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Traditional Catholic Faith => Anσnymσus Posts Allowed => Topic started by: Änσnymσus on November 23, 2012, 11:12:58 AM
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Is it basically a rationalization of the reforms (really rupture) of the Church stemming from Vat II which are claimed to be "connected" to the teachings of the early Church Fathers?
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The word, hermeneutic, means, "interpretive or explanatory". So the phrase, "hermeneutic of continuity", simply expresses a viewpoint that one explains the changes in the Church as not actually happening, i.e., that nothing has really changed in spite of everything we see.
If you look at any particular doctrine of the faith and note that before Vatican II Catholics used to believe one thing but after Vatican II Catholics believe something else not compatible with what was believed earlier, one simply applies a "hermeneutic of continuity" and interprets the old belief as being the same as the new belief. Thus, nothing has really changed.
Of course, to do this you must lie to yourself and continually lie to yourself every day for the rest of your life.
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It is trying to have the faithful believe Tradition can be reconciled with novelty through the use of sophistry, word games, and color of authority.
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the old belief as being the same as the new belief.
The Church IS One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic.
equals
"This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church"
See: exactly the same.
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The "hermeneutic of continuity" means to interpret Vatican II as being implicit in Church tradition.
To extend the concept: - the masonic neo-modernists propose that "Catholic teachings" (as they define them) "reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men" , and are part of building up to the grand liberal/modernist/masonic synthesis in which the "brotherhood of man" becomes "the Church" transcending itself in a "cosmic Christ."
So of course someone like Father Ratzinger said St. Paul really didn't mean that physical bodies are raised from the dead. That's the "hermeneutic of continuity" - denying that the Church ever really taught what it has taught. Denying that "Catholic Tradition" has any independent coherent meaning at all - that it is necessarily dependent on Vatican II being the correct continuation of Church Tradition.
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Actually, that is a misrepresentation, or at least a misunderstanding, of the Pope's statement. There is no positivism inherent in the concept, he merely reiterated in that address what he had often said earlier, that is, that the SVC was not a superdogma and should not be treated as such. It did not intend to correct earlier doctrine and cannot be taken as an excuse to reject the earlier teaching of the Church. Such is the simple and obvious meaning of the hermeneutic of continuity.
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Actually, that is a misrepresentation, or at least a misunderstanding, of the Pope's statement. There is no positivism inherent in the concept, he merely reiterated in that address what he had often said earlier, that is, that the SVC was not a superdogma and should not be treated as such. It did not intend to correct earlier doctrine and cannot be taken as an excuse to reject the earlier teaching of the Church. Such is the simple and obvious meaning of the hermeneutic of continuity.
No, it isn't a misrepresentation of what the Pope believes.
If Benedict XVI really regards Vatican II, (which contains what he calls a "counter-syllabus") as being in "continuity" with Church Tradition, then it's because he has a totally unorthodox concept of Church Tradition, which would necessarily be the case, given his writings, which show he has a totally unorthodox concept of Catholic theology.
"The criteria and guide for the understanding of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council are to be the whole Tradition of the Catholic Faith, which on its part makes clear certain aspects of the life and doctrine of the Church, which are not yet formulated, but implicitly present in it. The affirmations of the Second Vatican Council and of the Pontifical Magisterium of the past relative to the relationship between the Catholic Church and the non-Catholic christian confessions are to be understood in light of all of Tradition."
According to Benedict XVI, St. Paul didn't really mean that physical bodies are raised.
In his mind, that's the true Tradition of the Church. The "light" of all tradition shows us that the ideas of Nostra Aetate are implicit in Catholic teaching.
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Benedict XVI is clearly going to say whatever he feels like saying.
He did refer to the Vatican II as a counter-syllabus. You can't have a counter syllabus without a syllabus to counter. That's clear enough, isn't it?
Hermeneutics is a Greek word for "interpretations" so Hermeneutics of Continuity is actually a play on words meaning "Interpretation of Continuity"...
So, the current Pope says that there is continuity and no rupture? Does he actually believe that himself?
I guess he's going to say whatever he feels like saying.
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Big words liked by Continental theologians. Mechanism. Also, remember the Capitulants who attended the SSPX General Chapter? This ridiculous word was then parroted by all. It should have simply been Delegates.
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it's because he has a totally unorthodox concept of Church Tradition
The deposit of faith once handed down comes to us through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition which are the remote sources of faith, and those sacred doctrines and dogmas contained in it are proposed to us through the Magisterium which is the proximate source of faith. So, just like Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition also has a certain necessary relationship with the Magisterium that cannot altogether be ignored by Catholics.
According to Benedict XVI, St. Paul didn't really mean that physical bodies are raised.
Such claims, though common, are unhelpful.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2G.HTM
The new Catechism which Pope Benedict XVI obviously agrees with is quite orthodox on this point about the resurrection of the body.
I have not read the Pope's book, but I've heard this claim before, and it seems Pope Benedict XVI was saying there that both body and soul are glorified and reunited. In any case, it has often happened, even with the Church Fathers, that when presenting and trying to refute an objection to the faith, they sometimes themselves speak slightly inaccurately. This has been the case even with the greatest of them such as Augustine.
Coming back to the SVC itself, let's apply the proper principles, as some old SSPX studies did - when a contradiction appears in Magisterial docuмents of the present and the past, there can according to Catholic faith be only one of two responses
1. To say and then to show the contradiction is not real but only apparent.
2. To recognize that the latter affirmation is made only with a lesser authority (such as in a "pastoral" docuмent) and therefore is not strictly protected from all error and imprecision.
Pope Benedict XVI is affirming the first although this has not yet been shown. The SSPX affirms the second.
Instead of talking about the Resurrection and all, which no one is really denying, the Society's theologians have focused on the crux of the matter, that is, the four key points on which it is not at all clear how pre-Conciliar and post-Conciliar teaching is to be reconciled. These four points of course, as Fr.Gleize mentioned in his public response to Msgr.Ocariz are religious liberty, ecclesiology, ecuмenism and collegiality, the relevant citations from the Council and earlier definitive teaching being provided. This is the correct procedure, not what you are proposing. Michael Davies said Rome would eventually have to issue a clarification or perhaps a correction of some of these points.
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Instead of talking about the Resurrection and all, which no one is really denying
Benedict XVI is a modernist Cut the crap!
Finally, and in order to keep this study within limits, Ratzinger the Prefect presented the press with an "Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesiastical Vocation," wherein he underscores the fact that this docuмent "affirms - maybe for the first time ever with such clarity - that there are decisions [which have been made in the past] of the Magisterium which are not to be considered as the final word on a given subject as such, but serve rather as a mooring in the problem, and above all, also as an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of temporary disposition" (L'Osservatore Romano, June 27, 1990. p.6). And Ratzinger provided several examples of such temporary dispositions, which are now considered "outdated in the particularities of their determinations":
1. those "Papal declarations of the last century on religious liberty,"
2. "the anti-modernist decisions of the Pope at the beginning of this century,"
3. "the [papally approved] decisions of the Biblical Commission of that same time period."
In short, those three very same ramparts which the Sovereign Pontiff had set up against Modernism in the social, doctrinal, and exegetical domains.
. . .
There follow numerous quotations from Teilhard's writings. It will be sufficient to cite the last one as an example, which also serves as a conclusion: "The cosmic drift is moving 'in the direction of an incredible near mono-molecular state...where each ego is destined to reach its paroxysm in some mysterious super-ego.' True, man in as much as he is an ego, does represent an end, but the direction of the being's movement, of his own existence, reveals him to be an organism destined or intended for a super-ego which incorporates him without dissolving him; only through the integration will the form of the future be able to become a reality in which man will have finally attained the goal and summit of his being [the perfect "humanization," incorrectly called "deification" or supernatural]" (p.162).
This monistic-pantheistic delirium seems to constitute for Ratzinger - incredible as it may sound, but nevertheless true - the essence of...St. Paul's Christology!
"It will be readily admitted that this synthesis, elaborated as it has been, based on today's view of the world and couched in terms doubtlessly overly biological, is nevertheless faithful to Pauline Christology whose profound meaning is now well-perceived and brought to a higher level of intelligibility: faith sees in the man Jesus in whom has been realized in some way - biologically speaking - the following mutation of the process of evolution ...from that point, faith sees in Christ the beginning of a movement which integrates more and more that humanity previously divided in the being of a single Adam, of a single 'body,' into the being of future man. It [this Faith] will see in Christ the movement towards this future of man wherein he is to be totally 'socialized,' incorporated into the Unique" (pp.162-163).
http://www.sspxasia.com/Docuмents/SiSiNoNo/1994_June/They_Think_Theyve_Won_PartVI.htm
According to Benedict XVI, the Teilhardian, modernist view is what is faithful to Pauline Christology. That is the real meaning of the hermeneutic of continuity. Vatican II is regarded as being continuous with Church tradition by a blank assertion: "We, the modernists, are the ones who really understand what St. Paul was talking about. He agreed with us!"
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Rubbish. So why didn't the SSPX theologians bring up the matter of the Resurrection of the body in their doctrinal discussions with the Vatican? They have not criticized the new Catechism's (which are Pope Benedict XVI's as well) description of this matter, the resurrection of the body.
How do the dead rise?
997 What is "rising"? In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus' Resurrection.
998 Who will rise? All the dead will rise, "those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment."550
999 How? Christ is raised with his own body: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself";551 but he did not return to an earthly life. So, in him, "all of them will rise again with their own bodies which they now bear," but Christ "will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body," into a "spiritual body":552
But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. and what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel ....What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.... the dead will be raised imperishable.... For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.553
1000 This "how" exceeds our imagination and understanding; it is accessible only to faith. Yet our participation in the Eucharist already gives us a foretaste of Christ's transfiguration of our bodies:
Just as bread that comes from the earth, after God's blessing has been invoked upon it, is no longer ordinary bread, but Eucharist, formed of two things, the one earthly and the other heavenly: so too our bodies, which partake of the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but possess the hope of resurrection.554
1001 When? Definitively "at the last day," "at the end of the world."555 Indeed, the resurrection of the dead is closely associated with Christ's Parousia:
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. and the dead in Christ will rise first.556
549 St. Augustine, En. in Ps. 88, 5: PL 37, 1134.
550 ⇒ Jn 5:29; cf. ⇒ Dan 12:2.
551 ⇒ Lk 24:39.
552 Lateran Council IV (1215): DS 801; ⇒ Phil 3:21; 2 Cor 15:44.
553 ⇒ 1 Cor 15:35-37, ⇒ 42, ⇒ 52, ⇒ 53.
554 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 4, 18, 4-5: PG 7/1, 1028-1029.
555 ⇒ Jn 6: 39-40, ⇒ 44, ⇒ 54; ⇒ 11:24; LG 48 # 3.
556 ⇒ 1 Thess 4:16.
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Rubbish.
You're non-responsive. And you're dishonest. In fact I think I recognize the style of dishonesty.
I'm talking about what Benedict XVI believes. What he means by "hermeneutic of continuity" His own writings, quoted by the SSPX and others in the SSPX. (like Bishop Tissier, who discusses Benedict's denial of the atonement in the same book)
So why didn't the SSPX theologians bring up the matter of the Resurrection of the body in their doctrinal discussions with the Vatican?
Maybe you should ask them? Why did Father Ratzinger deny that there is a restoration of physical bodies? Why did he say that St. Paul was not referring to the physical restoration of bodies?
Benedict XVI remains a Teilhardian. And his "hermeneutic of continuity" is of exactly the same as his "interpretation" of St. Paul's Christology. Discussed in the article posted in Si Si No No.
They have not criticized the new Catechism's (which are Pope Benedict XVI's as well) description of this matter, the resurrection of the body.
How do the dead rise?
997 What is "rising"? In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus' Resurrection.
998 Who will rise? All the dead will rise, "those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment."550
999 How? Christ is raised with his own body: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself";551 but he did not return to an earthly life. So, in him, "all of them will rise again with their own bodies which they now bear," but Christ "will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body," into a "spiritual body":552
But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. and what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel ....What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.... the dead will be raised imperishable.... For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.553
1000 This "how" exceeds our imagination and understanding; it is accessible only to faith. Yet our participation in the Eucharist already gives us a foretaste of Christ's transfiguration of our bodies:
Just as bread that comes from the earth, after God's blessing has been invoked upon it, is no longer ordinary bread, but Eucharist, formed of two things, the one earthly and the other heavenly: so too our bodies, which partake of the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but possess the hope of resurrection.554
1001 When? Definitively "at the last day," "at the end of the world."555 Indeed, the resurrection of the dead is closely associated with Christ's Parousia:
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. and the dead in Christ will rise first.556
549 St. Augustine, En. in Ps. 88, 5: PL 37, 1134.
550 ⇒ Jn 5:29; cf. ⇒ Dan 12:2.
551 ⇒ Lk 24:39.
552 Lateran Council IV (1215): DS 801; ⇒ Phil 3:21; 2 Cor 15:44.
553 ⇒ 1 Cor 15:35-37, ⇒ 42, ⇒ 52, ⇒ 53.
554 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 4, 18, 4-5: PG 7/1, 1028-1029.
555 ⇒ Jn 6: 39-40, ⇒ 44, ⇒ 54; ⇒ 11:24; LG 48 # 3.
556 ⇒ 1 Thess 4:16.
And yet according to Father Ratzinger St. Paul does not mean that there will be a restoration of the physical body. So it's apparent in his mind all these things in his mind are merely metaphorical descriptions - and that his view is St. Paul's, that is, traditional!
Modernists will often say they agree with everything the Church has previously taught. That is of course a lie. Their dishonest apologists will find excuses for them when they spill the beans about what they really think, and then will quote their claims of agreement with traditional doctrine to bolster those excuses, but those claims of agreement are false pretenses.
The role of the priesthood is to consecrate the world so that it may become a living host, a liturgy: so that the liturgy may not be something alongside the reality of the world, but that the world itself shall become a living host, a liturgy. This is also the great vision of Teilhard de Chardin: in the end we shall achieve a true cosmic liturgy, where the cosmos becomes a living host.
"the great vision of Teilhard de Chardin" - that in his mind is the authentic continuation of Catholic Tradition. That IS his "hermeneutic of continuity."
Of course the rorate modernists know that, but they are interested in fooling people (with their own hermeneutic of dishonesty) into thinking their neo-traditionalism is not modernist.
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The Vatican II religion is what Pope Paul VI called "the religion of man."
To understand then the "religion of man" - to understand everything Vatican II is about, it's necessary to understand the modernist theology behind it.
As Archbishop Lefebvre said:
The more one analyzes the docuмents of Vatican II, and the more one analyzes their interpretation by the authorities of the Church, the more one realizes that what is at stake is not merely superficial errors, a few mistakes, ecuмenism, religious liberty, collegiality, a certain Liberalism, but rather a wholesale perversion of the mind, a whole new philosophy based on modern philosophy, on subjectivism. A book just published by a German theologian is most instructive. It shows how the Pope's thinking, especially in a retreat he preached at the Vatican, is subjectivist from start to finish, and when afterwards one reads his speeches, one realizes that indeed that is his thinking. It might appear Catholic, but Catholic it is not. No. The Pope's notion of God, the Pope's notion of Our Lord, come up from the depths of his consciousness, and not from any objective revelation to which he adheres with his mind. No. He constructs the notion of God. He said recently in a docuмent - incredible - that the idea of the Trinity could only have arisen quite late, because man's interior psychology had to be capable of defining the Trinity. Hence the idea of the Trinity did not come from a revelation from outside, it came from man's consciousness inside, it welled up from inside man, it came from the depths of man's consciousness! Incredible! A wholly different version of Revelation, of Faith, of philosophy! Very grave! A total perversion! How we are going to get out of all this, I have no idea, but in any case it is a fact, and as this German theologian shows (who has, I believe, another two parts of his book to write on the Holy Father's thought), it is truly frightening.
The goal of the LYING neotrad, of course, is to pretend that the problem with Vatican II is just some superficial errors, ecuмenism, religious liberty, collegiality, etc. - and to DENY the truth about the modernism that Archbishop Lefebvre told us about. It's the SSPX hermeneutic of dishonesty!
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Hah. That's a laugh and a half. When I answer in some depth, I get a trite (and crude!) three word response. A more brief reply is called "non-responsive".
Listen, Guest, you bring up such a multitude of different matters, Christology, Resurrection, even the Atonement, then historical veracity, and make all sorts of claims, am I supposed to reply to them all, especially when you seem more interested in a personal bout than in a reasoned theological discussion?
I gave you the answer about the Resurrection already. Like the Church Fathers, even the greatest of them, when they are treating of a pagan and heretical view with the intention of trying to refute it, it is quite possible and has often happened that they themselves mis-speak, or describe the matter inaccurately, sometimes it even happened in the early Church with such doctrines as the Trinity and the Incarnation. The Church does not regard this as serious, though, because it is clear they were well intentioned but mistaken. I think it is quite possible the Holy Father made a similar mistake in speaking somewhat imprecisely.
Pope Benedict XVI is attempting to confute several different views in his book, some pagan and some heretical, one which held that the soul sleeps after death, another which opined that the body would not be transformed and glorified, and finally one more which only admits the eternality of the soul separate from the body. Against these views, he writes,
Over against the theories sketched out in the opening section of this chapter, we were able to show that the idea of a resurrection taking place in the moment of death is not well-founded, either in logic or in the Bible. We saw that the Church's own form of the doctrine of immortality was developed in a consistent manner from the resources of the biblical heritage, and is indispensible on grounds of both tradition and philosophy. But that leaves the other side of the question still unanswered: what, then, about the resurrection of the dead? [...] Such questions make us realize that, despite their contrary starting points, the modern theories we have met seek to avoid not so much the immortality of the soul as the resurrection, now as always the real scandal to the intellectuals. To this extent, modern theology is closer to the Greeks than it cares to recognize.
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Immortality as conceived by the Bible proceeds, not from the intrinsic power of what is in itself indestructible, but from being drawn into the dialogue with the Creator; that is why it must be called awakening. Because the Creator intends, not just the soul, but the man physically existing in the midst of history and gives him immortality, it must be called “awakening of the dead” = “of men”. It should be noted here that even in the formula of the Creed, which speaks of the “resurrection of the body”, the word “body” means in effect “the world of man” (in the sense of bibilical expressions like “all flesh will see God's salvation”, and so on); even here the word is not meant in the sense of a corporality isolated from the soul.
He says the body is glorified before the soul is reunited with it, as St.Paul says it is "raised a spiritual body" with imperishability as Christ's was, so it must not be conceived that the body returns merely to its natural life untransformed which is what he means about restoration as such. I admit some terms are impreciseand awkardly used here and there, unlike in the Catechism which quotes various sources from Scripture and Tradition, and is more easily understandable.
If Pope Benedict XVI really denied the resurrection, either the Catechism he approved or the doctrinal discussions would have brought it up. I doubt from your tone you are as much interested in having a serious examination of the problems from the last Council as much as in having a go at "neotrads", Rorate caeli, me or whoever else it is. Do spare me from that game if that is your intention.
Pope Pius XII's Encyclical established some parameters for Biblical studies after the Commission and it is this that Pope Benedict XVI refers to. As for the veracity of the Gospels and similar matters, it is well known Dei Verbum says, "The Church has always and everywhere held and continues to hold that the four Gospels are of apostolic origin. For what the Apostles preached in fulfillment of the commission of Christ, afterwards they themselves and apostolic men, under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, handed on to us in writing: the foundation of faith, namely, the fourfold Gospel, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day"
On the 100th anniversary of the Commission you mention, Pope Benedict XVI once more reiterated,
The opinion that faith as such knows absolutely nothing of historical facts and must leave all of this to historians is Gnosticism: this opinion disembodies the faith and reduces it to pure idea. The reality of events is necessary precisely because the faith is founded on the Bible. A God who cannot intervene in history and reveal Himself in it is not the God of the Bible. In this way the reality of the birth of Jesus by the Virgin Mary, the effective institution of the Eucharist by Jesus at the Last Supper, his bodily resurrection from the dead - this is the meaning of the empty tomb - are elements of the faith as such, which it can and must defend against an only presumably superior historical knowledge.
That Jesus - in all that is essential - was effectively who the Gospels reveal him to be to us is not mere historical conjecture, but a fact of faith. Objections which seek to convince us to the contrary are not the expression of an effective scientific knowledge, but are an arbitrary over-evaluation of the method.
To understand Chrstology, you must understand a doctrine called theosis. This is a traditional Christian doctrine, described by St.Athanasius, St.Thomas Aquinas, the Roman liturgy and even in Scripture by St.Paul, St.Peter and Our Lord Himself but not very widely known among Catholics. Do you? If so, you will see the meaning of what Pope Benedict XVI said in that respect.
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Hah. That's a laugh and a half. When I answer in some depth, I get a trite (and crude!) three word response. A more brief reply is called "non-responsive".
Honest debate requires making responses that are to the point. What is the "hermeneutic of continuity" in the mind of Benedict XVI? It's obvious that it is a totally unorthodox conception of the Catholic religion. He shows he is willing to deny the fundamentals of the Creed and is knavish enough to deny the Church ever taught differently! That is his "continuity."
To respond with quotes from the cathechism is just to try to brush aside and ignore what is posted.
Listen, Guest, you bring up such a multitude of different matters, Christology, Resurrection, even the Atonement, then historical veracity, and make all sorts of claims, am I supposed to reply to them all, especially when you seem more interested in a personal bout than in a reasoned theological discussion?
Yes, there's a mountain of evidence as to how Benedict XVI really sees things. And there is no way to honestly respond to it without admitting that's how he really sees things.
So yes, your side can't and won't answer these questions, because your side is completely wrong.
And I would say, to deny Benedict XVI is a modernist is a sign of dishonesty, particularly for someone well informed on traditional matters.
I gave you the answer about the Resurrection already.
You explained that he really meant that physical bodies are r e s t o r e d, he just said they weren't?
[Like the Church Fathers, even the greatest of them, when they are treating of a pagan and heretical view with the intention of trying to refute it,
That is a patently absurd explanation, and a ridiculous comparison, to compare Benedict XVI to the Church fathers, to say he doesn't know the significance of saying bodies aren't raised?
it is quite possible and has often happened that they themselves mis-speak, or describe the matter inaccurately,
No, it's not possible to make such an error and not correct it. Either you believe the physical body is restored or you are denying a truly physical restoration. There is no middle ground.
sometimes it even happened in the early Church with such doctrines as the Trinity and the Incarnation. The Church does not regard this as serious, though, because it is clear they were well intentioned but mistaken. I think it is quite possible the Holy Father made a similar mistake in speaking somewhat imprecisely.
There is absolutely no analogy. It's positively ridiculous, and flagrantly dishonest to deny Benedict XVI is a modernist.
Pope Benedict XVI is attempting to confute several different views in his book, some pagan and some heretical, one which held that the soul sleeps after death, another which opined that the body would not be transformed and glorified, and finally one more which only admits the eternality of the soul separate from the body. Against these views, he writes,
Over against the theories sketched out in the opening section of this chapter, we were able to show that the idea of a resurrection taking place in the moment of death is not well-founded, either in logic or in the Bible. We saw that the Church's own form of the doctrine of immortality was developed in a consistent manner from the resources of the biblical heritage, and is indispensible on grounds of both tradition and philosophy. But that leaves the other side of the question still unanswered: what, then, about the resurrection of the dead? [...] Such questions make us realize that, despite their contrary starting points, the modern theories we have met seek to avoid not so much the immortality of the soul as the resurrection, now as always the real scandal to the intellectuals. To this extent, modern theology is closer to the Greeks than it cares to recognize.
...
Immortality as conceived by the Bible proceeds, not from the intrinsic power of what is in itself indestructible, but from being drawn into the dialogue with the Creator; that is why it must be called awakening. Because the Creator intends, not just the soul, but the man physically existing in the midst of history and gives him immortality, it must be called “awakening of the dead” = “of men”. It should be noted here that even in the formula of the Creed, which speaks of the “resurrection of the body”, the word “body” means in effect “the world of man” (in the sense of bibilical expressions like “all flesh will see God's salvation”, and so on); even here the word is not meant in the sense of a corporality isolated from the soul.
The intellectuals now regard the resurrection as a "scandal"? Which ones? Certainly none who are Christians.
The whole passage is simply modernist speak. Immortality is not indestructability, but rather something that comes from dialogue. Man existing in history receives "immortality" - which is not an intrinsic power of being indestructable? The "body" in the Creed, is actually a reference to the world as a whole! Not in the sense of a corporality isolated from the soul, that means, simply, not as a body!
He says the body is glorified before the soul is reunited with it, as St.Paul says it is "raised a spiritual body" with imperishability as Christ's was, so it must not be conceived that the body returns merely to its natural life untransformed which is what he means about restoration as such. I admit some terms are impreciseand awkardly used here and there, unlike in the Catechism which quotes various sources from Scripture and Tradition, and is more easily understandable.
That he is using modernist speak any good-willed intelligent, slightly learned person should be able to recognize.
If Pope Benedict XVI really denied the resurrection, either the Catechism he approved or the doctrinal discussions would have brought it up.
He's changed all the meanings of the words. That he repeats the formula with a totally subjective meaning does not mean he holds to the Resurrection of the body.
I doubt from your tone you are as much interested in having a serious examination of the problems from the last Council as much as in having a go at "neotrads", Rorate caeli, me or whoever else it is. Do spare me from that game if that is your intention.
Neotrads and modernists are not interested in honest debate or serious discussion.
The very idea that someone can come onto an SSPX forum and deny Benedict XVI is a modernist is patently absurd. It strongly suggests bad-will.
Pope Pius XII's Encyclical established some parameters for Biblical studies after the Commission and it is this that Pope Benedict XVI refers to.
I'm certain I could mulitply the quotes which show Benedict XVI rejecting the Gospels as an historical account:
“An extension of Mark’s ochlos, with fateful consequences, is found in Matthew’s account (27:25), which speaks of ‘all the people’ and attributes to them the demand for Jesus’ crucifixion. Matthew is certainly not recounting historical fact here: How could the whole people have been present at this moment to clamor for Jesus’ death? It seems obvious that the historical reality is correctly described in John’s account and in Mark’s.”
Now the reality is Benedict XVI does not treat the Gospels as history in any of his writings.
As for the veracity of the Gospels and similar matters, it is well known Dei Verbum says, "The Church has always and everywhere held and continues to hold that the four Gospels are of apostolic origin. For what the Apostles preached in fulfillment of the commission of Christ, afterwards they themselves and apostolic men, under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, handed on to us in writing: the foundation of faith, namely, the fourfold Gospel, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day"
This description could easily allow all of Benedict XVI's modernism through the cracks. You can't prove Vatican II is not modernist by quoting such things. There are plenty of ways to hold to this statement while getting around the interpretation most people would give to it. The simple fact is that the
On the 100th anniversary of the Commission you mention, Pope Benedict XVI once more reiterated,
"The opinion that faith as such knows absolutely nothing of historical facts and must leave all of this to historians is Gnosticism: this opinion disembodies the faith and reduces it to pure idea. The reality of events is necessary precisely because the faith is founded on the Bible. A God who cannot intervene in history and reveal Himself in it is not the God of the Bible. In this way the reality of the birth of Jesus by the Virgin Mary, the effective institution of the Eucharist by Jesus at the Last Supper, his bodily resurrection from the dead - this is the meaning of the empty tomb - are elements of the faith as such, which it can and must defend against an only presumably superior historical knowledge."
You cannot prove Benedict XVI holds orthodox views by taking these quotations, which any modernist can easily parrot while not actually meaning what they say. To say Faith knows nothing of historical facts - that is a straw man. A God who cannot reveal himself - another strawman. Benedict XVI can recite the Creed, it means nothing from his lips because he's shown that his view of what words mean is totally subjective.
That Jesus - in all that is essential - was effectively who the Gospels reveal him to be to us is not mere historical conjecture, but a fact of faith. Objections which seek to convince us to the contrary are not the expression of an effective scientific knowledge, but are an arbitrary over-evaluation of the method.
"Historical conjecture" - another straw man for the modernist. The modernist doesn't doubt Christ was a man.
To understand Chrstology, you must understand a doctrine called theosis. This is a traditional Christian doctrine, described by St.Athanasius, St.Thomas Aquinas, the Roman liturgy and even in Scripture by St.Paul, St.Peter and Our Lord Himself but not very widely known among Catholics. Do you? If so, you will see the meaning of what Pope Benedict XVI said in that respect.
I understand that you are not interested in good faithed discussion.
You brush over the FACTS of what Benedict XVI REALLY believes. His MODERNISM is a FACT.
And then you put yourself up as some sort of expert, introduce a new term, claim other people don't understand what the Catholic Faith teaches.
Well, I understand Benedict XVI well enough, and I understand that people who defend him who claim to be educated traditionalists are BAD-WILLED.
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It's an absolute joke, that on a traditionally Catholic board, there are those who claim to be traditionalists who simply dismiss the claim that Benedict XVI is a modernist. The implication of that is very simple - Archbishop Lefebvre was wrong. Bishop Tissier is wrong, the SSPX has been wrong. And yet this person claims to be a traditionalist. If you have a problem with traditionalism then the honest thing to do is to criticize the traditionalist position: on the contrary, as a modernist, the goal is to co-opt and misrepresent the traditionalist position, and defend Benedict XVI. There's no honest admission of what words signify by modernists and their defenders.
Benedict XVI could read from the Bible and say: That is what really happened.
He would still be a modernist. His teachings are still permeated by his modernism and his emptying of Church doctrines of their meaning.
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I gave you the answer about the Resurrection already.
Just to re-emphasize the point one more time: this guy didn't answer anything.
He makes excuses, compares Benedict XVI stating that to Church fathers. It's would be a joke if it weren't so pernicious.
The following is a statement of pure modernism:
"It now becomes clear that the real heart of faith in the resurrection does not consist at all in the idea of the restoration of bodies, to which we have reduced it in our thinking; such is the case even though this is the pictorial image used throughout the Bible.”
. . .
"The foregoing reflections may have clarified to some extent what is involved in the biblical pronouncements about the resurrection: their essential content is not the conception of a restoration of bodies to souls after a long interval"
. . .
“To recapitulate, Paul teaches, not the resurrection of physical bodies, but the resurrection of persons…”
This is not a mistake. This is not something to compare to the Church Fathers unclear ways of speaking.
To pretend this is not the denial of the resurrection of the body is simply to lie, which is what modernism and the neo-SSPX is about: lying. As Cardinal Siri said, the problem is the Eighth Commandment.
And we need to be unafraid to call these people liars, to their face, because that's what they are.
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"even here the word is not meant in the sense of a corporality isolated from the soul."
Everyone reading this is smart enough to know what this means.
So if they aren't admitting what it means, it's because they're dishonest.
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Mr Guest, firstly, please calm down. Do you really want an open discussion or do you want to continue this polemical exchange? You cannot have both.
The intellectuals now regard the resurrection as a "scandal"? Which ones?
The ones he is refuting. Have you read the book yourself?
Note that he said immortality is not intrinsic to the body, but is something given to it immediately by God.
At very, very best, the Pope is mistaken in his personal writings. I've already quoted both the new Catechism and the text of the Council on historical reliability, yet you continuously insist that this is the issue, thereby distracting from the actual matters at stake.
Since you cast so many needless aspersions, let me reply. Doctrinal orthodoxy and traditional orthopraxis to me, and to the Indult groups, the FSSP the ICK and many in the SSPX means and has always meant to believe and to practice what the Church has always taught and always done - it does not mean to resort to novel theories about jurisdiction and apostolicity nor to conduct garage conclaves to replace "Father Ratzinger" with a do-it-yourself Pope of our own which was also not Archbishop Lefebvre's position - and it does not at all consist simply in asserting as dogmatic fact that the Successor of Peter, the Pope is a modernist and a formal heretic, sorry.
Pope Benedict XVI has had a somewhat tumultous career where he has not been totally immune to the dreadful influence of his peers but has repudiated some of his former colleagues and since the Holy Ghost chose him for the Apostolic See, many orthodox and traditional Catholics can and in fact do presume his good will. To do otherwise many have discovered is a dead end, both personally and in one's own spiritual life, and for the Church as well.
We respect Archbishop Lefebvre more than you will ever know, it is only on the matter of the 1988 preamble and its provisions which he originally considered seriously and which St.Peter's eventually signed, that we disagree. Despite such disagreement, which even exists among other traditional Catholics, if you think we don't take doctrine seriously, you don't know us at all. I'd suggest you read, speak or listen to FSSP priests in particular, when you can, and see if you still think that.
The simple fact that you call theosis a new term may suggest you should tread more carefully on such an important matter like Christology, and at least that further study may be warranted before you accuse the Pope of being culpable for modernism. Might it not? The book was not written for a lay audience, but for an audience with some theological competence.
I am more interested in what lay faithful around the world will believe, which is why I cited the new Catechism, which is obviously more important from that perspective. Also the four matters I mentioned earlier, these are most important for the future of the Church as the SSPX theologians well knows and to whom immense credit is due for bringing it up with the Roman authorities.
It is the ancient and traditional truth of theosis that is the doctrine Pope Benedict XVI is describing in the portion that is criticized, it is not the heretical and modernist notion of man apart from God. If that is not apparent to you, do read up on theosis. You owe that to yourself and it can be done in all of a few minutes, you will see how it relates to the Incarnation and what it has meant for man in union in Christ.
Listen, your emotional reaction is altogether disproportionate to anything I have said. I do not see why you wish to be angry. I'm not at all interested in meaningless polemics carried out for their own sake, but I take the faith very seriously in my personal life and am ready to discuss anything related to that, though you already seem to believe anyone who disagrees with you is bad willed as a consequence of your own position so that is up to you. Nor do I use anonymity on a forum, which is not really such anyway, as a cover for rudeness. Anyway, I doubt you would speak to me if we met in real life as you have here. I wish you the best.
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The only "novel theory" being discussed here is Benedict XVI's denial of the physical restoration of the body, which he says is considered a scandal by intellectuals.
If you can't admit Benedict XVI is a modernist, it is not possible to have a good faith discussion with you. This is a traditionalist board. If you're going to deny Benedict XVI's modernism then you need to state right out you disagree with Archbishop Lefebvre and what the Traditionalist movement has taught. Otherwise you're engaging in bad faith discussion.
Listen, your emotional reaction is altogether disproportionate to anything I have said
Either bodies are physically r e s t o r e d or they are NOT physically r e s t o r e d.
There is only one way to interpret Benedict XVI's statement, and that is as a denial of the Catholic Faith.
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The simple fact that you call theosis a new term may suggest you should tread more carefully on such an important matter like Christology, and at least that further study may be warranted before you accuse the Pope of being culpable for modernism. Might it not? The book was not written for a lay audience, but for an audience with some theological competence.
I've heard the term theosis before. That you introduce it as some sort of mysterious explanation for the Pope's denial that St. Paul means that physical bodies are r e s t o r e d is pure garbage.
It is just a refuge in obscurity, the same garbage you tried before.
It doesn't take any theological competence to know that Catholics believe the physical body is r e s t o r e d.
It doesn't take any theological competence to see that Benedict says St. Paul doesn't assert bodies are r e s t o r e d
That's the bottom line - that is the whole issue.
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Have you have never heard of the Fraternity of St.Peter or Indult groups? I know many priests respect Archbishop Lefebvre who aren't formal members of the SSPX, let alone that many priests of the Society work with and sometimes agree with them.
I did not speak of theosis with regard to the Resurrection, but with regard to Christology in reply to what was said in the link you had given. This is what I mean when I say you've begun so many different matters now that it's almost impossible to keep track of them all - it was the Resurrection, then the Atonement, then the historicity of the Gospels and much else.
I answered the point about "restoration" - He says the body is glorified before the soul is reunited with it, as St.Paul says it is "raised a spiritual body" with imperishability as Christ's was, so it must not be conceived that the body returns merely to its natural life untransformed which is what he means about restoration as such.
He said that God gives man immortality, not only his soul but his body as well, by which he distinguishes this from for example a mere raising as Lazarus had which was only a restoration to his natural life.
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I did not speak of theosis with regard to the Resurrection, but with regard to Christology in reply to what was said in the link you had given. This is what I mean when I say you've begun so many different matters now that it's almost impossible to keep track of them all - it was the Resurrection, then the Atonement, then the historicity of the Gospels and much else.
It's all really one matter. As St. Paul said, if there is no resurrection of the body, then Christ is not raised.
I've already explained how I read what he wrote, and yes, I have read the passage in question, and no, I can't see how it could possibly be interpreted in an orthodox manner.
Here's how a Protestant interprets it:
In Introduction to Christianity, Ratzinger explicitly denies the resurrection of the body. 'It now becomes clear that the real heart of faith in the resurrection does not consist at all in the idea of the restoration of bodies, to which we have reduced it in our thinking; such is the case even though this is the pictorial image used throughout the Bible'. He says that the word body, or flesh, in the phrase, the resurrection of the body, 'in effect means "the world of man" . . . [it is] not meant in the sense of a corporality isolated from the soul' (pp 240-41).
Ratzinger is deliberately using a meaning that is impossible in the context, in order to explain away the clear meaning of the text. This is also done in relation to the word for body (Greek: soma), which he says can also mean self. He draws the conclusion that 'one thing at any rate may be fairly clear: both John (6:63) and Paul (1 Cor. 15:50) state with all possible emphasis that the "resurrection of the flesh", the "resurrection of the body", is not a "resurrection of physical bodies" . . . Paul teaches, not the resurrection of physical bodies, but the resurrection of persons, and this not in the return of "flesh body", that is, the biological structure, an idea he expressly describes as impossible ("the perishable cannot become imperishable") but in the different form of the life of the resurrection, as shown in the risen Lord' (p 246).
Ratzinger could not be more explicit about his interpretation of 'the biblical pronouncements about the resurrection'. He says that 'their essential content is not the conception of a restoration of bodies to souls after a long interval; their aim is to tell men that they, they themselves, live on . . . because they are known and loved by God in a way that they can no longer perish . . . the essential part of man, the person, remains . . . it goes on existing because it lives in God’s memory' (p 243).[/b]
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Given the connection that Scripture makes between the resurrection of Christ and that of his people (1 Cor. 15:15; 1 Cor. 6:14), we might wonder how such views affect Ratzinger’s theology of the resurrection of Christ. Certainly, he dismisses an 'earthly and material notion of resurrection' and resists defining it as a real historical event.11 'The Resurrection cannot be an historical event in the same sense as the Crucifixion is', he says. 'For that matter, there is no account that depicts it as such, nor is it circuмscribed in time otherwise than by the eschatological-symbolical expression "the third day".'12
Ratzinger brushes aside all attempts to verify the resurrection as a historical event and asserts that it was really a matter of personal experience. Christ is 'the one who died on the cross and to the eye of faith, rose again from the dead'.13 How far this is from the biblical truth of passages such as John 20:27: 'Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing'. What a contrast with the clear and faithful summary provided in the Westminster Confession: 'On the third day he arose from the dead, with the same body in which he suffered' (8:4).
I answered the point about "restoration" - He says the body is glorified before the soul is reunited with it, as St.Paul says it is "raised a spiritual body" with imperishability as Christ's was, so it must not be conceived that the body returns merely to its natural life untransformed which is what he means about restoration as such.
A Catholic cannot deny the physical body is raised.
He said that God gives man immortality, not only his soul but his body as well, by which he distinguishes this from for example a mere raising as Lazarus had which was only a restoration to his natural life.
That cannot explain what he said.
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It's all really one matter. As St. Paul said, if there is no resurrection of the body, then Christ is not raised.
Ok, good.
It is true that the mysteries of the faith are so interlinked that to deny one is to deny all. But we can't discuss them all at once. Let's start with the resurrection, and then move on to the other.
I'll just note as even you say your quote is from an "Evangelical" (i.e. heretical) Protestant whose purpose in writing the article was the factor of prominent "Evangelicals" in recent years turning to Rome. I'll deal with what it says if you want, but do you really think this is a source you can trust to be objective? That's why I asked if you had read for yourself, not merely the passage alone, but some portion before it. Anyway, leaving that aside for now.
You have to understand the precise view that is being refuted - a system where all bodies are returned and restored only to natural life, to live henceforth like Lazarus did. It is this view that is described as a "restoration of bodies". Do you agree this view is false?
In particular, it denies the four altogether supernatural characteristics of the resurrection body - impassibility, radiance, subtlety, agility - that the faith teaches us they will have, as Christ Our Lord had after His own resurrection from the dead.
It is this view the Pope describes and means to refute, although I grant he does it rather awkwardly and imprecisely. That is why he says the body does not have immortality as something natural and intrinsic to itself. He does say though that God gives the whole and same man now existing immortality which includes the body.
For the other general charge you make against the Pope, that of modernism, subjectivism, relativism etc, it is sufficient to show that he himself explicitly identified its essential component (something those irremediably infected by it are scarcely able to do) and condemned it in no uncertain terms proposing the appropriate remedy (the same that Pope Pius IX had done in the Syllabus which Pope St.Pius X quotes in Pascendi, stressing the immutable and complete nature of revelation handed down by Christ and the Apostles) on his own initiative while Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope John Paul II.
"The roots of these problems are to be found in certain presuppositions of both a philosophical and theological nature, which hinder the understanding and acceptance of the revealed truth.
Some of these can be mentioned: the conviction of the elusiveness and inexpressibility of divine truth, even by Christian revelation; relativistic attitudes toward truth itself, according to which what is true for some would not be true for others; the radical opposition posited between the logical mentality of the West and the symbolic mentality of the East; the subjectivism which, by regarding reason as the only source of knowledge, becomes incapable of raising its “gaze to the heights, not daring to rise to the truth of being”;8 the difficulty in understanding and accepting the presence of definitive and eschatological events in history; the metaphysical emptying of the historical incarnation of the Eternal Logos, reduced to a mere appearing of God in history; the eclecticism of those who, in theological research, uncritically absorb ideas from a variety of philosophical and theological contexts without regard for consistency, systematic connection, or compatibility with Christian truth; finally, the tendency to read and to interpret Sacred Scripture outside the Tradition and Magisterium of the Church.
On the basis of such presuppositions, which may evince different nuances, certain theological proposals are developed — at times presented as assertions, and at times as hypotheses — in which Christian revelation and the mystery of Jesus Christ and the Church lose their character of absolute truth and salvific universality, or at least shadows of doubt and uncertainty are cast upon them.
...
As a remedy for this relativistic mentality, which is becoming ever more common, it is necessary above all to reassert the definitive and complete character of the revelation of Jesus Christ ... the foregoing statements of Catholic faith according to which the full and complete revelation of the salvific mystery of God is given in Jesus Christ. Therefore, the words, deeds, and entire historical event of Jesus, though limited as human realities, have nevertheless the divine Person of the Incarnate Word, “true God and true man”13 as their subject. For this reason, they possess in themselves the definitiveness and completeness of the revelation of God's salvific ways, even if the depth of the divine mystery in itself remains transcendent and inexhaustible.
The truth about God is not abolished or reduced because it is spoken in human language; rather, it is unique, full, and complete, because he who speaks and acts is the Incarnate Son of God. Thus, faith requires us to profess that the Word made flesh, in his entire mystery, who moves from incarnation to glorification, is the source, participated but real, as well as the fulfilment of every salvific revelation of God to humanity,14 and that the Holy Spirit, who is Christ's Spirit, will teach this “entire truth” (Jn 16:13) to the Apostles and, through them, to the whole Church."
The proper response to God's revelation is “the obedience of faith (Rom 16:26; cf. Rom 1:5; 2 Cor 10:5-6) by which man freely entrusts his entire self to God, offering ‘the full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals' and freely assenting to the revelation given by him”.
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I'll just note as even you say your quote is from an "Evangelical" (i.e. heretical) Protestant whose purpose in writing the article was the factor of prominent "Evangelicals" in recent years turning to Rome. I'll deal with what it says if you want, but do you really think this is a source you can trust to be objective?
I said he was a Protestant. Yes, I can read as well as he can, but I thought it was a very good description of what the text says.
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Is the concept of Hermeneutic of Continuity a novelty? Or is it found in Tradition?
In other words do we reject it entirely or embrace it?
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The phrase this thread is about, is a lie.