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The Legacy of Nicaea

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Re: The Legacy of Nicaea

#11

Post by Metacelsus »

schoen wrote: post #3

I forgot who formulated the idea that difficult-to-understand and difficult-to-believe doctrines tend to have a unifying force for religious communities because they tend to require members of those communities to be more serious about their commitments, or a way for them to show how seriously they take them, by asserting to doctrines that are difficult. This article says that Nicene Christianity is more difficult to…

See also: evaporative cooling of group beliefs (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p/evaporativ...)

Re: The Legacy of Nicaea

#12

Post by BigTTYGothGF »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #4

It would be nice to have a new Council, an ecumenical one, coming to agreement to unite Catholic, Orthodox, and as many mainline protestant churches as possible. It may require the Catholic church to make some sort of concession, which is probably the biggest obstacle. There is no question that not everyone could or would want to unite. But some progress would be nice. To take a historical example the Council of Chal…

Why would any of the organizations involved want to do this? Who benefits?

The material conditions are also very different, there's basically no sectarian violence anymore.

Re: The Legacy of Nicaea

#13

Post by gred »

shtzvhdx wrote: post #9
dvt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely unlikely, as there are a lot of theological dealbreakers: the Catholic veneration of Mary & the saints, Protestant sola scriptura & sola fide , Catholic papal infallibility, among many others.

Venerate: 1 to regard with reverential respect or with admiring deference 2 to honor (an icon, a relic) Merriam-Webster. What's the problem with venerating Mary? The Apostolic Church, East and Rome can over come their differences, there's little substantive difference.

Many Catholics believe that Mary was born without sin (immaculate conception), never died (assumption into heaven), can advocate to Jesus for believers (intercession) and has been crowned the Queen of Heaven. This goes well beyond "admiring" or "honoring". To complicate matters, many of these dogmas were only formalized by the Catholic church in the past 200 years. Quite a hard sell for the "sola scriptura" contingent.

Re: The Legacy of Nicaea

#14

Post by [deleted] »

schoen wrote: post #3

I forgot who formulated the idea that difficult-to-understand and difficult-to-believe doctrines tend to have a unifying force for religious communities because they tend to require members of those communities to be more serious about their commitments, or a way for them to show how seriously they take them, by asserting to doctrines that are difficult. This article says that Nicene Christianity is more difficult to…

[deleted]

Re: The Legacy of Nicaea

#15

Post by shireboy »

As we are in the holiday season it may enlighten readers to know St Nicholas, from whom we derive Santa Claus, was known for two things: secretly giving gifts to the poor and needy, and slapping heretic Arius at this council.

Re: The Legacy of Nicaea

#16

Post by dvt »

shtzvhdx wrote: post #9
dvt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely unlikely, as there are a lot of theological dealbreakers: the Catholic veneration of Mary & the saints, Protestant sola scriptura & sola fide , Catholic papal infallibility, among many others.

Venerate: 1 to regard with reverential respect or with admiring deference 2 to honor (an icon, a relic) Merriam-Webster. What's the problem with venerating Mary? The Apostolic Church, East and Rome can over come their differences, there's little substantive difference.

"Venerate" is a technical term here, so using the dictionary definition is incorrect.

Re: The Legacy of Nicaea

#17

Post by CGMthrowaway »

undershirt wrote: post #10
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #4

It would be nice to have a new Council, an ecumenical one, coming to agreement to unite Catholic, Orthodox, and as many mainline protestant churches as possible. It may require the Catholic church to make some sort of concession, which is probably the biggest obstacle. There is no question that not everyone could or would want to unite. But some progress would be nice. To take a historical example the Council of Chal…

But consider how each sect defines unity and the criterion for uniting to others. In my mind, to simplify: Evangelicals: we must agree to a common *subset* of beliefs Catholics: we must agree to allow contradictory belief systems under the primacy of a single “politically” unifying belief Orthodox: we must agree to unite under one belief system

The Catholics' willingness tolerating diverse beliefs under a single universal shepherd is key. A return to conciliarism (vs. a single pope), which was already the political system in the Catholic Church historically, at least for a time, could be one path to greater unity. Gets around Protestants' reticence to submit to the Pope and sidesteps the issue of papal infallibility.

Re: The Legacy of Nicaea

#18

Post by throwpoaster »

The Arian Heresy seems to arise perpetually. Now it is typically of the form, “Christ was a great religious figure, like Buddha, or Mohammed.”; “every religion has X, what makes Christianity different?”; etc.

Re: The Legacy of Nicaea

#19

Post by undershirt »

shtzvhdx wrote: post #9
dvt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely unlikely, as there are a lot of theological dealbreakers: the Catholic veneration of Mary & the saints, Protestant sola scriptura & sola fide , Catholic papal infallibility, among many others.

Venerate: 1 to regard with reverential respect or with admiring deference 2 to honor (an icon, a relic) Merriam-Webster. What's the problem with venerating Mary? The Apostolic Church, East and Rome can over come their differences, there's little substantive difference.

The differences between East and Rome are very substantive in my mind. The Holy Spirit operates in the Church differently (decentralized vs centralized), and they experience God differently (directly vs indirectly), and they even shape the Trinity differently, not to mention preservation vs development of doctrine.

To me, this means they differ on major categories: corporate, individual, divine, and temporal.

Re: The Legacy of Nicaea

#20

Post by CGMthrowaway »

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #12
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #4

It would be nice to have a new Council, an ecumenical one, coming to agreement to unite Catholic, Orthodox, and as many mainline protestant churches as possible. It may require the Catholic church to make some sort of concession, which is probably the biggest obstacle. There is no question that not everyone could or would want to unite. But some progress would be nice. To take a historical example the Council of Chal…

Why would any of the organizations involved want to do this? Who benefits? The material conditions are also very different, there's basically no sectarian violence anymore.

There is a lot less. I wouldn't say there is none. Not sure how old you are but many of us can remember the conflict in Northern Ireland. And today, one might look at the way the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been treated in the Russia-Ukraine War.
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