Christian theology thread for Christians - Deus homo factus est naturam erante, mundus renovatus est a Christo regnante

[24nagging]

1. How do you know that they are in heaven, are just and/or meritorious?

because the Church determines that by an examination of his/her life and fruits, if we see that the individual has lived a life a supernatural virtue then and miricales have occurred via his intercession, then the Church can determine the sanctity of that person. The history of canonizations is very interesting and complex, but generally those are the principles we follow.

2. How does a prayer (to God) get stronger if you direct it towards a saint. Do prayers need to be certified by saints for God to give (more) attention to you or your prayers?

2) if we admit that the Saints have perpetual and eternal communication with God, then yes, they get stronger, since again, they are for sure just (or justified if you will). And to the second question, no, they don't, but again, directing it towards a Saint is a more sure fire way of getting your prayer answered, since in this life we can't never fully get rid of sin, and thus we are less just (justified) than the Saints above. Plus, isn't it better when you have multiple people asking for the same thing? how much more better when you have multiple Christians praying to God for something? and how much more better if those Christians who have died and are in heaven pray to God for those things?

3. How do you know that the saint will bother with your prayer and direct it towards God, isn't praying to God directly a 100% guaranteed way for Him to receive it, so why bother with praying to saints at all?

Because the Saints are filled with charity (hence they are Saints), and thus they are filled with joy when souls on this earth ask for their intercession, just like when you are happy to help your mom or wife in a task she can't manage for lack of strength or height. And there is no amount of time or volume that a Saint can't handle, since they have eternity and perfection on their hands; they present to God their full worship, and the petitions of the faithful, all the time, every time, since time is not a concept in heaven

4. This is barely disgusted polytheism.

Polytheism is the whorship multiple Gods. Idolatry is the worship of things that are not God. Superstition is the improper worship of God
Now: we do not bring worship to the Saints, worship means the "[...] homage paid to God [...]". Now we can have a direct worship of God, by doing unique and not unique acts of religion, or indirectly when you pray to the Saints or the Angles. This second type of worship is a subordinated worship, which depends on the first type of worship for it's existence, and it's properly called dulia, or veneration.
Now, what are the unique acts of religion? Sacrifice. In the Christian religion that would be via the Eucharistic sacrifice, but that's a different topic.
What are the not unique acts of religion? Singing, kneeling, petitioning, etc.
NOW: We only give unsubordinated worship to God (latria), via the Sacrifice of the Mass and our exulting, petitioning, asking of forgiveness, thanksgiving; and we give dulia to the Saints and Angels, via exulting (we can admire and congratulate the Saints in their virtue just as we can do it with living people), petitioning (I think it's self-evident), asking of forgiveness (to Saint itself if you insult them or didn't fulfilled your promise, or that they may intercede in your behalf to God asking his forgiveness), and thanksgiving (for the their intercession and guidance)

5. There are recognized saints that are fictional like Mary of Egypt (source: one monk that said "trust me bro"). So, people who pray to fictional saints, what happens to their prayers (insert joke about atheists praying to Santa)?

with old religions just as ours it is difficult to distinguish all the historical facts from mythology. What the Church says in an infallible manner is "there was a historical figure named X who is in Heaven", without necessarily corroborating all the stories about said Saint, that is the job of the historian to do. Now if the stories are not impious, scandalous, or superstitious, there is no harm in the faithful believing in them, specially if it makes them grow in their devotion and spiritual life, whatever secular historians have to say.

6. Why do you phrase it like we are children who are too retarded to understand prayer?

it wasn't intentional, am sorry if you felt patronized
while we are on this matter, I really like this verse from Saint Paul on topic: "Brethren, be not children in understanding: but in malice be children, but in understanding be men" (1Cor 14:20).

Happy new year!

 

[Slap47]

made a song about the Reformed Churches sack of Rome

Protestant sack of Rome

The army was lead by a Catholic monarch who had failed to pay his men in classic Habsburg style. Half of his army was Protestant and the other Catholic. Both participated in the looting and massacring.

The Protestants were especially brutal, but Catholic soldiers also participated in castrating priests and raping of nuns (for fun, I guess?) Later on a powerful Cardinal who was a rival of the Pope lead his own thugs and local peasants into the city. They then proceeded to sack and commit similar atrocities as vengeance for the Pope's abuses against them.

we would say that reformation itself was not about religion too, but politics. It was all about politics

Letting a banker family control the papacy and use it to enrich themselves by demanding people pay them to avoid hell is kinda a both thing...

 

[Preacher ✝]

Perhaps this will be the year we respectively stop casting pearls before swine?

Why are you both willfully ignorant about the nature of intercession and also hostile towards it?

 

[marlimar]

Why are you both willfully ignorant about the nature of intercession and also hostile towards it?

I'm not, you are adding steps to the intercession and adding entities that cannot intercede on your behalf. Mary, the mother of Jesus has never heard a single prayer you have prayed to her, that's not hostile, it's just a fact. You may pray to whom you like, I'm hostile of you trying to convince people to believe that salvation exists anywhere outside of Christ Jesus and that there is more work to do, when he plainly says it is finished.

 

[The man The only man]

Why are you both willfully ignorant about the nature of intercession and also hostile towards it?

Someone can understand it and still oppose it. Thinking that your opponents are ignorant fools who oppose you because they are simply too stupid to understand your standpoints; is blatant arrogance. Personally I am opposed to intercession and sainthood because it hints at the idea that man can know and can decide how God acts and thinks. It's arrogance to suggest who is in heaven, it's arrogance to appoint (and falsify) saints to deify the church and it is arrogance to think that intercession (a.k.a. petitioning the dead) is even a thing when there is no biblical support for it.

This whole thinking around sainthood, intercession and related church doctrine abuses circular reasoning without involving scripture. Per example, the church canonizes saints by requiring proof of their intercession, thus this "proves" intercession is real, thus this "proves" that the Church's teaching on the communion of saints is correct, thus this upholds the Church's authority to canonize saints in the first place. But then you realize that there is no biblical support for the canonization process, the miracle requirements and the invocation command thus having all of this based on traditions and not scripture. Furthermore, wasn't the title of "saint(s)" applied to all those who were followers in Christ (Eph. 1:1 & Phi. 1:1) and not solely an honor bestowed by the church, what changed?

My last point is this, IF intercession is valid and true doctrine approved by Christ then why wasn't it mentioned and practiced in the Bible? Like why didn't the early Christians pray to Stephan (Acts 7), why didn't they pray to James (Acts 12), why didn't they pray to David or any of the prophets? If the usage of intercession is so important then why wasn't it mentioned in the scripture? So many questions that only lead to more questions.

 

[Chicha Drinker]

Protestantism: Having inherited academic approaches to theology and due to Sola Scritura, anyone is able to read the bible and come to a conclusion about what a passage means. While this is immensely liberating to many, this also means that consensus is hard to come by and heresy is easy to stumble into, since all you need is enough like minded people to start your own church. Careful and constant vigilance is necessary to maintain doctrinal coherency.

Catholicism: They have a deep academic tradition, to a point. At the core of Catholic belief is the idea that the (Catholic) church is Rock of St Peter, and is therefore the utmost authority on Earth, a belief that is backed by the ability (though basically never used) for the Pope to have potential infallability. This however, means that all the academic theology of the church boils back down to the Rock of St Peter, and so if that rock has said X about a subject, then logos will be sacrificed in favor of that. This means that perversion of the largest contingent of Christendom need only be sufficiently based on this belief in the rock, and put in the hands of enough wrong people at the wrong time. The church heads know this, and that is why so much careful debate and study is done so constantly, even about subjects that seem internally agreed upon from an outsider's POV like Mary.

This is my understanding at this point

 

[Atomic Ant]

Thinking that your opponents are ignorant fools who oppose you because they are simply too stupid to understand your standpoints; is blatant arrogance. Personally I am opposed to intercession and sainthood because it hints at the idea that man can know and can decide how God acts and thinks.

Hard to blame him for thinking you dont understand it when the very next sentence after you insist you understand it is a wild non sequitur about intercession somehow implies that man knows the mind of God.

I ask a teacher to write me a recommendation, that implies that I know the mind of the hiring officer at the place I'm applying for an internship at? I dont see how this follows at all.

circular reasoning without involving scripture.

How do you know what the canon of scripture is? Theres no verse in any commonly accepted book of scripture that says "Ecclesiastes is canon and Enoch isnt", is there? I'm not sure its going to be that easy to live up to the standard you present.

I do not identify as Christian and I do not believe he was literally God incarnate

I dont want to shit up the thread extensively making this point, so I'll just do it the once here. If you read the title of this thread, you will notice it's called "Christian theology thread for Christians." I've added bold for emphasis. I dont think @Sissyagamben titled it that accidentally. This also goes to people with questions from other religions. If you want to do the extended athiest vs Christian or Jew/Muslim vs Christian debate, make a thread for it, this aint the one.

 

[24nagging]

Catholicism: They have a deep academic tradition, to a point. At the core of Catholic belief is the idea that the (Catholic) church is Rock of St Peter, and is therefore the utmost authority on Earth, a belief that is backed by the ability (though basically never used) for the Pope to have potential infallability. This however, means that all the academic theology of the church boils back down to the Rock of St Peter, and so if that rock has said X about a subject, then logos will be sacrificed in favor of that. This means that perversion of the largest contingent of Christendom need only be sufficiently based on this belief in the rock, and put in the hands of enough wrong people at the wrong time. The church heads know this, and that is why so much careful debate and study is done so constantly, even about subjects that seem internally agreed upon from an outsider's POV like Mary.

there are some errors. The Popes have used their infallibility plenty of times throughout the centuries; the best modern example would be when Saint John Paul II closed the possibility of female priests.
I don't quite understand what you mean by "logos will be sacrificed", but guessing on the rest of the text you seem to think that we Catholics will drop any belief, no matter how apparently true. because the Pope said so. This is not true at all and very cartoonish. The Pope is infallible only on matters of Faith and Morals. The Pope can say that prophylactics are evil, like the Theologians have saying for decades, confirming their teaching in an infallible manner; but the Pope can not say that the sky is green in an infallible manner, he has no authority to give such a ruling.
This misunderstanding seems to then give rise to another misunderstanding, that is the sanctity of the Church. Based on the promises of Christ to Saint Peter, "the gates of hell shall not prevail", which means that God will never allow a Pope to give an infalible teaching that contradicts the previous teachings. We are not scared of the wrong guy taking the Seat of Peter then saying that contraceptives are cool. The theologians debate and argue with prudence because 1) that's what virtuous men try to do in general, specially in the intelectual field; and 2) because they are talking about holy things, and extra care needs to be taking not to go against what the Magisterium (the previous Popes, the Church Fathers, the Scholastics, etc) has ruled on, for the sake of the individual theologian's soul and the souls of the faithful and other theologians who will take his error and make it worse.​

 

[Sooty Soot]

I'd like to take a moment to point out the cosmic poetry that is the fates of Christianity and Paganism.
Looking at the Pagan gods, you can see their idols were intended to be those of supposedly great and powerful beings. Their stories recount them taking what's due from mortals, whether it be Zeus coming on down to lay with mortal women, Ennana being envious that a temple on Earth is not dedicated to her and deciding to conquer it, Huitzilopochtli demanding the souls of his captured soldiers be sacrificed to him, or Baal accepting the sacrifice of babies to him. The one shared common element amongst them all is that they demand open and extravagant worship, and that their relationship with mortals is transactionary in the sense that they will supposedly provide blessings so long as they are given their sacrifices.

Juxtapose this with the God of Israel; He demands that no graven images be made of him, for no man can gaze upon his face and live. He demands worship of him alone, and yet remains willing to forgive those who sin. He punishes men, king and pauper alike, but never unprovoked, and remains loving of all humanity despite their sinful nature. The most cosmically ironic part of it all is that when He came down to Earth as a man, He was demeaned, insulted, beaten, stabbed, mocked, and ultimately killed, his execution that of a condemned criminal, with a crown of thorns and a sign reading "IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDAEORVM" above him as a mockery of his divinity and royalty.

And in-spite of all this, all these supposedly oh-so-powerful gods, for all of their power and all of their might, could not prevail against the message of a Jewish carpenter from Nazareth who spoke not of his strength or might but of loving thy neighbor. Their idols were smashed, their names turned into by-words for demons, and their legends lost to the sands of time, with the only ones speaking good of their name in the present day being wannabe LARPers on both ends of the political spectrum.

And they say God doesn't love irony. Happy new year, friends.

 

[marlimar]

He demands that no graven images be made of him

I think that Jesus' body born of Mary was very average / plain, which is why Judas Iscariot had to identify him in the Garden by kissing him, Jesus probably looked remarkably unremarkable.

 

[Chicha Drinker]

misunderstanding

>I explain that infallibility is a seldom used thing (iirc there is some debate as to what counts and what doesnt but compared to the amount of time the church has been around its very rare)
>response is about how i misunderstand how infallibility works and paints a picture like im a baptist who has never seen a cathedral before, saying the pope is catholic god

My saying logos can be sacrificed wasnt even in reference to papal infallability. It was that as time goes on, tradition trumps logical conclusion, which is different from a lot of protestantism and often creates conflict between the academic side of catholic theology and the tradition-based side. You took an exceedingly negative view on my whole observation and assumed i meant something cartoonishly silly when i genuinely mean it as a neutral observation, if you notice i wasnt exactly cheerleading prots either. Then the rest is just explaining by example what i just said about the crux of Catholic belief being the rock of st peter...meaning i am objectively right on that.

 

[24nagging]

I explain that infallibility is a seldom used thin

I guess seldom depends on your time frame. If you talking in terms of decades, then I guess so. If you talking in terms of centuries (the Catholic perspective), it is very frequent thing

tradition trumps logical conclusion

thanks for clarifying, that idea wasn't very well transmitted in the post

Catholic belief being the rock of st peter

indeed, the Church is based upon that foundation, as the Gospels tells us

 

[Chicha Drinker]

I guess seldom depends on your time frame. If you talking in terms of decades, then I guess so. If you talking in terms of centuries (the Catholic perspective), it is very frequent thing

To be clear i mean ex cathedra, not just like general good advice or general theological patterns taught by the pope. Im talking when its used as a written down final say for a subject

 

[Preacher ✝]

I'm not, you are adding steps to the intercession and adding entities that cannot intercede on your behalf. Mary, the mother of Jesus has never heard a single prayer you have prayed to her, that's not hostile, it's just a fact. You may pray to whom you like, I'm hostile of you trying to convince people to believe that salvation exists anywhere outside of Christ Jesus and that there is more work to do, when he plainly says it is finished.

You say you're not and then immediately demonstrate that you are by professing an incorrect concept of intercessory prayer.

The Holy Spirit is the conduit of prayer, for it was sent down to us from the Father and the Son (or through the Son for the Orthodox). All prayer is carried by the Holy Spirit. By the virtue of the Trinity the Holy Spirit is God, so when someone seeks the intercession of the Saints, it might help your understanding to think of it as praying through God to ask them to pray to God for us.

If I were explaining it to a child I might use this simplified hypothetical dialogue as an example.

Catholic: God can you ask Mary to pray for me?
God: Sure. Mary, Catholic wants you to pray for him.
Mary: Got it. God, I pray for Catholic.
God: Prayer received.

As you can see, at no point is this praying to Mary, or expecting Mary to be the final destination of a prayer. Ultimately all prayer goes to God. Replacing the first instance of God with the Holy Spirit would be more accurate but, again, due to the nature of the Trinity both are technically correct. The best kind of correct.

Someone can understand it and still oppose it. Thinking that your opponents are ignorant fools who oppose you because they are simply too stupid to understand your standpoints; is blatant arrogance.

I'm not assuming someone is ignorant because the oppose it, I am basing that assessment on repeated displays of that ignorance.

For example, I understand the concept of sola scriptura and I oppose it because its not only false, but demonstrably ruinous. I've said many times, the concept of sola scriptura would be believable if everyone who read the Bible came to the same consensus on Christianity, if all protestants were united under one protestant belief system. However history has proven this not to be the case. Since the reformation protestantism has seen seemingly endless schisms upon schisms, and the difference in beliefs between on protestant church to another are often irreconcilably vast. How can anyone look upon this chaos and still feel justified in the belief that the Bible can be correctly interpreted by anyone who reads it?

the best modern example would be when Saint John Paul II closed the possibility of female priests.

Actually SJPII never invoked Papal Infallibility. When he affirmed that women cannot be ordained there was no need to invoke it because that is something that is not a matter of significant dispute among the Bishops of the Church.

We need to remember that the point of Papal Infallibility is for the Pope to have the final and definitive say when the Bishops of the Church are unable to reach a consensus on an important matter. Pope, Cardinal, and Archbishop are all hierarchical titles for Bishops.

For the record the last time Papal Infallibility was invoked was in November of 1950 by Pope Pious XII on the matter of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven being dogma.

 

[Sooty Soot]

The Holy Spirit is the conduit of prayer, for it was sent down to us from the Father and the Son (or through the Son for the Orthodox). All prayer is carried by the Holy Spirit. By the virtue of the Trinity the Holy Spirit is God, so when someone seeks the intercession of the Saints, it might help your understanding to think of it as praying through God to as them to pray to God for us.

If I were explaining it to a child I might use this simplified hypothetical dialogue as an example.

Catholic: God can you ask Mary to pray for me?
God: Sure. Mary, Catholic wants you to pray for him.
Mary: Got it. God, I pray for Catholic.
God: Prayer received.

As you can see, at no point is this praying to Mary, or expecting Mary to be the final destination of a prayer. Ultimately all prayer goes to God. Replacing the first instance of God with the Holy Spirit would be more accurate but, again, due to the nature of the Trinity both are technically correct. The best kind of correct.

This sounds really backwards, all prayer is received by God by virtue of His omnipotence, and God knows what is best for man through said omnipotence as well, Mary praying to God isn't gonna make Him change His mind on whether or not to answer a prayer.

 

[Preacher ✝]

This sounds really backwards, all prayer is received by God by virtue of His omnipotence, and God knows what is best for man through said omnipotence as well, Mary praying to God isn't gonna make Him change His mind on whether or not to answer a prayer.

Since when is prayer about making God change His mind?

 

[Sooty Soot]

Since when is prayer about making God change His mind?

The prayer is received either way by God, who decides whether or not to answer said prayer and how to answer it. If you'd forgive the use of the term, praying to a saint for intercession just seems like pointless bureaucracy.

 

[Preacher ✝]

The prayer is received either way by God, who decides whether or not to answer said prayer and how to answer it. If you'd forgive the use of the term, praying to a saint for intercession just seems like pointless bureaucracy.

If you want to look at it in such a cynical manner, you should also consider the fact God is the initiator of all prayer. When you feel compelled to pray its because God called you to prayer. So does that mean prayer is pointless?

 

[23iwakura23]

IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDAEORVM

Cum scripsit sic Pilatus, ipse quidem declaravit, cum auctoritate Romana, CHRISTUM REGEM IUDAEORUM VERO ESSE.

The declaration of the roman empire of someone's kingship is most relevant, because Herod the great only became King after the Hasmoneans fell because Rome granted him the title. In nailing the board up, Pilatus, roman procurator, named him rightly King of the Jews, by Roman authority, which is the great authority of the World which flows from the eternal city, its people, and its senate.

The creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Carthage was a Canaanite outpost, and we all saw the Tophet and were horrified. The whole creation cries out to God, and we have all seen it prior. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. And so all of us who have seen God and known God persued him. And thence groaned, lacking him until the most excellent Peter and Paul came from him to us to bring us the most excellent light of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

[BIG SHOT Autos]

And they say God doesn't love irony.

I think that humor in general is a Godly feature. It's a proof of intentional intelligent design. There's literally no lifeless "evolutionary purpose" for it, and yet, intelligent beings differ from dumber ones by ability to find things funny. Look at cats for example, there's no way these retarded creatures weren't designed by the higher power, this level of autism is intentional.

What's interesting is that many other animals seem to have a primitive concept of humor too, again, with the cats; they find it both curious and funny to drop items. So I wonder what God's sense of humor truly is. We, as creatures made in His image and corrupt by sin, probably possess just a tiny fraction of it, likely as primitive as cat's humor is to us in comparison to Him, or likely even more primitive. Reason not to break relationship with God number bajillion: I need to know what heavenly clowns are like. Satan is probably too prideful to allow jokes altogether, as humor usually requires humility and deflated sense of ego to be able to laugh at oneself or traits associated with oneself.

...Huh, you know, no wonder why we are taught that everything is "offensive" these days by people who seem to be lowkey possessed.