ex-preacher

Please explain why Aquinas et. al. represent an intellectual tradition while Luther and Calvin, et. al. do not.

<strong> That wasn't me. But I understand that it's hard to keep track of all of us.

<strong> Wow, what a load! Your problem here is that you are comparing a single entity, the Roman Catholic Church, with a vast assortment of entities known collectively as Protestantism. That's like comparing a banana to a whole fruitbasket. There are Protestant denominations that are every bit as authoritarian, self-obsessed and dogmatic as your beloved church. Take the Mormons - please, take the Mormons! You would do better to address individual denominations rather than lump them all together. I know this makes your task more complicated, but I think you can handle it.

Are you really prepared to assert that the Church of England or the Jehovah's Witnesses do not have "the means and the methodology of guarding and expanding upon its knowledge ("the deposit of the Faith") without contradiction." Gimme a break!

[ March 03, 2002: Message edited by: ex-preacher ]</p>

Albert Cipriani

Dear Helen,
Of course I don't mind you ASKING... I just mind YOU!!!

Just kidding. But there's method to my silliness. Let's say I really did mind you asking. You'd have some cause for being insulted. But if I minded you yourself, you'd have cause to be infinitely more insulted. Why? Because we are not our actions. We are much more than them. Getting slapped down for our actions is a slap once removed from our face. But getting slapped down for who we are is a "palpable hit."

Our actions only reflect (as through a glass darkly) who we are. How we act is not nearly as significant as who we are. That is, our metaphysical reality trumps our existential reality. Or, who you are trumps how you exist.

This is not a digression. It is the short answer to your question regarding how Catholics (Traditional or otherwise) believe the Bible as the Word of God.

The Word of God is not God. The Bible is an act of God that reflects (as through a glass darkly) who He is. The bible is from Him, not of Him. Therein lies the difference between my Catholic tradition and your Protestant tradition.

We know that no word, not even The Word from the Logos Himself is self-interpreting. Ergo, we accept an authoritarian hierarchy to interpret the Word of God, whereas, you treat the Word of God as if it WERE God. That is, you are engaged in a kind of bibleolatry, accepting the word of God (which is God once removed) as if those words could be accepted at face value like a person can be whom we meet face to face.

You ask,


Yes we do. But that "yes" means something metaphysically different to a Catholic than it does to a Protestant. It means we don't believe we can know how to interpret those words even tho they come from God. Likewise the Pharaoh could not interpret his own dreams that also came from God, not without Joseph's help, an archetype of Christ and consequently the Vicar of Christ, which is the hierarchical Catholic Church in the form of the Pope. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

HelenM

Albert Cipriani

Dear Helen,
Traditional Catholics are a motley crew, not unified at all. However, what you characterize as "my viewpoint" on this matter is not one of the viewpoints that separate Traditional Catholics from their modern Catholic counterparts.

But more importantly, I'd like to insist that "my viewpoint" is not my viewpoint. I'd like to think that it is the rationally correct perspective.

Either the Words of God are symbols requiring interpretation or they are the direct spiritual means of infused Divine knowledge. Those seem to be the alternatives. Only one is rational. The other is wistful. Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Albert Cipriani

Dear ExPreacher,


Because Aquinas' thought explicates the infallible teachings of the Catholic Church, while the thought of Luther et al explicates their own personal subjective interpretation of the bible.

Man is fallible. Ergo, any man's interpretation of the Bible based upon himself is necessarily fallible as well. Protestantism ignores this and pretends that subjectivism, the basis of the thought of Luther et al, is a reliable guide to absolute truth.

St. Thomas did not ignore this. He followed the principle that the means must be commensurate with the ends. That is, only absolute means (infallible charisma) could lead to the absolute ends of Divinely revealed Truth. He knew what every Protestant forgets, that subjective means cannot lead to absolute ends but only to subjective ends, as evidenced by the Protestant denominationalism.



Banana and fruit basket? Let's not mix our metaphors. What it's like is comparing fruit with fruitcake. Yeah, I like that comparison much better.

The "vast assortment of entities" you wish to collectivize as Protestantism have one thing in common, subjectivism as their modus operandi. And it is that singular relativistic methodology that I contrast with the Catholic Church's absolutistic methodology.



You confuse the charism of infallibility with its means of expression, authoritarianism. Authoritarianism in the extreme defines a cult. So there are many Protestant cults that are more authoritarian than the Catholic Church. So what?

Since all Protestant doctrines are derived from the epistemology of subjectivity, no Protestant church or cult has any authority whatsoever to counter the subjectivity of their members. That is Protestantism's dilemma. That is the forked taproot feeding their internally inconsistent raison d entrée.

So no degree of authoritarianism is justifiable in any Protestant church or cult. Whereas, the absolute authoritarianism of the Catholic Church is the severe mercy required of her to uphold her doctrines derived from the epistemology of absolute infallibility and rational objectivism. Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

HelenM

ex-preacher

I'm sure that the world's Protestants are glad that you have cleared this up. Now we can all understand:

Protestants worship a book.
Catholics worship an old man in a dress.

ex-preacher

Right.

Protestant: We have the truth because we are interpreting the unchanging word of God using objective reason.

Catholic: We have the truth because we have an old guy in a dress who speaks infallibly.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Helen,


Because it isn't mine. A Traditional Catholic has the humility to accept the Church's authoritative infallible interpretations of the Church's oral and written (Bible) Tradition.

Liberals and Protestants do not have that humility. They are like that block of salt which when a woman wanted to see for herself the destruction of Sodom. They are like Cain, who had a better idea than God as to how He wanted to be worshiped. Traditionalists accept, the rest tinker.



The key is: has the Church taught it at all times and in all places? That is the most basic way we can know something is infallibly true. It's called the ordinary magisterium. The other way is through the extraordinary magisterium, whereby the Pope officially defines a matter of faith or morals (ex cathedra) or an ecumenical council in conjunction with the Pope defines a matter of faith or morals.

Traditional Catholics assent to ALL of this infallible magisterial teaching. The vast majority of today's modernist Catholics, the Pope and most of his bishops included, do not. They ignore most of it and contradict the rest with their own non-infallible teachings commencing with the non-infallible Vatican II Council in 1965. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

daemon

I'm surprised you fail to see the contradiction here, Albert. What justification does the Traditional Catholic have to deny the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, or at least set themselves apart from Roman Cathoilcs? By your own logic, anything which contradicts it is every bit as fallible as it, so all the differences between the Traditional Catholics and the Roman Catholics are negligable, the result of two opposed sets of fallible doctrine. They cannot logically contradict any infallible teachings of the former type--as any contradicted teachings were never infallible--and I, personally, have never known any Roman Catholic to believe anything except the total validity of ex cathedra statements.