Roman Catholic/Greek Orthodox/Eastern Orthodox ties (traditions, Jesus, pagan)
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But what about Protestantism? When Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, he was a Catholc. The church that was formed as a result of his action clearly shared the same origin as the Roman Catholic Church, as did most of the other Protestant churches that followed.
I believe that at some point the Protestants lost the Apostolic succession when a minister was ordained out of the sequence. So their ministers cannot trace themselves to Jesus or the Apostles.
But, you are correct they are the offspring of Catholicism, however they were probably excommunicated.
I believe that at some point the Protestants lost the Apostolic succession when a minister was ordained out of the sequence. So their ministers cannot trace themselves to Jesus or the Apostles.
But, you are correct they are the offspring of Catholicism, however they were probably excommunicated.
I don't remember any of the protestant "reformers" being Bishops. Martin Luther was just a monk. So I don't believe any of them ever had Apostolic succession, or did one of them?
I don't remember any of the protestant "reformers" being Bishops. Martin Luther was just a monk. So I don't believe any of them ever had Apostolic succession, or did one of them?
You are correct, they do not have apostolic succession.
Nope. Apostolic succession comes from any of the Apostles, not just Peter. The RCC just believes that Peter had primacy over the others. The RCC recognizes the Apostolic succession of the leaders of the Orthodox churches as valid. Please refer to the post I made about this a little ways back. Post #12 just above.
Mariology is a never ending process. Mary had to be free of sin if she was the mother of Christ. Initially being an innocent virgin was enough, then Mary had to be sinless because Jesus cannot be in contact with sin and part of Jesus comes from Mary (The DNA). Then Mary had to be the product of an Immaculate Conception to be free of sin.
Mary is huge in the church even though there is usually no mention of Mary during daily mass.
I don't pray to Mary, but I certainly enjoy the Mariology. I don't put down those that pray to Mary because God is listening.
RESPONSE:
Yep. Making up Mary yarns is a never ending process.
Since we don't have any "stain" of original sin, Mary didn't need an Immaculate Conception to be free of what she never had to begin with. Just another Mary yarn.
And there'a little problem about Jesus coming from Mary's DNA. Lacking a Y chromosome, a woman cannot pass on maleness. So Jesus would have to have been a girl! .
I don't understand how two churches with such diametrically opposed beliefs on two such central doctrine as these could both be "the original church." What I'm trying to get at is what did "the original original church" teach with respect to these points of doctrine? Surely Julian will say they taught what the Roman Catholic Church now teaches and not what the Eastern Orthodox Church now teaches. I don't know what Ancient Warrior would say on the matter.
I think the Orthodox play up the differences between their conception of "ancestral sin" and our concept of "original sin." There are differences, but I think they exaggerate them at times when they want to emphasize errors they find in Augustinian thought and then extend that to all of Catholicism. So I wouldn't be surprised if some of them think we totally go with Augustine and teach unbaptized babies who die face "the mildest of punishment" in Hell, etc.
Still there are differences both real and significant. How can this be? Well part of it is that after around 787 we started going in different directions. Catholicism came to emphasize reason, scholasticism, and development of doctrine. Orthodoxy wasn't against reason or knowledge, precisely, but it was skeptical of scholasticism as "too pagan" and a bit resistant to any "development of doctrine." It also emphasized mystical experience as generally greater than study. So Catholicism helped lead to the modern world and Orthodoxy, mostly, didn't. I think many Orthodox might even agree to that, but see it as a sign of Catholicism being wrong and helping to lead to a semi-pagan modern society that devalues Christianity.
Other issues are cultural and relate to the Eastern Roman Empire being different than the Western. Speaking different languages, having a different political situation, and liking different writers. Before 787 we largely recognize the same saints and theologians, but for the Eastern Orthodox the theologians who lived in the Eastern-Roman or "Byzantine" world were of greater significance. People like St. Augustine or St. Martin of Tours or whatever likely, or just did, influence them less. On the Catholic side some of the Eastern-Roman theologians, like maybe St. John Chrysostom, were recognized by us but maybe not as significant as to them. And then after we split there's the differences between Gregory Palamas and Thomas Aquinas. Some of that deals with Hesychasm (concerns mysticism) versus Scholasticism which I touched on above.
Thomas R postd:
>>So Catholicism helped lead to the modern world and Orthodoxy, mostly, didn't.<<
RESPONSE:
Actually, it was the East, especially the Orthodox and Moslem cultures, that preserved and developed science when it had become lost in the West. Mathematics and medical science developed in the East.
While the East was not influenced by Augustine errors, they preserved Aristotlian thought which had become lost in the West being considered too pagan and rejected by Chrisitinaity until Aquinas and a few other philosophers took it up.
Perhaps you'd enjoy reading Aristotle's Children by Richard Rubenstein.
From a review:
"As Rubenstein (When Jesus Became God) explains, in the second and third centuries A.D., Western Christian scholars suppressed Aristotle's teachings, believing that his emphasis on reason and the physical world challenged their doctrines of faith and God's supernatural power. By the seventh century, Muslims had begun to discover Aristotle's writings. Islamic thinkers such as Avicenna and Averroës, in the 11th and 12 centuries, embraced Aristotle's rationalist philosophy and principles of logic."
Last edited by ancient warrior; 02-26-2012 at 05:56 AM..
Reason: typo
Yep. Making up Mary yarns is a never ending process.
Since we don't have any "stain" of original sin, Mary didn't need an Immaculate Conception to be free of what she never had to begin with. Just another Mary yarn.
And there'a little problem about Jesus coming from Mary's DNA. Lacking a Y chromosome, a woman cannot pass on maleness. So Jesus would have to have been a girl! .
Thomas R postd:
>>So Catholicism helped lead to the modern world and Orthodoxy, mostly, didn't.<<
RESPONSE:
Actually, it was the East, especially the Orthodox and Moslem cultures, that preserved and developed science when it had become lost in the West. Mathematics and medical science developed in the East.
I wasn't meaning they failed to preserve the classical world. They did much good stuff and I did worry that was too dismissive.
However when it came to expanding on any of that knowledge that's the kind of thing that happened more in the West than the East.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ancient warrior
Perhaps you'd enjoy reading Aristotle's Children by Richard Rubenstein.
Intriguingly I actually have read that, or much of that anyway, for a class. The Orthodox and Muslims preserved classical knowledge and expanded on it some, but ultimately the Islamic world suffered from a couple of events
1: The destruction at the hands of the Mongols.
2: A distancing from Falsafa/Philosophy due to concerns of it leading to an excessive rationalism. (Ghazzali, etc)
Still I was maybe slighting the Orthodox too much. They had a role in the rise of the Renaissance and part of their difficulty may have been that they also faced military setbacks. The Mongols conquered Russia and the Turks conquered the Byzantines. That said though they did come to kind of parallel some of Islam's concerns about Philosophy and excessive rationalism. I can see thinking those concerns are quite valid, but still Aristotle's Children ends up largely being more about Catholics and Jews (as I recall) due to varied historical events.
Thomas R postd:
>>So Catholicism helped lead to the modern world and Orthodoxy, mostly, didn't.<<
RESPONSE:
Actually, it was the East, especially the Orthodox and Moslem cultures, that preserved and developed science when it had become lost in the West. Mathematics and medical science developed in the East.
While the East was not influenced by Augustine errors, they preserved Aristotlian thought which had become lost in the West being considered too pagan and rejected by Chrisitinaity until Aquinas and a few other philosophers took it up.
Perhaps you'd enjoy reading Aristotle's Children by Richard Rubenstein.
From a review:
"As Rubenstein (When Jesus Became God) explains, in the second and third centuries A.D., Western Christian scholars suppressed Aristotle's teachings, believing that his emphasis on reason and the physical world challenged their doctrines of faith and God's supernatural power. By the seventh century, Muslims had begun to discover Aristotle's writings. Islamic thinkers such as Avicenna and Averroës, in the 11th and 12 centuries, embraced Aristotle's rationalist philosophy and principles of logic."
You make good points, but you fail to mention the massive come back of Western Civilization led by people like Newton, Descartes, etc.
In the end Western Civilization became the dominant academic force in the planet and the RCC is the most important factor in Western Civilization.
Nowadays the RCC has an academy of sciences and recognize evolution.
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