Not really. It has the same consequences, you can just overlook the Scientific and mythological elements.
Yu are still left with Male superiority, slavery and several other uncomfortable doctrines.
Richard
Not really. It has the same consequences, you can just overlook the Scientific and mythological elements.
Yu are still left with Male superiority, slavery and several other uncomfortable doctrines.
Richard
Sorry but I think you’re confused about the subject
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It is a common mistake. Perhaps my linguistic prowess is not as good as I think it is.
However, if you do not agree with male superiority and slavery you are not taking Paul’s words as you claim.
Richard
I take them as the Church has taken them throughout 2000 years. ![]()
Like i said i don’t just rely on Scriptures but also on Apostolic Tradition which is gift from the Holy Spirit to prevents us from interpreting the Scriptures in an incorrect way.
Oh I wish that was true!
Human tradition is fickle. (and the tradition you claim is not consistent)
Richard
Apostolic tradition is, in my view, much less fickle than the understanding of a single man. I also believe that it’s a gift from the Holy Spirit in order to prevent major errors, so I don’t view that as a merely human tradition, I believe that the Holy Spirit has an important role in transmitting the correct teachings.
Does that mean I do not have it?
(I would be careful with your answer if I were you)
Richard
No, I’ve never implied that. I just think that the successors of the Apostles are more authoritative in their interpretations than both of us.
I think that is an ouch.
But maybe we have said enough for now.
Richard
Of course you do, you’d be either catholic or eastern orthodox if you didn’t ![]()
i don’t think it’s that outlandish to believe that the successors of the Apostles are more authoritative than the common christian and that they have a special guide from the Holy Spirit due to their positions.
But of course if everyone believed so there wouldn’t be 47,000 different Christian denominations in the world.
The biblical scriptures and oral apostolic tradition should tell the same story. RCC may claim that its succession of leaders, together with the Holy Spirit, has quaranteed correct teachings throughout the history of the church. All other denominations disagree with that claim, including the eastern Orthodox.
For me, the key point in the succession of the apostolic tradition is that the apostolic teaching is transferred correctly. A chain of bishops that have been nominated by previous bishops is not a sufficient quarantee that they have kept the apostolic tradition correctly.
We should compare the current teachings with the early ones (especially canon) and judge the current teachings based on that. What is shown to be the same teaching is apostolic tradition, what has changed can be questioned.
Yeah, that’s for sure, otherwise they wouldn’t have split up. Even the Eastern Orthodox believe in the importance of apostolic tradition though, Catholics and Orthodoxes are much more similar and closer to each other than they are to other denominations, and it’s like that because of the common denominator is the apostolic tradition. Luther’s refusal of Apostolic Tradition open a Pandora Box which led to many other thousands of christian denominations saying different things, it was to be expected as one of the consequences of Luther’s actions.
That’s correct. The guarantee comes from the Holy Spirit, not from fallible men. Catholics and Orthodoxes don’t believe in the importance of Apostolic Tradition because they believe that these men are inherently infallible, they believe that because they think that the Holy Spirit prevents them from leading the faithfuls astray. It also makes sense for the successors of the Apostles to have a special guidance, if you think about it.
Of course, what has changed can be questioned. Apostolic Tradition only guarantees that the fundamental, divinely revealed doctrines are not corrupted or lost. That is why the various Councils are necessary.
Luther wanted a reformation within the RCC, not establish a competing church. The need for a reformation within the church was widely acknowledged (even the council of Trent wrote that, IIRC, although they were probably thinking something else than Luther). What Luther, Melanchton and the others wanted was a return to previous Apostolic teaching because the prevailing interpretations and practices had deviated from the earlier ones. If the Pope and the local bishops would have taken the hopes for a reformation seriously, then Luther and the others may have stayed within the RCC. Instead, the current Pope and the local bishops strongly rejected all the hopes for a reformation and demanded unquestioning obedience to everything they said. Luther and the others were forced out of the RCC.
What the current leaders claim is not always the will of God or original Apostolic tradition. If someone notes that, it leads to a difficult choice: should we obey God or what the current leaders (bishops, Pope) claim?
Luther was not the first one to preach that there was a need for a reformation. Earlier persons were persecuted and killed before the teachings spread. Luther happened to live during a time when printing of writings became more common, so that writings could spread widely. Also the Greek scriptures became more widely known, which helped to see the contrasts between the early and current teachings.
Eastern Orthodox accept what the early ecumenical councils decided. They refute what the later western (RCC) councils decided, for example the interpretations of Augustine that the RCC accepted. In other words, the decisions of the early ecumenical councils are seen as genuine Apostolic tradition, what RCC councils and Popes declared later is not seen as genuine Apostolic tradition.
That’s true. The problem imho is that he then deviated even further, in my opinion. His revolution, needless to say, became the starting point for further divisions and disagreements, as then new denominations emerged (which was unavoidable, if there is the private judgement there can be as many denominations as you want, all with conflicting interpretations) each with its own peculiarities, each developing conflicting doctrines,
I don’t deny that something needed to change back then, but you don’t cure a migraine with a decapitation.
We should be careful to differentiate, though, not all teachings require the same assent. It’s likely that Pope Francis, to make an example, privately held many erroneous teaching but he hasn’t been able to force them on the Church. I don’t think that the Church as a whole can lead the faithful astray, I think the faithfuls can be led astray by the wrong teachings and actions of individual persons, there have always been heretical and immoral Bishops.
Yep that’s true. But I still think that, despite the disagreements on papal supremacy and the Filioque, what unites Catholics and Orthodoxes is far greater than what divides them.
Sure. I would even say that what unites most Christian denominations is far greater than what divides them.
We all are trying to follow our Master Jesus with the understanding we have - although I have met RCC members who replace Jesus with RCC: the RCC has taken the place of Jesus. Understandable from the worldview teached by RCC but not from the worldviews of those who want to follow Jesus.
If we want to follow the same King and aim to the same Kingdom, we have to look over the human-built fences that separate the believers. We have to accept that we humans are fallible and can have differing interpretations about various matters of faith, even if we are children of the same Father. No denomination, RCC or any other, has an exclusive right to the Holy Spirit.
I definitely agree, I also think that there are much more important things than agreeing on this or that doctrine.
Maybe we should add that God would appear to accept this as well? People are very good ay second guessing God using human values rather than concentrating on their own journey and leaving the heavy stuff to the one who both knows and has the authority to implement it.
Richard
My best guess is that there are two levels of historical connection. At one level, Israel’s cultural memory preserved a story of someone saved from a flood with their family and animals. I have no problem believing God helped someone in this kind of scenario, and the story endured. Further, in Israel’s perspective in which God is directly responsible for every disaster and blessing, the flood was seen as a punishment from God.
At a second level, God inspired the formation of an account to show how God deals with humanity, despite our corruption. This account took different forms (Yahwist 40-day flood with extra animals brought aboard for food and sacrifice; Elohist 150-day flood with plants brought aboard for food), but was ultimately synthesized, enlarged and universalized in what we call Genesis 6–9. I take this account as a Hebrew mashal, a wide genre that encompasses what we would more specifically call parables, riddles and proverbs. These chapters take a well-known story (that is also common in surrounding cultures) and reframe it to make a point. These writers had no special access to the historical detail behind that story, but that doesn’t matter because their goal is to teach about God and humanity, not tell history.
The ways the story humanizes God are clues it shouldn’t be read flat. God suddenly notices the wickedness of the human heart and is sorry to have created humanity, deciding to wipe us all out except for one family (6:5–7). But it doesn’t work: after the flood God sees that the human heart is still wicked, so God sets down the divine bow and arrows and promises to never punish the earth this way again (8:21; 9:8–17).
I don’t believe God really needed to flood the earth to learn this lesson any more than I believe God was truly surprised by human corruption or truly sorry to have made humanity. It’s a human picture of God, but with an important point. It shows why God doesn’t just wipe out the nasties and start over with the best. It’s an etiology that explains why God lets so much evil slide. And just like earlier etiologies for why snakes slither and such, it explains a present reality (God’s apparent permissiveness of evil) through an imaginative story that shouldn’t be taken as flat history. The purpose is to show us why God doesn’t act that way, even though it is written as though God learns not to act that way.
When the NT refers to the flood, normally the point is more connected to the first historical layer than the second. I don’t think NT authors would distinguish these layers as I do, but the points they make from the flood don’t depend on the second layer being historically accurate. The flood story, like the destruction of Sodom, shows how God may protect the righteous even during a punishing calamity. In 1 Peter, the generation wiped out by the flood is used as the quintessential wicked group, yet Jesus goes even to them to proclaim his victory. The NT takes the flood story as revealing truth, which it can do without being flat history. Distinguishing the historical parts from the rest wasn’t a game they were interested in playing, but that doesn’t mean everything equally corresponds with historical reality.
I haven’t thought as much about this one as the flood, but my gut reaction is to make the same moves. At one level, God delivered some Hebrews from Egypt, including through protecting them from a wider judgement that fell on Egypt. At a second level, God inspired ways to tell this story that expanded it and made it revelatory of God’s general character and way of working in the world. God was involved in both that original history and in the history of the text.
Because the exodus story is more than flat history of Israel’s origin, Paul asks his gentile audience in Corinth to read it as a story about their ancestors (1 Cor. 10:1). He doesn’t say it’s not historical, but he universalizes the history. It’s instructive to them as much as to Jews in Jerusalem. I think the reason for that is because the story is Scripture. As such, its truth can’t be provincialized or limited to the smaller historical nugget.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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