Evangelical rediscovers the Communion of Saints...

...and realizes that the saints in Heaven know what's happening on Earth.

Laurie preached that he is not the only one fascinated with the topic of the afterlife. "There are a lot of books that have been written on this subject. If you go over to Amazon right now and type in the word 'heaven' you'll find 200,000 options ranging from books to music to different things that you could purchase about the subject of heaven.

"My belief is everything I need to know about heaven is found in the pages of the Bible," he said.

Laurie's message on Sunday was a continuation of the series he is doing on the book of Revelation. He asked by way of the title of his sermon, "What do people in heaven know about what is going on here on earth and do they even care?"

"There are two trains of thought on this topic. For some it would seem like that once we're in heaven we will be so preoccupied with worshipping God that the last thing in our mind would be what's happening on earth – besides, with all the tragedy and sadness in this world, heaven would just not be heaven if we were made aware of it," Laurie described.

"Then, the other train of thought is pretty much the opposite of that. People would think that folks up in heaven are sitting and watching our every move almost like it's their form of entertainment," he said. "They would even think that sometimes those in heaven might be intervening in our lives and directing our steps and helping us to know what to do."

Laurie added, "You might be surprised to know that I believe both views are actually incorrect."

"The question might be well, why would you even care about this? The answer is you will care if you have a loved one in heaven," he said.

Pointing to scripture found in Revelation, Luke chapters 15 and 16, Laurie explained that he believes that people in heaven have knowledge of what is happening on earth.

I was at an Evangelical study recently where the Evangelical pastor explained - perhaps stunned - his Evangelical audience with the suggestion that the Orthodox/Catholic idea of praying to saints has a biblical foundation, pointing to Revelation 15, 16.

The big drawback is occasionally the question of "how do people in Heaven hear prayers on Earth."

The answer is obviously, "they have really good hearing."

Actually, there are a variety of answers from various Church Fathers, but the gist is, "God makes sure that they know what they need to know."

66 or 73?

What text? Whose tradition?

Francis Beckwith on the canon:

This led to two other tensions. First, in defense of the Protestant Old Testament canon, I argued, as noted above, that although some of the Church’s leading theologians and several regional councils accepted what is known today as the Catholic canon, others disagreed and embraced what is known today as the Protestant canon. It soon became clear to me that this did not help my case, since by employing this argumentative strategy, I conceded the central point of Catholicism: the Church is logically prior to the Scriptures. That is, if the Church, until the Council of Florence’s ecumenical declaration in 1441, can live with a certain degree of ambiguity about the content of the Old Testament canon, that means that sola scriptura was never a fundamental principle of authentic Christianity.


After all, if Scripture alone applies to the Bible as a whole, then we cannot know to which particular collection of books this principle applies until the Bible’s content is settled. Thus, to concede an officially unsettled canon for Christianity’s first fifteen centuries seems to make the Catholic argument that sola scriptura was a sixteenth-century invention and, therefore, not an essential Christian doctrine.

Second, because the list of canonical books is itself not found in Scripture – as one can find the Ten Commandments or the names of Christ’s apostles – any such list, whether Protestant or Catholic, would be an item of extra-biblical theological knowledge. Take, for example, a portion of the revised and expanded Evangelical Theological Society statement of faith suggested (and eventually rejected by the membership) by two ETS members following my return to the Catholic Church. It states that, “this written word of God consists of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments and is the supreme authority in all matters of belief and behavior.”

But the belief that the Bible consists only of sixty-six books is not a claim of Scripture, since one cannot find the list in it, but a claim about Scripture as a whole. That is, the whole has a property – i.e., “consisting of sixty-six books,” – that is not found in any of the parts. In other words, if the sixty-six books are the supreme authority on matters of belief, and the number of books is a belief, and one cannot find that belief in any of the books, then the belief that Scripture consists of sixty-six particular books is an extra-biblical belief, an item of theological knowledge that is prima facie non-biblical.

For the Catholic, this is not a problem, since the Bible is the book of the Church, and thus there is an organic unity between the fixing of the canon and the development of doctrine and Christian practice.

A dialogue about Theophanies.

["AJ" is in italics.]

“John 5:37 & John 6:46 make it clear that the only logical person in the trinity who could have been the Angel of the Lord is the Son. No man has seen the Father and the Scriptures never speak of the Holy Spirit being incarnated. 2 Corinthians 4:4 and Colossians 1:15 go on to state that Christ is the image of the invisible God. While the Father and the Holy Spirit are not seen, Christ is the expressed image of God meant to be seen. No, these verses do not rule out angel(s) but they do rule out the Father and the Holy Spirit as being the Angel of the Lord.”

I think with your first paragraph, you are starting to show why it is a good idea to consult the Fathers, because you are starting to make some theological missteps.

First, it is not necessarily the case that the Holy Spirit has never been “incarnated.” In the Baptism of the Jordan, the Holy Spirit descends upon Christ in the form of a dove. (Luke 3:22). That is certainly one time when the Holy Spirit took a visible form. Moreover, according to Aquinas, that was not a mere “vision”; rather, the Holy Spirit was embodied in the form of a dove.

I answer that, As stated above (Question 5, Article 1), it was unbecoming that the Son of God, who is the Truth of the Father, should make use of anything unreal; wherefore He took, not an imaginary, but a real body. And since the Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of Truth, as appears from John 16:13, therefore He too made a real dove in which to appear, though He did not assume it into unity of person. Wherefore, after the words quoted above, Augustine adds: "Just as it behooved the Son of God not to deceive men, so it behooved the Holy Ghost not to deceive. But it was easy for Almighty God, who created all creatures out of nothing, to frame the body of a real dove without the help of other doves, just as it was easy for Him to form a true body in Mary's womb without the seed of a man: since the corporeal creature obeys its Lord's command and will, both in the mother's womb in forming a man, and in the world itself in forming a dove."

And you should admit that that is a pretty surprising – and pretty cool – position to take. I know I was surprised by the bravado of this statement when I first read it. I believe that this position is intended to be anti-gnostic; namely, if the Holy Spirit was embodied in the form of a dove, how much stronger is the Christian claim that Christ was really incarnated.

Perhaps reasonable minds can differ on this point, but it’s going to be hard for you to argue for the idea that there is no dispute as to whether the Holy Spirit was ever embodied

Second, and I think more important, is that your argument devalues the Incarnation. Until the Incarnation, Jesus was never “incarnated.” If he was embodied or corporeal, that would seem to detract from the uniqueness of the Incarnation in salvation history in some, perhaps minor, way. A fortiori, according to your argument, the Holy Spirit was not embodied prior to the Incarnation.

Now, perhaps you can distinguish these prior “embodiments” from the Incarnation, but once you start down that road, you are beginning to whittle away at the most important of Christian doctrines, namely the Incarnation. We can see this in the fact that you describe the Old Testament epiphanies as “incarnations,” which shows that there is a tendency to confuse them with the Incarnation, and that can only detract from the exalted status of the Incarnation.

Third, you say that no man has seen the Father, which is absolutely true. No one, for that matter, has ever seen the Holy Spirit or the Son in their divine nature, because the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all spiritual beings and human beingscannot see spiritual beings with our natural senses. Our eyes are able to perceive only corporeal reality; not spiritual essences. For us to see the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit with our eyes would require that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit take on a material form. However, what we would be seeing would not be the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit, but a form which is NOT the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit because such material form – such as the dove – has parts and is changeable. Here is Augustine describing the issue:

It has been established by all rational probability as far as man—or rather as far as I—can work it out, and by firm authority as far as the divine words of scripture have declared it, that whenever God was said to appear to our ancestors before our savior’s incarnation, the voices heard and the physical manifestation seen were the work of angels. They either spoke and did things themselves, representing God’s person, just as we have shown that the prophets used to do, or they took created materials distinct from themselves and used them to present us with symbolic representations of God; and this too is a kind of communication which the prophets made use of, as many cases in scripture show. But now, when the Lord was born of the virgin, and when the Holy Spirit came down in bodily form like a dove, or in visible fiery tongues and a sound from heaven on the day of Pentecost after the Lord’s ascension, what appeared to the bodily senses of mortals was not the very substance of the Word of God in which he is equal to the Father and co-eternal, nor the very substance of the Spirit of the Father and the Son in which he is co-equal and co-eternal with them both, but something created which could be formed and come into being in those ways. So it remains for us to see what the difference is between those Old Testament demonstrations and these proper manifestations of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, even though these too were achieved through the visible creation.

Saint Augustine of Hippo; John E. Rotelle; Edmund Hill (2011-01-23). The Trinity (The Works of Saint Augustine) (p. 146). New City Press. Kindle Edition.

Here is what Augustine has to say about the appearance of God to Moses on Mt. Sinai, when God showed Moses his “back”:

However all this may be, some such interpretation of the story about Moses is required;57 for we must not allow ourselves to be so befogged by literal-minded materialism that we imagine the Lord’s face to be invisible and his back visible. Both of course were visible in the form of a servant; in the form of God—away with the possibility of such thoughts! Away with the idea that the Word of God and the Wisdom of God has a face on one side and a back on the other, like the human body, or that it undergoes any local movement or periodic change in appearance whatever!

Saint Augustine of Hippo; John E. Rotelle; Edmund Hill (2011-01-23). The Trinity (The Works of Saint Augustine) (pp. 123-124). New City Press. Kindle Edition.

This underscores a fundamental theological issue. For orthodox Christians – unlike Mormons – God is not embodied. God is a spirit. When people saw the epiphanies they were not seeing God; they were seeing a created being used by God.

If we start confusing that, we find ourselves heading, perhaps, in the direction of Mormonism. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that apart from the fact that we aren’t Mormons.)

I contend that Galatians 4:4 does not rule out OT christophanies. Colossians 1:16-17 makes it clear that Christ did have an active role in the world before being incarnated in the flesh. I would say that He was sent in the flesh at the fullness of time, which I believe is what Galatians 4:4 is getting at when stating that He was “made of a woman”, and not that it was his first appearance in the world.

Your interpretation is not implausible, but here is the counter:

How then before the fullness of time (Gal 4:4), which was the right time for him to be sent, how could he be seen by the fathers before he was sent, when various angelic demonstrations were shown them, especially considering that he could not even be seen, as he is in his equality with the Father, even after he had been sent? Why, otherwise, should he say to Philip, who of course saw him in the flesh just as those who crucified him did, Am I with you all this time and you do not know me? Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father (Jn 14:9).84 Does this not mean that he both could and could not be seen? He could be seen as made and sent; he could not be seen as the one through whom all things were made (Jn 1:3). Or what about his saying, He that has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me; and whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and shall manifest myself to him (Jn 14:21)? But there he was, manifest before their eyes; surely then it can only mean that he was offering the flesh which the Word had been made85 in the fullness of time86 as the object to receive our faith; but that the Word itself, through whom all things had been made (Jn 1:3), was being kept for the contemplation in eternity of minds now purified through faith.

Saint Augustine of Hippo; John E. Rotelle; Edmund Hill (2011-01-23). The Trinity (The Works of Saint Augustine) (p. 179). New City Press. Kindle Edition.

Here is the point – even after the Incarnation, there is a sense in which the Son is not totally present for his followers to see. That missing part would be his divine nature. So, the Son was “sent” to the same extent that he was “made of woman,” which implies that he was not sent before he was made of woman. (Let me point out that I think Augustine eventually decides that the term “sent” actually means “procession,” but I’m not unraveling that right now.)

Hence, no Christophanies.

I believe Justin Martyr addresses this well in his First Apology (Ch.63)

“Now the Word of God is His Son, as we have before said. And He is called Angel and Apostle; for He declares whatever we ought to know, and is sent forth to declare whatever is revealed; as our Lord Himself says, He that hears Me, hears Him that sent Me. Luke 10:16 From the writings of Moses also this will be manifest; for thus it is written in them, And the Angel of God spoke to Moses, in a flame of fire out of the bush, and said, I am that I am, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of your fathers; go down into Egypt, and bring forth My people. Exodus 3:6 And if you wish to learn what follows, you can do so from the same writings; for it is impossible to relate the whole here. But so much is written for the sake of proving that Jesus the Christ is the Son of God and His Apostle, being of old the Word, and appearing sometimes in the form of fire, and sometimes in the likeness of angels; but now, by the will of God, having become man for the human race, He endured all the sufferings which the devils instigated the senseless Jews to inflict upon Him; who, though they have it expressly affirmed in the writings of Moses, And the angel of God spoke to Moses in a flame of fire in a bush, and said, I am that I am, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, yet maintain that He who said this was the Father and Creator of the universe”

Further…. “ For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign, having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, for the salvation of those who believe in Him, He endured both to be set at nought and to suffer, that by dying and rising again He might conquer death.”

Justin Martyr rules out the Father as being He that spoke to Moses. He also states the Christ appeared in the likeness of an angel in the OT. Justin goes on to state that Christ appeared in various forms (fire, likeness of angels, and finally as a man). In essence, the form in which He appeared is irrelevant to the fact that He appeared physically in the OT as well as the NT.

Here is my difficulty with giving Justin Martyr a greater persuasive authority than Augustine. Justin wrote before the Council of Nicea, i.e., before the time that the consubstantial nature of the Son and the Father was defined as de fide for orthodox faith. Justin had a confused understanding of the relationship of the Father and the Son, and even went so far as to describe the Father and the Son as different “gods.” This doesn’t mean that Justin was a polytheist or heretic, but it does mean that he didn’t think through the issue of the relationship of the Father and the Son and what it meant for the equality of the persons to have the Father sending the Son as if the Son were inferior.

The point is that if you jump on Justin’s point of view, you may run the risk of gradually lapsing into Arianism, adoptionism, Mormonism or subordinationism.

Also, did Justin deal with the objections raised by Augustine? I don’t know, but knowing that would be important in trying to come to some conclusion vis a vis Justin and Augustine’s views.

“Proskynesis” is the Greek word for worship used in many of the verses involving the Angel of the Lord and worship in the LXX. The original Hebrew is Shachah.

#7812, Shachah (Strong’s definition)
bow self down, crouch, fall down flat, humbly beseech, do reverence, worship A primitive root; to depress, i.e. Prostrate (especially reflexive, in homage to royalty or God) -- bow (self) down, crouch, fall down (flat), humbly beseech, do (make) obeisance, do reverence, make to stoop, worship.

"Shachah" is applied to the worship of God many times. Yes, “shachah” can also be applied in certain instances as making obeisance to person(s) other than God, but we still must answer the question of why the Angel of the Lord accepted worship. I would say that Judges 13 is an example of this.

Manoah assumed the Angel of the Lord was a man in Judges 13:16 (based on Judges 13:8-15). The Angel of the LORD equivocates in the same verse (Jesus makes a similar type of equivocation in Matthew 19:17). Later we see the Angel of the Lord ascending in the flame of the alter and then Manoah (and wife) falling on his face to the ground (Judges 13:20). Manoah then states that it was the Lord who accepted the offering (Judges 13:23). Fire is symbolic of the presence of God in many instances (example: Exodus 40:38). The fact that the Angel of the Lord ascended in this flame leads me to believe that He was accepting the offering and thus accepting worship.

Again, it depends on what we mean by “worship.” In various languages, “worship” covers both worship of the divine and humbling oneself before a social superior. Think of how some English judges are called “Your Worship” or how different cultures have people kneel or genuflect in the presence of royalty.

We also have the example of Lot “worshipping” what are clearly angels. If we say that Lot is showing deep reverence in that case, then it is inconsistent to say that Manoah and his wife were not showing a similar reverence to an angel in their case.

I also think it is significant that the angel tells them his name is “wonderful” or “abundant.” Is that a name of God? I don’t think so.

Also, I notice that it is Manue who says that they have seen God. The fact that Manue says it doesn’t make him inerrant. In fact, we know he is in error because he says that he and his wife will surely die, and she sensibly points out that that is not likely. She’s right; he’s not.

Various arguable OT epiphanies do involve fire – the burning bush, the pillar of fire – but this is getting the cart before the horse. It isn’t clear that those epiphanies definitely involve the appearance of God, rather than an angel. So, arguing from fire to God is begging the question.

Angels, however, do not accept worship. I base this assertion on Revelation 19:10 and Revelation 22:8-9.

Let’s look at Revelations 22:8-9

And I, John, who have heard and seen these things. And after I had heard and seen, I fell down to adore before the feet of the angel, who shewed me these things. ap.22.9 And he said to me: See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them that keep the words of the prophecy of this book. Adore God.

God-inspired (2010-01-10). Kindle Catholic Bible (D-R) (best navigation with Direct Verse Jump) (Kindle Locations 50006-50008). OSNOVA. Kindle Edition.

And Revelations 19:10:

And I fell down before his feet, to adore him. And he saith to me: See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren, who have the testimony of Jesus. Adore God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

God-inspired (2010-01-10). Kindle Catholic Bible (D-R) (best navigation with Direct Verse Jump) (Kindle Locations 49912-49913). OSNOVA. Kindle Edition.

I think that the significance in these passages is that the angels are telling John not to show “proskynesis” because he is their equal because he is a fellow servant of God through being baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. The useful comparison is with the example of Lot in Genesis where the angels permit Lot to “worship” them. Here is Augustine on that passage:

22. There is the point, though, that Lot would not have worshiped with his face to the ground if he had not recognized them as angels of God. So why does he offer them board and lodging as though they were in need of such human treatment?

Saint Augustine of Hippo; John E. Rotelle; Edmund Hill (2011-01-23). The Trinity (The Works of Saint Augustine) (p. 116). New City Press. Kindle Edition.

Again, “worship” meaning showing the appropriate respect for a superior. Angels are ordinarily superior to men – they see God face to face, they are spiritual, they are of awesome power, etc. So, the significance of the John’s action is not that he starts to “worship” them – i.e., engage in proskynesis – but that the angel tells him that John is now an equal to the angel in Christ.

That, of course, is entirely consistent with the meaning of the Incarnation which redeemed the human body, will and soul.

On the whole, I think I find Augustine’s perspective more fitting because it exalts the importance and uniqueness of the Incarnation, which is the core Christian doctrine, and is more consistent with other Christian teachings, such as the spiritual nature of God. Augustine’s teachings are also consistent with scriptural passages, which are clearly ambiguous.

That is not to say that these "theophanies" were not Christophanies – that is within the permissible range of opinion – but if I had to choose, I think I’d go with Augustine’s opinion.

The disturbing thing about this article is the implication in this article that Mormons think that Non-Mormons do.

Tresa Edmunds in the Guardian explains why Mormons do not worship Mary:

In much of the Christian world, 8 September is recognised as the birthday of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Which, as a Mormon, was news to me. Compared with many other Christian sects, Latter Day Saints don't appear to pay much attention to Mary. We revere her as the mother of Christ, celebrate her sacrifices, and honour her as we do Eve or Sarah or other heroines of the scriptures, but we don't worship her.


The Book of Mormonteaches of Mary's sacred calling as the mother of Christ, referring to her as "a virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins" (1 Nephi 11:15) and "a precious and chosen vessel". (Alma 7:10) Around Christmas time, congregations around the world host nativity festivals as we celebrate the birth of Christ and her role in it. She is special to us, but we do not believe in much of the Mary worship of other Christian faiths, including the immaculate conception of Mary, her perpetual virginity, or the assumption.

The first Article of Faith reads: "We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." Unlike many other Christian denominations, Mormons do not believe in the Trinity, but that God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are three distinct personages with their own roles in eternity. This difference in belief ripples out into many other areas of doctrine, but it has important ramifications for Mary. Much of her worship stems from being the mother of God, an intercessor in prayer to her son on our behalf. But Mormons believe that we pray to the heavenly father, with Christ being our only intercessor. Without using her in that role, Mary no longer has grounds for worship, although retaining our reverence and gratitude.

The highlighted phrases merit a hearty "Huh?"

Obviously orthodox Christians do not worship Mary, albeit the overwhelming majority of Christians throughout history have viewed Mary, and the saints, as powerful intercessors.

What may be going on here is revealed in the underlined sentence - Mormons are not supposed to pray to anyone but God the Father, who alone is the proper object of supplicatory prayer and alone is capable of answering prayers.  In point of fact, Mormons do not worship Jesus, according to the Bruce McConkie, a member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles:

1. We worship the Father and him only and no one else.

We do not worship the Son, and we do not worship the Holy Ghost. I know perfectly well what the scriptures say about worshipping Christ and Jehovah, but they are speaking in an entirely different sense--the sense of standing in awe and being reverentially grateful to him who has redeemed us. Worship in the true and saving sense is reserved for God the first, the Creator.

Our revelations say that the Father "is infinite and eternal," that he created "man, male and female,"

And gave unto them commandments that they should love and serve him, the only living and true God, and that he should be the only being whom they should worship. [D&C 20:17–19]

Jesus said:

True worshippers shall [note that this is mandatory] worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.


For unto such hath God promised his Spirit. And they who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth. [JST John 4:25–26]

There is no other way, no other approved system of worship.

The issue of prayer is wrapped into the issue of worship by McConkie as follows:

Another peril is that those so involved often begin to pray directly to Christ because of some special friendship they feel has been developed. In this connection a current and unwise book, which advocates gaining a special relationship with Jesus, contains this sentence:

Because the Savior is our mediator, our prayers go through Christ to the Father, and the Father answers our prayers through his Son.

This is plain sectarian nonsense. Our prayers are addressed to the Father, and to him only. They do not go through Christ, or the Blessed Virgin, or St. Genevieve or along the beads of a rosary. We are entitled to "come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16).

This is an interesting working out of the Arianism at the heart of Mormonism.  For orthodox Christianity, Christ is of one substance with the Father and the Holy Spirity and always has been.  For Arians, including Mormons, Christ is of a lesser rank and substance than the Father, and is a creature himself.  As such, the logic of not praying to Christ is abundantly clear.

But look at the result - while Mormons falsely claim that "other Christians" have elevated Mary to the position of God, in truth, Mormons have lowered Christ to the position of Mary.  Christ is not truly God; he is simply the most elevated creature. This is explicit in McConkie's sermon:

Our relationship with the Son is one of brother or sister in the premortal life and one of being led to the Father by him while in this mortal sphere. He is the Lord Jehovah who championed our cause before the foundations of the earth were laid. He is the God of Israel, the promised Messiah, and the Redeemer of the world.

I'm not sure that all Mormons really understand the implications of this theology, or whether they understand that they do not pray to Christ.  The circumlocution of "praying to" and "praying through" provides sufficient ambiguity to take either position.

On the other hand, I think that there are Mormons who know exactly what their doctrines entail, and who fight the full disclosure of their doctrines out of fear that potential converts would be deterred if they understood that they were not permitted to have a "personal relationship with Jesus."  That at least was my experience in this thread from Theology for Dummies.  Likewise, McConkie acknowledges how difficult this doctrine is for the presumed target audience:

Now I know that some may be offended at the counsel that they should not strive for a special and personal relationship with Christ. It will seem to them as though I am speaking out against mother love, or Americanism, or the little red schoolhouse. But I am not. There is a fine line here over which true worshipers will not step.

From my interactions with a particular Mormon troll, I have become progressively more puzzled by the (apparent) Mormon insistence on - repulsion concerning - the false notion that Non-Mormons worship Mary.  It strikes me as odd that any Mormon would accuse Non-Mormons of adding Mary to the "godhead" when Mormon doctrine explicitly includes a fourth person, an un-named female goddess - to the Mormon "godhead" in the mysterious form of the "Heavenly Mother." Although this figure is seldom discussed, she lurks in the background, and is, in fact, found in Tresa Edmund's essay:

Personally, Mary has significance to me far beyond other women in our scriptures. She is the closest avatar we have to our heavenly mother, and proof of the love and care Christ had towards the women of his day. In stark contrast to how religions have treated women throughout time, her life shows that God knows women are powerful enough to bring forth his most mighty miracles.

Presumably, Mormons do not "worship" the Heavenly Mother for the same reason that they don't worship Jesus, but worship is the proper response to divinity, and insofar as the Heavenly Mother is divine in Mormon theology, the question remains, why not?

Round 2 with James Swan on "how the blessed dead know about the living."

From this Beggars All post.

My prior comments here.

Swan writes:

Peter Sean Bradley said... The point of your post confuses me.


OK, let me try to restate the point.

1. As far as I can ascertain your actions, you left an Aquinas quote on this blog entry highlighting the fact that Augustine's position on praying to the dead was the same as Jimmy Akin's.

2. I went through the entire quote, demonstrating the quote you used does no such thing.

3. Moral of the story: read a quote before posting it, to make sure it says what you think it does.

I respond thus:

Mr. Swan,


I appreciate your advice, but I am wondering about why your tone appears - to me to be so strident.

Let me correct you in a couple in a couple of regards.

1. What I actually said was that "Akins simply restating a position held by many Christian theologians, including St. Augustine."

It appears obvious in light of our interchange - which started from the quote I cited - and read down just a little bit more in the Summa - that I was entirely correct. On which point, I note that you don't disagree with my substantive point.

Your response appears to designed to take the attention away from the substance of my point and make it "procedural," i.e., did I read the entire source before posting?

The answer is that I did, which is why I was able to correct your misimpression as quickly as I did.

2. Your "breakdown" of the quotation was quite excellent so far as it went, something which I've admitted on my blog. The problem is that you've misunderstood the dispute between Augustine and Gregory by reading it through a post-reformation lense.

The issue was not whether the "separated souls" in the beatific vision could know of the prayers of the faithful. Both Gregory and Augustine believed they could. Rather, the issue was whether in the beatific vision, "separated souls" would know of all things that happened on Earth by their direct vision of God as an ordinary aspect of being in the beatific vision. Gregory said "yes," and Augustine said "no."

Augustine said "no" for the reason that you've noted, namely that if they did, then they would be constantly involved in human affairs. Augustine therefore said that the knowledge of earthly affairs was regulated by God. Gregory's position was that although the "separated souls" in the beatific vision did know of human affairs as an ordinary matter of the beatific vision, their participation in human affairs was limited by God.

Aquinas sides with Gregory on that for a couple of reasons. First, he notes that Augustine is simply expressing an tentative opinion. Second, he analogizes the "separated souls" in the beatific vision to the angels, both of whom receive their knowledge through God. [For the explanation on that you would have to go to Question 58 of the Summa.] Since Augustine says that "separated souls" in Heaven are not inferior to the angels, Aquinas takes Augustine at his word and says that they have the same kind of knowledge.

The reason, incidentally, that I recognized Akins as "simply restating a position held by many Christian theologians, including St. Augustine" is that I've worked my way through major texts of both. There are many terms that someone who hasn't might glance over without realizing their significance, such as "separated souls."

I appreciate your comment, though, inasmuch as it gave me an opportunity to dig deeper into Augustine's position on this subject.

If you have an interest in answering my questions, I'd be interested in reading your responses.

I also posted this:

In addition, please allow me to a misimpression you may have about my first comment.


I fully understood the point of your comment. That's why I responded to it and offered your a fuller context from "On the Care of the Dead" to help you with your understanding of Augustine.

What I was - and still am - puzzled about is the purpose of your post - the original post that leads off this comment string.

That's why I asked the questions I did. Namely, do you think that God cannot provide information to souls separated from their body who are in the beatific vision? Do you think that such souls have their exising bodily senses? Do you think that such souls have communication with each other? Do angels participate in the knowledge of God by virtue of their participation in the beatific vision?

I apologize if my use of the term "post" for "the post" and the questions that I asked were not sufficiently clear to alert you to my confusion as to your "post" about Akins, which, to be entirely fair to me, was the subject of my comment.

A Protestant's Protest Against Sola Scriptura.

Caleb Roberts at Genu(re)flections explains why he no longer accepts the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.  Part of his explanation:

Now this question of the certainty of Scripture is not one that has been ignored by the various Reformed confessions. The language of the Westminster Confession states that:


“…our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.”

So, our assurance of Scripture’s infallibility rests upon an inward work of the Holy Spirit’s witness that takes place within our hearts that testifies to the proper and true books of Scripture, the true canon. I know I am treading upon nervous ground here, but given the principle of Sola Scriptura, how is a Spiritual inward working in our hearts an any more appropriate foundation on which to place canonical certainty than a Spiritual inward working in the Church? If you have Catholics on one side that argue that our certainty of Scripture is based on the inward working and guidance of the Holy Spirit in the magisterium that organized the canon and Protestants on the other that argue that our assurance is based on the Holy Spirit’s inward working in the hearts of believers, the difference does not seem to be Sola Scriptura. Rather, the difference is only in regards to the object on which assurance rests which in both cases is extra-biblical and therefore fails as an adequate foundation of certainty within Sola Scriptura. In fact, it seems that all one has to do to distinguish the Catholic position from the Protestant is to take that phrase from the Confession and replace “our hearts” with “the Church.”

And:

Related to this is my next concern, which is that of the binding of the conscience. Sola Scriptura maintains that only that which is contained in Scripture can bind the consciences of men. Well, since the list which properly constitutes which books belong in Scripture is not contained within Scripture itself and the canon was fallibly organized by the extra-biblical Synod of Hippo, was that council violating the consciences of believers by authoritatively establishing a canon outside of Scripture? Moreover, logically speaking, could someone as a Protestant decide for himself that, say, James isn’t a valid part of the canon? As opposed as he would be, on what grounds, beside any denominational vows he had taken, could his conscience be bound? For no where in Scripture does it state that James is Scriptural except within James itself and if he already believed that James was invalid, nothing from within that book could convince him otherwise. As far-fetched as this example seems, Martin Luther himself did this very thing with not only James, but Jude and Revelation as well. Even if we accept what I understand to be Calvin’s understanding, that true Christians “know the voice of the Shepherd” which is the Scriptures, this doesn’t resolve the issue of someone deciding that James or Esther is not canonical and inspired. What would the argument against them be: “The majority of Christians hear, and have always heard, the Words of God in Esther, therefore you should too?” Again, the basis of the certainty in the inspiration and canonicity of any book is not founded upon Scripture alone. Again, if the canon is a “fallible collection” then it seems totally plausible that someone might come to object to a certain book’s place within it for whatever reason and Sola Scriptura would have no way of binding his conscience against his beliefs. Sola Scriptura again seems to implode on itself. If only that which is contained in Scripture can rightly bind the consciences of men, it seems as though you have to first improperly bind consciences in order to possess an established and organized canon with which you can then go out and properly bind consciences.

Those are conundrums, except that in practice Protestants did exactly what the Catholic/Orthodox church did - define the canon through the institutional authority of the church and base the decision on the canonicity of particular books on the conformity of those books to core Christian principles.  Of course, that doesn't solve the Protestant problem which denies that such an approach is infallible.

Relics.

2 Kings 13:

20 Elisha died and was buried. At the time, bands of Moabites used to raid the land each year.

21 Once some people were burying a man, when suddenly they spied such a raiding band. So they cast the dead man into the grave of Elisha, and everyone went off. But when the man came in contact with the bones of Elisha, he came back to life and rose to his feet.

According to Dr. David Anders - a former member of the PCA - relics and the veneration of saints are a Hebraic tradition which were loathed by pagans.  Dr. Anders makes what seems to be a solid case.

Of Turtles and God's Necessary Existence.

Just Thomism writes:

One way to consider the Five Ways:

a.) Resolve to only speak per se and universally or, as the Oxford translation puts it, to speak predicates of subjects that are commensurately universal (See Posterior Analytics, Bk 1 c. 4)

b.) Then ask 1.) What moves (actively)? 2.) what causes effectively? 3.) What is necessary? 4.) What is good, true, dignified, and the like? 5.) What directs?

We can, as others have pointed out, also ask “what exists” or “who understands”, though this is in fact part of 4.).

The obvious objection to this is that the Five Ways never mention what is per se and universally said. But this is implied in the denial of the infinite regress. The denial of such a regress is the same as saying that some feature of things is explained by something per se and first. Absent this, we just posit more turtles for the world to rest on.

And yes, asking this question does make it clear why “all call this being God”.

This is very helpful as I am working my way through Aquinas’ Commentary on the Posterior Analytics and I am lost in some very tall weeds. I hadn’t realized the importance of the ideas of "per se" and "universal."


So, basically, if we have infinite regress, all we have is an infinite bunch of specific, accidental explanations for the existence of something – one turtle after another. This doesn’t meet the definition of a “demonstration” - which is a necessary conclusion following from necessary premises - because no particular turtle is necessary.

Why God became man.

Your questions.  Anselm's answers.

Jesus, the Jew, on Matthew 25.

Professor Ira at "Jesus and the Professor" is continuing his exploration of a Jewish understanding of Jesus' teachings. Ira looks at Matthew 25 - the separation of the goats from the sheep - and concludes:

In Jesus’ view, salvation depends solely on what one did, not on what one believed. Nothing in this monologue suggests that salvation is dependent on belief. That should not be surprising, however. Jesus was a Jew, and in Judaism, reward in the hereafter is dependent on righteousness. Hence, yet again, the dictum, “The righteous of all nations have a share in the World to Come.”

My comment:

Wow! It's like looking in a mirror. I've made the same argument - to wit, that ethical conduct in this life plays a non-trivial role in salvation - numerous times in discussion with Protestants based on Matthew 25.


Matthew 25 is acknowledged as being a "difficult passage" for sola fide Christians. I've heard one radio apologist suggest that teachers pass over it until the sola fide message is firmly established. I've also heard one Protestant pastor explain that the message has to do with the treatment of Christ's ministers, which necessarily ties into sola fide, i.e., rejecting Christ's ministers by not giving them water, food etc. is rejecting Christ.

Obviously, that understanding was not shared by St. Augustine, who accepts that Matthew means what it says when it talks about "the least of these."

In defense of the creed not deed position, I take it that Matthew might be read as pertaining to those who have confessed a belief in Jesus and then the determination of whether someone had true belief would be determined based on their conduct, e.g., "sure, you said that you believed, but we know in your heart you didn't because you didn't do as Christ said to do." At that point, the distinction between belief and action seems to collapse.

Here is the text from St. Augustine's "On Faith and Works" that I was referring to:

For it is evident that He rebukes them, not because they did not believe in Him but because they did not perform good works. In fact, this is why He said that He will separate all who were united together by the same faith, in order that no one might think that faith alone, or a dead faith, that is a faith without works, is sufficient for eternal life, and in order to make it clear that they who will say to Him: Lord, when did we see you suffering this and that and did not minister to you? will be those who had believed in Him but had neglected to do good works - as though it were possible to obtain eternal life by a faith that is dead.

Augustine also had this to say on faith and works:

When St. Paul says, therefore, that man is justified by faith and not by observance of the law, he does not mean that good works are not necessary or that it is enought to receive and profess the faith and no more. What he means rather and what he wants us to understand is that man can be justified by faith, even though he has not previously performed any works of the law. For the works of the law are meritorious not before but after justification.

And:

In the first place, we feel that we should advise the faithful that they would endanger the salvaiton of their souls if they acted on the false assurance that faith alone is sufficient for salvation or that they need not perform good works in order to be saved.

If any of my sola fide friends have anything to add, check out "Jesus and the Professor."

The Perennial Heresy.

Hre is an interesting essay on Jansenism.

In general, Jansenism was a Catholic splinter in the direction of Calvinism that developed about the same time that Arminianism splintered away from Calvinism in the direction of Catholic theology.

The author writes:

Some of Jansenism’s theological and spiritual roots are to be found in Calvin and Puritanism in general. The essential issue is the relationship between divine grace and human freedom in the process of salvation. The Jansenists found the precedent of St Augustine against the Pelagians a great inspiration for their polemics against the Jesuits. Pelagius supported the idea according to which man had the strength to want good and practice virtue, a position that would relativise the role of grace. St Augustine maintained that God alone chose to whom he would grant grace. Man’s freedom is destroyed and made perverse by Original Sin. By an act of God’s sovereign will, God acts on man by efficiacious grace, but human freedom is not destroyed.


Medieval theology was dominated by Augustinian thought, and little place was left to human freedom. St Thomas Aquinas worked hard to conciliate grace and human freedom. Man cooperates in the work of his salvation, which is the work of God. Luther and especially Calvin worked in the same direction, annihilating any idea of human freedom, and going much further than St Augustine would have remotely imagined. It is from this exaggeration of some streams of medieval theology that the famous solas would orginate (Bible alone, faith alone, etc.). The Reformers emphasised predestination. Man is saved by grace, but man cannot resist this grace that God freely chooses to confer, and the divine will is above all things. To combat the Reformers, the Council of Trent (6th Session, 1547) emphasised human freedom and left its relationship with grace open.

The Jesuit theologians reacted strongly, fearful that excessive Augustinianism would weaken the role of the Church in the salvation of Christians. Under Renaissance and humanist influence, they sought to convey a more optimist vision of man, and based their work of St Thomas Aquinas. This is how this Dominican theologian was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1567.

Theological conflicts grew from about that year. Baïus was condemned by St Pius V for denying the reality of free will. The work of the Jesuit Molina was a response to Baïus and claimed the existence of “sufficient” grace, which brings man the means of salvation, but requires a free act from the subject. In the seventeenth century, the controversy finds its centre in Louvain, Flanders (what is now Belgium). The Bishop of Ypres, Cornelius Jansen, also known as Jansenius, was a student and then a professor at Louvain. He began writing his magnum opus – Augustinus in 1628, and it was left unfinished when he died in 1638. For Jansen, since Original Sin, man’s will without divine help is capable only of evil. Only efficacious grace can enable man to prefer the things of heaven to the things of this world. This grace is irresistible and is not granted to all. Parallel with Calvin’s theory of predestination, most people are born to be damned, and God does not will their salvation.

Theological Tidbits...

...from a discussion at "Theology for Dummies."

1. "Convert themselves"


A. Arminians

The language following "convert themselves" reads "by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace."

Don't Arminiams believe that Christians freely assent to - and therefore cooperate with - grace in becoming converted?

B. Augustine

There is this passage from Chapter 54 of Augustine's Letter and Spirit:

According to the faith by which we believe, we are faithful to God; but according to that whereby a thing is brought to pass which is promised, God Himself even is faithful to us; for the apostle declares, God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able. 1 Corinthians 10:13 Well, now, the former is the faith about which we inquire, Whether it be in our power? Even the faith by which we believe God, or believe in God. For of this it is written, Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. And again, To him that believes in Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Romans 4:5 Consider now whether anybody believes, if he be unwilling; or whether he believes not, if he shall have willed it. Such a position, indeed, is absurd (for what is believing but consenting to the truth of what is said? And this consent is certainly voluntary): faith, therefore, is in our own power. But, as the apostle says: There is no power but comes from God, Romans 13:1 what reason then is there why it may not be said to us even of this: What have you which you have not received? 1 Corinthians 4:7 — for it is God who gave us even to believe. Nowhere, however, in Holy Scripture do we find such an assertion as, There is no volition but comes from God. And rightly is it not so written, because it is not true: otherwise God would be the author even of sins (which Heaven forbid!), if there were no volition except what comes from Him; inasmuch as an evil volition alone is already a sin, even if the effect be wanting—in other words, if it has not ability.

Later, in Chapter 60, Augustine affirms that the will to believe is from God, but that is because free will is a “neutral power” and God inclines the will toward belief either externally – “by evangelical exhortations” – or “internally, where no man has in his own control what shall enter into his thoughts, although it appertains to his own will to consent or to dissent.”

[Incidently, our group is now going through the last section of Part 1 of the Summa where this same description of external and internal actions comes into play when dealing with the angels and demons’ power to influence men. So, it seems that we can see Augustine fingerprints in Aquinas.]

Note that Augustine seems to be saying that faith is within our “volition” because whether we believe depends on whether we “consent” and “consenting” is in our power.

I question whether we accept this argument today. Don’t we tend to think that “consent” to “faith” is like accepting an empirical truth like 2+2=4; we are compelled to believe?

In any event, if we accept Augustine’s notion of volition and consent, then it does not seem to be erroneous to say that sinners “convert themselves” because they have to consent or not to faith.

But Arminians – and Reformed Protestants – hold to an idea of conversion as being a big move in Christian life. If Augustine is right – and I would be interested in hearing if you think my take on Augustine is accurate – then how does that occur without the will, consent or cooperation of the converted?

2. Synergism v. Monergism in Salvation.

Sproul says:

Here we discover whether we are utterly dependent on grace for our salvation or if, while still in the flesh, still in bondage to sin, and still dead in sin, we can cooperate with grace in such a way that affects our eternal destiny.

Here, Sproul is talking about regeneration, but notice that he conflates “regeneration” with “salvation”, which is what I’ve been aiming at. Here’s another source that explicitly conflates salvation with monergistic regeneration:

Monergism teaches that salvation is entirely the work of God. Man has no desire for God or Holiness (Romans 3:11-12), is hostile towards God (Romans 8:7), man loves darkness over light and hates the light (John 3:19-20). An unregenerate man desires sin more than he desires God, has a natural love of sin and therefore needs Christ must work independently of the human will or no one will be saved. This is salvation by grace alone. God’s grace is the only agent or cause in effecting the renewal of our fallen will towards God that will lead to repentance.

[The same site says that “synergism” started with Augustine, which (a) hearteningly suggest that I am not misreading Augustine and (b) is pretty odd for someone who is supposed to be Mr. Massus Damnatum.]

But as I’ve noted the LBC and WCF says no one sees God without sanctification and sanctification is from works and people cooperate in works.

Which means then that “salvation is not entirely the work of God” but rather humans cooperate in such work after regeneration in sanctification which is a necessary part of salvation.

It seems to me that sanctification is either necessary for salvation – and involves human cooperation – or it is not necessary toward salvation. If the latter, then we can say that “salvation is entirely the work of God.” We can also say – as one Reformed commentator said in one thread I was involved in – that after regeneration we are basically “running the clock out” on our life. If the former, then we cannot say that “salvation is entirely the work of God,” at least in the sense that Calvin and Luther intended, i.e., that no human will is involved.

Finally, what I’m reading in the LBC seems to suggest that sanctification is necessary for salvation, i.e., that position described by hardcore reformed types who seem to be saying that humans never cooperate in their own salvation are not supported by the LBC or the WCF.

3. Faith as the beginning of salvation.

In Chapter 53 of Letter and Spirit, Augustine writes:

Some one will ask whether the faith itself, in which seems to be the beginning either of salvation, or of that series leading to salvation which I have just mentioned, is placed in our power.

This ties into the initial question of salvation as instantaneous or a process. Augustine clearly saw salvation as a process that begins with faith, which is why I think that Aquinas did as well, even if I don't have an exact citation from him.

History and Invention.

Orthocatholic has a very interesting post on the Evangelical blind-spot -i.e., the Eastern Christian churches:

This “blind spot” often becomes real apparent when Evangelicals discuss historical theology and only mention Catholic writers from the West. For example, traditional Evangelical Protestant apologetics countering the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist most likely will focus on medieval Catholic writers and the Catholic council that defined Transubstantiation. Byzantine, Syrian, and Coptic Christian writers from the Early Church on the Real Presence are routinely ignored. The average Evangelical believes that the idea of Real Presence dates from the thirteenth century and was one of those “Catholic inventions.” This same list of “inventions,” popularized by Protestant theologian Loraine Boettner, puts the idea of seven sacraments as late as 1439. The fact that the belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was a universal belief of the Ancient Church is lost on most Evangelicals, often because many of them don’t even know about the Eastern Christian Churches. Many Evangelicals confuse Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism, let alone Coptic, Syrian or Armenian Orthodoxy.

Then, there is a moment when history comes alive:

Even though I had been visiting Eastern Christian Churches for a few years, I myself didn’t know about the Coptic Church’s history until I visited a parish in Arizona for Liturgy. At the time, I was Eastern Catholic and I would visit various Orthodox parishes with an Eastern Orthodox friend. We both decided to visit a Coptic parish and the priest, noticing two English-speaking visitors, decided to do most of the Liturgy in English for our benefit. At a certain point, a commemoration was made for “St. Dioscorus,” who I remembered was the Patriarch of Alexandria condemned at the Council of Chalcedon. I turned to my Eastern Orthodox friend and asked: “So these people are not in communion with the Eastern Orthodox?” “No,” he replied, “we’re working on it, however.” Neither one of us could receive Communion that day. The realization hit me, from a liturgical perspective, that the Liturgy I was observing was historically quite significant. The separation between the Coptic Orthodox and the Western and Eastern Orthodox Churches was bitter and complete. What the Coptic Orthodox preserved in their liturgical tradition would give evidence of what was a “lowest common denominator” of belief when compared with the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. What was the shared belief of the Ancient Christian Churches about 450 AD? What did they believe about the Eucharist, the Real Presence, the nature of Baptism, the seven sacraments, etc.?

St. Dioscorus?  Dioscorus is one of the "Bad Guys" in the Western tradition, but in the Coptic Church, he's a saint.

It's like going to a museum and learning that Benedict Arnold was the first President.
Orthocatholic also provides a link to this Coptic liturgy, which has some very catch tunes, and English phrases for some reason.

*Gulp*

I'm posting this because it is better to have things out in the open, rather than get blind-sided at some inopportune time. Also, it ties into the ongoing "worship war" over at Thomisticguy's blog about whether Mormons "worship" Jesus and Catholics "worship" the saints.

Long story, short because of the etymology of the term "worship," which is kind of a catch-all that rusn from honoring our superiors to honoring God, the answer would appear to be "Yes" and "In different degrees."

According to the New Advent Dictionary:

The word worship (Saxon weorthscipe, "honour"; from worth, meaning "value", "dignity", "price", and the termination, ship; Latin cultus) in its most general sense is homage paid to a person or a thing. In this sense we may speak of hero-worship, worship of the emperor, of demons, of the angels, even of relics, and especially of the Cross. This article will deal with Christian worship according to the following definition: homage paid to God, to Jesus Christ, to His saints, to the beings or even to the objects which have a special relation to God.


There are several degrees of this worship:

* if it is addressed directly to God, it is superior, absolute, supreme worship, or worship of adoration, or, according to the consecrated theological term, a worship of latria. This sovereign worship is due to God alone; addressed to a creature it would become idolatry.

*  When worship is addressed only indirectly to God, that is, when its object is the veneration of martyrs, of angels, or of saints, it is a subordinate worship dependent on the first, and relative, in so far as it honours the creatures of God for their peculiar relations with Him; it is designated by theologians as the worship of dulia, a term denoting servitude, and implying, when used to signify our worship of distinguished servants of God, that their service to Him is their title to our veneration (cf. Chollet, loc. cit., col. 2407, and Bouquillon, Tractatus de virtute religionis, I, Bruges, 1880, 22 sq.).

*  As the Blessed Virgin has a separate and absolutely supereminent rank among the saints, the worship paid to her is called hyperdulia (for the meaning and history of these terms see Suicer, Thesaurus ecclesiasticus, 1728).

In accordance with these principles it will readily be understood that a certain worship may be offered even to inanimate objects, such as the relics of a martyr, the Cross of Christ, the Crown of Thorns, or even the statue or picture of a saint. There is here no confusion or danger of idolatry, for this worship is subordinate or dependent. The relic of the saint is venerated because of the link which unites it with the person who is adored or venerated; while the statue or picture is regarded as having a conventional relation to a person who has a right to our homage — as being a symbol which reminds us of that person.

 I'm not entirely sure that I'm happy with the idea of "worshipping" an inanimate object; it just sounds wrong and un-American.

This is interesting:

In virtue of the same principle and of the equality of the Divine Persons in the Trinity, the Holy Ghost also became the object of Christian worship. The formula of baptism was given, as has been seen, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. In the doxology the Holy Spirit also has a place with the Father and the Son. In the Mass the Holy Ghost is invoked at the Epiclesis and invited to prepare the sacrifice. The Montanists, who in the second century preached, and awaited, the coming of the Holy Ghost to take the place of the Son and announce a more perfect Gospel, made Him the object of an exclusive worship, which the Church had to repress. But it nevertheless vindicated the adoration of the Holy Ghost, and in 380 the anathemas pronounced by Pope Damasus, in the Fourth Council of Rome, condemned whosoever should deny that the Holy Ghost must be adored like the Father and the Son by every creature (Denzinger, Enchiridion, n. 80). These anathemas were renewed by Celestine I and Virgilius, and the ecumenical council of 381 in its symbol, which took its place in the liturgy, formulated its faith in the Holy Ghost, "Who together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified." These expressions indicate the unity of the adoration of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; that is, that one or the other Person of the Trinity may be adored separately but not to the exclusion of the other two.

It's interesting because it contrasts nicely with the Mormon approach to worshipping the Son, which was  described by Bruce McConkie, on of the LDS Quorum of the 12 Apostles in 1982:

1. We worship the Father and him only and no one else.


We do not worship the Son, and we do not worship the Holy Ghost. I know perfectly well what the scriptures say about worshipping Christ and Jehovah, but they are speaking in an entirely different sense--the sense of standing in awe and being reverentially grateful to him who has redeemed us. Worship in the true and saving sense is reserved for God the first, the Creator.

Our revelations say that the Father "is infinite and eternal," that he created "man, male and female,"

And gave unto them commandments that they should love and serve him, the only living and true God, and that he should be the only being whom they should worship. [D&C 20:17–19]

Jesus said:

True worshippers shall [note that this is mandatory] worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 

For unto such hath God promised his Spirit. And they who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth. [JST John 4:25–26]

There is no other way, no other approved system of worship.

And then there is this:

Another peril is that those so involved often begin to pray directly to Christ because of some special friendship they feel has been developed. In this connection a current and unwise book, which advocates gaining a special relationship with Jesus, contains this sentence:


Because the Savior is our mediator, our prayers go through Christ to the Father, and the Father answers our prayers through his Son.

This is plain sectarian nonsense. Our prayers are addressed to the Father, and to him only. They do not go through Christ, or the Blessed Virgin, or St. Genevieve or along the beads of a rosary. We are entitled to "come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16).

McConkie's statements are actually a nice working-out of the Arian implications of Mormonism, in contrast to the New Advent's Nicene Christianity.  In Nicene Christianity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all God, they are all consubstantial, and so they are worshipped in the same, ultimate way.

In contrast, in Arianism and among the Mormons, the Son is a lesser, created being, and, so, the worship accorded to the Son is less than that accorded to the Father, so much less, in fact, that Mormons can say "we do not worship the Son" in the same way that Catholics say that that "we do not worship saints," although they are both wrong in a sense, and in a sense they are both right.

What is particularly interesting about McConkie's sermon is how he derides both Catholic prayers to the saints and Mormon prayers to Jesus for the same reason, namely they are not directed to God, i.e., to the Suprme Being aka "that than which nothing greater can be thought."  So, McConkie accurately observes that prayers are not answered by anything less than the Supreme Being, which according to the LDS' Arian presumptions is not Jesus.  Hence, praying to Jesus is essentially -  in the LDS scheme of things - wasted effort.

McConkie's conclusion is, thus, that Jesus is a kind of super-saint.  It seems that for McConkie, Jesus plays the same role in Mormon theology that Mary plays in Catholic theology, a really super-special, first class created being.  Consequently, where Catholics offer "hyperdulia" to Mary, Mormons offer "hyperdulia" to Jesus.

I just find that to be a fascinating comparison.

Free Will v. Determinism

One of the most oddball - but salutory - decisions ever made or not made by a Pope was Clement VIII settlement of the dispute between the Jesuits and Dominicans on whether humans have free will.  Clement's decision was basically - after much consultation of learned opinion through the Congregatio de auxiliis - to not decide the issue but to instruct the Jesuits and Dominicans that they could not call each other heretics for arguing for contrary positions.

Finally, after twenty years of discussion public and private, and eighty-five conferences in the presence of the popes, the question was not solved but an end was put to the disputes. The pope's decree communicated (5 September, 1607) to both Dominicans and Jesuits, allowed each party to defend its own doctrine, enjoined each from censoring or condemning the opposite opinion, and commanded them to await, as loyal sons of the Church, the final decision of the Apostolic See. That decision, however, has not been reached, and both orders, consequently, maintain their respective theories, just as any other theological opinion is held. The long controversy has aroused considerable feeling, and the pope, aiming at the restoration of peace and charity between the religious orders, forbade by a decree of the Inquisition (1 December, 1611) the publication of any book concerning efficacious grace until further action by the Holy See. The prohibition remained in force during the greater part of the seventeenth century.

Sometimes a decision not to decide is an inspired, infallible decision.

The Curious Case of Junia

We all remember Junia - who was the leader or deacon of a house church and therefore is presently in fashion among feminist theologians, Womynchurch activists and liberal professors of Bible Studies. 

The version I've heard expounded is that Paul recognized Junia as "equal to the apostles" but during the dark ages of misogyny, Junia's name was changed to the male counterpart, Junias, until modern scholarship could throw off the blinders of sexism and reclaim this lost trace of true feminism.

Not so fast with the Dan Brown theme-song, apparently.  As with a lot of things, it seems that tradition had it right:

As far as translations are concerned, the Latin Vulgates give either Juniam or Juliam, a manifestly feminine name; and the sixteenth-century English translations, including the Authorized Version and the Roman Catholic version from Rheims, regarded the name as feminine. Belleville and Epp show that the overwhelming number of writers and commentators in the first Christian millennium and a half believed St. Paul was addressing a female Junia; and like Burer and Wallace, whose 2001 NTS article (arguing that Junia was not an apostle) ignited the present phase of this controversy, they agree that the feminine form of the name is overwhelmingly more probable (or, to use Eppspeak, certain).


So how did the idea get around that the female Junia was really a male Junias? Perhaps a monkish hand can, after all, be detected in this; the ex-Augustinian Martin Luther seems to have set this ball rolling. It is probably due to him that some north European Protestant translations went for “Junias” (masculine), while versions in Spain and Italy, where the dead repressive hand of Romish tyranny had more influence, stayed with “Junia” (feminine). But even despite Luther’s influence, with only one exception, Greek New Testaments down to 1927 continued to give her the feminine accent. Yes! Even through the dark oppressive decades of Victorian patriarchy, Junia’s femaleness remained unproblematic as far as editors were concerned.

Who, then, is guilty of the sex change? Stand up the thirteenth (1927) edition of Nestle: the standard Greek Testament beloved of twentieth-century “scientific” and “modern” biblical scholarship! Again—Yes! Not Dark Age monks; not obscurantist popes; not medieval misogynist conspirators; not pre-Enlightenment bigots; it is the brightest and the best of liberal European and North American modern scholarship that took a reconstructive scalpel to Junia’s groin. All subsequent Greek Testaments, including the influential United Bible Society editions, slavishly followed the obviously infallible magisterium of the younger Nestle without qualm or hesitation.

I must confess that I am a victim of the "instant tradition" that Junia's sex was covered-up by the Church.  I must have had that tale in a number of different lectures on the early Church, but this is entirely new.

There may be a problem with the claim that Junia was an apostleish kind of gal:

Andronicus and Junia were episemoi en tois apostolois; does this mean distinguished among the apostles or merely well known to the apostles? Epp’s treatment of this central question is light and unimpressive.


Preliminaries are in order. This is not entirely a matter of the highest philology; a fair bit of it is nearer what we call Common Sense. “ X is well known/renowned/notorious among Y”: This can have two meanings— inclusive, where X is a member of the class of objects Y; and exclusive, where X is not a Y. But it is often far from clear whether a particular statement is inclusive, exclusive, or both.

“The New York Times is well known among politicians”: That is quite clear; the newspaper is not itself a politician and so the sense is exclusive—politicians know the newspaper well.

However, take “Condoleeza Rice is well known among politicians.” Surely, this can bear the implications both that other politicians know Dr. Rice well (“exclusive”) and that the world at large knows her well as belonging to the category “politician” (“inclusive”). Because both propositions are true, we probably will not often need to try to distinguish.

If we were to distinguish, we would need information external to the proposition itself.

The former reading is more likely given the absence of tradition that Junia founded churches, or did much of anything else other than providing Paul a reference.

The post I'm linking to ends with this eminently common sense observation:

His influence is clear in a paper written in 2006 by a brace of English Anglican bishops. David Stancliffe (Salisbury) and Tom Wright (Durham) felt the need to attack a paper by Walter Kasper in which the cardinal had begged the Church of England not to terminate the movement towards communicatio in sacris by admitting women to the episcopate. They followed Epp in his simplistic conviction that the only thing needing to be proved is Junia’s gender. If this is to be established, they claim, “then even Roman tradition might be forced to recognize the possibility that women could be apostles, and therefore presumably could hold ordained ministry in the apostolic succession.” This is quite staggering in its implication that if New Testament women exercised “leadership roles,” this feeds in directly to a conclusion that women be ordained to priestly ministries.


For nearly two millennia, women have unashamedly (and laudably) exercised “leadership roles” in the Church, but nobody in all the centuries before Epp’s generation was clever enough to spot that this points to their call to ministerial priesthood. Recent popes have made powerful women saints “doctors of the Church” or “patrons of Europe” without—the pontifical simpletons!—apparently realizing that these actions logically imply that women can be called to episkope. Most Christians for some eighteen hundred years have regarded Junia as a woman, without its for one moment occurring to their confused minds that this makes her some sort of proof of, or paradigm for, women in the sacerdotal ministry of the Catholic Church.

The conviction that all you need to do is to prove that Junia was a woman (which the Tradition had in any case overwhelmingly asserted until modern liberal scholarship decided it knew better) in order to demonstrate the need to expunge the semiotics of gender from the theology of priesthood, simply shows that Epp and his running dogs have not begun to understand what the discussion is all about.

Again, fair point.  Just this morning I was listening to a lecture from the Teaching Company on the Catholic Church where Junia was again trotted out for the proposition that women were leaders in the early church.  Now, this was after the professor had said that the early church didn't have deacons really, but where Junia was concerned, it was the case that she was a leader because she was a deacon, all of which leads to head scratching moments.  The professor never rehearsed the contrary argument that women have been leaders in the Church without anyone thinking, well, obviously, they can be priests and bishops.

Snobby Brit Atheist proves the Existence of God...

...while sticking his foot in his mouth.

Debate

Matt Slick does the best job of explaining the Kalam Cosmological Argument that I've heard. At the very end, he even explains what it means to say that God is timeless. Worth listening to.

Law and Goodness in the Catholic and Reformed Traditions

This is from Law Professor David Operbeck at Beliefnet.

What do you think the doctrine of the fall implies about human nature? How do these implications relate to theories of law? Can we consider acts of civil society that seem to be "good" - for example, efforts by non-Christians and Christians alike to care for victims of the Haitian earthquake - to be genuinely "good?"



There is a subtle but substantial divide between Catholic and Reformed anthropology that can significantly impact theories of law. According to the great Medieval Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas, the fall marred the "likeness" of God in humanity but did not obliterate the "image" of God. Aquinas based this conclusion on a (probably incorrect) exegesis of Gen. 1:26, which uses different terms translated "image" and "likeness" ("Then God said, let us make man in our image [tselem], according to our likeness [demut]. . . .").

For Aquinas, this meant that human reason survived the fall more or less intact. Human beings, therefore, remain capable of understanding what is right and good according to "natural reason" even after the fall. All human beings, according to Aquinas, "possess a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God; and this aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind, which is common to all men" (Summa Theologica, I.93.4.). The "likeness" of God, however, is a resemblance to God's glory, which can only be recovered by those who are regenerated by God. (Ibid.) A person can only "habitually" know and love God through grace. (Ibid.) People therefore are capable of knowing and doing good, but can only habitually do good through divine grace, and can only become perfect and thereby have the "likeness" of God restored through ultimate divine salvation.


Aquinas' view that all people possess the spark of reason underwrites the possibility of "natural law" reasoning. Christians might know God's law more fully than non-Christians, but Christians and non-Christians can find common ground in the shared "image" of God through the exercise of reason. This facilitates a system of civil law and governance that is not necessarily drawn directly from special divine revelation.

The Reformers understood the fall's effects more extensively. The Heidelberg Catechism states the orthodox Reformed view with dour Puritanical simplicity:

Question 8. Are we then so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness?

Answer: Indeed we are; except we are regenerated by the Spirit of God.

This view of the fall's effects leaves no space for any concept of "natural reason" or "natural law." In fact, it leaves no room for the notion that a non-Christian who cares for Haitian earthquake victims is doing something genuinely "good." At best, the unregenerate person can accomplish "civic good" - things that are generally good for society - but these are never truly "good" works because the unregenerate will remains bent only towards the self and away from God.


Nevertheless, the Reformers and their theological heirs wrestled extensively with the problem of "apparent good" being done by non-Christians. As described in a delightful book by Stephen Grabill (Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics (Emory University Studies in Law and Religion) ), a number of early Reformed jurisprudes developed natural law theories based on the notion that God graciously allows even unregenerate people to discern something of what is necessary to maintain social order. These ideas eventually fed into a detailed theology of "common grace," most notably in the Dutch Reformed tradition exemplified by Abraham Kuyper and Hermann Dooyeweerd, and echoed today by writers such as Charles Colson and Richard Mouw.

The "common grace" tradition seems to exist in severe tension with the Heidelberg Catechism's absolutism about human ability to do good. Indeed, many branches of the Reformed tradition today - both in its conservative-fundamentalist forms and in its more "mainline" Barthian varieties - reject the notion of "common grace" as essentially heretical. Under these approaches to the Reformed tradition, "law" generally can be grounded only in revealed divine commands. More "conservative" versions of divine command theory tend to result in reconstructionist and/or separationist views of positive law; more "mainline" versions tend to give up on the idea of meaningful engagement with secular positive law.


I have always liked the idea of "common grace." Nevertheless, I have to confess that it seems exceedingly hard to justify by scripture or by the Magesterial / confessional Reformed tradition. I also quite like the Catholic Social Teaching tradition's appealing to the integrity and beauty of reason. Nevertheless, I have to confess that it at some point it offends my Reformed-ish sensibilities, as well as my "postmodern" skepticism of "neutral" accounts of "reason." I'm also very hesitant about Aquinas' anthropology, which seems to be based in a key exegetical mistake in distinguishing the divine "image" and "likeness."

"Evidence is the way you know anything that you know." – Richard Dawkins

Of course, this leads to the question of how we know that evidence is the only way we know that we know anything? Is there evidence for knowing that the only way to know anything is through evidence.  Can't we know things based on reason, feelings or emotions, which would not qualify as "evidence" in any scientific sense of the word.

Moreover, how do we know how to evaluate evidence.  Evidence exists or doesn't exist, but there is weaker and stronger evidence, and evidence by itself doesn't do anything, until we apply our reason, formed by our habits of prudence and judgment, to the evidence.  Are prudence and judgment something that count as evidence?  Not likely.

What Dawkins misunderstands is what simple people without substantial learning and conventional minds always misunderstand, which is that we "know" things by "learning" and we learn things by trusting - having faith - in those wiser than ourselves, whether they be scientists or saints.

I read this in Robert Louis Wilkens' The Spirit of Early Christianity today:

"If faith in authority is necessary to learn to plow a field, "how much more so in religion." By bringing up these kinds of examples, Augustine wishes to say that the knowledge acquired by faith is not primarily a matter of gaining information. The acquiring of religious knowledge, the knowledge one lives by, is gained gradually over time. Just as one does not learn to play th epiano in a da, so one does not learn to love God in an exuberant moment of delight. If joy does not find words, if it does not exercise the affections and stir the will, if it is not confirmed by action, it will be as fleeting as the last light out of the black west. the knowledge of God sinks into the mind and heart slowly and hence requires apprenticeship. That is why, says Augustine, we must become "servants of wise men."

Of course, the problem with becoming the servant of wise men is acknowledging (a) that there is such a thing as wisdom, (b) that we are not wise, and (c) that there is someone who we can learn from.

And, then, we have to pick the right person.

Ironically, Dawkins' claim to fame is that he is viewed as a "wise" person by a certain segment of the population.  Dawkins is not really wise when he talks about things beyond biology, but he is trading off his reputation for wisdom in biology to sell himself as being wise in areas far beyond his competence.  In many ways, Dawkins resembles the Manichees of St. Augustine's youth, who sold Manicheaism to questioning youths of St. Augustine's day by telling them that the Manichees would never ask anyone to accept things based on tradition or authority, but only based on reason.  Manichees were very good at picking nits within the orthodox tradition, but, unfortunately, the closer that Augustine got to those who were supposed to have the wisdom, the more he realized that Manichees had nothing other than the "hermeneutics of suspicion."  From Wilkins again:

As Augustine came to know the Manichees better, however, he discovered that although they talked a great deal about intellectual prowess, they fell silent when faced with hard questions. When Faustus came to Carthage, Augustine asked for a private interview to lay his doubts before him, but Faustus offered few answers and Augustine went away sorely disappointed, even disillusioned. He found Faustus to be poorly educated, "ignorant of the liberal arts," and possessed of a thoroughly conventional mind.  The Manichaeans were more adept at deriding and ridiculing the beliefs of Catholics than they were in offering convincing arguments for their own teachings. Within months of talking with Faustus, Augustine had quit their compnay and sailed to Rome to seek wisdom elsewhere.

The description of Faustus as "poorly educated, "ignorant of the liberal arts," and possessed of a thoroughly conventional mind" is as good a description of Richard Dawkins' failings outside of biology as one could find. Likewise, who is it today who are "more adept at deriding and ridiculing the beliefs of Catholics than they [are] in offering convincing arguments for their own teachings"?

Exactly, the New Atheists, who seem to believe that they can establish the ontology of their own metaphysical predicates by placing the "burden of proof" on their opponents.

I suspect that many will have the same experience with the New Atheists that St. Augustine had with the Manichees - go away dissatisfied.