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a question for Orthodox and Catholic Christians

Postby Lord Isaac » July 9th, 2007, 5:23 am

So, in Christ, there is one body and one truth.

However, if I don't agree with Christ's teaching on, say the Eucharist, I ditch it, don't I?

There, now its my church.

But if my friend Bill doesn't agree on Christ's teaching on his divinity, he should ditch it.

There, now its his church.

And if my friend Gale doesn't agree with the cannon of the bible, she should change it, shouldn't she?

There, now its her church.

Pretty soon, due to everyone's decisions on what they infallibly determined, they all have their own, inerrant churches. All contradictory, yet all led by the Spirit of Truth. None agree, but all are correct.

The Truth of the Gospel is not based on what you believe. The truth is not what you make it. You yourself need to conform to the truth.

If I don't conform to the teachings of Christ, what do I do? I protest them... making me a protest-ant. Then, after I have established my own understanding and interpretation of scripture, I now have my church.

The biggest flaw in your argument is, as you said, its your understanding. It means you yourself decided what was true and wasn't. Where did you recieve such authority and how do you know that what you say is more true then someone else who makes such a claim?
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Postby moogdroog » July 10th, 2007, 5:30 pm

I've been reading bits of this thread on and off, so I apologise if my comments cover already trammelled ground... :toothy-grin: But I thought I would reply as a (learning) Catholic to Fea's original question.

I was raised Catholic, drifted away for a bit, dabbled in Pantheism, Dualism and so on (C.S. Lewis put paid to the Dualism, I may add :rolleyes:). I thought, why should I need a priest to connect to God? Why should I go to Mass? How can a priest be a mediator, how can he have powers that the ordinary lay person does not? How can he transubstantiate the host and take away a person's sins? Why should I believe all these weird doctrines anyway? And isn't organised religion a Really Really Really Bad Thing () as well? *I* don't need it - surely I can worship God in my own way. (If I am being honest, all of this was underlined by self-congratulatory thoughts of 'I'm far too clever and liberal to accept the fusty old teachings of a bunch of homophobic weirdos in the Vatican' and 'Now I don't have to get up at 10am on Sunday! Yippee!' And so on.)

I went back to being a praticising Catholic a few months ago because I now think that my limited experience and knowledge cannot measure against the collected wisdom and experience of the Church. I believe that the priest acts as a mediator, an intercessor, that he is granted the power to forgive. The reason I believe this has already been articulated by Rusmeister:

"Asking God for wisdom does not guarantee His granting it, any more than anything else good and virtuous we may ask for. Therefore, when you come up with an answer in a question you are seeking wisdom on, do you hear a voice outside of your self, or within your self providing the answer you come up with?

It may be that God has provided a Church to provide a lot of the answers and wisdom you seek. You are quite right that the Church is made up of sinful humans, but what is the point of It if we can't trust It in spite of It being an establishment of Christ Himself? Where can we know that there is grace to overcome the sinfulness of man and provide any true answers? Why would you place less faith in It than in yourself to seek wisdom?"

So, I trust the Church's authority on this - not blindly or unthinkingly, but because I now think the Church knows a great deal more than I do. And (for me) it feels rights, it works :toothy-grin:
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Postby Adam » July 10th, 2007, 5:37 pm

"Love is the only art that poorly imitates nature."
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Postby Lord Isaac » July 11th, 2007, 4:47 am

Ah, but that means that you do not win either, since the voices in your head tell you that your ideas are more correct.

Moving on, I am uncertain as to wether or not you wanted to make this point, but it is true that no person is argued into Christ's Church. Much rather, they are loved into it.

Good comment!
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Postby Adam » July 11th, 2007, 4:53 pm

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Postby rusmeister » July 12th, 2007, 4:13 am

"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
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Postby Adam » July 12th, 2007, 4:58 am

::To be more accurate, what protestants protest against is any authority outside of themselves.

It is not merely a social courtesy, but a rhetorical tactic and logical necessity, that one avoid defining foreign principles according to their own worldview.

To a protestant, rightly or wrongly, Scripture is the ultimate authority, outside of themselves and indeed outside of all humanity, and institutional churches represent the work of individuals and of groups to establish their own authority above the authority of Scripture.

My disagreement with the protestant view lies in the faith I have in God's work through mankind, and thus the reliability of the Church as a group of humans with the collective discernment and wisdom necessary to exercise authority. But to contend that the disagreement, and the resolution, can be determined by the virtue of humility, or the philosophy of objectivity, is not merely to misunderstand your opponent's point of view, but to demonstrate that you have not yet mastered your own.

Ignorant Protestants speak as though the absolute authority of Scripture resolves all matters of belief and encourages all matters of practice. Ignorant Catholics and Orthodox make the same claim for the authority of the Church. The truth is, God demands that His children grow up and act like adults, using your God-given reason and the Christ-revealed principle of fruit-bearing (both of which were clearly claimed by the Church as grounds for determining the Scriptural canon) to determine, as a collective body subject to the correction and clarification of practice, what beliefs are true and what are false. The temptation to spiritual laziness and to idolatry, to hold God in the palm of our hand and be freed from our responsibility to work out our faith in fear and trembling, to actually run the race before us, is one which both Protestants and Catholic/Orthodox alike fall prey, and in fact it is so enticing that it has become widely entrenched in supposed virtue and faithfulness in the churches. But in the end, it is nothing more than laziness.
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Postby Guest » July 12th, 2007, 2:31 pm

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Postby rusmeister » July 12th, 2007, 3:22 pm

I don't think another debate is going to get us anywhere. There go the circles again.

The original purpose of this thread seemed to be honest questions (for purposes of understanding, not attacking) about Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

Part of my whole point (and I think that of the Catholics here, too) is that these arguments have been hammered out for centuries. It is very unlikely that any of us are going to suddenly find the argument that convinces the others. Those of you who are Protestants and Evangelicals see what you see, just as Catholics and Orthodox see what they see. Unless someone is genuinely dissatisfied with their faith, it is unlikely that they would be reasoned out of it.

So I can keep repeating my main point, that your personal intelligence and experience cannot match the accumulated wisdom of a 2,000 year old Church, and you can keep countering by presenting the Church as a bunch of conniving clergy that are no wiser than you are, but we will just be going in circles.

Oh, Dan, I didn't say that Protestants actually claim unity, but do state that if individual interpretation was correct and inspired by the Holy Spirit, unity is what you would have.

Fea appears to have found her faith and is satisfied with it. I wish her, and all of you well! But I'm not going to go in circles shouting apples and oranges.

God bless!
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Postby Guest » July 12th, 2007, 3:55 pm

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Postby Adam » July 12th, 2007, 5:37 pm

"Love is the only art that poorly imitates nature."
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Postby rusmeister » July 28th, 2007, 9:38 am

Here is an awesome internet radio station that can give a good intro to the Orthodox Church in general -



Here is one of their podcast series (Our Life in Christ) with an excellent outline of the basis of authority, focusing on Sola Scriptura from the Orthodox perspective:



You might have to flip a page or two. Just look for "The Sola Scriptura" program.

It's worth at least 100 posts! :smile:

I would be interested if there was any information about what Protestants teach that is actually wrong (one of the hosts is an ex-Protestant) - I'm sure the hosts would be, too, and you can let them know at their own website -
"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
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Postby Fea_Istra » July 31st, 2007, 7:20 am

"Where, except in uncreated light, can the darkness be drowned?" ~CS Lewis
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Postby rusmeister » July 31st, 2007, 8:24 am

"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
Bill "The Blizzard" Hingest - That Hideous Strength
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Postby Fea_Istra » August 2nd, 2007, 2:11 am

"Where, except in uncreated light, can the darkness be drowned?" ~CS Lewis
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