I'm not prejudiced against R.C.s BUT...

I’m not an agent for anything lol. I’m just evenly applying what I feel like is his logic.
Invictus thinks you can worship the person of Jesus apart from his humanity. I hold this to be impossible.
He says it’s possible because it “shouldn’t be that hard” to explain away how we don’t commit idolatry by worshipping a man.
I apply this same logic. I feel it takes some explaining as to how we worship a God who is 3 distinct persons with different roles.
This is also “hard to explain.”
I’m only extending his logic. I do not think he has a problem with the doctrine of the trinity.
I personally would have a problem with it though, if I applied his same logic of Jesus to the trinity.
That’s all I’m trying to do and I’m not trying to “catch” him doing anything, mostly because it doesn’t matter much to me wether he believes the trinity or not. I just find his logic a little inconsistent is all.

 

Beats me. The tradition just says that there are and the best minds the Church has ever produced have argued forcefully that it's not incoherent. I'm just telling you what the traditional teaching is. I offer no guide as to how one may "imagine" it in their own minds.

The latter, among other practices.

No, I am saying it is impossible to worship a man and incredibly claim not to be an idolater.

 

I don’t understand your line of thinking because the tradition also argues we worship the whole person of Christ, and there have also been great minds which “argued forcefully” it’s not incoherent.

It appears you’re just choosing which council you agree with and going with that. The problem is that you have to depart from more than a Millenium of Christianity. You have to say that for 1000 years Christians believed something that was wrong.
I mean, the Copts and Ethiopians should be worse for you because they have 1 human and divine nature and they worship that nature, which you consider to be idolatry. So pretty much until Luther or Calvin or whomever, you think Christianity was wrong.
But you have a further problem because I don’t know a single Protestant church that denies the creed of Chalcedon. Unless the Anglican Church does? It might for all I know. This church keeps surprising me more and more lol

 

Which council am I "disagreeing" with? It is idolatry to worship something apart from God. What part of this aren't you getting? For example, this prayer used to occur at the end of the Divine Office in the Roman Rite until 1911 (when the Papacy began the work of destroying its own historic liturgy):

To the Most Holy and undivided Trinity, to the Manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ Crucified, to the fruitful Virginity of the most blessed and most glorious Mary, always a Virgin, and to the holiness of all the Saints be ascribed everlasting praise, honour, and glory, by all creatures...

Everlasting glory? Praise? To mere creatures? This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You can't say stuff like this and expect to be taken seriously when you turn around and claim to "believe in One God", as the Creed says.

 

I think you should be careful about what you accuse our dear brother and sisters in faith in the Oriental Orthodox Church of believing. There was some Ecclesial Polity surrounding both Ephesus and Chalcedon which meant that some people were misrepresented by others as believing certain things which they themselves had not said, very much like the recent example in this thread where you tried to suggest what one member would believe using your logic and metaverse. The Oriental Orthodox are most clearly not Monophysite. You may find this document helpful. https://www.anglicancommunion.org/m...greed-statement-on-christology-cairo-2014.pdf

 

I understand there was ecclesial polity as you put it behind Chalcedon.
But the oriental churches are miaphysite, that’s literally what they call themselves. Any joint commission is a change in either our understanding or theirs. The Ethiopian church calls itself “tewahedo.”
This means one. They ascribe to the oneness of the nature in Christ, very plainly. I don’t see how that is “accusing” them of anything.
I also don’t know why you’re pointing to me as accusing anyone of anything, when there are others on this forum who think the veneration of icons and the Eucharist by the oriental churches is idolatry, and think that praying to Saints is probably idolatry, and think that the Eucharistic sacrifice is most likely blasphemy. These things the oriental churches all believe and people on this forum have expressed some strong dislike for these doctrines.
But I’m the one “accusing” them of being miaphysites or “tewahedo?”

if you must know my own opinion is that it’s a genuine mistake to ascribe oneness to Christ, per cyrils christology. I agree with Chalcedon though

 

I have never seen that prayer. How long was that prayer in the Office? I’ve also never seen a prayer directly to the humanity of Jesus. It’s poorly worded or translated.
But any statements of praise or glory to the Saints of God must clearly be taken in whole of what the church teaches, which is we worship only God. Clearly Mary or Saints are not included in this. I’ve seen many old prayers calling Mary a goddess but this doesn’t mean she’s a God. Bringing up a more than 100 year old prayer, which I don’t even know how long this was in the office, after 100 years of language changes is not very relevant when talking about christology.


You also very clearly replied to me that you disagreed with Chalcedon did you not? You said it was an error. So you disagree with it right?
The prayer you bring up is poorly worded but i don’t see how it’s irrelevant. Like I said, all Protestant churches accept the council of Chalcedon. They don’t pray to Saints, so it doesn’t seem to me like Chalcedon is connected to praying to Saints


I also don’t consider it idolatry to worship the person of Christ which is United as a human and divine nature. I think it’s pretty obvious in scripture people worshipped Jesus himself, not some divinity floating off in the skies

 

Centuries. It's not as though it was ever declared un-Catholic. It's in printed prayer books today. I personally own several of them. (I recite the Divine Office, myself.)

 

No, I said that Chalcedon answered the question of the union of the divine and the human in Jesus by not answering it. It simply laid down what could or could not be said, but made no effort to propose a theory as to how something like the Incarnation could be possible. That's not controversial.

 

Lol kinda dumb but I get confused on latter vs former so I misunderstood you
So you said that worshipping the Eucharist is the error. But we don’t believe the Eucharist is just the body of Christ, but his divinity also. It’s wrong to worship just the body of Jesus, obviously.
Also Eucharistic adoration doesn’t have much of a correlation to praying to Saints in my mind…

 

A

Also I think what you’re saying does go against Chalcedon.
“indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved,”


It says the natures of Christ are indivisible and inseparable, such that you can’t worship his deity and NOT worshiping his humanity at the same time. It also calls Mary the theotokos which means she could bear the person of Christ who has 2 undivided natures.


Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems you’re saying you only worship the divinity of Jesus?
I think Chalcedon *does* make a statement against this. That it doesn’t answer how worshipping the human nature is idolatry, you’re right about that. However, it doesn’t seem like your views line up with Chalcedon.

I also still cannot understand how you can possibly worship Jesus and not worship his humanity if he’s standing right in front of you. It’s literally impossible.
multiple people in the Bible offered worship to Christ and they didn’t seem to be worried about making sure it was directed to his divine nature vs his human nature.

 

It doesn’t. Here is the full definition:

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

 

Also a corollary of the Church’s affirmation of divine simplicity is that the divine nature cannot enter into composition with other things. The Church Fathers uniformly affirmed this. Therefore any coherent interpretation of Chalcedon must take that into account as well. This was a major focus of Christological development in the High Middle Ages, especially among the Franciscans.

 

Now you're putting words into my mouth that I didn't say (or post, really). I never claimed that you were doing the same as the Israelites did. Instead, I'm suggesting that if the Israelites had made the golden calf with the motive of making an image of Almighty God which they could bow down to, pray to, and/or kiss, it still would have been wrong of them to do so. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.

When God forbids us to do something, our motivations are irrelevant.

 

If you want to accept what it says about worshipping, then you must also accept that the bread and wine "are not deprived of their own nature; thy remain in their former substance figure and form." That is to say, you must accept this passage as proof that transubstantiation is false, for the substances and physical natures of bread and wine remain the same, even though they have become for us Christ's body and blood, the means of which is a mystery. If you wish to continue believing in transubstantiation (which says the bread and wine cease to be bread and wine while only the accidents remain), then this passage must be rejected in its entirety as erroneous.

 

I think you just don’t understand what worship is, or what idolatry really entails.
You did not directly claim I did what the Israelites did, but you said kissing a crucifix “smacks of idolatry to me.” It’s not hard to connect the dots…


I hope you know the passage in the 10 commandments says you shall not make a graven image, meaning, an IDOL.
What is an IDOL? It is something you worship instead of God.
The Israelites had the ark of the covenant decorated with golden cherubim, and had other statues at the temple.
It’s obvious they venerated the ark of the covenant, btw. They handled it with extreme care.

Since ancient times Jews have venerated items.
From a Jewish website:

The two ends of the atarah of the tallit are kissed just before putting on the prayer shawl.
• The tefillin are kissed when taken out and returned to their bag.
• The tzitzit (fringes) are kissed at the end of Baruch she-Amar and during the recitation of the Shema.
• The curtain of the ark (parochet) is kissed before opening and after closing (when the Torah is taken out and then returned).
• The Torah mantle is kissed when it passes by in procession in the synagogue.
• The Torah scroll is kissed before one recites the blessings over it, either with the intermediary of the edge of the tallit or the sash used to tie the scroll together, but never with the bare hand.
• A siddur (prayer book) and Chumash are kissed before putting them away; they also are kissed if accidentally dropped on the floor.
• The mezuzah on the doorpost is kissed when entering or leaving a house.


Lots of kissing objects there. All objects they know aren’t God.
The action of kissing is not idolatry. Offering SACRIFICE is idolatry.
The golden calf comparison was irrelevant. Jews did not make an image to venerate, they made an image to offer SACRIFICE to and to call it God.
On top of that, you can’t really make an image of God before the incarnation of Christ.

Unless you want to say that since ancient times Jews were verging on idolatry for venerating Holy items, and so we’re Christians (who learned of the gospel from item-venerating jews) all the way up to the Protestant reformation, you’re welcome to do that. Just know “non idolatrous” monotheism didn’t exist until the 16th century according to that.

I just really want to stress that idolatry is not what you think it is. It is an intention and the action of offering sacrifice.
Do you know how pagans worship their statues?
The offer SACRIFICE to them.
A kiss, or a bow is not idolatry. I can kiss my mother, I can bow to the president. That isn’t idolatry.
But if I offer sacrifice to my mother or the president, that IS idolatry.
Again, kissing or bowing isn’t idolatry.
If you kiss your wife or bow to your president, or show any type of respect (veneration) for the American flag, why don’t you extend the same courtesy to us who venerate religious items?
You’re not applying things equally here.

 

To be fair the distinction between the Miaphysite Position (the correct description of the Oriental Orthodox) and Chalcedonian Christology (embrace almost uniformly through East and West) is a fine line.

Rather than using the wording established at the Council of Chalcedon (451) that Jesus is one "person" (in Greek ὑπόστασις hypostasis) in two "natures" (in Greek φύσεις physeis), a divine nature and a human nature, they hold that Jesus, the "Incarnate Word, is fully divine and fully human, in one "nature" (physis)." While historically a major point of controversy within Christianity, several modern declarations by both Chalcedonian and Miaphysite churches state that the difference between the two Christological formulations is essentially semantic and does not reflect any significant difference in belief about the nature of Christ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miaphysitism​

I have no problem saying the the Oriental Orthodox are Miaphysite. I possibly reacted to you statement which was a little unclear and seemed to suggest that they were monophite, which I think now has clearly been established that they are now. I am glad we are on the same page now. Given the Orthodox Capacity to do theology with the finest of scalpels and the West clumsiness which seems to cut theology with a round of camembert, I strongly suspect that the fine difference between the Miaphysite and the Chalcedonian position will be lost on most, and has probably taken up enough oxygen here.

Both RCC and all the expression of Anglicanism represented here are clearly supporters and adherents of the Chalcedonian Definition.

 

So you’re basically saying he says to worship bread?
If he’s saying that they retain their former nature but they worship them, you should interpret his statements in light of the fact they worship them. I already explained that he used to term nature like Christ’s nature did not change even though the took one flesh. To theodoret the bread retains its outward nature but it’s Jesus at the same time, to be worshipped. His idea of the Eucharist isn’t exactly the same as ours but it’s not too different. I too affirm the bread molecules are there and it taste like bread and looks like bread.
That’s not a big problem to my belief. But I know worshipping the Eucharist would be a big problem for you, so who is closer to the belief of the fathers?
He also believes the Eucharist is the sacrifice of Christ offered to God, which I’m sure you don’t believe. You can’t offer Jesus-bread, you only offer Jesus. So interpret what he said in light of his over all statement.

 

1 Samuel 4
In those days the Philistines mustered for war against Israel, and Israel went out to battle against them; they encamped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines encamped at Aphek. The Philistines drew up in line against Israel, and when the battle was joined, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men on the field of battle. When the troops came to the camp, the elders of Israel said, ‘Why has the Lord put us to rout today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh, so that he may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.’ So the people sent to Shiloh, and brought from there the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim. The two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

When the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel gave a mighty shout, so that the earth resounded. When the Philistines heard the noise of the shouting, they said, ‘What does this great shouting in the camp of the Hebrews mean?’ When they learned that the ark of the Lord had come to the camp, the Philistines were afraid; for they said, ‘Gods have come into the camp.’ They also said, ‘Woe to us! For nothing like this has happened before. Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness. Take courage, and be men, O Philistines, in order not to become slaves to the Hebrews as they have been to you; be men and fight.’

So the Philistines fought; Israel was defeated, and they fled, everyone to his home. There was a very great slaughter, for there fell of Israel thirty thousand foot-soldiers. The ark of God was captured; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died.​

The lessons here are, hopefully clear. There should be a limit to the notion of transignification that we apply to objects. In all reality I have no problem per se in kissing a crucifix, or an icon, and cherishing the thing from what it represents, a thing beyond touching. It is critical clearly that we do not over infuse the object.

I once had a Crucifix given me by a dear friend, and I cherished it, for the friendship that had gifted it, and for the divine message that it carried, that we are now reconciled to God. One evening I had friends with young children for dinner. As we were having a polite conversation while the children amused themselves, we heard a strange and ominus kersplash kerplunk. We immediately moved to find the source of this unusual sound, and in the bathroom four one of the your children holding the naked cross from my friends gift. I asked 'where's Jesus' and received the reply 'I guess he got resurrected' as best as the four year old could enunciate that holy truth. I was able to locate the corpus in the cistern, however despite my best efforts the two items have ever since remained detached.

If I was to bow to the President, or in my case the Prime Minister, it would be in recognition of the office itself, and not the holder of the office.

 

In fairness, Jesus did say was 'do this as my anamnesis'.

235. The Sacraments are a privileged way in which nature is taken up by God to become a means of mediating supernatural life. Through our worship of God, we are invited to embrace the world on a different plane. Water, oil, fire and colours are taken up in all their symbolic power and incorporated in our act of praise. The hand that blesses is an instrument of God’s love and a reflection of the closeness of Jesus Christ, who came to accompany us on the journey of life. Water poured over the body of a child in Baptism is a sign of new life. Encountering God does not mean fleeing from this world or turning our back on nature. This is especially clear in the spirituality of the Christian East. “Beauty, which in the East is one of the best loved names expressing the divine harmony and the model of humanity transfigured, appears everywhere: in the shape of a church, in the sounds, in the colours, in the lights, in the scents”. For Christians, all the creatures of the material universe find their true meaning in the incarnate Word, for the Son of God has incorporated in his person part of the material world, planting in it a seed of definitive transformation. “Christianity does not reject matter. Rather, bodiliness is considered in all its value in the liturgical act, whereby the human body is disclosed in its inner nature as a temple of the Holy Spirit and is united with the Lord Jesus, who himself took a body for the world’s salvation”.

236. It is in the Eucharist that all that has been created finds its greatest exaltation. Grace, which tends to manifest itself tangibly, found unsurpassable expression when God himself became man and gave himself as food for his creatures. The Lord, in the culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation, chose to reach our intimate depths through a fragment of matter. He comes not from above, but from within, he comes that we might find him in this world of ours. In the Eucharist, fullness is already achieved; it is the living centre of the universe, the overflowing core of love and of inexhaustible life. Joined to the incarnate Son, present in the Eucharist, the whole cosmos gives thanks to God. Indeed the Eucharist is itself an act of cosmic love: “Yes, cosmic! Because even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar the world. The Eucharist joins heaven and earth; it embraces and penetrates all creation. The world which came forth from God’s hands returns to him in blessed and undivided adoration: in the bread of the Eucharist, “creation is projected towards divinization, towards the holy wedding feast, towards unification with the Creator himself ”. Thus, the Eucharist is also a source of light and motivation for our concerns for the environment, directing us to be stewards of all creation.

237. On Sunday, our participation in the Eucharist has special importance. Sunday, like the Jewish Sabbath, is meant to be a day which heals our relationships with God, with ourselves, with others and with the world. Sunday is the day of the Resurrection, the “first day” of the new creation, whose first fruits are the Lord’s risen humanity, the pledge of the final transfiguration of all created reality. It also proclaims “man’s eternal rest in God”. In this way, Christian spirituality incorporates the value of relaxation and festivity. We tend to demean contemplative rest as something unproductive and unnecessary, but this is to do away with the very thing which is most important about work: its meaning. We are called to include in our work a dimension of receptivity and gratuity, which is quite different from mere inactivity. Rather, it is another way of working, which forms part of our very essence. It protects human action from becoming empty activism; it also prevents that unfettered greed and sense of isolation which make us seek personal gain to the detriment of all else. The law of weekly rest forbade work on the seventh day, “so that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your maidservant, and the stranger, may be refreshed” (Ex 23:12). Rest opens our eyes to the larger picture and gives us renewed sensitivity to the rights of others. And so the day of rest, centred on the Eucharist, sheds it light on the whole week, and motivates us to greater concern for nature and the poor.

https://www.vatican.va/content/dam/...rancesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf​

I understand the this is from your tradition and not mine. None the less, in these words I think Francis speaks for a great deal of christendom East and West, though naturally enough this was not significant enough to be reported in the press. I thought to share it here, as I have found this helpful.