Happy Immaculate Conception!

[maudman]

Nothing wrong with having positive role models. Lots wrong with treating them as minor deities to whom prayers should be offered. Even more wrong with burying a statue of one in your back yard so your house will sell faster. Even more wrong with thinking that their works exceeded God's demands, so that they have spare brownie points which the Pope can dispense at will to get your loved ones out of purgatory faster. And so on. Don't you see how a good thing (honoring one's forefathers in the faith) ballooned into a bad thing? We humans are good at it; it's not just a Roman thing.

Believe it or not there is nothing wrong with the things you think are wrong.. Faith is a gift of God by measure.. It has nothing to do with the intellectual ability of the Convert.. Or his understanding of something that only a few had or understood... What ever you ask it shall be given if you have the faith... God determines the faith.. You may not realize it but Your trying to put limits on God in his reciprication of his children.. Growth happens not at once.. But as God allows by the measure of the faith he has given by measure..

I'm happy to praise the Roman church when it's right. Are you (and is it) willing for me to criticize it when it's wrong?

I'm gald and thankful for this.. No I don't mind the criticism... You see it is your faith and the extent of how far it reaches.. I can't boast of what I know or believe in faith, its Gods Gift... Nor can I belittle the faith God has given you.. I'm actually thankful that there is much more comman Ground than there is that divides!

If I can I will try to demonstrate something..
When Judaist is to be replaced, the apostles chose to cast lots for the one who was to replace him.. They didn't trust their will to determine such things.. This was done in secret but recorded for our understanding later.. They didn't trust their intellectual abilities to discern the will of God... An act of gambling determined the thing.. As Christ spoke I came not to do my will but he that sent me.. It was their faith in what they believed about how the will God works for the task demanded of them... This kind of faith is at the core of all faith in how far we trust the will of God.. We pray Gods will be done on earth as in heaven.. We know God is Just beyond our reasonings or scemes of justification...

Remember that the Roman Empire was on its last legs in the days of Constantine. It wasn't long before the Huns and Goths and others came knocking at the doors of Rome, and all the glorious archicecture was getting disassembled by peasants to build hovels in the Forum. So on those grounds, the Church got the booby prize. One could also argue that it was not Rome that was handed to the Catholic faith so much as the Catholic faith that was handed to Rome. Thus the Bishop of Rome took the pagan title Pontifex Maximus (usually shorted to "Pontiff" today) which had for centuries been used to identify the man who oversaw the religious functions of the Roman government. When Christianity lost its persecuted status and became "in vogue," scads of false converts flooded in, polluting Christian practice and doctrine with a nominal faith that was barely any different from the civic religion they had been practicing before.

Yes to fulfill the Prophecy of Dan 7 its just how God does things.. God knows mans nature, and what happen reguarless of what we think of it.. That is the Point..

Rome had no choice, But as scripture points out the Romans faith there was found nothing greater in all Israel.. Rome knew a good thing when it saw it.. Faith is the Gift of God.. Roman soil (Faith) was fertile and when the seeds of the Gospel landed on that Ground history tells the rest.. Its that civic religion that is the soil that grew the mustard seed..

[RBerman]

We appear to have reached the "I'm right." "No, I'm right." phase of the conversation, so I have nothing more to add.

[One Bad Pig]

Zing! Really, my "culturally convenient belief" is Sola Scriptura, and iconoclasm is simply a corrolary of that.

Feel free to provide proof of that from pre-Reformation iconoclast writings. I'll be waiting. If it weren't so serious, it would be amusing how various Protestant groups like to point to pre-Reformation examples of people who agreed with them on a certain point even as those same Protestants would highly disagree with them on just about everything else.

If I accepted Roman teachings about the authority of the Magisterium, I would accept magisterial teachings on the saints, the treasury of merit, the sale of indulgences, the cult of the Virgin, etc.

I don't accept Roman teachings about the authority of the Magisterium.

Remember that the Roman Empire was on its last legs in the days of Constantine. It wasn't long before the Huns and Goths and others came knocking at the doors of Rome, and all the glorious archicecture was getting disassembled by peasants to build hovels in the Forum. So on those grounds, the Church got the booby prize. One could also argue that it was not Rome that was handed to the Catholic faith so much as the Catholic faith that was handed to Rome. Thus the Bishop of Rome took the pagan title Pontifex Maximus (usually shorted to "Pontiff" today) which had for centuries been used to identify the man who oversaw the religious functions of the Roman government. When Christianity lost its persecuted status and became "in vogue," scads of false converts flooded in, polluting Christian practice and doctrine with a nominal faith that was barely any different from the civic religion they had been practicing before.

Not sure where to start with this. The Roman Empire ruled by Constantine did not fall for good until 1453. It may not have included Rome itself for long, but the Byzantines considered themselves Romans. I'm not sure when the popes began referring to themselves as "Pontifex Maximus", but I bet dollars to donuts it wasn't until centuries after Constantine, and any relation to paganism is incidental. And let's see, what polluting doctrines were expressly confirmed after Constantine? The Trinity? The two natures of Christ? A settled canon, still in use by all Protestants today? Also, the veneration of saints began well before Constantine, so you can't pin that one on him.

[RBerman]

Feel free to provide proof of that from pre-Reformation iconoclast writings. I'll be waiting. If it weren't so serious, it would be amusing how various Protestant groups like to point to pre-Reformation examples of people who agreed with them on a certain point even as those same Protestants would highly disagree with them on just about everything else.

I wasn't saying that sola scriptura is the only possible reason one might be iconoclastic. I was saying that sola scriptura entails iconoclasm. P-->Q does not imply Q --> P.

I don't accept Roman teachings about the authority of the Magisterium.

Good! If the teachings of churchmen violate the teachings of Scripture, which should rule the other?

Not sure where to start with this. The Roman Empire ruled by Constantine did not fall for good until 1453. It may not have included Rome itself for long, but the Byzantines considered themselves Romans. I'm not sure when the popes began referring to themselves as "Pontifex Maximus", but I bet dollars to donuts it wasn't until centuries after Constantine, and any relation to paganism is incidental. And let's see, what polluting doctrines were expressly confirmed after Constantine? The Trinity? The two natures of Christ? A settled canon, still in use by all Protestants today? Also, the veneration of saints began well before Constantine, so you can't pin that one on him.

Your point is well taken about the Byzantine Empire, but we were talking about Rome. As for the pontifex maximus:

New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia

The terms Pontifex Maximus, Summus Pontifex, were doubtless originally employed with reference to the Jewish high-priest, whose place the Christian bishops were regarded as holding each in his own diocese (Epistle of Clement 40). As regards the title Pontifex Maximus, especially in its application to the pope, there was further a reminiscence of the dignity attached to that title in pagan Rome. Tertullian, as has already been said, uses the phrase of Pope Callistus. Though his words are ironical, they probably indicate that Catholics already applied it to the pope. But here too the terms were once less narrowly restricted in their use. Pontifex summus was used of the bishop of some notable see in relation to those of less importance. Hilary of Arles (d. 449) is so styled by Eucherius of Lyons (P.L., L, 773), and Lanfranc is termed "primas et pontifex summus" by his biographer, Milo Crispin (P.L., CL, 10). Pope Nicholas I is termed "summus pontifex et universalis papa" by his legate Arsenius (Hardouin "Conc.", V, 280), and subsequent examples are common. After the eleventh century it appears to be only used of the popes.

© source where applicable

[St Croix]

Happy Immaculate Conception!

Happy celebration of the sinlessness of the Virgin, the New Eve.

The "New Eve" is a symptom of the gnosticism of the RC and its being the Revelation beast, the one that claims to be on a par with God himself.

Paul spoke about "putting on" the new Adam Eph 4:24 Col 3:10, not being born the new Adam.

There is no sense in which Mary, or any other RC idol, was born any different from Adam/Eve.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

I wasn't saying that sola scriptura is the only possible reason one might be iconoclastic. I was saying that sola scriptura entails iconoclasm. P-->Q does not imply Q --> P.

That would be a VERY good topic: "What IS sola scriptura and what DOES it IMPLY?"

Good! If the teachings of churchmen violate the teachings of Scripture, which should rule the other?

Christ rules His Own Body, the Church...
He can, does and has removed His Lampstand when a church departs from Him and fails to repent...
All men err in their teachings to some degree...

The undivided Church of the first thousand years of Christianity had MANY heresies, and each and every mother's one of them had as its basis some passage of Scripture... Indeed, when Satan tempted Christ in the desert, he USED Scripture to attack Christ, and Christ replied with Scripture. What this means is that Scripture was [and will be] used by Satan AS A WEAPON to attack Christ, and that Christ will reply using the very weapon of Satan against him...

What this means is that it is Christ, and not "the written which kills" Scriptura, WHO has sovereignty and rulership...

Your point is well taken about the Byzantine Empire, but we were talking about Rome. ]

The Roman Empire's center, Rome, was MOVED to Constantinople, from which it administered the Roman Empire for the next thousand years under Christ. This was the great flowering of Christian Civilization on earth... It is now in great decline under horrific persecutions... Islam has worldly rule now in most of the former Roman Empire...

You might do better, in discussing Papal Rome and the Roman Empire, to refer to what is actually was, which is the Latin Church... Her Emperor after Her fall from the Communion of the great Christian Roman Empire administrated from Constantinople, was a Frank, and many of her bishops were blood-thirsty warriors under the tribes that are now Germany, France, England, and on and on... Warrior-kings... It was German Bishops who took over Latin Rome and attacked the Body of Christ with Papal Bull in the 10th century, and later looted and plundered and politically subverted and in other ways tried to weaken the Roman Empire in Constantinople to bring it under Latin authoritarian rulership... The Christians chose death and Muslim rule instead, and would not submit to a single worldly ruler [the Pope] over their Faith in Christ...

The eastern Church has paid Her dues in blood, my Brother...
And IS NOW so paying them...
While Latin Rome has been wrested from her unholy partnership with state authority and Europe is basically now atheistic - The great Churches stand empty, for their entire basis was Roman authoritarianism, and its Reformational Protestant counterpart, which both needed secular power combined with ecclesiological for their viability...

And the Latin Church is becoming a better Church in the process, but She still will not submit Herself to the Communion of [self-ruled] Churches that ARE the Church... She wants our Communion, but She still wants to be Boss... But Christ is our Head...

I mean, here in the west, we are witnessing the disintegration of the Church and the Christian Culture, while the two great spiritual forces of the ancient Christian civilization are on the Rise... The Christian East, and the Islamic Religion...

So that with that diversion, I would submit to you that your "Sola Scriptura" is the doctrine that Satan WOULD HAVE USED on Christ, had he known about it, in the desert... It is an impossible doctrine, for it believes in the infallibility of the Written, which destroys the possibility of a living understanding, for everything written is thereby rendered co-equal to everything else, and the possibility of a structure of understanding for the places of things written is destroyed. Scripture does not interpret itself, you see, but YOU interpret Scripture, and you can use whatever tools for interpretation you wish, and they are all HUMAN tools, or worse, because even IF you use Scripture to interpret Scripture, it is YOU who choose which Scripture for each...

And all you will end up with is what you find here on T-Web, which is a bunch of "EXPERTS" having long arguments that get insulting from time to time and never arrive at the Truth... The Truth is NEVER a matter of logical proof from the Written... It is ONLY apprehended by Faith [eg by the works of repentance]... And then ONLY by the Grace of God...

And the problem with this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the God-Birther is that it DENIES the Incarnation of Christ who IS without sin... It is the Holy Spirit that sanctified the Blessed Virgin's womb, making it a holy and heavenly Throne for our Lord and Savior, and not the Virgin's birth... It is the PERSON of the Blessed Virgin that prepared the way in her SELF for Christ even prior to the birth of the Forerunner and Baptist John... Rome would have you believe that this preparatory work was done IN HER by God at the moment of her conception, when it was at the moment of His conception that the Holy Spirit crowned her commitment to God begun by her holy and aged parents, Joachim and Anna... She was like each of us, with no special so-called 'immaculate' gifts given her at birth like NONE of us had... SHE had to overcome the sin of the Fall just like each of us must do, except she did not have Christ in her until she conceived Him in purity... It is the primacy of the Person that is not understood here... Even the Person of Christ, who through her was born under the Law and was subjected to every temptation to which we ALL are subjected... Had she NOT been so subjected, because she had been given at birth a "SPECIAL EXEMPTION OF GRACE", then NEITHER WOULD CHRIST... And what Christ did not assume from humanity in His incarnation, He DID NOT HEAL in His humanity...

It is a big and important subject...

Arsenios

[Rdr. Arsenios]

The "New Eve" is a symptom of the gnosticism of the RC and its being the Revelation beast, the one that claims to be on a par with God himself.

Paul spoke about "putting on" the new Adam Eph 4:24 Col 3:10, not being born the new Adam.

There is no sense in which Mary, or any other RC idol, was born any different from Adam/Eve.

Thank-you for giving RBerman this shining example of a sola-scriptura attack...

Neither of your passages, btw, is talking about Christ as the new Adam...

Both are telling us to imitate Christ...

And to deny our sinful former selfs...

Arsenios

[RBerman]

That would be a VERY good topic: "What IS sola scriptura and what DOES it IMPLY?"

It implies that if men disagree with Scripture, then men are wrong and Scripture is right in every case. Therefore all claims of men must be scrutinized for their adherence to Scripture.

You might do better, in discussing Papal Rome and the Roman Empire, to refer to what is actually was, which is the Latin Church...

That is correct. When we said "Rome" in this thread, we were referring to the Latin Church. Just as we speak of "Washington" doing this or that in America, when we really mean "some agency of the Federal Government." Seems like a pretty common figure of speech.

And the problem with this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the God-Birther is that it DENIES the Incarnation of Christ who IS without sin... It is the Holy Spirit that sanctified the Blessed Virgin's womb, making it a holy and heavenly Throne for our Lord and Savior, and not the Virgin's birth...[/QUOTE]

I agree.

[St Croix]

Thank-you for giving RBerman this shining example of a sola-scriptura attack...

Neither of your passages, btw, is talking about Christ as the new Adam...

Both are telling us to imitate Christ...

And to deny our sinful former selfs...

Exactly. The new man is something that is not natural to human nature. But RC preach that the Mary had a separate nature. She was born the New Eve. How did she become immaculate? Her own conception too must have been immaculate. Ever thought of that? Merely putting on the new adam or the new eve does not cause anyone to become immaculate

Arsenios

Another begging monk who did no work?

[Rdr. Arsenios]

Exactly. The new man is something that is not natural to human nature.

I would quibble a tad with this: The new creation in Christ man's way of life is not natural to FALLEN human nature...

The difference can be encountered when meeting mature Christians, for they are utterly and naturally human as fallen man cannot conceive... Liturgical worship is utterly natural to man - That is why Christ gave it first to the Jews, and after His incarnation, to the Jews and to the gentiles... Sin is UN-natural, for its end is death, and death is the great enemy, the last to be overcome...

But RC preach that the Mary had a separate nature. She was born the New Eve. How did she become immaculate? Her own conception too must have been immaculate. Ever thought of that?

Yes...

Merely putting on the new adam or the new eve does not cause anyone to become immaculate

There is no immaculation this side of the Last Judgment outside Christ... With the sole exception of the Blessed Virgin at the conception of Christ... For she was one flesh with Him in Her womb... But NOT at HER conception... When I was an atheist, and I heard of the Immaculate Conception, I thought it meant Mary's conceiving Christ without a man... And indeed, that IS an immacdulate conception...

Another begging monk who did no work?

Moi???

Arsenios

[St Croix]

I would quibble a tad with this: The new creation in Christ man's way of life is not natural to FALLEN human nature...

OK. But human nature is fallen, and it is important to realize that it does not cease to be fallen after putting on the new man. This is a very common mistake made by antinomians, especially those who proclaim equality of the sexes in Christ.

The difference can be encountered when meeting mature Christians, for they are utterly and naturally human as fallen man cannot conceive... Liturgical worship is utterly natural to man - That is why Christ gave it first to the Jews, and after His incarnation, to the Jews and to the gentiles... Sin is UN-natural, for its end is death, and death is the great enemy, the last to be overcome...

I don't think that Jesus meant mankind to construct a liturgy based on the Lord's prayer. After all, most of his prayer was extempore.

Yes...

There is no immaculation this side of the Last Judgment outside Christ... With the sole exception of the Blessed Virgin at the conception of Christ... For she was one flesh with Him in Her womb... But NOT at HER conception... When I was an atheist, and I heard of the Immaculate Conception, I thought it meant Mary's conceiving Christ without a man... And indeed, that IS an immacdulate conception...

It is not so. Mary was not one in flesh with Christ, any more than a natural mother is one in flesh with the baby in her own womb. The baby is a new creation, which represents the result of meiosis. There is nothing to suggest agamogenesis in the case of the virgin birth. The whole idea smacks of ascientific mumbo-jumbo springing from credulous people determined to make up for their lack of scientific knowledge with preposterous dogma.

Moi???

Arsenios

http://www.iconograms.org/sig.php?eid=45

[Kelp]

There is no immaculation this side of the Last Judgment outside Christ... With the sole exception of the Blessed Virgin at the conception of Christ... For she was one flesh with Him in Her womb...

Huh, I never thought of that as a "reason" for Mary's sinlessness. It's difficult, but it does seem to have a ring of truth.

St. Croix has pretty much denied the divinity of Christ in other threads so I doubt you'll get much anywhere with him on this topic.

That being said, I just can't resist...

http://www.iconograms.org/sig.php?eid=45

Who are you to judge someone else's servant? God told Ezekiel to lay on his side for months and Isaiah to walk around naked. If He wants Arsenios to pray alone for years, what of it to you? I submit that this man of God by his humility and stalwart faithfulness has probably done more for the kingdom of God than you or I will ever do in our lives.

[Kelp]

If the teachings of churchmen violate the teachings of Scripture, which should rule the other?

AFAIK.

The Orthodox answer is the latter, except Scripture for them is only one part of Tradition (unlike in the RCC, oral and written tradition are considered to be the same body of continuous revelation). Churchmen are right only to the extent the extent that what they say reflects Tradition and are wrong when the contradict it. The classic example is St. Augustine. The Orthodox reject much of his teachings, especially on original sin, as being untraditional/unscriptural but still accept him as a true saint.

[RBerman]

If the teachings of churchmen violate the teachings of Scripture, which should rule the other?

The Orthodox answer is the latter, except Scripture for them is only one part of Tradition (unlike in the RCC, oral and written tradition are considered to be the same body of continuous revelation). Churchmen are right only to the extent the extent that what they say reflects Tradition and are wrong when the contradict it. The classic example is St. Augustine. The Orthodox reject much of his teachings, especially on original sin, as being untraditional/unscriptural but still accept him as a true saint.

Well, that raises the question of which churchmen get to be counted as part of "infallible tradition" and which don't. For the Protestant the answer is clear: The 66 books of the Old and New Testament alone are inspired and infallible. Anything else in Tradition can be wrong and should be examined for adherence to the Bible.

[Carrikature]

Huh, I never thought of that as a "reason" for Mary's sinlessness. It's difficult, but it does seem to have a ring of truth.

What reason do we have to believe that Mary was sinless? Claiming that Mary was "one flesh with Him in her womb" doesn't have a ring of truth, it has the ring of wordplay.