The Incarnation is the mystery and the dogma of the Word made Flesh. ln this technical sense the word incarnation was adopted, during the twelfth century, from the Norman-French, which in turn had taken the word over from the Latin incarnatio.However, I have serious reservations about divine immutability (in a strong sense) being compatible with the so-called Incarnation of Christ:
1) If God is immutable in a strong sense, then he cannot assume human nature. (P---->Q)
2) God is immutable in a strong sense. (P)
3) Therefore, he cannot assume human nature. (Q)
Maybe I could rework the argument this way, but I think the results are the same:
1*) If God the Son is immutable in a strong sense, then he cannot assume human nature.
2*) God the Son is immutable in a strong sense.
3*) Therefore, God the Son cannot assume human nature.
Uniting one thing to another sounds like a change to me but Trinitarians (most) will deny that any such change occurred. However, if I unite a man and woman by marrying them in a formal ceremony, then it could be said that a genuine change has taken place. But Trinitarian logic works differently I suppose.
One move for the Incarnation crowd is to propose an ad hoc idea called potentia oboedientialis. I want to say more about this idea in the future. For now, it seems ad hoc to me.
Having said all of the foregoing, I do believe the truth of John 1:14, just not its distortion.
27 comments:
The immutability of God (immutabilitas Dei) also follows from God's simplicity: He is the completion of existence (actus purus), therefore there is no potential existence in Him that would still be waiting to unfold or realize, and similarly, He cannot lose anything. His existence and all that He possesses exist with eternal necessity, and it cannot be otherwise. He cannot receive anything new, neither in knowledge nor in value. His outward acts do not change Him. The act of creation in Him is also a free act that has been in Him forever, one with His essence, and its temporal effect exists outwardly. When He communicates Himself in grace, it is not He who changes, but man who enters into a new relationship with Him and comprehends His supernatural effects. The mystery of the incarnation must be understood in the same way. It was not the divinity or the person of the Son that changed, but the humanity of Christ that entered into a unique relationship with Him.
The 'potentia oboedientialis' means possibility of obedience, that is, that the Creator God may use His creature for whatever purpose He wishes. The possibility exists in man that God's grace may elevate him to the supernatural order. Based on his spiritual nature, man is open to the self-communication of God, and his own essence is not harmed, but this is possible because man has received the capability for it. We call this ability obedience because it is given with man and would have its purpose even if the supernatural elevation had not occurred. For man would still be open to infinite spiritual values, which in itself is a value. On the other hand, a capability does not require that God satisfies it with supernatural self-communication. So, grace remains free in all cases. Thomas Aquinas already used the term 'potentia oboedientialis', and it later became general in theology. However, differences in interpretation persist to this day, depending on how the relationship between nature and grace is clarified. Theology also applies this term to the human nature of Christ, insofar as it has the capability to enter into personal unity with the eternal Son. This is otherwise the archetype of all grace elevations. Recently, the potentia oboedientialis has been used in the sense that an existing being, under certain circumstances, transcends itself in its effects, thus realizing the opportunity for development given in creation.
Check my comments here: https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2014/08/did-logos-change-when-he-became-flesh.html
Today's theologians also raise the question of self-consciousness in the person, e.g., is there a real psychological "I" in Christ despite the hypostatic unity? Or in what way is the reality of Christ's human nature expressed? At this question, it must be emphasized that the carrying and initiating power of the divine "I" does not weaken human freedom, but rather elevates it to completeness. Therefore, human nature in its true free humanity is an instrument and expression of the divine "I". Finally, it must be seen that personal unity is necessarily grace, a supernatural phenomenon, and therefore it completes human nature from a supernatural side. An essential feature of human nature is that it is open to infinite truth, goodness, and sanctity (potentia oboedientialis), therefore the personal unity in Christ is the fulfillment of this openness by the self-communicating divine person. Part of the mystery is also that it has only been realized once in this human world. - The consequence of personal unity is that the humanity of Jesus Christ received a wonderful anointing, sanctification, which we call the grace of union. Since His humanity is the carrier and expresser of the divine person, therefore Christ, as a divine person, is also to be worshiped in His human form. The traditional expression for this is 'coadoratur', meaning his humanity is also included in the worship due to his divinity.
The doctrine of God's immutability has a solid foundation in the Bible, although the biblical revelations are generally not of a metaphysical nature. The Bible primarily depicts God's moral immutability, that is, the keeping of His promises, threats, and decisions. Such biblical places are: "God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?" (Numbers 23:19). "He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind." (1 Samuel 15:29). "The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations." (Psalm 33:11). "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, 'My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.'" (Isaiah 46:10).
However, this fidelity to Himself is not just of a moral nature, it is something that flows from His essence, His being.
This is suggested by the explanation found in Malachi the prophet: "For I the LORD do not change..." (3:6).
Similarly, the constancy of existence is presupposed in Psalm 102: "In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end." (26-28). Here we see that God's temporal constancy and immutability are closely related to each other.
Even more thought-provoking are those biblical places which identify His salvific goodwill with His essence, hence portraying Him as the rock of our salvation, the primordial goodness offering the salvation of men uniformly from eternity, for example, Isaiah 26:4. The New Testament also arrives at the experience of His goodwill and fidelity emanating from God's essence through the experience of the acts of salvation. His gift is perfect, for there is no change in Him, not even a shadow of change (James 1:17). He is merciful, patient, gives eternity because He is immortal (1 Timothy 1:16-17).
Especially the letter to the Hebrews connects God's immutability with the divine eternity (1:10-12), when it quotes Psalm 102 verbatim. The Apostle Paul proceeds in the same way: Romans 1:23; 1 Timothy 6:15.
The ancient Church Fathers defended the immutability of God, referencing the aforementioned biblical passages. Thus, the apologists did so against the pagans, Tertullian, Origen, and others against the Gnostics, Manicheans, Patripassians, Arians, and other heretics who imagined the origin or incarnation of the Logos at the expense of God's immutability. Among the later ones, especially Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, deal with our topic, and with the exegetical method popular in the theology of the time, they justify it mainly with the metaphysical interpretation of the Yahweh name.
In Scholasticism, the metaphysical immutability of God was deduced from the Aristotelian concept of change (potentia-actus), therefore based on conceptual analysis. On the same basis, they find an explanation for those strong anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms that we encounter at every step in the Scripture. Anthropopathism refers to the statement that God experiences human emotions and passions (e.g. anger, remorse, reconciliation). According to Thomas Aquinas, not only do anthropomorphisms distort the image of God, but these also do. Therefore, neither should be interpreted as a process taking place in God, but only from the impact of the divine action (terminatively). God regretted creating man, it means: what God did due to the decline of man, the result is the same as when people regret their former goodness. In Jesus, it was not the offended and therefore God, inflamed by the passion of anger, who reconciled with the world, but through the redemptive work of Jesus, the world became capable of accepting God's salvific goodness, to which it was incapable due to sins (thus as a consequence of offense and anger). The purpose of anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms is to bring the unimaginably divine closer to humans. Natural scientists often illustrate abstract concepts and abstract truths (such as the theses of theoretical physics) with metaphorical "models", but they add that the model never accurately expresses the truth, which can only be satisfactorily "described" in terms of a metaphor. The model simply facilitates the approach. Thus, anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms also portray God in a popular form, but distort reality slightly. This is necessary because revelation aims to guide not only theologians who can approach the full reality with abstract concepts, but also simple people who wish to pay homage to the Unspeakable, and desire to establish a personal relationship with Him.
As I said in the blog post and will get back to later, potentia oboedientialis is an ad hoc move.
God's outward works change. He created the world in time, the incarnation happened in time, his cooperation in preserving and providing for the world relates to a changing world, etc. How is it possible that, while actively participating in the changes of the world in this way, he himself does not change? This is the question we have been seeking an answer to since scholasticism.
Earlier theology began with the idea that there are three elements that can be distinguished in God's outward activity:
The first is the decision to act outwardly. Since all decisions in God are in the eternal present, the decisions mentioned now do not bring anything new to God, they do not change him.
The second element is the change that occurs in God's works, as a result of his decisions and actions, terminus. These terminuses represent new situations: there was no world before creation; the centurion's son in Capernaum was sick before, now he is healthy; there was no God-man before the incarnation. The situation, however, is a relation, that is, a relationship. Changes in relationships are not always bilateral, but often unilateral: the person who used to come behind me and now rushes in front of me, the change in my relationship happened independently of me. Someone can enter the room and come into relation with me without me changing. The sun does not go through changes just because it makes winter and then summer on earth. We call these unilateral relationships mixed relationships. It's mixed because the new situation only means change from one side (this fact is referred to by philosophy as real relation), but not from the other (the other party only enters into a logical relation). The relation of God to the world, and of God to the events and situations occurring in the world, is such a mixed relationship: purely logical from God's side, but real from the creatures' side, since they also depend on God in their changes. God not only sees the intention to change from eternity and in eternal present, but he also sees and wants the new situations that have arisen during the change in the same way. Therefore, these situations do not cause any change in him.
The third element is the change, i.e., the execution of the intention to change. In the case of humans, there is usually a change here: I decided to leave somewhere at five o'clock, so I stopped studying. But even in our world, changes that leave the changer independent can be noticed. For example, when a patient takes medicine as prescribed by the doctor, he enters a new relationship with his doctor without his doctor changing at the same time. If the doctor's will was absolutely effective, the patient's time-bound medication would occur without any foreign factor, just as a result of the doctor's prescription. Scholasticism refers to such absolute, yet cooperating with the world, eternal divine decisions, that's why it dares to say that even his active role in carrying out actions and the occurrence of events does not assume change in God. These are hard to imagine humanly. For example, the concept of absolute, yet cooperating with the world, divine decisions can easily evoke the parallel of magic spells in fairy tales ("Spread out, my table, spread out!"). We also find it hard to understand that the eternity of God, according to Boethius' definition, not only possesses the values scattered in the world and history in a single moment, but this single eternal moment also encompasses the divine decisions realized in historical succession. Our perception is stuck in the world of change, and due to our temporality, we cannot comprehend God's eternal present. However, we know that everything he does is present in God from eternity, only the effect of his action (terminus) occurs at a predetermined time. So only the effect changes, not God.
Scholasticism uses a similar solution when it seeks an answer to how the unchanging God listens to prayers addressed to him. It is God's eternal thought that he will give us certain goods, or the beneficial use of his gifts, only in return for our requests. Not that our requests could influence his will, but because when we ask, we feel more deeply how much we depend on him, prayer deepens our trust in him, and it can also express that we accept everything that comes from him not mechanically, but with free will and grateful joy. So prayer does not bring about change in God, but makes our own soul capable of receiving the gifts of grace.Thomas Aquinas emphasizes that despite the immutability of our God, there is constant activity (STh I 9.1 ad 1; I 19 1 ad 3).
In order to spare your blog, I will not copy it here, but rather link the text about potentia oboedentialis:
https://justpaste.it/bpg8p
Origen and Tertullian ect. ect. did not have a proto-Scholastic view of immutability and incarnation. Neither were Aristotileans, Origen thought that God was immutable, but he did not think that the Logos was God in the full sense (he also denied impossibility, which tells me his view of immutability and simplicity is not the same as Thomas). Tertullian in fact thought that the Logos was brought into being prior to creation, both would affirm immutability and incarnation but not in the same way as the later scholastics.
The problem with immutability is that it gets tricky to define in, if Cambridge changes are ok, then that's fine, but what about modal collapse? Even if God's effects are outward, they are still the causal bringing into being of those effects, it may not be dialectical (I think it is FWIW), but the act of efficient causation in bringing the world into being (per accident) seems to involve a change in intention, Thomas thought that God could be first essential cause and the world be eternal, but he believed that the world was not eternal, meaning that that the first cause involves a bringing into being, the first point of a sequence, this seems to be essential causation involving both accidental and essential causation, thus a movement of the will of God that is not eternal.
When it comes to the incarnation there is a problem with Christology, I think it is correct to say that Jesus just IS the Logos, i.e. the same way the Roman that lived in Los Angeles years ago just IS the same Roman that lives in Norway, Jesus just is the Logos, thus what's true of Jesus is true of the Logos.
Anyway, here are some of my musings on the issue of God sans-creation:
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2023/03/28/necessity-and-possibility-in-god/
Dear Roman,
Just look at some relevant quotes from the church fathers you mentioned here:
https://www.bible.ca/H-trinity.htm
Origen was a diverse theologian, if he had lived later, he would have become likely a Jesuit, they often used speculations, thought experiments and thought processes that are even confusing. But you can't abuse Origen's theology as an authority to support for your position by just picking out one quote, without evaluating his work as a whole. The later church also considered his Christology to be orthodox as a whole, and consequently it cannot be said that he professed WTS-like Christology, otherwise he would have been declared a heretic for his Christology. Quoting an author out of context and falsely portraying him to support a position that the author did not actually support, is disrespectful to the author, and it is incompatible with scientific methodology and elementary decency.
The literature of the ancient church is abundant and diverse, but it does not at all support the conspiracy theory propagated by the Watchtower Society, according to which the Christians of the first centuries believed in what they teach according to their current "light": the "use" of the name Jehovah, Jesus as Michael, the Holy Spirit as "active force," two-group salvation, endtime speculations, 1914, true worship disappearing for 1800 years, "house to house" "preaching", only yearly Eucharist without "partaking", etc ec..
Roman,
By the way, I see you are Eastern Orthodox, right?. What Orthodox dogmatics book could you recommend to me? As far as I know, Justin Popović's three-volume textbook on dogmatics is the most famous, but it was written in Serbian and translated into Romanian, but I don't speak these languages.
Conspiracy theory? Should we talk about the falsities and errors of Rome or the many corrupt popes? Furthermore, you do not correctly represent Witness belief.
Dear Mr. Foster,
The sins of the popes or any church dignitaries have nothing to do with the fact that the Church must be continuous, and there can be no break in the Church's faith. You can find the opposite view under the heading "Donatism" and it is considered heresy.
I note that if the morality of the leaders of the given denomination were the standard for the truth of the given faith, then you would probably be in trouble too, it would be enough just to mention the stumbles of Russel and Rutherford.
Relevant scriptures: Mt 16:18, Mt 23:2, Jn 14:16, Mt 28:20, Rom 3:3-4, 2 Tim 2:13, 1 Tim 3:15.
JWs and various Protestants usually invoke certain passages, in order to support the alleged apostasy of the Church. They assert that what the Apostle Paul prophesied in his First Epistle to Timothy has been fulfilled, i.e., ‘in later times, SOME will apostatize from the Faith, paying attention to spirits of deception and to demonic teachings etc.’.. But this passage of 1 Timothy 4:1 doesn’t imply that the ENTIRE Church was supposedly going to apostatize. The verse clearly says that “…SOME will apostatize from the Faith….”, not the entire Church.
The Bible speaks of those who will apostatize, in other verses also: “…. With faith and an innocent conscience, which SOME – after discarding it – became shipwrecked in their faith” (1 Timothy 1:19); “which SOME, in professing it, strayed from the faith” (1 Timothy 6:21). Furthermore, in Acts 20:28-30, there is no inference that the entire Church is going to apostatize; it only says that “SOME MEN will appear, who will teach the truth falsified”.
The Bible says: “They WENT OUT from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their GOING showed that none of them belonged to us.” (1 John 2:19). It is obvious that this verse proves that those individuals who apostatize from the true faith DO NOT remain in the Church, but move out of it, thus allowing the Church to preserve its dogmatic teaching unadulterated.
The WTSr uses the terms "apostate" and "nominal" for other Christians, and there is also a terminological difference that they use the term Christianity only for themselves, while they use the term Christendom for others.
The terms "apostasy", "apostate" are known in Christian tradition and are also used in modern canon law. They apply to those who specifically left the Christian faith, i.e., converted to a completely different religion, such as Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc.
Those who did not reject Christianity itself, but adhere to a belief that is officially condemned, contrary to the declared truth, are not referred to as apostates but as heretics.
So, the word the Watchtower would want to think of when talking about the "great apostasy" would actually be heresy instead of apostasy, but they don't use this, let's consider why:
1. Because due to the "black legend" anti-Catholic propaganda literature, films, etc., about the Middle Ages and the Inquisition, the public associates a negative connotation with this word, and if they were to use the term heresy frequently, they would appear dogmatic, while they actually want to appear flexible, researching, and seeking outwardly.
2. Because they specifically consider only themselves to be Christians, everyone else is not only a branch of Christianity that they consider heretical, but actually qualifies as a different religion, just like Islam. However, this is a very harsh claim, as even the "wicked Inquisition" did not consider Christian movements that did not deny the Christian name but denied many Catholic teachings to be apostates.
They regard Catholics as dogmatic, yet they consider anyone who has been validly baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to be a Christian, and only those who explicitly renounce the Christian name despite being baptized are considered apostates.
The position of JW's Protestant critics is quite interesting in this regard, as the JW belief is just one of those beliefs that regard the Bible as a "book thrown down from heaven", and interpret the Bible only through linguistic and logical analysis of the text. Therefore, if someone attacks a particular interpretation (e.g., the WTS’s interpretation), they essentially attack their own rootless, artificially conceived interpretation as well.
However, just because the JWs verbally claim to take the Bible literally and do not use a binding interpretive tradition (of course, neither is done consistently), it does not mean that some of their interpretations cannot be erroneous and attackable. (The simplest proof of this is that the WTS periodically modifies a significant portion of its interpretations.) So why wouldn't it be possible for others, with their interpretations, to see farther in certain issues than you do, and to rightly criticize you while their standpoint does not lose its ground?
I can also provide a probabilistic argument for this. Many Protestant denominations are older than the JW denomination, so in the process of the “new light” convergence, they are further ahead than you. Additionally, they have learned more from centuries-long theological debates than you have since your foundation. One could say they have already developed a well-distilled, stable, and likely correct opinion on the substantial issues.
You have an authoritative, anointed, "faithful and discreet" teaching office, hence a kind of magisterium. And anyone who does not listen to it brings upon themselves the same thunderous excommunication that Rome (theoretically) reserves for those who deny its own dogmas. A magisterium that declares itself to be God's (almost) exclusive channel (even if it verbally denies its infallibility) is obviously in danger of identifying its own standpoint with the teachings of the Bible, and may become fixated in potential mistakes. With such a background, correction can only be imagined by subsequent Brooklyn/Warwick generations realizing the excesses of their predecessors, and even the heresies stemming from sometimes irrational theological anger. From a Protestant point of view, you are no better than Roman Catholics, because you are not allowed to criticize the official position and its representative, you just have to wait for it to change by itself.
Of course, Protestants have also played similar fluctuations, but mostly on a theoretical level, while you have to imitate consistency in the present in deeply life-related issues (such as military service, Armageddon, Christmas tree, torture stake, blood transfusion, vaccination, organ transplant, aluminum utensils, etc. etc.) while your position has changed significantly over time in these matters.
A problem arises with Protestants that in strict confessionalism, the confessions act as a paper Magisterium for the given denomination. The irony of the situation is that while confessionalism intends to strengthen Protestant identity by increasing rigor, due to the exchange of authority and methodological similarity, it actually opens the way towards Rome. Anyone who wants a "magisterium" for the correct interpretation of the Bible sooner or later realizes that Rome is unbeatable in this field. This is not just a theoretical problem. In the United States in recent years, dozens of Calvinist pastors - of the strictest confessionalist kind - have “crossed the Tiber”. One of them was originally a Calvary Chapel teacher, then became a Presbyterian (PCA) pastor. He became more Calvinist than the Calvinists. A few years ago, he sued a colleague for deviating from the Westminster Confession of Faith. He lost the lawsuit, even though he was right from a strict confessionalist point of view. In the lawsuit, it was not biblical exegesis that mattered to him, but fidelity to the confession. Despite his strict confessionalism, the territorial presbytery eventually did not side with him. He unexpectedly announced that he was converting to Catholicism. His decision is surprising, but perhaps not as shocking as it seems. His strict confessionalism could not rest in the shadow of the Catholic Magisterium. He felt his own confession was feeble and small. If the Protestants think about the authority of interpretation in a Catholic way, let's not be surprised if they sooner or later find themselves at the gates of the Eternal City, waiting to be admitted.
Dear Nincsnevem, it's not just the gross sins and corruption of Rome that concerns me, but also the false manmade doctrines. Furthermore, Rome claims to be infallible and doctrinally stable over time, something that is far from the truth. I also want to address the misguided statements that have been made about the NWT. But other duties call right now that I deem more important.
To be concerned about the "sins and corruption" of Rome (and the ecclesiastical institution in general) is theologically Donatism, and historically one-sided and unfounded. It is no coincidence that the saying: "Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the liberals." Although the "horrors" of the Inquisition and other "leyenda negra" are part of the public consciousness, many people tend to forget that the Catholic Church was the main force of Western civilization its catalyst and builder. It was a great supporter of scientific development, art, helper of the poor, liberator of slaves, supporter of human dignity. If it hadn't been for it, we wouldn't be sitting in front of a computer right now, but in a cave, or at least in a yurt.
The objection here confuses two things: infallibility and sinlessness. No one says that popes cannot sin and that they have not sinned throughout history, sometimes seriously. It is quite another thing to have individual integrity and to be infallible in office. We say that it is official because the Pope is not infallible in his individual opinions either; but only if, as the head of the entire Church, he declares something officially and solemnly (ex cathedra) that it belongs to the Christian faith.
This infallibility of the Pope is a logical continuation of the infallibility of the Church, which Jesus solemnly proclaimed when he demanded obedience to the Church under the burden of eternal damnation, saying that "he who does not obey the Church shall be to us as a Gentile and a publican" (a public sinner; Mt 18:17).
Of course there were unworthy popes too; it is true that out of 266, at most 8-10. But most of the popes, even if they individually made mistakes in one way or another, were serious churchmen, many of them examples of sanctity of life and heroism as martyrs. However, individual sinfulness is in no way contrary to the holiness of the office and Christ's order; and infallibility does not mean individual sinlessness.
The sins of church leaders have at most consequences for them, see Luke 17:1.
In my opinion, the above biblical passages that I have quoted prove that Jesus founded "the" Church, that the apostles built it up, and _this_ institution is destined to continue to exist until the second coming of Christ. Since Jesus promised that this institution would preserve the true faith intact, there can be no "false manmade doctrines".
The JW denomination did not exist until the end of the 19th century, and its most distinctive doctrines did not develop until at least the 1930s. So if this is the true Christianity, and supposedly the apostles professed the current "lights" of the WTS, then true Christianity did not exist for 1900 years. What is the explanation for this 1,900 year break? Where was your church before Russell, or rather Rutherford?
Everyone who has studied early Christian literature, with the exception of some fluctuations, is basically clear that practically all extra-biblical sources, even before the Constantinian shift, refer to exactly the theology, creeds and Christian self-consciousness that are exclusively reminiscent of Catholic/Orthodox Christianity. Those who opposed this early Christian mainline were smaller, heterodox factions (e.g. Gnostics), in which no Protestant or Protestant background (such as the JWs) today sees its predecessor. In the first three hundred years of Christianity, there was no break of such a nature that the contemporary Christian consciousness would have experienced as a substantial change.
Catholic teaching is indeed stable, but why do you think Catholic book publishers publish the works of church writers from centuries or millennia ago? Why does the Catholic Church recommend the works of the ancient church fathers to our attention?
On the other hand, the writings of the Watchtower become outdated in a few decades, most JWs know the early Watchtower teachings in a very filtered way, and when the "opposers" point this out, they view it very suspiciously. There have been countless times when I have debated with a JW and pointed out various previous official teachings (for denying them members were disfellowshipped), he specifically did not believe it and assumed that the "apostates" were putting old Watchtowers on the internet falsified.
If something is declared as a dogma, it's not the same as when the Watchtower announces "new light". Rather, what happens is that a belief that the Church has already held is officially defined. So it's like building a pathway in a public park where people have already trodden down the grass. Therefore, for example the early church was Trinitarian before the Council of Nicaea too. However, because the Arian crisis was not such a significant trend that would have caused a crisis endangering the unity of the Church, there was no need to define it at an ecumenical council until then.
I'll give an example: suppose there's a country where there's no law enacted that forbids public nudity, and the people, by themselves, without a written legal obligation, automatically behave that way. As soon as some scandalous, publicly practiced sexual licentiousness movement starts, the state would enact a law that public nudity is prohibited. In this case, it's not that people started to dress up only from the enactment of this law, but that the societal pressure and customary law sufficiently regulated it until then. However, now that it seemed that it wasn't enough, it was necessary to enact the already existing norm as a higher-level written norm.
Only a teaching that was already part of the Church's faith can and may be elevated to a dogma. However, it is not ruled out that some theologians may have debated it until then. The Magisterium has no right to change faith, so the proclamation of a dogma can never be something that is new in terms of content.
In contrast to the Watchtower, in Catholic teaching it is not defined here what must be believed under the burden of disfellowshipping, but what is forbidden to deny. So, as in a modern rule of law state, "everything is free that is not forbidden", at the Watchtower, on the contrary, what is "a matter of conscience" is the exception. Dogmas therefore only mark extreme values, like buoys in swimming, but you have to swim between them yourself.
Dear Nincsnevem,
I am going to make a couple of points, then I'm done for tonight.
I brought up Rome's sins and false doctrines because you seem intent on attacking Witnesses and the NWT rather than discussing issues. But the sins of clergy affect more than the sinner. If a spiritual leader commits fornication with a woman and she has an illegitimate child, the sin affects more than the man who bedded the woman.
You also make an assumption that I don't make: the Catholic Church is not synonymous with God's true ecclesia. It did not exist in the first century and does not perpetuate apostolic teaching.
Dear Mr Foster,
I'm not "attacking" anything, I'm just criticizing, this is scientific methodology. Arguing and counter-arguing brings you closer to the truth.
According to the Reasoning From the Scriptures:
"What kind of translation is this? For one thing, it is an accurate, largely literal translation from the original languages. It is not a loose paraphrase, in which the translators leave out details that they consider unimportant and add ideas that they believe will be helpful."
So I'm only calling for what they claimed to be a literal translation of the Westcott-Hort text, well no. Actually the NWT translation is not a literal translation, but contains a lot of interpretive insertions and changes in wording. Many of these are also significant theologically. Your defensive writings focus all their energy on these, but are unable to remove the main accusation: namely, that your comrades are trying to force their various interpretations into the genre of translation rather than commentary. Such tactics will be taken very strictly by readers of a translation that does not wish to be verbatim but prides itself in the preface. That is, those who look into the matter; those who take the promises of the preface at face value will draw false conclusions from this usage.
You can find a number of examples here: https://www.bible.ca/Jw-NWT.htm
I understood the consequences of the sins of some church leaders theologically, not sociologically, in this regard Luke 17:1 is a clear statement: "It is impossible for the stumbling blocks not to come, but woe [to him] through whom they come". So, from a theological point of view, their sins can only have consequences for them, not for the legitimacy of the Church, so it is inherently wrong to use a Donatist argument.
Dear Nincsnevem,
Granted, sin per se does not disqualify Rome or any other group from being the true ecclesial but I mentioned gross sins of Rome and false teachings.
I will be posting blog entries in the future that address some of your criticisms. For me, criticism is not the problem. The issue for me is whether the criticism is fair or accurate.
There is no mention in any of the writings of the early Fathers of a great apostasy of the whole Church or any sort of battle for the faith on such a scale. They mention individual heretics and certain heretical movements which began years after the ascension of Christ and the day of Pentecost which grew and spread, but there is no mention of any sort of total apostasy. If it is assumed that the Church Fathers were part of the apostasy then it is likely that the Church Fathers would have mentioned their newly developed doctrine as a contrast in condemnation of the Christians who still stubbornly remained faithful to the older apostolic teachings! But there is no sign in the writings of the Church Fathers of such a controversy, nor are there any other writings which support the notion of a mass apostasy from the true faith. History is totally silent. History mentions other great splits and schisms within the Church (such as the Ebionites, Arianism, the Great Schism between the Orthodox and the Catholics in 1054, and the Protestant Reformation which began in 1517) but about this massive schism there is total silence.
Churches professing Apostolic succession hold that the Ante-Nicene Fathers only articulate or express the original, authentic apostolic Christian doctrine that was faithfully handed on by word of mouth and guarded by the Holy Spirit in the full deposit of the faith handed on once and for all to the apostles of the Lord (2 Thessalonians 2:15 and 3:6; 1 Timothy 3:15; 2 Timothy 1:13-14 and 2:1-2, 14–15; 1 John 2:24; 2 John 9-11; Jude 3).
I am glad that we agree that the Donatist argument is incorrect, that no church could be true with so much power, since all denominations had sinners and unworthy leaders. Unfortunately, countless Watchtower publications deal with the history of the Catholic Church, but they usually do so in a one-sided and misleading way, while not saying a word about the Church's merits, which secular historians also acknowledge.
It is not my intention to criticize your religion, the NWT, or anything or anyone with false arguments, or unfairly, or even just apply a different standard to them than my own beliefs.
Dear Nincsnevem,
Please do not try to slip in ex-JW tropes or material here. When you do that, you re now moving way beyond the purpose of this blog. I've always fought to keep that kind of thing from happening on this blog and I want to keep it that way. I'm here to discuss church history, grammar, etc. Let's please stick to issues, not what Fred Franz supposedly said or did.
As a technical aside, I spell the Graeco-Latin word for assembly or congregation, ecclesia, which is a more Latinate spelling. I have transliterated the Greek version of the word as ekklesia/ekklhsia in the past. Either form is acceptable.
Fred Franz was never an exJW, his court testimony can be found on the internet from credible sources. Since the Watchtower literature deals quite little with the problem of historical continuity, the silence speaks volumes. So this "Babylonian captivity" analogy is a telling, veiled admission that there really wasn't "true Christianity" for 1,900 years. The next question is whether such "Babylonian captivity" can be proven from the Bible for the New Testament 'ekklesia'. I guess the usual typological method of WTS would be "evidence" here, as if every Old Testament phenomenon should have a New Testament counterpart.
The various Christian denominations, by their very emergence, have denied both apostolic origin and apostolic continuity; all were born out of a departure from the ancient Church and rebellion against the head of the Church. Their motivations and tribulations varied; they share one thing: Ecclesiam non audire (They do not listen to the Church).
This is quite evident in the case of the Protestant denominations, whose older representatives tried to preserve apostolic continuity by claiming that there were always reformers in the Church who would have been the bearers of a kind of Protestant tradition running alongside the official Church. However, this is outrightly excluded by the ordinance of the Lord Jesus; he builds the Church on the rock-foundation of Peter, sends his apostles with full authority, and remains with them until the end of the world; those who listen to them will be saved, those who do not, will be condemned. And so the ancient Church also interprets his word: those who were not in agreement with the Catholic Church, and its head, were excluded as those who do not listen to the Church. The rebellion and negativity of the heretics and schismatics of all times are not enough to establish succession and continuity; denial is multifaceted and divisive, not constructive but destructive. If, in addition to the legitimate successors of the apostles, the line of extraordinary "reformers" also exerted lawful superiority, the Church would have two co-equal leaderships, the harmonious cooperation of which would be ensured by nothing; this, therefore, would be the legitimization of confusion and disunity within the Church.
Otherwise, why does Ignatius of Antioch already speak in a letter written about 110 AD about the "katholikḕ ekklÄ“sÃa", if the Catholic Church was only founded by Emperor Constantine? It is also telling that the "ekklesia" was first called "catholic" in Antioch, where the disciples were called Christians first (Acts 11:26).
Dear Nincsnevem,
Give me some credit, my friend. I know Fred Franz was not an ex-JW, but he was not who I had in mind.
Don't know if you ever heard his funeral discourse: I did. In that discourse, the brother who gave it extoled Brother Franz' faithfulness to the end.
It's true that there are human leaders in every denomination, and thus a certain kind of authority as well. However, the differences can be enormous. Do they vindicate absolute obedience to every manifestation of the given denomination or its leadership? Are the actions of the denomination's officials automatically regarded as almost the actions of God, with rejection considered rejection of God? If you leave the denomination, is it considered that you have also abandoned God and lost salvation? These are serious questions indeed.
Since we are already discussing the Catholic Magisterium, let's compare it with the Watchtower's "faithful and discreet slave" class.
* The teachings taught as dogmas by the Catholic teaching office can be historically traced to a great extent and reflect stability - in contrast, JW teachings can be changed at any time, and most of them have no historical precedent within Christianity.
* Not every single statement of the subjects of the Catholic teaching office requires unconditional obedience, so for example, only the "ex cathedra" statements of the Pope are considered infallible (Popes have rarely used this in the two thousand years), while every single word of the JW "slave class" requires obedience, only a very narrow range of issues is considered a "matter of conscience", and even there there is a "strongly recommended" stance.
* Vatican publications, papal encyclicals, etc. do not form part of Catholic religious education, episcopal circular epistles are not read at mass, what is read as text are the scripture sections given for the day. At every single JW gathering, they study Watchtower publications over and over again.
Catholic teaching is much less centralized than that of the JWs. For example, a centralized Catechism has only been in place since 1997, local churches enjoy strong autonomy compared to JWs, who look only to the WTS for "light", there is no local autonomy.
These are just a few examples, the list could go on - and this was a comparison with the Catholic Church, which is considered centralized and authoritative compared to all other Christian denominations. The contrast would be even greater compared to Eastern Orthodox or Protestant denominations.
I recommend reading: https://tinyurl.com/3pf4y6w2
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