Silk for calde blog: Wolfe thesis

John Watkins · 21 Dec 2009, 04:20 · from 2009-December.txt.gz
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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:20:34 -0500
Subject: (urth) Silk for calde blog: Wolfe thesis
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I felt, probably unwisely, compelled to reply to this:

"And in my experience, Catholics typically do not have a metaphoric concept
of Purgatory. It's Hell. Temporary Hell, but Hell nonetheless. I've heard
some recount how nuns gave very specific years of agonizing punishment in
Purgatory for detailed lists of sins."

This is not my experience (and I've been Catholic my whole life and went to
Catholic school until I was 22).  I'm not sure I've met a Catholic under the
age of 30 who would agree with this characterization--and maybe not under
the age of 50.  It's true that the concept is not typically "metaphoric,"
but the rest is just off.  I was specifically told (as an eighth grader, I
think) that such interpretations of Purgatory were misunderstandings.

Frankly, the contrast between Dante's depiction of Hell and his depiction of
Purgatory (even though Dante's Purgatory is no picnic) suggests to me that
the distinction has been pretty clear in the typical Catholic imagination
for some time.

On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 10:49 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ah! Well, they didn't "toss" the deuterocanon because there was some
>>> theology in them they didn't like ("suit them"). They tossed them because
>>> they considered their origins questionable in the extreme and not
>>> included
>>> in the Hebrew canon.
>>>
>>
>> That was the excuse given, yes. The fact is that the (modern) Jewish canon
>> was
>> not set until _after_ the rise of Christianity. The fact is that the early
>> Church
>> fathers, including Paul, freely quoted from the "deuterocanon." If the
>> "Reformation" was a return to the form
>> of the early Church, they ought to have taken that into account.
>>
>
> See my post to John. For he record, I think excising the deterocanon was
> justified, although I recommend them for reading anyway.
>
>
>  The fact is that the deuterocanon - particularly Maccabees and
>> Tobit - contained theological statements that were inconvenient for
>> Luther, Zwingli, et alia. Luther even wished he could deform the
>> New Testament by removing the Epistle of James, "an epistle of
>> straw" with "nothing of the Gospel in it." (Why? He doesn't state
>> this clearly but I suspect it was because James' epistle militates
>> rather strongly against a pure "Sola Fide" approach: "What good
>> is faith without deeds" and all that.)
>>
>
> Oh! So Luther not *liking* the Book of James was not enough?! You need to
> make up reasons for him not liking it? As I pointed out to John, Luther
> didn't like Revelation either. Wow! Luther's opinions carried soooo much
> weight among the Reformers who set the Protestant canon, didn't they? And
> his opinions about transubstantiation was law for the Reformers, right?
> Incidentally, Paul had no trouble with the "no true faith without works"
> concept and I can't see that the Reformers did either. Ephesians and James
> both breezed into the Protestant canon.
>
>
>  Not the hierarchy, no; the massed body of believers that constitutes
>> the Mystical Body of Christ. Luther et al. chose to dismember that
>> Body.
>>
>
> Well, by your lights he wasn't the first member of that body to do so, was
> he? The Bishop of Rome and the Primate of the Orthodox Church chose to damn
> each other's half of The Mystical Body of Christ (TMBC) to Hell centuries
> earlier. Or maybe he only intended for TMBC to be liberated (from the
> bishops on down) from (as he saw it) unrepentant parasites who were taking
> advantage of it.
>
>
>  Incidentally, along with the Roman church, I _do_ believe that Protestants
>> are members of that Body. Just to be clear on that.
>>
>
> Then it's not dismembered. And Luther is part of TMBC too. And he asserted
> that the Church leadership was gravely in the wrong, not because they were
> *inconsistent* regarding their own Church ordinances, but because they had
> violated Scripture in which they claimed their authority was documented. Who
> was to judge between Luther and those in power whom he accused? Sola
> Scriptura.
>
> There is simply no way to dispense with that concept once one accepts that
> Church leaders can often be --not just sinners-- but woefully corrupt.
>
>
>  No. It is the Mystical Body of Christ, long before the fifteenhundreds,
>> who
>> _selected_ the "apostolic" texts that constitute canon. There is some
>> reasonable doubt as to the apostolic origin of some of those texts, and
>> there were other texts of seemingly apostolic origin which did not get
>> selected. The canon was selected by the Church - there was no
>> divinely-given Table of Contents.
>>
>
> Well, to paraphrase RC Flannery O'Conner, if the "apostolic texts" are not
> authentic, to hell with them.
>
> What Luther saw in Rome caused him to doubt that a significant portion of
> parliament of the Pope and Cardinals were part of  TMBC. So why did the Body
> need them?  Why should those people be forever the mouth and hands of the
> Body if many of them didn't even believe and/or got their positions by
> emphatically unspiritual means?
>
>
>  No. Rather, the authority of the church hierarchy derives from its
>> continuity with the Apostles.
>>
>
> And if the Apostolic Texts are in doubt, so is the continuity of the
> Apostles. Furthermore, the authority of Rome to make law for other
> Christians is founded on an interpretation of a passage in Matthew. It
> matters who wrote those books and whether Jesus actually said those things.
>
>
>  If it was both, why can't the Lutheran Church make the same claim since
>>> they
>>> branched from the same root?
>>>
>>
>  My claim is that the Lutheran church chose its canon for wrong
>> reasons, listed above.
>>
>
> Well, there's nothing wrong with that.  And if someone has the same opinion
> about the Epistle of Barnabus that's fine too. And me and the compilers of
> the Protestant canon will disagree with you both.
> As you sort of referenced, the Eastern Orthodox Church considers 1 Esdras
> (part of the Septuagint) to be canonical, but rejects 2 Esdras. The RCC and
> Protestants consider neither to be. There are enough examples of this sort
> to torpedo the theory that the canon is an immutable creation of TMBC. It
> has always been tinkered with around the edges by The Church and by Jews
> before them.
>
>
>  Let me put it this way: if you take the attitude you are proposing here,
>> then the logical result is that you have no argument against the Book
>> of Mormon, or the "corrected" Bible of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
>>
>
> Sure I can. I can examine the totality of the JW arguments for their
> translations, and choose to accept them or not. TMBC is not necessary for me
> to decide whether they are right or not about the 1st chapter of John or
> Philippians 4.  The Book of Mormon is another issue altogether. It has
> nothing to do with accepting or rejecting books as worthwhile parts of the
> Jewish "Writings". It all depends on whether I believe that Joseph Smith was
> a prophet of God or a con man. If the Pope or Luther or Calvin were
> convinced he was the real thing, I suppose I would have to take that into
> account. But --like you, and unlike generations who were born in the
> Churches of the Pope, Primate or mullah--  I *chose* my religion, because I
> was convinced it was true.
>
>  [question posed by me]
>>>
>>
>  Since I deny that the Reformed Church was at that time "also that
>> Church," I can't answer this question meaningfully.
>>
>
> Then your position is precisely like Luther's toward the Roman hierarchy.
> Who shall choose between you? Sola Scriptura (the only common reference that
> both of you consider authoritative).
>
>
>  Disagree strongly. There are theological points in the "deuterocanon"
>> that are indeed vital. One of the interesting effects of the Lutheran
>> rejection is that the Protestant Bible manages to contain a book with
>> not one mention of God - the only references to God in Esther are
>> in the parts that the Protestants threw out.
>>
>
> But that's not a theological point. Furthermore, the validity of those
> theological points are crucially supported by whether the authenticity of
> those books can be adequately defended. I understand that it doesn't matter
> to you if the deterocanon books are authentic. But it matters to the RCC and
> it mattered to the Reformers and --I suspect-- it would matter to 99% of
> practicing Catholics.
>
>
>  Second Maccabees provides the scriptural basis for the practice of
>> praying for the souls of the dead, something that many Protestant
>> churches regard as next to necromancy.
>>
>
> Well, that's putting it pretty strong, but I agree that *every* Protestant
> church considers it a waste of time. Although, granted, I've known some
> squinty-eyed types who would see in it a plot by the RCC to hold people's
> love-ones hostage from beyond the grave. If the praying for the dead needs
> 2nd Maccabees to be authoritative, then it is in trouble.
>
>
>  That's because the hierarchy isn't the Church. Never was, though the
>> hierarchy made that mistake for some centuries.
>>
>
> Frankly, the hierarchy is all Luther dispensed with. It wasn't until
> Christianity came to America that individual churches ceased to always be
> part of a total top-down, solid-state, unified structure. And Christians had
> been split into large divisions for (at least) 700 years before Luther.
>
>
>  But Indulgences have *NOTHING* to do with salvation. A soul "in
>> Purgatory" *is* a saved soul; it is on the way to Heaven. The
>> *practice* of selling indulgences was about the purely speculative
>> nature of Purgatory. No Pope or Council, even in the darkest of
>> times, provided a definition of Purgatory that would actually
>> support the practice of selling indulgences.
>>
>
> Yet that is how the indulgences were (literally) sold at the time. You
> cannot overlay your appealing and enlightened doctrine of Purgatory on the
> marketing of indulgences 500 years later. I can't remember the source right
> now, but --as I recall-- the most successful salesmen gave very vivid
> descriptions of the loved-ones of buyers suffering in flames of torment
> which could be alleviated with the purchase of indulgences. And, of course,
> the indulgences were freely purchased for the buyers personal use as well.
> Some in advance. And in my experience, Catholics typically do not have a
> metaphoric concept of Purgatory. It's Hell. Temporary Hell, but Hell
> nonetheless. I've heard some recount how nuns gave very specific years of
> agonizing punishment in Purgatory for detailed lists of sins.
>
>
>  Incidentally, indulgences are still present in the Catholic faith.
>> It's just that you can't _buy_ them.
>>
>
> That a great deal of difference, doesn't it. But you can't build Saint
> Peter's Basilica on goodwill.
>
>  I didn't say [the concept of papal infallibility was created at the
>> Vatican Council].
>>
>> I said it wasn't defined (i.e., made a part of actual Catholic
>> ecclesiastical theology) until then. The concept
>> did exist as early as the seventeens, and maybe a little earlier.
>>
>
> The Council of Trent, two years before Luther died, said the Church's
> interpretation of the Bible was final. They weren't talking about TMBC. They
> meant the interpretation that came out of Rome.
>
>
>  Yes. The RCC has the ability to do this. A number of Protestant
>> churches still don't, which is why we have people who believe that
>> the fossil record is a lie.
>>
>
> There are Roman Catholics who believe this too. I really don't think the
> RCC is has it sooo over anybody on the issue of Rationalism that they can
> afford to be mocking. What I was getting at is that the Reformation forced
> the RCC to dispense with the underlying presumption that those keys Jesus
> gave to Peter allowed the Pope and Cardinals to say anything, anything at
> all, and have it be so. That's what I meant, and should have said.
>
>
>  I would add "the rise of the bourgeois class."
>>
>
> I'm disinclined to any "class-theory" of history.
>
>
>  Interestingly, it isn't that the Church forbade translations into then-
>> modern languages; it is that the Church forbade doing so without
>> the guidance of the Church. Consider the Douay-Rheims translation,
>> which dates from the fifteens.
>>
>
> Very *late* fifteens. The 'Deformers' say, "Your welcome".
>
> J.
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