Father Barron is terrific. I'm not sure, however, that he is accurately describing the heresies he discusses. For example, the "Jesus is only human" heresy would be Ebionitism (or maybe Adoptionism.") Nestorianism would be Jesus is human and divine but separately so, as if Jesus was "possessed" by a divine being.
I love the Irenaeus quote, "The glory of God is man fully alive". How very different from the Calvinist idea that God is glorified by the predestined damnation of souls. As "Hyper-Calvinist" James White once observed:
So the question I have to ask of many who stand behind pulpits today is this: is your preaching so wimpy it would never trouble a religious hypocrite, and never result in such a person fleeing its proclamation so as to run to man's religions for refuge? Do you pull back on those elements of God's truth that are the most offensive to the natural man because you do not wish to see that disdainful look, that annoyed shaking of the head? Do you really distrust the ministry of the Spirit to make the Word of Christ to come alive in the hearts and minds of Christ's sheep, so that you do not need to worry about those who find offense at His truth? Or have you embraced the spirit of the age which places man's fragile emotions upon the seat of prominence, and have bought into the idea that to be "loving" means to never give offense to anyone (well, except for God--it is fine to offend Him by thinking yourself so wise you can edit out what shouldn't be in the gospel in our day)? Would your teaching and proclamation allow a religious hypocrite to remain safely and comfortably ensconced in the congregation for years on end, never offended, never convicted? Finally, if such a hypocrite does leave and make a show of embracing heresy just to spite you, do you sting with embarrassment, or rejoice that God's Word continues to work in the hearts of men and women, some to His glory in their salvation, and some to His glory in their damnation? Think about it.
Ooh-Rah!!! *Thumps Chest." Manly men talk about rejoicing in the idea that God's glory is found in the damnation of souls predestined to Hell!
Particularly if they "make a show" of embracing heresy "just to spite you"!?!?!?
Really? What's the reason for the rejoicing? That souls are predestined to salvation? That God's power is sovereign? Or that people who "make a show" of spiting James White - or, to be fair, anyone who rejoices in the simple fact that some folks are sent to endless torment - gets his deepest earthly desire, i.e., to see his enemies laid low?
How different this perspective is from St. Thomas Aquinas's answer to the question of whether the saints will rejoice in the suffering of the damned. Contrary to what shallow New Atheists would have you believe, Aquinas did not say that the saints would rejoice that the damned were suffering simply because there were damned and they were suffering. To the contrary, St. Thomas Aquinas explained, with a nuance missing among a people who lack the power of concentrating on anything longer than the information contained on a movie poster:
A thing may be a matter of rejoicing in two ways. First directly, when one rejoices in a thing as such: and thus the saints will not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked. Secondly, indirectly, by reason namely of something annexed to it: and in this way the saints will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked, by considering therein the order of Divine justice and their own deliverance, which will fill them with joy. And thus the Divine justice and their own deliverance will be the direct cause of the joy of the blessed: while the punishment of the damned will cause it indirectly.
And:
Reply to Objection 2. Although God rejoices not in punishments as such, He rejoices in them as being ordered by His justice.
God does not "rejoice in his punishments." He rejoices in his justice. His glory, however, is in "man fully alive."
Here is something on the Irenaeus quote and its source:
It is not only in the doctrine of recapitulation by the grace of Christ that Saint Irenaeus wanted to situate the true value of man, which was denied by the Gnostics. He was careful to note the intrinsic dignity of man, let us even say the relative autonomy of the creature capable of freely orienting himself. Certain contemporaries of ours thirty years ago were gladly spreading about the ambiguous formula: "The glory of God is man fully alive".
In fact, this formula was truncated and ended up making the Bishop of Lyon say the contrary of that which he had taught. Man's life is for him the glory of God provided that man remains in contact with his Creator. Shortly after the Council, some theologians and some historians such as Père do Lubac had already protested against this false interpretation. The Holy Father did just as much with the tact which distinguishes him. In his address at Lyon (n. 2), he recalled the authentic and complete text of Saint Irenaeus: "The glory of God is man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God. If the revelation of God through creation already brings life to all living beings on the earth, how much more will the manifestation of the Father by the Word bring life to those who see God" (AH IV, 20, 7).
As Father Barron suggests, the heart of the difference may well lie in the Catholic willingness to embrace a "both/and" answer at Chalcedon.




















