mardi 21 mars 2017

Continuing the Debate with RT


RT
Science refuted the erroneous beliefs the Church fathers held that the Sun revolved around the Earth.

The Church fathers fought back against science for exposing the errors of their beliefs.

Science today refuted the errors of the YEC; and the YEC equally fights back as more people realize the fallacies and conjectures of the YEC.

I appreciate your views as we are each obligated to defend them.

CT
Respectfully, "Call no man, ' father.'" There is no such thing as a church father, no such thing as ante-nicene fathers, etc.

What's more, we ignore these ancient authorities when it suits our own doctrines. Why, then, call upon them when they say something you agree with? Don't we regard them as mere men, as capable of error as the next guy?

DB
there is no gap indicated in the scriptures, only in the minds of those who have compromised their trust in God, having placed it in scientists.

RT
The early Church fathers apparently were unfamiliar with the KJ that refutes the YEC.

Scriptures in the KJ found in Gen 1:28 and 9:1 clearly support the Gap Theory of "replenishing the Earth."

Of course, many reject the KJ which is a rebuttal of the YEC traditions of men.

DB
Having a YEC theory should not be necessary because the theory that opposses of an old earth is not indicated in scripture, but rather in the science of man. That the earth is young is indicated both in scripture and in the earth itself.

RT
DB, you may have missed my comments above--so I'm posting them again:

"Science refuted the erroneous beliefs the Church fathers held that the Sun revolved around the Earth.

The Church fathers fought back against science for exposing the errors of their beliefs.

Science today refuted the errors of the YEC; and the YEC equally fights back as more people realize the fallacies and conjectures of the YEC.

I appreciate your views as we are each obligated to defend them."

DB
science does not prove the earth is old, it assumes the earth is old to fit their theories of uniformitarian processes.

that the earth is young is indicated in both the earth itself and in scripture.

catastrophism defeats the concept of uniformitarian processes.

nearly all of the geologic strata was laid down after the flood, caused by the flood.

all of the dating methods used by scientists are based on presupposed assumptions.

RT
And your view of the possible times Satan and the angels were created and the number of days afterwards that they quickly rebelled?

So you also don't believe the Universe is as vast as it is for the accuracy of the light years distance to the various stars and galaxies is accurate also?

CT
You're in denial, DB. It's not that you're denying "the truth," because I'm not claiming to know, absolutely, that what I believe regarding Genesis 1:2 is it. You're denying that somebody could believe in what you mistakenly refer to as the "gap theory" simply because the Bible says what it says. You keep demanding that I want some uniformitarian interpretation inserted into the Bible, despite my saying that uniformitarianism is bad science. You're denying that there is anything to discuss.

Given that, why not bow out of the discussion and let interested folks carry on? If, on the other hand, you're interested, then do more listening.

RT
Did you see my comments, CT?

"The early Church fathers apparently were unfamiliar with the KJ that refutes the YEC.

Scriptures in the KJ found in Gen 1:28 and 9:1 clearly support the Gap Theory of "replenishing the Earth."

Of course, many reject the KJ which is a rebuttal of the YEC traditions of men."

CT
I did see it, RT. I agree that the KJ translation allows for a "gap." Even better, though, is that the Hebrew makes a gap that much more likely.

DB
there is no gap and no need of a gap, isn't that obvious?

The supposed gap occured between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2. It's not indicated, but that's where it is placed by those who compromise their trust in God.

CT
Who needs a gap? I don't. Nonetheless, it says, "And the earth became a waste and a desolation."

Golly, that's interesting, to me.

End of story.

DB
that's not what it says.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and void,

RT
"BECAME a waste and a desolation AFTER the first flood to destroy Satan's kingdom on Earth."

God doesn't initially create this way in such a manner to cover the entire land of Earth with water--as He normally creates in a manner that is good and perfect.

DB
no form because the land was below the sea, and void of any life at the time.

You're inventing your own theology.

RT
I'm also following the KJ with "REPLENISH" which was used twice as it should to reflect the Gap Theory.

DB
there was no need to replenish before the fall.

CT
You're not reading the Hebrew, Don.

DB
God's perfect creation was intended to last forever.

CT I'm reading the Hebrew translated by Hebrew scholars.

"formless and void"

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and void,

The primordial earth was submerged below sea level.

Gen. 1:9 Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 10God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.

you have your pet theology, I have the actual Bible verses.

RT
But you don't use the KJ verses as I did that promote the Gap Theory and then tell me that you have actual Bible verses.

CT
Intended to last forever?! DB, you're in disagreement with even "standard" doctrine, now.

DB
as long as I am in agreement with the Bible, it doesn't matter what men profess to beleve. You are defending a theology rather than the Bible.

RT The KJV is an archaic translation of the Bible. It's concise and poetic, but not accurate.

We have newer translations because we have better knowledge of the ancient languages and cultures.

RT
I understand your point, DB

At least you are not a YEC and also using the KJ.

What's your view re the ice age? Did that really happen or is it more false science?

I presume you and I agree that Adam and Eve were real people and not figurative?

Enjoy your weekend.

DB
Why am I not a YEC?

The question should be "why is anyone an OEC?"

The ice age resulted from the excessive moisture after the flood, condensating into snow and ice in the polar regions spreading southward as the years progressed.

RT
I meant a YEC and the KJ are an oxymoron.

CT
OK, DB, then I'll say you're in disagreement with the Bible, irrespective of any man's doctrine, by saying that the perfect creation was intended to last forever. This is easily proved.

If Adam had never disobeyed, we may conclude that he would still be alive, and everything would still be in perfect order.

Thus, there would NOT YET be a need for a Messiah, whose blood has a purpose, yet we also know that "all things were created through and FOR him." You would have the Messiah waiting around, looking for something to do because he couldn't redeem an unfallen world.

In conclusion, it is proved that a perfect creation that would endure in perpetuity was not the intention. The intention was to elevate God's son, and thus God. Adam's disobedience was not only part of the plan, it was even unavoidable.

RT
Good points, CT

DB
You are correct, but Adam did sin and we do need our Savior. God has two wills, HIs perfect will and His permissive will. God permitted man to choose to sin and God's perfect creation was ruined.

If Adam had not sinned, he would not have died. That is stated clearly in scripture.

How very evil it would be of God to cause Adam to sin and creation to be ruined. No, sin was not part of God's perfect plan. That is heresy.

Where do you get ideas like that? Certainly not from the Bible.

HGL
RT, "Science refuted the erroneous beliefs the Church fathers held that the Sun revolved around the Earth."

When? How?

"The Church fathers fought back against science for exposing the errors of their beliefs."

You are forgetting chronology totally.

The scientific debate in 17th C was scientific on BOTH sides, especially the Geocentric one, and looked back at Church Fathers who were a closed group of Catholic Saints and writers who had lived and been canonised saints previous to the schism between saint Leo IX and Michael Caerularius in 1054.
And in the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages up to this schism, there was no science for them to "fight against", since science especially as scientific research and debate only originated twice over after 1054, with the scholastics, and with Francis Bacon of Verulam plagiarising some scholastic themes : in Italy the scientific debate between Galileo and Riccioli was however not indebted to Bacon of Verulam, but directly continued scholastics. These are ANOTHER group of Catholic writers.

So "Church Fathers fighting against science" is a time paradox.

"Science today refuted the errors of the YEC; and the YEC equally fights back as more people realize the fallacies and conjectures of the YEC."

Science may have refuted some conjectures of YEC, there are others to replace them, and I am contributing.

"I appreciate your views as we are each obligated to defend them."

Thank you!

"Respectfully, "Call no man, ' father.'" "

CT, Jesus didn't mean what you seem to think he meant.

"There is no such thing as a church father, no such thing as ante-nicene fathers, etc."

Yes, there are.

"What's more, we ignore these ancient authorities when it suits our own doctrines."

Catholic Church decided at Trent that we can't.

NOT when they agree with each other.

A Protestant who ignores Church Fathers when it suits his doctrines, he ignores them to his peril.

A Catholic who pretends to be a Catholic but ignores them so he can be Theistic Evolutionist or Old Earth Creationist as well as Heliocentric / Acentric is even an odious hypocrite.

"Why, then, call upon them when they say something you agree with?"

Because I volunteer to agree with them where they all agree, even if I didn't before.

Catholics at Trent and Orthodox at local but important councils of Jerusalem and Iasi condemned Protestantism over its rebellion against Church Fathers.

[As well as over a few other issues. Distinct from but involved in this rebellion.]

"Don't we regard them as mere men,"

No. Not I, I am a Catholic.

"as capable of error as the next guy?"

No. Not I, I am a Catholic.

CT, again:

"If Adam had never disobeyed, we may conclude that he would still be alive, and everything would still be in perfect order."

Yes.

"Thus, there would NOT YET be a need for a Messiah, whose blood has a purpose, yet we also know that "all things were created through and FOR him." You would have the Messiah waiting around, looking for something to do because he couldn't redeem an unfallen world."

God the Son would not have needed to come as Messiah.

"In conclusion, it is proved that a perfect creation that would endure in perpetuity was not the intention."

It was God's intention that this should be possible, except that Adam's free decision ruined that part.

"The intention was to elevate God's son, and thus God."

He was, since Adam was walking with Him in Eden.

"Adam's disobedience was not only part of the plan, it was even unavoidable."

It was avoidable to Adam.

Genesis 2:17 the same day (read thousand years) that you eat of the fruit, you shall die.

Mark 2:17 not the well, but the sick, need a physician.

DB As to "The ice age resulted from the excessive moisture after the flood, condensating into snow and ice in the polar regions spreading southward as the years progressed."

I don't think this was the whole story.

You see, higher levels of cosmic radiation seem to cause colder weather. The "little ice age" a few centuries ago (1300 to 1600 or to 1700?) is coinciding arguably with a higher level of cosmic radiation causing organic objects from those times to be dated too young except after calibration.

However, a high level of cosmic radiation just after Flood is required to cause an about 20 times higher production of carbon 14 than we have now, because without a faster production of carbon 14 for some centuries, we would after these millennia still have only about 45 % of the carbon 14 level we have today AND have had since about 500 BC, since carbon dates match well dated historical objects.

This means that the higher level of cosmic radiation could well have contributed to the ice age happening faster than Michael Oard thinks.

I think it started after Flood and ENDED around Tower of Babel, with the Younger Dryas carbon dating roughly to that time (I identifiy Tower of Babel with Göbekli Tepe).

CT
Not even Catholics agree with everything the ancient Christians believed.

You ignored the key point regarding the alleged intent on Yahweh's part to have His creation continue forever, perfectly. Since the universe was created for Yehoshua, whose purpose it is to redeem the creation from death, then the universe was created with the intent that it would need redemption from death.

If it were not so, then perhaps the only alternative is to say that Yehoshua didn't originally have the purpose of redeeming anything. All things were created through him and for him just because the Father wanted to do something nice for His son. I would say this is a tenuous doctrine. Or is there an alternative to it?

DB
the universe was not created for sin. Jesus was the Creator and necessity made Him our Savior.

HGL
CT, the main argument has been answered by DB, only:

"Not even Catholics agree with everything the ancient Christians believed."

Supposing your mean Catholics what we universally believe and ancient Christians what they universally believed, so it is not just a matter of diverse opinions now and then, or of picking one Catholic from then and one from now and see where they disagree in free matters and say Catholics have contradicted each other, would you mind giving an example?

DB
Doctrines should be founded in scripture, not the opinions of men, even if the are priests.

The Catholics wanted the Bible printed only in Latin, so that the common people could not decide for themselves, what the Bible teaches us.

When the Bible was translated into English and the other modern languages, the authority left the church and returned to it's rightfull place, the Bible.

HGL
"Doctrines should be founded in scripture, not the opinions of men, even if the are priests."

Scripture or apostolic tradition.

When priests differ, they may singly be wrong, but not all of them. When the Church Fathers all agree, they must be right, since that is involved in God's promise to His Church.

"The Catholics wanted the Bible printed only in Latin, so that the common people could not decide for themselves, what the Bible teaches us."

Historic factoid and has very little to do with the facts on periods when it can even be debated whether the Church was Catholic or pre-Protestant.

"When the Bible was translated into English and the other modern languages, the authority left the church and returned to it's rightfull place, the Bible."

Totally unbiblical, since the Bible doesn't call the Bible, but the Church Pillar and Ground of Truth. 2 Tim 3:15, sorry, meant 1 Tim 3:15.

As for 2 Tim, St Paul is speaking to a man whom he has chosen to be a bishop, a very early Church Father. He is not adressing these same words to each and every layman. And he is talking to one who had been not just reading the Actual Text of Moses and the Prophets but who had had Rabbinic instruction as to their meaning.

Under the Old Testament, it was obviously true that where Hillel and Shammai differed, they might each be wrong, but when all agreed, they had to be right.

Dialogue with a Pre-Adamist (Not a Pre-Adamite, I think)


Reminder,
still under

Dave Bestul
Mark 10:6-12New International Version (NIV)

“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’

Question: Does this confirm that Jesus taught a young earth? If Adam and Eve were created at the BEGINNING of creation, doesn't that pretty much kill the gap theory? Thanks.

And now first
the answer (17 mars, 19:39) to that which serves as quasi status to this subthread, and then the comments directed at that one:

David Caldarola
This is a common interpretation error. God "created" humans, male and female. He "formed" Adam, and "made" Eve. Adam and Eve are not the first people created, they are the first of the "chosen people." Adam was, in essence, the first high priest and Eden was the holy of holies where the high priest and God communicated to each other. Eve was "made" from the flesh and bones of Adam, (DNA) to establish a pure family line for the chosen people who are called "a priestly people." They were intended to be a race of priests who would minister the laws, precepts, injunctions, and ceremonial rites to the world congregation. At least, this was what God had intended.

Rohn Timm
So are you YEC or OEC?

Stephen Mitchell
This is nonsense, David.

David Caldarola
Rohn Timm - I am YEC, though I don't believe one has to take everything the bible says literally. One has to consider the time that has elapsed, the people the words were said to, their culture, their language, the translator problems, etc.

Stephen Mitchell - It is all there, Stephen. But you are free to pick and chose what you wish.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
" Adam and Eve are not the first people created,"

The people before Adam and Eve, if any : were they unfallen or fallen?

If fallen, how come the fall of mankind came with Adam?

Even, how come Adam could be unfallen himself?

If unfallen, are they elves who withdrew from Earth after Adam's fall, not necessarily immediately?

If unfallen and living with us, why are they not superior to us, how do we not see immortals?

Adam's sin was transmitted by propagation, not by example.

This means, if they had been unfallen up to the time of Adam, they would have remained so.

"though I don't believe one has to take everything the bible says literally."

Oh, one has to.

"One has to consider the time that has elapsed"

Between when and when?

Between events and text? I rely on tradition, even oral one, as a faithful means of tradition.

Or between text and us? Up to us to learn the expressions of the then time, and none of them are absent from our culture, though some are not predominant. "he knew his wife" is for instance intelligible to us, even if that is not the most usual way of expressing the fact.

"the people the words were said to, their culture, their language,"

Yes, what about them?

"the translator problems, etc."

What about these?

David Caldarola
Hans-Georg Lundahl _ It would be easier if you had asked one question at a time. So I will start with the first post. The people outside of the garden, the "male and females he created" were unfallen because they had no laws to disobey. Even if they did not have the fullest measure of grace because they were not directly in the garden with Adam, the presence of grace, as well as the absence of any evil influence - as well as any threats or needs to survive - was sufficient as they "waited" for the law and ceremonies to come from Adam and that Holy of Holies called Eden. (I do not say they were told to "wait" though it is possible that the spirit inferred this to them.)

Now comes the sin of Adam and Eve. As I mentioned in a post elsewhere, so I'll repeat it here, Hans, Adam and Eve were NOT cast out of the garden. It was God who left Eden because he cannot have sin in his presence. It would be like you are living in an immaculately kept up house with the most beautiful woman on Earth. If your love breaks down and she cats you out of the house - even if you move to a magnificent palatial estate, you still feel cast out and punished because that beautiful woman and the "love-nest" you had is separated from you. But if she walks out of that "love-nest" and you remain, you still feel "cast out" of her life and your immaculately kept nest deteriorates. The effect is the same.

Notice in Gen: 4-16 Cain leaves and lives in the east side of Eden. Eden is still there. But God is not. Without his presence to keep the garden pristine, it becomes like any other piece of land acreage - subjected to weeds, drought, erosion, etc. (This is what God means when he told Adam he would have to "work" the land - without His presence, it does not produce life; fruits, grains, flowers, etc., instantly and automatically.) But that now "normal" land was once Eden. This is vital to understand what you asked. How does this affect, or cause all those outside of the Genesis narrative to become fallen?

God's withdrawal from Eden takes His grace and presence with Him. (That abundant grace Paul spoke of - "without which, no man can see God.") The blessed state the entire world was in, is now also subject to decay, its people and animals will go hungry - hunt each other for food - and those males and females will work the Earth by the sweat of their brows, bear their children in pain and suffering, etc., and sin since they don't have the abundance of grace necessary to stay unfallen. This is how they and we share in the sin of Adam and Eve. Their sin caused the withdrawal of God and his sanctifying grace which keeps the world pristine and sinless. Once this happened, everyone on Earth was afflicted. We, therefore, do not necessarily share in the "sin" of Adam and Eve, we share in the results it caused.

Without this abundant grace, sin among people, even yet without the law, was inevitable. (Greed, selfishness, cruelty, etc., for these are "graceless" qualities.) But note that none of this would have happened if Adam and Eve were left to their own devices and choices - it took the supernatural evil influence of Satan to derail this paradise. If there were no Satan and his interference, We would all still be in Paradise and the garden of Eden would still be the temple of God from which the priestly people administer to the world congregation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Did I get this right : the unfallen people became fallen because God withdrew from Garden of Eden?

David Caldarola
Hans-Georg Lundahl - You are falling into semantics here. We call Satan and his ilk "fallen" because they physically "fell" from heaven. Adam and Eve "fell" from grace when they sinned. The "males and females He created" fell out of grace because that abundant grace was no longer available. Their "fall" was inevitable. But don't make the mistake of thinking that the "fall" of Adam and Eve, and the subsequent "fall" by mankind was in the same context as Satan's.

One of the concepts of scripture that is often lost in the English translations is that God and sinners are not "seeing eye to eye." This eye to eye motif is central to scriptures. When Jacob and Esau had their reconciliation, the entire passage, if more accurately translated from the Hebrew, highlights this idea. Even when Moses was allowed to see God, he could only see him from behind. When we go to heaven, we will be purged of all sin and blame, and will receive again that abundant sanctifying grace that will make it possible for us to be fully reconciled with God.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
I am not confusing a fall from both grace and redeemability with a fall from grace.

God is everywhere and His grace did not depend on His "physical presence in Eden", rather, that manifestation of His was apppropriate for the initial state of grace, since Adam and Eve were able to differentiate between God's spiritual presence, that of angels and that of deciving fallen angels, should these speak directly as spirits (which is why Satan used a serpent to talk to Eve, I suppose).

So, apart from fact that your reading is not supported by Tradition, it is not so very coherent theologically either.

Stephen Mitchell
This whole conversation has drifted into the absurd.

David Caldarola
Hans-Georg Lundahl - It is perfectly coherent. You simply are not capable of discerning it. Look at your example; "... since Adam and Eve were able to differentiate between God's spiritual presence, that of angels and that of deceiving fallen angels, should these speak directly as spirits (which is why Satan used a serpent to talk to Eve, (I suppose.)"

This is incoherent. You are saying that Adam and Eve could differentiate between, etc., - and then you suppose they weren't suspicious of a serpent that could talk to them? Now, you are correct that my explanation is not supported by Tradition. But this "tradition" you quote is wholly debatable. Are you talking Catholic Tradition or Protestant Tradition? If Protestant, does that include Jehovah's Witness and Mormon Tradition? By tradition, you mean the general consensus of those denominations you agree with.

Look at it this way, and I am not bragging - I have given you a sound and correct explanation of things and you cannot understand it. Why? I'll tell you, and believe me this is not to be offensive in any way. What I have said was given to me, not to you. I do not profess to be a spiritualist, a prophet, or a theologian. In fact, I have been a very poor Christian who has struggled mightily with my meager faith. And I believe this is why God gave me some insights - perceptions - into these things. Not because I am especially deserving or "holier-than-thou," but because I was such a wreck in life that He knew I needed such clarification more than others.

I recall debating things with a former friend of mine who wouldn't accept a word I said - no matter how much documentation, audio visual material, or biblical references I provided. I was fuming inside at his bullheadedness. I remember talking a walk in the middle of the night and chatting with the Lord about this. To make a long story short, it was "given" to me that I couldn't convince my friend of anything because he was not ready to receive it... that is why the Lord said over and over again... "I gave it to you."

Oddly enough, my friend James, must have understood this because when I was leaving his house in a bit of a huff, he said, "David, don't take this too hard... maybe I'm just not ready for this - don't cast your pearls before the swine." James was not ready to receive what I demonstrated to him, even with a ton of material from the "experts." You and Stephen Mitchell who commented above, are not ready to receive it. But I have told you these things because the "tradition" that scripture is self-interpreting is false. You will glean from scriptures the minimum necessary for your Christian character, mission, and hopefully eventual salvation.

But you will be banging your head against the spiritual wall till the day you die trying to figure out the "spirit" of scripture with sola-scriptura. "He came into the world, and the world knew him not." I have given you what He gave me, and you didn't recognize it. There is not point to go further. Just keep studying and praying and being as good a Christian as you know how, and you will be fine. Go in peace.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
[Answering points one by one, will be giving it as "dialogue"]

David Caldarola
Look at your example; "... since Adam and Eve were able to differentiate between God's spiritual presence, that of angels and that of deceiving fallen angels, should these speak directly as spirits (which is why Satan used a serpent to talk to Eve, (I suppose.)"

This is incoherent. You are saying that Adam and Eve could differentiate between, etc., - and then you suppose they weren't suspicious of a serpent that could talk to them?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
One possibility is that animals were given a possibility to talk to man before the fall.

Another is that they were still fairly naive and she (not Adam) thought the serpent was unusually bright.

Adam would probably have been suspicious on the exact ground you mentioned, he had named the serpent.

David Caldarola
Now, you are correct that my explanation is not supported by Tradition.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
THanks for the admission.

David Caldarola
But this "tradition" you quote is wholly debatable. Are you talking Catholic Tradition or Protestant Tradition? If Protestant, does that include Jehovah's Witness and Mormon Tradition? By tradition, you mean the general consensus of those denominations you agree with.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mainly Catholic tradition. I am a Catholic. We do however use "witness of heretics" in apologetics, meaning that if for instance Nestorians and Monophysites agree here, this means the tradition had an antiquity prior to mid or end of 5th C. AD.

And if Jewish Tradition agrees, this means the tradition has an antiquity prior to Our Lord.

And that means, if it had been what He called "traditions of men" in the bad sense, He would have had an opportunity to correct it.

David Caldarola
Look at it this way, and I am not bragging - I have given you a sound and correct explanation of things and you cannot understand it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
If by correct or sound you mean simply coherent within itself, I agree.

I only do not agree it is coherent with other theological data.

And I do not agree I didn't understand it.

David Caldarola
Why? I'll tell you, and believe me this is not to be offensive in any way. What I have said was given to me, not to you. I do not profess to be a spiritualist, a prophet, or a theologian. In fact, I have been a very poor Christian who has struggled mightily with my meager faith. And I believe this is why God gave me some insights - perceptions - into these things. Not because I am especially deserving or "holier-than-thou," but because I was such a wreck in life that He knew I needed such clarification more than others.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
In that case, God might have given you occasiuon to get temporary false explanations while you couldn't understand the true ones.

And you should be able to sustain your gift in debate, if you think it is a true one.

David Caldarola
I recall debating things with a former friend of mine who wouldn't accept a word I said - no matter how much documentation, audio visual material, or biblical references I provided.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
You haven't provided all that many to me.

And instead of giving me Tradition, you have half and half flouted the criterium.

David Caldarola
I was fuming inside at his bullheadedness. I remember talking a walk in the middle of the night and chatting with the Lord about this. To make a long story short, it was "given" to me that I couldn't convince my friend of anything because he was not ready to receive it... that is why the Lord said over and over again... "I gave it to you."

Hans-Georg Lundahl
We each have a right to hope when a voice of God speaks in our imagination that God is really taking care of it.

I don't think we have a right to hope, if it is theoretic material, to be right even if we cannot well defend it.

David Caldarola
But I have told you these things because the "tradition" that scripture is self-interpreting is false. You will glean from scriptures the minimum necessary for your Christian character, mission, and hopefully eventual salvation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
If you mean the tradition that Scripture is self explanatory in what concerns our salvation, it is indeed false, at least as far as those are concerned who decieve themselves.

In the general gist of Biblical History, most is self explanatory as in any given historic text.

Not because Protestants have a false tradition about Scripture being self explanatory in salvific matters, but because that is how the Church Fathers took it.

David Caldarola
But you will be banging your head against the spiritual wall till the day you die trying to figure out the "spirit" of scripture with sola-scriptura.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
I am not even into Sola Scriptura, it was condemned by the Council of Trent.

I am however into Tota Scriptura.

No single datum of Scripture is false.

As for your version, if I recall it correctly (it is a debate which has taken us days, so I am speaking of what I read yesterday or last week), you gave data which are not reconcileable with sound Catholic theology as you gave them.

End of
my dialogued one post answer.

David Caldarola
Hans-Georg Lundahl - There are some good points in your reply. But, "One possibility is that animals were given a possibility to talk to man before the fall," was not one of them. This is really stretching into near fantasy to argue a point. Secondly, the comment on Tota Scriptura has a problem. What you are saying is that if one takes scriptures in its totality, it is inerrant and infallible. This may very well be true, but it is highly debatable that any single person on earth has interpreted this totality in a totally correct manner.

Even the early church fathers rejected Paul's letter to the Hebrews, and promoted the Gospel according to Thomas. We are still stuck with the reality that the Bible is a translation of a translation of ancient languages and foreign cultures. There is an ever repeating cycle employed here. We try to take the bible literally, and we end up with some apparent contradictions and many questions. So, we interpret. And for awhile, the interpretations seem to make sense, but then endless debates and arguments occur, along with more questions and apparent conflicts, so we try going back to the literalist approach. (Rinse and repeat.)

Now, I am also Catholic. But I do not agree with everything the catechism teaches. Why? Because every objective truth that is revealed to man is vulnerable to his own subjectivity. (Grasp, understanding, interpretation.) It's like when you read a passage in the bible you have read a hundred times before, and have heard referenced a hundred times by scholars, and then suddenly - poof - a light goes on and you perceive of that passage in a whole new light. The problem with Tota Scriptura is that it presumes that certainly everything should have been perceived and commented on by now.

But there is one issue that both the Catholic and Protestant interpretations believe in that is incorrect. But I do not have the authority to explain it - I am not a priest or theologian. But to hopefully gain a better grasp of what we are talking about, what part of my initial explanation above, ( March 18 at 9:27am) runs counter to scriptures?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Again, dialoguing my answer:

David Caldarola
Secondly, the comment on Tota Scriptura has a problem. What you are saying is that if one takes scriptures in its totality, it is inerrant and infallible. This may very well be true, but it is highly debatable that any single person on earth has interpreted this totality in a totally correct manner.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
No, my comment does NOT have that problem.

I am NOT saying that.

I am saying that every single detail of Scripture is inerrant.

And there are lots of people who actually have looked correctly at details of Scripture.

David Caldarola
Even the early church fathers rejected Paul's letter to the Hebrews, and promoted the Gospel according to Thomas.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Simply false, if by "the early Church Fathers" you mean all of them. Some may have rejected Hebrews, and none can have promoted the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.

If any promoted the Childhood Gospel of St Thomas, that is another matter.

Note very well, by Church Fathers I mean canonised saints who lived within the Church called Catholic and who are recognised by the Catholic Church as Church Fathers. I do not mean Tertullian who died outside the Church or Origen who is not a canonised Saint.

I do mean for instance, among early ones, Sts Polycarp of Smyrna, Irenee of Lyons, and a few more.

David Caldarola
We are still stuck with the reality that the Bible is a translation of a translation of ancient languages and foreign cultures.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Not if you know Greek, in that case only OT is a translation, NT is original text.

As to ancient and foreign languages and cultures, what is the exact problem? What exact passage is problematical according to some translation problem to you?

David Caldarola
There is an ever repeating cycle employed here. We try to take the bible literally, and we end up with some apparent contradictions and many questions.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Key word "apparent".

David Caldarola
So, we interpret.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
No problem, as long as literal sense is respected.

David Caldarola
And for awhile, the interpretations seem to make sense, but then endless debates and arguments occur

Hans-Georg Lundahl
And the Church which it belongs to to interpret Scripture is able to keep Her head through these. So are to some degree debaters like myself who are careful to believe with the Church.

David Caldarola
along with more questions and apparent conflicts, so we try going back to the literalist approach. (Rinse and repeat.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl
This supposes that the literalist approach was left to the side in the first place when interpreting. It shouldn't (there are other levels of interpretation, allegoric, moral and anagogic, but these involve topics other than the strict history depicted in the text and so do not concern us).

David Caldarola
Now, I am also Catholic. But I do not agree with everything the catechism teaches.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
If it is the infamous CCC, no problem. Try Baltimore Catechisms or Catechism of Pope St Pius X.

David Caldarola
Why? Because every objective truth that is revealed to man is vulnerable to his own subjectivity. (Grasp, understanding, interpretation.) It's like when you read a passage in the bible you have read a hundred times before, and have heard referenced a hundred times by scholars, and then suddenly - poof - a light goes on and you perceive of that passage in a whole new light.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Happens, but when genuine does NOT discredit what the text had literally said before that.

When I came up with Tower of Babel being a rocket about a year ago, I checked that skyscraper had not been the consensus of all fathers, and while it sheds a new light on Nimrod's venture and allows the city in which it occurred (and the building of which was left off, which is not said about the tower!) to be Göbekli Tepe, it does not contradict anything the text had literally said.

David Caldarola
The problem with Tota Scriptura is that it presumes that certainly everything should have been perceived and commented on by now.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Not at all.

Tota Scriptura is a parallel to the scientific Tota Empiria - but no scientist pretends all empirical fact has already been seized and commented on.

David Caldarola
But there is one issue that both the Catholic and Protestant interpretations believe in that is incorrect. But I do not have the authority to explain it - I am not a priest or theologian. But to hopefully gain a better grasp of what we are talking about, what part of my initial explanation above, ( March 18 at 9:27am) runs counter to scriptures?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
One single issue : people descending from Adam before his fall or even being previous to Adam and getting the original sin, not because Adam sired them in an already sinful state, but because God withdrew from Eden.

What you considered as a description of what happened to sinless men is rather a description of what happens to a country when the Eucharist is withdrawn.

People like Shakespear would have been innocent of the Reformation, but unless consciously resisting, the sheer lack of Eucharist and Confession was taking its toll in apostasies.

End of
my second dialogued one post answer.

jeudi 16 mars 2017

On Collective Infallibility of Church Fathers


On Mark 10:6 · On Collective Infallibility of Church Fathers

Note, DB below is not Dave Bestul, Dave Bestul is in an update marked Dave Bestul.

DB
anywhere the Bible is silent, we too should remain silent. The Bible is our absolute authority, not science and not personal opinion either.

HGL
Not having absolute authority does not equal not having a reasonable opinion - especially if backed by Church Fathers.

DB
are these "church fathers" mortal fallible men?

HGL
singly, yes

collectively they are the voice of the Church of Christ, whom He promised His assistance

DB
Don't equate the opinions of men to the authority of the Bible. The Bible will be diminished and the men exalted.

HGL
Not if the Bible itself exalts their authority.

Except in their individual failures, where they differ from each other.

DB
God has revealed the absolute unchanging truth to man. The Bible must remain the exalted singular authority.

HGL
With Tradition, since that is how Biblically God has revealed His unchanging truth.

Where did St Paul know the names Jannes and Mambres from?

DB
men change their minds, God remains constant and absolute. Sola scripture, the Bible alone is our authrority.

HGL
St Paul did not seem to think that:
2 Timothy 3:8
Now as Jannes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these also resist the truth, men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith.

This is the ONE reference to them, meaning he had their names from tradition, meaning he trusted tradition.

DB
men diminish the authority of the Bible.

HGL
Not those who exalt it, like the Church Fathers do.

The men who had transmitted the names of Jannes and Mambres to St Paul did not diminish the authority of Exodus.

DB
God's Holy Word never changes. Men change their interpretations frequently and often disagree.

HGL
When Church Fathers change or disagree, they are not binding, when they agree, they are not changing and when they are not changing, they speak from the Revelation God gave His Church. THEN they are binding.

DB
As long as men remain on this earth, they are fallen and sinful, even if they are forgiven and serve in the church, men are fallible and have no authority equal to God's Word, the Bible.

are the "church fathers" men subject to sin?

we both know the answer to that question.

HGL
No, when a man is forgiven he is not sinful.

The fallibility of man as a man is also diminished when he serves in the true Church which Christ founded.

Taken together they are infallible, if not inerrant individually.

You agree that certain men serving God were not just infallible together but even inerrant individually.

Was St Paul subject to sin?

When a man is forgiven, he is NOT subject to sin.

DB
Can the Pope change church doctrine to suit the culture of today?

HGL
If a Pope does an attempt to that, he proves he is not Pope, since he goes against the collected Church Fathers.

DB
This is why men should not have total authority in the church.

HGL
No man has "total" authority in the Church, the check against "total" power even of the pope is if he is not Catholic, he is not Pope, and has no power under God.

DB
The Pope is the father of the church, for the Catholics.

no man has the authority to change what God has stated in the Bible.

HGL
The Pope is A, not THE father of the Church, at present, though the most important one.

"Holy Father" adressed to a live person is not the same as "Church Father" said about people who have died and whose holiness God has attested by miracles.

"no man has the authority to change what God has stated in the Bible."

Nor what the Church Fathers collectively said about it.

This one we agree on.

[The former, and I agree on one more like to it, that is.]

DB
Having the authoriry to reveal a new interpretation of God's Word is equating that new interpretation as equal to God's Word.

HGL
The problem with your point is that NEW is precisely what Patristic interpretation is NOT.

The Church Fathers are there to check we stay with an OLD one.

DB
This is the problem we are now having with SCOTUS and our Constitution. Men have the ability to re-interpret what the Constitution states.

HGL
Because God did not promise infallibility to the state power.

DB
we do not agree

HGL
We do agree no one has the power to add a new interpretation or change what God has revealed.

DB
The church has no authority, the church fathers have no authority, the only authority is the Word of God, sola scriptura.

HGL
Find that theory in the Bible ...

DB
HGL all men are fallible.

HGL
Individually, does not make the Church or the writers of the Bible fallible.

Plus you forgot to support your allegation FROM the Bible.

DB
HGL John 17:17 (KJV)
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

HGL
His prayer was for the first twelve bishops, the first "Church Fathers".

DB
Are you a sinner like myself?

are the "church fathers" sinners like us?

HGL
I don't know if either of us is a sinner or is justified right now.

I do know that most Bible writers and Church Fathers were justified when writing what they did, and this means they are reliable.

DB
we are forgiven sinners, but we remain sinners.

HGL
When forgiven, we do NOT remain sinners.

DB
This is why men do not have the authority to determine church doctrine.

HGL
Except those to whom God has given such authority.

He who heareth you heareth me.

DB
HGL Did the Apostle Paul call himself the "Chief of sinners" ?

was this after Paul's conversion?

HGL
Plus your idea undermines that Bible writers could "determine doctrine".

The Apostle Paul was perhaps speaking of his former life.

And he DID determine, under God, doctrine.

DB
If Paul remained a sinner, so do we.

HGL
If he spoke of his former life, he did not say he remained a sinner.

DB
the writers only held the pens, God instructed them what to write.

HGL
Not always verbally, it was so at Patmos as in Sinai, but St Luke did research in a human way, and Moses arguably did so for Genesis too.

That said, God controlled their words providentially, so they contained no error.

And has the same power over collectivity of Church Fathers.

DB
Romans 7:14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.

HGL
There he is speaking of the law of sin in the members, it is not making him a sinner, since he is not consenting "I hate what I do".

DB
Paul confessed that sin continued in his life. Are you superior to Paul?

HGL
Paul confessed that sin continued physically, which is the sin in the members.

He did not confess sin continued voluntarily which would have made him a sinner.

BBL

Why?
Taking a pause, posting here first. He was posting at a breathtaking pace, his typing speed and shortness is superior to mine. Plus, I took time to copy paste too.

It pays off, I got one more to reply to (in more than one post, so did I above, I simplified so as to note new post only with change of speaker), and so could give an answer which I could post to finish this.

DB
Hans, the Bible is a closed text, there are no remaining revelations, not from prophecy nor from men.

what "members" would that be ?

Romans 7:18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.c For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.

ascribing to men the authority to determine doctrine is heresy and must be denied. The Bible alone is our sole authority.

HGL
And the Bible was written by men.

You tried to solve the problem by these just holding the pen.

This happened, but was not the general case.

St Luke said he did research, which means he acted as a human writer.

This means God can chose to prevent a human writer from error, otherwise St Luke's Gospel would not be a Gospel.

And this in turn means:

  • God can also prevent Popes from error when they teach ex cathedra;
  • God can also prevent Church Fathers from making the same errors.


Meaning, when a Pope speaks ex cathedra, he can be trusted because of God's promise, when Church Fathers all agree, they can be trusted because of God's promise.

"the Bible is a closed text, there are no remaining revelations, not from prophecy nor from men."

The Church Fathers are not a post-Biblical revelation.

"Romans 7:18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature."

But good does dwell in his redeemed person, by grace.

CT
The Bible is in no way a closed text. You're asking only the question of whether something can be added to it, ignoring the possibility of somebody's taking something away.

We no longer have the book of Enoch. Our non-Catholic Bibles no longer include the Apocrypha. Even centuries ago, the man called Justin Martyr demonstrated how Jews had removed verses from the Bible that pointed to Yehoshua's being the Messiah. Those verses are still removed from most Bibles. There's a verse in 1 John that was added only 500 years ago. And so on.

I'm not arguing that these changes are right, but we sound so arrogant when we say we can know everything, and that we have only correct doctrines -- nothing colored by man. I bet you do hold to some of man's doctrines, in fact. I bet we all do.

HGL
By closed I mean that the Revelation is closed.

The Catholic Church could (but should not on astronomical grounds, the year is not 360 or 364 days long) take the book of Enoch because already accepted by a schismatic part Church, the Ethiopian one, and say it is from now on canon.

The Catholic Church could similarily add III and IV Maccabees as accepted by Romanians or I Ezra as accepted by Russians.

But ONLY because these texts have been received as having been written before the Old Testament was finally over (IV Maccabees probably in a sense after, but Josephus, credited as its author, was born before Temple went down).

As to taking away, that is not licit.

The Reformers taking away I and II Maccabees, Baruch and a few more were rebels against the Church, not Churchmen.

Trent has defined that I and II Maccabees can't be taken away.

Also (Trent or elsewhere or basic catechism) a book written now could not be a new part of the canon, nor a book written during Old Testament era, but never accepted by any Christian community as part of OT canon.

CT
Given that the Roman religion allows changes to doctrine, it cannot be said that it isn't plastic, regarding revelation. The Roman religion changed the sabbath to Sunday, they outlawed the practice of the Passover festival, etc. And it has been explicitly stated that the Roman pontiff has these powers -- that he acts as God, on earth.

Further evidence is in Vatican II and the liberality that led up to it, which caused a split among many Catholics. Mr. Bergoglio is dividing Catholics still further.

HGL
"Given that the Roman religion allows changes to doctrine, it cannot be said that it isn't plastic, regarding revelation."

False.

"The Roman religion changed the sabbath to Sunday,"

The Apostles did that.

"they outlawed the practice of the Passover festival, etc."

According to Jewish calendar, since the Easter of Resurrection takes precedence and is calculated according to Roman Calendar.

"And it has been explicitly stated that the Roman pontiff has these powers -- that he acts as God, on earth."

That he acts as God's VICAR on Earth and therefore cannot change, just define doctrine.

"Further evidence is in Vatican II and the liberality that led up to it, which caused a split among many Catholics. Mr. Bergoglio is dividing Catholics still further."

That would have been evidence, if it had been Catholic.

Vatican II and Bergoglio is not a Catholic Council, not a Catholic Pope.

CT
The outlawing of the sabbath and the Passover festival were one of the first acts of Constantine after he asserted his authority over Christianity in the Council of Nicaea.

HGL
Constantine had not "asserted his authority over Christianity in the Council of Nicea" and what he did was codify the Christian celebrations, like the Sunday and Christian Easter. He made sure Christians could take time off for doing these things.

CT
Easter is in no way "Christian." And the Passover festival is about as Christian a festival as one could imagine. Both the sabbath and the Passover were made illegal, by Constantine.

HGL
// Easter is in no way "Christian." //

Easter is Christian because it is about the Resurrection of Christ.

It has sometimes shared and sometimes not shared date with Passover.

// And the Passover festival is about as Christian a festival as one could imagine. //

In the exact sense of Easter, as mentioned above.

// Both the sabbath and the Passover were made illegal, by Constantine. //

Where do you see any act banning Jews from keeping the sabbath in his reign?

Other "statuses"
under the Mark 10:6 one (functioning to subthreads as status of Dave Bestul to whole thread):

I
DB
the "gap theory" is an attempt to make scripture conform to man's science. Don't do that!

HGL
I am NOT advocating the gap theory, I am opposing it.

DB
Hans-Georg Lundahl this is Dave's post, and he asked the question.

CT
You're still wrong, [DB]. I've said several times, now, that I believe in what you call the "gap theory" simply because it says "And the earth became a waste and desolation," to which Yahweh speaks explicitly, saying that it wasn't created that way.

Once more, the "gap" could have been two minutes, for all I care. I have no need for billions or millions or thousands or even hundreds of years. All I want is the truth.

HGL
OK, that kind of gap theory, the Catholic theology can accept.

The Earth became desolate when Satan fell down on it after falling from heaven, not dogma, but certainly acceptable doctrine.

II

DB
ascribing to men the authority to determine doctrine is heresy and must be denied. The Bible alone is our sole authority.

RT
Which is why the Gap Theory is correct and the Traditions of men are incorrect.

HGL
In what Church Father do you find it said that anything in Genesis implies gap theory?

RT
Who cares what a Church father imagined that he passed of when others were forbidden to have a Bible under penalty of death.

HGL
I think you are confusing era of Church Fathers (up to AD 1000, about) with era of Lollard persecution in England (1401 to after 1611, the last victims being Baptists burned as heretics by Anglican James I).

I also think you are confusing the question with what A single Church Father "imagined" (and St Augustine did perhaps imagine wrongly about people across Atlantic in one place) with the question of ALL THE Church Fathers being wrong.

RT
I wasn't certain WHICH Christian fathers you were alluding to...besides most of them believed the Sun revolved around the Earth. A fallacy continued until Galileo managed to confront...but was forced to keep quiet so an not to expose the erroneous beliefs of the Church fathers.

Now these same people insist upon a YEC.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"I wasn't certain WHICH Christian fathers you were alluding to"

I am speaking fairly clearly, not just alluding, to all of them.

If I say all of them were against gap theory, that is a fair guess.

Up to you to show there was one exception, I can't say in advance which one.

"besides most of them believed the Sun revolved around the Earth."

Which is supported by both good philosophy and by Scriptural proof like Joshua's adressing the miraculous words to sun and to moon, not to Earth to get it stop turning.

"A fallacy continued until Galileo managed to confront"

Not a fallacy and Galileo did not do much confronting.

"but was forced to keep quiet"

He could also have decided to be stubborn and burn on a stake, as Bruno had burned. Note, Bruno was hardly a Biblical Christian.

"so an not to expose the erroneous beliefs of the Church fathers."

Or pretend to do so and deceive the ignorant or some of them.

"Now these same people insist upon a YEC."

Yes, thank you very much, and therefore so do I. Whether you speak of the Church Fathers or of Pope Urban VIII obeying them.

III
CT
It should be noted, though, that the Jews did make revisions to the Masoretic Text based on anti-Christian sentiment. That's why it can be said that even the KJV has adulterations. Nonetheless, I still think it's still one of the best.

MJ
Not. It was translated from the original Hebrew, Greek, and Syriac-Chaldean. There is no anti-Christian to it. Where ever you got that info, is incorrect.

The Hebrew people did not expect the Messiah to be a humble Sheppard, they expected Him to come with the clouds of the Heavenly Hosts, forgetting Isaiah 53.

Still, has nothing to do with translated, from one language, to another.

CT
The information I provided is accurate. Look up the history of the Masoretic Text. It has adulterations, as does any Bible that uses it, which is just about all of them, save those that complement their translations with the Septuagint.

HGL
MJ, what you call "original Hebrew" simply is Masoretic text.

There were translations from "original Hebrew" before that one : Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac-Chaldean.

Where Masoretic (the "original Hebrew" for Reformers) differs from Septuagint or Vulgate, we can suspect that Masoretic was altered by Jews having anti-Christian sentiment.

IV
RT
(changing subject on a previous subthread)

Isn't our conversation what makes the study of theology stimulating? There's different views of what happened back then. We know something happened and Adam and Eve stumbled and fell, per se. The issue was over trust.

We are now in a transition process until Jesus returns to take over the Satanic Governments of this World.

So, we wait and contemplate Scriptural topics. I don't consider the YEC or OEC views as salvation issues and I don't doubt the faith or sincerity of either group.

RS
It occurred to me later on that the Bible does not tell us how much time elapsed between the first week and the Fall.

RT
True, NO TIME mentioned at all except "week" and the "24 hr days."

Dave Bestul
[RS], it does say that Adam lived 930 years and died. The fall occurred in his lifetime obviously.

RT
Before they fell and we're kicked out of the Garden.

Dave Bestul
So are you saying Adam lived more than 930 years?

Or are you positing that those years are not equal units, which wouldn't make any sense.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
The Bible indeed does not say exactly how much time.

Some traditions say that between Eve sinning and Adam falling, Adam fasted for 39 or 40 days (forget which) before finally succumbing.

We can also hope there had been some time with God in the garden before Eve fell, but not VERY long, they had been ordered to fill the Earth, were not disobedient before the fall, and yet the first conception seemingly is that of Cain after the fall. So, it can hardly have been years either.

CT
I've wondered about Cain's being the first. It's not stated, explicitly, although it does read that way. One of the questions that arises is, who is this wife, he took, when he went to the Land of Wandering?

RT
There were multiple children from Adam and Eve and eventually, over time, he married a distant releative.

HGL
If Cain were not the first, why Genesis 4:[1]?

And Adam knew Eve his wife: who conceived and brought forth Cain, saying: I have gotten a man through God.

Also, if there had been children in paradise before the fall, why is there no story of how they reacted to their parents' fall?

Also, if they had been there and remained unfallen, where did that unfallen humanity go?

The normal answer to Cain's wife is his sister.

"There were multiple children from Adam and Eve and eventually, over time, he married a distant releative."

Distant?

The most distant relative would have been a sister or a niece or a grandniece.

CT
Right, like I said, the way it reads is that Cain was the first. It just doesn't say so, explicitly. Eve may have been saying that she believed she was now having "a man, even God's salvation" who would fulfill the promise of crushing the serpent's head. That says nothing of having children before the prophecy was given; before their disobedience.

HGL
The problem if they had any is, where are they?

Would there be an unfallen Adamite humanity living in Earthly Paradise?

CT
Since they are all the offspring of Adam, don't we believe that all inherited the curse on account of the one man?

For Adam and Eve, and even the earth, the curse was retroactive. It wasn't given to only those who were born after that date, or only those plants that sprang up after that date.

HGL
They can only have inherited the curse if they were born to Adam after his fall.

There can't be a retroactive curse.

CT
It was retroactive for Adam and Eve and the earth. You're not giving any reason to believe otherwise.

HGL
It was on Adam after he had eaten, on Eve after she had eaten, and on Earth after they had eaten.

There is no reason whatsoever in the Bible or in sound theoology there was a curse which worked before that in a timeloop back from that moment, even if God could have managed it, as to His capacity : it would have been against His justice.

Magisterio de Todo Tiempo o Magisterio Vivo?


Abraham Peralta Lesme
¿PUEDEN LOS CATÓLICOS INTERPRETAR LA BIBLIA O DEBEN ESPERAR QUE SUS LÍDERES LA INTERPRETE DE ACUERDO A LA CONVENIENCIA DE SU RELIGIÓN ...?

Cuando les preguntamos a los amigos católicos si ellos pueden interpretar las Escrituras nos dicen lo siguiente: yo no puedo interpretar lo que dice la Biblia, para eso está el Papa y el Vaticano, a través de las enseñanzas del catecismo.

Vamos a analizar esto.

Primero vamos a ver qué dice el Vaticano al respecto en el catecismo:

#85 “El oficio de interpretar auténticamente la palabra de Dios, oral o escrita, ha sido encomendado sólo al Magisterio vivo de la Iglesia, el cual lo ejercita en nombre de Jesucristo” (DV 10), es decir, a los obispos en comunión con el sucesor de Pedro, el obispo de Roma.”

Es bastante claro lo que enseña el Vaticano, los únicos que pueden interpretar las Escrituras son los obispos y el papa.

... [hé cortado lo que queda, para responder a lo citado]

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"El oficio de interpretar auténticamente la palabra de Dios, oral o escrita, ha sido encomendado sólo al Magisterio vivo"

La última palabra, excluyendo el Magisterio del pasado, no es enseñanza del Concilio Trentino.

New blog on the kid : Grammatica et Logica de Canone Celeberrimo Concilii Tridentini
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/07/grammatica-et-logica-de-canone.html


No dice "tenet hodie" o "tenent vivi hierarchi", dice "tenet ac tenuit".
No dice que el fiel no puede comprender algo solo, dice solamente que si comprende algo contrariamente al Magisterio de todos los tiempos, comprende mal y, si se obstine, tiene que ser excomulgado.

El fiel que no es obispo, según lo Tridentino como según mismo ese "catequismo" puede interpretar con una opinión o con la certeza de interpretar con la Iglesia, peró mismo no puede interpretar "de officio".

Lo que difiere es que la certeza de interpretar con la Iglesia, en Trento se refiere al Magisterio de Todo Tiempo, en ese "catequismo" al Magisterio "vivo", es a decir de hoy.

Abraham Peralta Lesme
La Biblia no dice eso

Es una herejía del catolicismo pagano

Hans-Georg Lundahl
La Biblia sí dice que hay un magisterio.

En el Antiguo Testamento, en los tiempos de Jesús mismo, hubo un Magisterio farisáico, una extención tardía del magisterio cohénico.

Y Jesús lo confirmó. Mateo 23. Lo confirmó mismo por el caso que los enseñantes sean malos, como era generalment el caso con los Fariseos.

Y por el Nuevo Testamento, fundó el magisterio de los 12 y de los 72 y de San Piedro.

mercredi 15 mars 2017

On Mark 10:6


On Mark 10:6 · On Collective Infallibility of Church Fathers

Dave Bestul
6 mars, 22:53
Mark 10:6-12New International Version (NIV)

“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’

Question: Does this confirm that Jesus taught a young earth? If Adam and Eve were created at the BEGINNING of creation, doesn't that pretty much kill the gap theory? Thanks.

Angels:

Rohn Timm
So according to the YEC, Satan and all of the angels were created sometime during the first week and Satan and 1/3 of the angels quickly rebelled against God.

I can't imagine what happened so quickly to cause an insurrection on such a grand scale?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
What happened so quickly?

Angels needed only one moment to decide.

Satan needed only one moment to rebel, St Michael only one moment to remain loyal.

Caleb Trevithick
No, not according to YEC, Rohn. The creation of the physical universe does not include the domain of things that are not material.

Rohn Timm
A new twist...half YEC and half OEC.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
The traditional reading of verse 1 includes creation of all invisible creatures, angels, in creation of "heaven".

If Satan fell one moment after his creation, he fell before day 1, counting it from when it was light.

Rohn Timm
The traditional reading as interpreted by the Traditions of men suggest...

Hans Georg Lundahl
Tell me when you have done your checking ...

Rohn Timm
The early Church fathers apparently were unfamiliar with the KJ that refutes the YEC.

Scriptures in the KJ found in Gen 1:28 and 9:1 clearly support the Gap Theory of "replenishing the Earth."

Of course, many reject the KJ which is a rebuttal of the YEC traditions of men.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
KJ is not the Bible.

KJ is a translation of the Bible.

And adhering to it is a tradition of men.

Rohn Timm
So you reject the KJ Bible which is held as the Gold standard to the Protestants.

I'll take the Word of God over the YEC presupposition-based ideas.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"So you reject the KJ Bible which is held as the Gold standard to the Protestants. "

Of English speaking Protestants.

I did not reject it as a good English lesson when I was a Protestant.

I was a YEC and I became a Catholic.

Vulgate also has "replete", but Vulgate is not quite as much the sole gold standard to Catholics, since the Church also adhers to LXX.

Also, St Jerome was probably either using a popular form which had replaced Classic implete or trying to convey an intensive form in Hebrew (which I don't speak or write or read), where iterative is only one translation.

And not the best for the context.

[If given the full Classical sense, whereas St Jerome tried his best to translate in popular speech.]

"I'll take the Word of God over the YEC presupposition-based ideas."

You are taking one hasty choice of words in a translation.

Dinos

Rohn Timm
And you likely believe that the dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark and all of them have died off. You also reject the KJ verses Gen 1:26; 9:1 that refer to the replenishing of the Earth.

Dave Bestul
Are you positing that it is not possible that two dinosaurs of any age couldn't have been on an ark?

Rohn Timm
Do you realize how many different one there were and they somehow ALL died off?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
There are over 600 listed species or perhaps even genus, but they boil down to 55 kinds.

There were tons of sauropods, great chunks of Theropoda involving big ones like T rex and small ones like Velociraptor, and God knows how many types of pterosaurs. And so on.

And I don't believe ALL died off either. See Cryptozoology.

Dave Bestul, Noah would have needed 55 couples, not just one.

Dave Bestul
Rohn Timm, you're asserting that they couldn't have died off? Why? Animals go extinct all the time.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
And some, like Dimetrodon grandis, might have given people reasons to hunt them off:

Creation vs. Evolution : Did the Vikings See this Feller Alive?
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2016/11/did-vikings-see-this-feller-alive.html


Pre Adamites,
excursus angels

Rohn Timm
The FIRST HUMANS; not the first creatures on Earth.

Satan had already been created and fallen. What day does the YEC claim this happened?

Dave Bestul
You're implying pre-Adamites?

Rohn Timm
Yes, pre-Adamites.

So according to the YEC, Satan and all of the angels were created sometime during the first week and Satan and 1/3 of the angels quickly rebelled against God. I can't imagine what happened so quickly to cause an insurrection on such a grand scale?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
What happened so quickly?

Angels needed only one moment to decide.

Satan needed only one moment to rebel, St Michael only one moment to remain loyal.

Response doubled
α & β

α
after I had written β below.
Robert Bennett
Time exists in heavenly realms?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Angelic beings don't live in God's successionless eternity, but in sempiternity and do have a succession.

God knows what to us is future, since to Him it is, precisely as the past, present.

The angels don't know what is to us future, unless God tells them, since to them it is also future.

β
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Outside previous, continuing last
There is a difference on when Satan fell.

Either way, even if it was just before day one, even if it was the cause of Earth being tohu ve bohu, the difference in time between absolute beginning and actual creation of Adam and Eve is insignificant.

Replenish, excursus to dinos

Rohn Timm
And you likely believe that the dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark and all of them have died off. You also reject the KJ verses Gen 1:26; 9:1 that refer to the replenishing of the Earth.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
DRBO has Gen 1:28

[28] And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.

Gen 9:1

[1] And God blessed Noe and his sons. And he said to them: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.

Vulgate actually has the re- prefix.

Benedixitque illis Deus, et ait: Crescite et multiplicamini, et replete terram, et subjicite eam, et dominamini piscibus maris, et volatilibus caeli, et universis animantibus, quae moventur super terram.

Benedixitque Deus Noe et filiis ejus. Et dixit ad eos: Crescite, et multiplicamini, et replete terram.

KJV takes Vulgate replete as if Vulgate were written in Cicero's Latin.

In Cicero's Latin, re-plete would have meant re-plenish.

In St Jerome's adaptation to popular Latin, it was not so 450 years later.

"And you likely believe that the dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark"

Yes, Noah didn't have to take the big ones, he just needed to be careful to take a pink and a blue one.

"and all of them have died off."

No, I believe in Mokele Mbembe and in Thunderbirds.

Rohn Timm
I'm typing with a new tablet and hit the wrong key. I meant 1:28 and the KJ has "replenish" the Earth as 9:1 says to also replenish.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Yes, I found the verse 28. If it had been 26 in KJV, I would not have been surprised. Verses are recent and how they are divided differs.

I know both places say replenish, and I told you the KJV translators were too close to Vulgate "replete".

Because they thought St Jerome was using the words in the full Classical sense.

LXX

Genesis 1

28 καὶ ηὐλόγησεν αὐτοὺς ὁ θεὸς λέγων Αὐξάνεσθε καὶ πληθύνεσθε καὶ πληρώσατε τὴν γῆν καὶ κατακυριεύσατε αὐτῆς καὶ ἄρχετε τῶν ἰχθύων τῆς θαλάσσης καὶ τῶν πετεινῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ πάντων τῶν κτηνῶν καὶ πάσης τῆς γῆς καὶ πάντων τῶν ἑρπετῶν τῶν ἑρπόντων ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.

πληρώσατε - no prefix of iteration

Genesis 9

1 Καὶ ηὐλόγησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν Νωε καὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς αὐτοῦ καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Αὐξάνεσθε καὶ πληθύνεσθε καὶ πληρώσατε τὴν γῆν καὶ κατακυριεύσατε αὐτῆς.

Same word πληρώσατε.

With an Orthodox Priest on Lenin, Putin, KGB and the Orthodox I Met


Difference between "sodomy" and "homosexuality" · With an Orthodox Priest on Lenin, Putin, KGB and the Orthodox I Met · With Aristobule Adams

Aristibule Adams
(Orthodox, by now I think Priest)
Bury the vampire. Put up a chapel to the glory of Jesus Christ and the memory of the New Martyrs of the Soviet Yoke in its place.

Russian Church Abroad calls for removal of Lenin’s body from Red Square
on pravoslavie.ru | Moscow, March 13, 2017
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/101803.htm


Taking only
my own subthread.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Well, if Putin had done that and banned abortion, I'd have taken him for a Christian.

Aristibule Adams
He's working on it. He's a president of a republic though - not the dictator the NeoCons and Progressives of the West imagine.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
And if the republic is stopping him from doing so, might that be because Russia apostasised?

Aristibule Adams
They suffered the apostasy of the Soviet Yoke, and are repenting of it. It takes time - much of the population still has to be converted, and they are not an autocracy but a democracy - so they have to get the people onboard as they can. But Church and Putin are cooperating in that.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Are Church and Putin:

  • allowing again girls and boys to marry before 18, as before the Revolution?
  • abolishing school compulsion, as was introduced by revolution?
  • allowing private schools, including run by Young Earth Creationists?


"As for reburials and other issues of a similar kind, you know, it seems to me that this should be approached carefully so as not to make any steps that would divide our society. On the contrary, it should be united, that is the most important thing,"

I think it was to some persecutors of Christianity before him. Like Marcus Aurelius.

Putin urges careful approach towards Lenin reburial issue not to divide society
Source: Interfax-Religion | Stavropol, January 26, 2016
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/90028.htm


Aristibule Adams
Yes, see Met. Hilarion (Alfeyev)'s comments above regarding the removal of Soviet names from places - he also emphasized that it must and will happen, but that it must be done in such a way that the people are onboard. It takes collective repentance.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Constantine was banning abortion without asking the people.

If he is so eager to have popular consent, why not make a referendum and then step back if the Christian solutions are not agreed on?

Aristibule Adams
Well, he was a monarch. We haven't gotten the monarch restored yet - they have to be prepared and worthy of it. Though it is part of the prayers of the Church, and a growing sentiment in Russian society. Just not supported enough yet to make it viable.

When you have a population like that, you have to manage change. He's not putting it out all there at once to be slapped down. It has to be done gradually.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
His sense of tactic necessity may one day be what makes him an apostate.

Unless he is so already.

It reminds me of KGB. And of psychiatry.

He thinks he has to gain on his own wisdom and talent, as if God would not sustain a good effort, even if it looked hopeless.

Aristibule Adams
He's not an apostate. He's pious Orthodox, and he has a goal and love for his country. He's just wise in politics.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
I am not taking your word for it.

Aristibule Adams
That's okay. Just watch and pray.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
I wonder how much he has contributed to a situation in which I have less and less peace of praying.

Aristibule Adams
Probably not much. He's been too busy learning to be an Orthodox Christian and Making Russia Great Again.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
You forget he has a past as KGB agent.

You might not know that a village in Sweden where I was has had Communist and Masonic ties to St Petersburg, and at the very least, the official version, sports ties.

He also has a sports passion. And at the time, he was involved in St Petersburg politics, as a replacement. He had time off to make spy affairs.

Also, you might not know how much Orthodox have pushed for getting me regarded as a monk and my writing as dishonorable disobedience in a monk and my trying to get married as defection from my supposed duties as a monk ... could he have been giving lessons about me to those who gave him lessons about Christianity?

Aristibule Adams
I doubt Putin is involved with anything you've experienced personally. We Orthodox tend to have our crazies as much as the Catholics or anyone else. It's just humans being weird.

As for Putin - he resigned from the KGB, and then fought against them when they attempted their coup in the early 1990s before they were shut down. It's why the ex-KGB oligarchs hate him, and have fled his Russia. Of course, they tell us that he is dangerous for being ex-KGB (resigned, and combated KGB) but do not want to be considered themselves KGB (who only stopped being KGB when the KGB was disbanded, and had to flee anti-KGB policies.) Several years after, in any case, Putin had his religious awakening. You haven't had such a thing with the Oligarchs. Most of them are still are atheists.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
" We Orthodox tend to have our crazies as much as the Catholics or anyone else. It's just humans being weird."

I am NOT talking about single persons who could be identified as crazies.

I AM talking about systematic, bishop after bishop, priest after priest (meeting priests but not bishops) and parish after parish showing a VERY queezy attitude to me being a writer.

Perhaps they thought I was the "crazy", and perhaps, ultimately, Kirill and Putin liked that.

I spent late 2006 to first half of 2009 under Omophore of a Roumanian bishop and looking at other Omophores so as to get a life as opposed to be honoured as a new version of Russian Pilgrim and locked out of company with every step I took at getting out of that role.

The Roumanian priest in Aix, a married one, certainly preferred the company of a philosophy teacher who was indignated that the Roman Catholics had burned Giordano Bruno, which I think was a good thing, if heretics should be burned. Far better than burning Avvakum for instance.

Aristibule Adams
Well, we certainly have a crisis in this age. I think Crete showed where those lines are drawn. Bishops are humans just like the rest of us - some of them might personally 'click' with a personality, and some may not. I've experienced that. Sometimes a person likes you, sometimes they don't. It can be hard to when there are ethnic or cultural differences as well. I doubt that involves the Patriarch or Putin - unless you personally came across them? I haven't yet - I'm only at two degrees of relation there. :) I doubt either have specifically heard of me.

Looks like
a deliberate interruption, to "give me face" or "give the priest face" as they say in Chinese, the following, doesn't it?

Madison Krezymon
Aristibule Adams still not sure why the MP was involved with Crete to begin with?

Aristibule Adams
He wasn't. He, along with other Patriarchs, refused to participate.

Madison Krezymon
Ah OK didn't actually know that I thought he did participate I know Antioch wasn't involved something that I'm personally thankful for

Possible interruption
over, except one reply, resuming my exchange with Aristobule.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
The problem is not whether a person likes me or not.

The problem is when a person who has at least some liking for me refuses to tell me what he is up to and is (as I see after some years of analysis) up to making it pastorally impossible for me to marry and to get paid for my writing and my compositions.

If I had looked for a monastery or to be a priest candidate, my being rejected from that (which I was not, since I did not apply) might be put down to that.

But being denied the basic liberties of a layman (like to marry and to chose my occupation) by people who want to force me to live like a monk (they partly succeeded, except for the prayer and fasting), that can be put down to exactly two causes:

  • a) the hierarch is evil himself,
  • b) the hierarch is misinformed by someone else whom he respects.


Aristibule Adams
(to Madison Krezymon)
No - and for good reason. The Patriarchs of Moscow, Tblisi, Antioch, and Sofia did not attend. Neither did the Metropolitan of the OCA.

Aristibule Adams
(to me again)
Ahh, I see Hans-Georg Lundahl - they were trying to recruit you to the monastic life! Not unheard of. There might be other reasons for that beyond a & b. Especially if you were already living some sort of life. Every priest I had told me that I was destined for the priesthood and had no choice in the matter. The priest who received me stood in room full of converts - and when asked by them (many former ministers from the sects) what they should do now - said "whatever you want..." and then pointed to me in front of the class and said "... except you, we have plans for you."

That's how it works in Orthodoxy - you get led around rather than going 'where you wist'.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Well, in that case I suppose you are closer to Talmudism than to Catholicism.

In Catholicism, getting led by obedience to a superior is a choice, not an obligation on every layman.

Aristibule Adams
No, not an obligation - but if you showed signs of the calling. You refused, so there you are. They couldn't force it on you.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
It is not as if they tried overtly once, and I refused and that was it.

They tried half discretely once, I refused, they ignored my refusal.

To me that looks more KGB than Orthodoxy, but I could be wrong about Orthodoxy.

Aristibule Adams
Sounds like overly enthusiastic people. You might have even run into a cult within the church. It happens - just like in Catholicism, Pentecostalism, etc. It's why Patriarch Kirill had to denounce such activity.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
No, they were not enthusiasts.

When I showed url for my blog, they were extremely cold.

The "cult" within Orthodoxy was in this case Neohimerite/Canonical version.

Aristibule Adams
Yes - I've run across the Neohimerite Fundamentalists as well. They cannot touch me in the Russian Church though.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Which of the two?

Patriarchate or ROCOR?

Besides, Hilarion Alfeyev had opportunity to help me get played as a composer. He never bothered to answer my mail.

Aristibule Adams
Same. The only Neohimerites of Russian tradition are in OCA, the EP's Paris Eparchy, and ACROD.

I cannot answer why a clergyman might not answer. It is known to be an issue everywhere. I've been guilty of it myself. I know I get inundated, and get messages I don't know what to do with at the moment, or don't answer, and think 'I'll come back to this' - and it gets forgotten in the pile. The persistent get through.

For what it's worth - Met. Hilarion (Alfeyev) has never answered my messages either. :)

Met. Hilarion (Kapral) always does.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
[linked to here]

Aristibule Adams
I'd rather facebook conversations not be reproduced elsewhere.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
I for my part would rather that when I have made allusions to my situation, the reactions be reproduced in public.

As a priest, you are a public person, that is why I gave your name in full.

Aristibule Adams
Ah, well all I know about the situation are the allusions then.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Yes, and now my readers know your reactions to them, including calling them "allusions", when I gave actual facts.

Aristibule Adams
Or your readers know that I don't 'get' your allusions - because I don't know them or the events you alluded to. All I know is that you alluded to something, and called it allusions. I wasn't present for the events after all. I've only been present at the events I've been present at. :)

Hans-Georg Lundahl
That is a polite way of calling me liar or mistaken.

The kind of readers who would agree with you are the ones I care least about.

The ones behind that kind of crap I have had.

Aristibule Adams
No, I'm simply pointing out that you were the one that said you had made allusions to your situation. I only used the word when I acknowledged that all I knew about that situation were the same allusions that you called allusions. I've no other source of information for that. #NoKGB

Hans-Georg Lundahl
I used allusions as general description of what type of thing I did, even beyond the fairly clear descriptions here.

Aristibule Adams
Yes, and that's all I was referring to. The allusions might be clear to those who know the people and institutions involved. But I don't . I'm sure it's clear to you though.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
I think it is clear enough to anyone knowing English and reading my words WHAT I describe.

What could be unclear to some is whether I am right and honest or wrong or a liar.

And your words stamp either you as dishonest or as being too little versed in your own language to be able to do pastoral as a priest.

Ouk axios.

Aristibule Adams
Okay, I guess I don't get your drift. I'm not sure I know your situation beyond that you use computers in libraries often in France, and what you said about the Romanians from 2002-2006 (and I don't know any of them.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl
I would have been using some own computer at home, perhaps, and certainly had a home, if my being a writer on internet had been interpreted as a valid work for a homeless layman instead of as a bad behaviour on part of a monk or sth.

And that was repeated, over years, these being 2006 to 2009, check if you find I said otherwise.

As to the Romanians, how about checking?

I also mentioned Hilarion Alfeyev, whom you might know better.

Aristibule Adams
I've never got to know him. Like I said, he's never responded. I'm not part of his circle.

The Romanians, I just don't interact with them. I don't busy myself with those too far out from where I go (mostly Southern US - but also Canada and UK).

Hans-Georg Lundahl
So, you won't check, but you would still not accept my assessment of my situation as being honest and clear?

You don't know, but you just know I have to be wrong or you must have got my meaning wrong?

Updates
following day.

Aristibule Adams
I have to make the assessment on what I've experienced and know - which is in the ROCOR/MP and Antioch. If you experienced something like that, I have to give the benefit of the doubt to all parties. I do understand how things work in the Church (I wouldn't be here otherwise), but I don't know every personality in every diocese. I don't accept negative words by reputation either (nor positive ones) - that is gossip. But I would not be surprised if you had a negative experience with Neohimerite fundamentalists. That has happened with others and myself. But it is no business of mine to go digging in other dioceses for things that happened decades ago that do not concern me. My patriarch, my metropolitan - that's what matters if priorities are kept straight. Look to our own salvation, and not what someone is doing over there. And I do suggest to converts that the Russian Church is the safest place at this time - with no animosity towards others. The Serbian church is good, the Georgian church is good, Jerusalem is good, etc. But yeah, Russia is best. :)

Hans-Georg Lundahl
" I don't accept negative words by reputation either (nor positive ones) - that is gossip."

I am perfectly willing to give you the names, and you check with them.

You gave at least one part of your experience which clearly supports my WITNESS, hearing which is NOT GOSSIP.

You said they had told you "except you, we have plans for you."

" I do understand how things work in the Church (I wouldn't be here otherwise)"

I do at least know the canon law of us Latins does NOT support Shanghaiing someone to monastic existence despite his wanting to marry and saying so.

I do at least know the canon law of us Papists does NOT support condemning a man to Franciscan poverty over allowing his intellectual and artistic production to be known.

If writing on theology and publishing without asking a bishop first is an offense, it must be a minor one, if the content is not bad.

These guys were asked over and over again to pass judgement on my blogs, and did not. After that they cannot say I went behind their back.

And it is perfidious to condemn a man to poverty over years simply because the process of an imprimi postes or nihil obstat is delayed by people not having time to look.

If they had said openly "what you write is WRONG, we can't print and sell that, you should repent of having written it", that would have been another matter.

I would perhaps have repented but more probably gone back to Catholic sooner. I would probably have said "if they say Young Earth Creationism and Geocentrism are doctrinally wrong, they can't be doctrinally right, they are against the Church Fathers".

Precisely as Pentecost 2009 I was at last released by someone preaching, no doubt on behalf of his bishop, that Antipope Ratzinger (they spoke of Pope Benedict), I am no longer sure if they named him or just alluded and then explained afterwards, had been uncharitable in his words on condoms.

He had not, if anything he had been unduly lax.

But supposing they felt queezy about what I wrote, didn't have the courage either to approve or condemn, they could at least have allowed me a living on my musical compositions.

They preferred holding me back in obscrurity* and poverty.

This is not "hearsay", this is formal accusation, and I will give the names I can give if asked to.

Note *
Yes, I misspelled. I was typing so eagerly. I weighed my words, but not my typing speed.

Aristibule Adams
I'm not the one to file complaints with - I'm a mere mass-priest in the country (a country in the Caribbean South).

Hans-Georg Lundahl
No, but this dialogue can be transferred, since reblogged.

Aristibule Adams
So how is finding a wife going, in that case?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Well, I have one to marry if and when she wants to and circumstances (including her conversion to Catholicism) allow.

Circumstances have not allowed and she is not yet (last time I checked) back to the belief of her baptism.