scripture. And we know that even when forgiven there remain temporal consequences to our actions. Penance is the action voluntarily undertaken as a form of punishment for our sins to relieve ourselves of the temporal consequences of sin while in this life.

Purgatory is, for the most part, our temporal penance for sins that remain to us from incomplete penance in our lives. While we are forgiven and we are spared from Hell, we are not spared the temporal consequences that we know from the Scriptures and reason. Penance is how we address that in life, Purgatory is how we address that in death. Thus, I hope it will be understood here that Purgatory is not performed for the forgiveness of sin. Like all forms of penance, Purgatory does not exist for absolving sins or earning forgiveness. This is a misunderstanding. One's sins are not forgiven because of completing penance, one's sins are forgiven by God in an act of Graceful forgiveness, both in this life and in Purgatory should it occur.

Indulgences, likewise, do not exist for forgiveness. You cannot buy forgiveness in indulgences (and the buying of indulgences was an abuse happily ended in the Counter-Reformation, as indulgences are supposed to be earned/worked for in some fashion). What one earns with an indulgence is a remittance of penance in Purgatory. In other words, through performing some good work or act of charity and gaining an indulgence, one has essentially done pre-emptive penance. There is no forgiveness involved, if a person has many indulgences, but dies in a state of unrepentant mortal sin, that person's indulgences are utterly meaningless. They do absolutely nothing. Period. I repeat, indulgences and Purgatory do not exist for the absolution of sin.

Now, I mentioned that it is also knowable according to reason that God requires some form of temporal punishment for our sins in addition to the Eternal punishment He Himself has relieved us of. But how can I say this? Here is the explanation:

First we must examine momentarily the Problem of Evil. We know that Evil exists as a result of human freedom (in that we choose to commit evil acts, and that is sin). I also assert that God's Love turns Evil to Good, and will soon demonstrate how and why. But right now in our examination we all perform Evil, and in doing so stain ourselves. We do wrong. God does no wrong, it is part of God's Nature. As God is Good and Just, Evil in those whom God desires a relationship with is very troublesome. While God can Love those beings (us), their ability to Love Him will always be hindered by their choices to reject Him and hurt others. Moreover, those rejections and those injurious acts to others are in some sense criminal (I believe I mentioned this before). Which means not only that humans will have a hard time returning the Love of their Creator, but they will also run afoul of their Creator's Perfect Justice. Humans reject God, and God being loving will not force humans to not reject Him. Thus humans seperate themselves from God (sin). Moreover, as perfectly Just, for our criminality against God and each other, we face Justice which coincides with our choices to spurn God and hurt others. God's Loving relationship is thus injured by us. But God loves us still, and God is also Merciful. So how do Love, Justice, and Mercy co-exist in such a tricky situation?

I submit that God, as a Loving Creator who Wills for a relationship of Agape Love with His Creation, will also Will to somehow end or take away that which threatens that relationship (sin). The question of course, is how? We already know God will not remove our wills, as that will defeat the purpose of Creation. But God can forgive sin. God can forgive the crimes we commit, the rejections and the hurts and wrongs.

As an omnipotent being, God can take away all of our faults and forgive us of all of our sins. As a Merciful God, God does just that. But God is also Just. Which means that God will not just snap His metaphorical fingers and say every thing's taken care of. Justice does not allow for crime to go unpunished, even when it forgives. We often choose to do wrong freely, knowing that such a thing, at the very least, might hurt someone else. We choose, and we choose freely, knowing that there are negative consequences for others revolving around our choices. Justice demands that we pay the consequences of our choices, it's part of the responsibility inherent in having choices.

Were God to be Just without Mercy, every single one of us would be accounted as having rejected Him. The Just thing to do would be to leave everyone of us to continue existing without Him even after we die here. This would be the very definition of Hell, existence separated from God, and is no more than the Just and logical conclusion of choosing to not Love God and not want God. Mercy without Justice would strip humanity of responsibility for its choices and destroy the very notion of a governing morality that teaches us to treat each other with love and respect. With only perfect Mercy we can do whatever we please, so long as we repent, and we never suffer any consequences for our actions. I've noticed some atheists seem to believe that Christians think there are no consequences for our actions once we ask forgiveness. This is utterly false, at least in Catholic theology, penance is always required to meet Justice. So, Justice without Mercy is not so great (kind of pointless for God to create us if we all just go to Hell anyway) and Mercy without Justice is also not so great (though perhaps better than the other) but regardless God exists as both. So how do Justice and Mercy co-exist? Justice "demands" that the natural consequences for the crime of rejecting God be mete out. And Mercy "demands" that God's Love for us is so self-less that He bring us to Him no matter how horrible we are so long as we truly repent.

The solution, is that God Himself must take on the eternal "punishment" associated with the crime of rejecting God, that being separation from God. This is not only the supreme act of selfless love (God Himself dying for the entirety of the world's sins, and taking upon Himself humanity's rejection of Himself) and satisfies God's Mercy, but it is Just, for the punishment due to humanity for its crimes is met, the eternal consequences borne, for those that let Him, by God Himself. The temporal consequences however, remain to humans themselves to satisfy through voluntary penance. Certainly no matter your sins they are not so great that God cannot forgive them (and indeed God's one sacrifice is in fact an Eternal sacrifice because He is outside time, which means your sins are already forgiven, you merely need to go to God and repent). But that doesn't mean that you will not be expected to perform penance, to work to rectify the harm you have done yourself, your neighbors and loved ones, the community and the Church and to your relationship with God through your habits and wrongs. Through our temporal penance, we also satisfy God's justice, as well as come closer to Christ in His suffering and sacrifice for us. Penance thus allows us to not only experience God's justice, but also God's merciful love to a fuller extent than we would otherwise. And so from Love in response to Evil, we find a greater Good, and Evil itself is turned to Good. It is taken away, forgiven, and we are turned towards Good and God and that relationship for which we were created.

On one final note concerning Purgatory, I would like to address the idea of a final cleansing or purification, that is actually at the root of the name Purgatory. While not expressly related to Confession, I wanted to address it while dealing with all these related concepts. Purgatory is considered, in addition to being a place for the completion of penance, it is also a place of final scrubbing of the stains of sin upon us before entering into the presence of God, where sin is inadmittable. While sin has been forgiven, Catholicism believes that it leaves a certain stain upon the soul, especially when not repented of before death (as in the case of unrepented venial sins before death). Temporal Purgatory allows us the opportunity to ask for forgiveness one last time (because it is a temporal existence, we have the ability to pray, choose, etc.) for our sins and to be scrubbed clean or purified as in fire (there is more to support this notion both Biblically and among the Fathers, but as it is merely a side note to the main issue in this essay, I will leave that aside). Hence the name Purgatory.

Returning, finally to Confession, I have one last issue to address, namely the questions of why confession to another person, especially in the Catholic case, to a priest is so important to the Sacrament. I have already noted that it increases the power of the Sacrament in terms of its effects upon us such as humility, courage, etc. (not in terms of efficacy, of course). Now I'd like to address somethings more often ignored even in Catholic apologetic writing on the subject (at least I can't recall ever having read this before I wrote it to someone else, though I believe it may be referenced in the Didache as well). And that is the difficulty, combined with the communal aspects, of Confession.

One problem often noted by critics of Confession is that confession is difficult. As already noted it requires a great deal of courage, humility and faith to properly perform. It is often described as a rather uncomfortable experience at first, and I know of many former or lapsed Catholics who never went because of this uncomfortableness. Coupled to that uncomfortableness is the idea that many people have that we're confessing our sins to some strange man, a random stranger priest, or even a familiar man. Regarding this, I have this to say: Confession certainly is difficult. And I think it should feel uncomfortable. Sin should make us feel uncomfortable! We should be ashamed of ourselves when we go into confession. I usually cry when I go to confession, I have no problem admitting, and it's the only time I can actually get myself to cry usually.

I'd like to reiterate again that we're not confessing to "a strange man." We're confessing to Christ through His Body the Church, and the representatives He gave the authority to absolve sins to. You're not telling your sins to any old man, you're telling them to Christ, and you're telling them to the Church. And therein lies the necessity of telling them to someone else. Sure it feels uncomfortable and scary and strange. But that's a good thing. If you don't feel uncomfortable confessing your sins, something is wrong! In the early Church, as I noted before, Confession often took place before the entire community. Now that would be uncomfortable! I don't say this just to make that comparison though (indeed, that'd be a waste of time). James didn't exhort the people to confess to each other just because it would make them unbearably ashamed. No, James did it because there is value in confessing, not just in prayer from yourself to God, but in confessing to the Church, to physically present oneself as sinful and sorrowful, and go to the Living Body of Christ in person to receive absolution. Part of that I noted before, in that it has personal value for us in our spiritual development, but there's more to it, and to finish the tale, we must return, again, to sin.

Sin is not just a crime against God, or against our own souls, it is a crime against the Church. It is a crime against the body of believers. Your sin affects others, hurts others, could even destroy others. When the burglar steals, certainly he offends the laws of the land and God, but it is the person he steals from who is most aggrieved and who seeks justice. When the murderer strikes, certainly he offends all society with his crime and God Himself, but it is the victim who suffers the most. And it is to the victim that the first and greatest apology should always be given.

The glory of Confession in Catholicism isn't just that it is the means appointed by Christ of receiving the Sacramental Grace of forgiveness (though that's certainly the biggest part), it's that in Confession, we do not confess just to God, we confess also to the Church, to the Body of Christ, and thus to all our brothers and sisters in faith against whom we have sinned. We are a community of believers, we're together as one body in the Church, and we must seek forgiveness from that community for our evils against it just as we seek forgiveness from God for our evils against Him and again just as we seek forgiveness from ourselves for the harm we do our own immortal souls. Thus, why confess to someone else, especially some priest? Not only because of the nature of the Sacrament, the authority granted by Christ, but also because that priest, that person, is a representative of the entire Church, the entire Body that we are a part of, and our interaction with that person, our confession and contrition, allow us to beg forgiveness not only of God, but of our Brothers and Sisters whom we have failed in our sin.

And that is the Sacrament of Penance in a formidably large nutshell.

This week's introduction.

2009-04-13T11:25:00.002-04:00

So we've entered the Easter Season, and I believe it fitting and appropriate to spend each day this week writing on a different Sacrament. Seven days, seven Sacraments, should work out well if I can keep on track. I find it fitting since this is period is a major time for the Sacraments. Baptism, Communion and Confirmation at Easter Vigil, and for the kids of my parish, they'll be having First Communion soon as well. Confession before Easter for everyone who is receiving. I can't speak of any ordinations, unfortunately, but my brother's one year anniversary of marriage has just past, and my own wedding presses upon my mind. And for myself, this past weekend was my first confession and reception of the Eucharist in something like half a year.

Seeing as this is an apologetics blog, I will begin with one of the most hotly debated apologetics subjects among the Sacraments, and end with the most hotly debated. I will begin with the Sacrament of Penance, and end with the Sacrament of the Eucharist. In between, I'll tackle the others as the dual masters of whim and inspiration dictate. I am not entirely sure what form these essays will take, other than explanatory. Some will assuredly be more mystical than others, and some longer than others. And some more fully and elaborately written. I make no claim to impartial bias, I am sure Confession and the Eucharist will probably be the longest and best.

And I'll admit also that the one on Confession, at least, is already complete. I wrote just such an essay some time ago for apologetics purposes, and I shall post it presently.

To a beautiful first week of the Easter Season, a deepening in all our hearts of the hidden Joy of Christ, and the growth in depth of our live for God and each other, I dedicate this week's writing.

Epicurus

2009-04-11T21:21:00.003-04:00

Been seeing a bit of Epicurus popping up, so I thought I'd post an old analysis of his classic argument and take on the problem of evil.

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent."

No problem, logically speaking, with this part.

"Is he able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent."

This, however, is a logical fallacy. Epicurus assumes that if God does not will to prevent Evil, that God is evil. What Epicurus fails to understand is that there may well be a reason that God allows Evil, and in fact, there are several.

First is that we exist to Love and to be Loved. But Love can only be given freely, it must be chosen by the persons who love. Which means that we must have choice to love God. Evil is merely the other option of that choice. We can choose to be with God, or we can choose to reject God. That is evil, evil is the absence of God. God allows Evil for the greater purpose of allowing us to truly Love, for the purpose of allowing us to be free to follow Him. Malevolent? No.

Second, God does not merely let evil sit and fester on the Earth, He does not leave us to rot in it. God is able to prevent it, and this is part of His omnipotence, as Epicurus pointed out in the first part. But God being omnipotent, He can not only prevent it, but He can in fact create Good from Evil. He can take our sins, and He can bring about such Good from them, that we, who are the source of it, can still be united with Him. In short, God can be Christ, God IS Christ. The Lamb of the World, who even while being tortured, mocked and murdered, still managed to forgive the world, to forgive all of our sins, and to take them upon Himself. So yes, there is evil, and God can prevent it, at the cost of destroying our ability to love Him. Or God can let us have that Love, and God can Himself take up the burden of sin for our sakes, that we might know even MORE Good, that we might know the Good of Christ.

And that, I would argue, is not only NOT malevolent, but is the greatest act of Good imaginable.

"Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?"

Epicurus here engages in another fallacious argument, this time he assumes that evil comes from God. This is false. Evil comes from us, specifically, it comes from our ability to choose something OTHER than God. What God made is the potential for us to Love, and thus the potential for us to not Love, the potential for us to do Good, but with that came the potential for us to do Evil. WE are the ones who choose to do evil, not God, and God is the one who choose to forgive us, redeem us, bring good from evil and right from our wrongs, and even to help us to sin no more.

Remember that, fundamentally, we are Good. We are not evil creatures, even if we do evil, and we should never despair of God's Love for us, He has already shown it, He has already promised it.

"Is He neither able or willing? Then why call Him God?"

Indeed, we'd be wiser to call such a being Epicurus...