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? Every religion in existence has multiple and often contradictory interpretations of doctrine and what is and isn't "canon." Why should Christianity be any different? At least Catholics recognize Protestants and Orthodox as fellow Christians and aren't burning them at the stake for heresy anymore. That's probably the best we can hope for.
The Legacy of Nicaea
21–30 of 51 posts
Re: The Legacy of Nicaea
#22It directly lead to Magnus to fall and commit heresy
For those that don't know, the writers of Warhammer basically copied off of history and many other IP like Dune. In Warhammer, there was also a Council of Nicaea where it was discussed whether the use of psychic powers was acceptable in the Imperium of Man.
Re: The Legacy of Nicaea
#23This "rejection of reason" is also why we have anti-vaxxers and a host of other problems.
Rejecting reason is insanity.
Re: The Legacy of Nicaea
#24> “rejection of reason,” the same instrumentalized, utilitarian, and reductionist force that has pushed us to the edge of ecological collapse. This "rejection of reason" is also why we have anti-vaxxers and a host of other problems. Rejecting reason is insanity.
Re: The Legacy of Nicaea
#25As 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
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The biggest sticking points theologically today, from what I gather, arise primarily from 19th century Catholic pronouncements regarding papal infallibility and Mary, specifically the Immaculate Conception and how it relates to Original Sin. Most of the historical disputes (e.g. re miaphysitism, theotokos, unleavened bread, purgatory) have largely fallen away as misunderstandings.
In the case of papal infallibility, all ancient churches admit that the Rome pontiff held supremacy, but there was never agreement on precisely what that meant. The Catholic articulation of papal infallibility offends the synodal view of how doctrine is established, and while many Catholic theologians, including several popes throughout the 20th and 21st century, have publicly explained that popes can only legitimately pronounce what the church, synodally, has already accepted, the precise language used in the formal dogmatic pronouncement is too strictly worded. And it doesn't help that many fringe conservative Catholic theologians are more pro-pope than any pope since the the 19th century and promote this more extreme interpretation.
In the case of the Immaculate Conception, it's not so much that the Catholic view is unacceptable to Orthodox or Orientals, but that the Catholic doctrine is too specific (similar to infallibility) and excludes their alternative framing that beforehand had been understood not to be incompatible with union. Some (all?) the Syrians (Churches of the East), though, seem to accept it, despite not having a tradition rooted in the Augustinian articulation of original sin. And views of the Immaculate Conception among Orthodox and Oriental churches nominally in union with each other differ. (But to be clear, the differences are extremely technical; to most people, including Protestants and especially non-Christians, the varying views of all these churches would be indistinguishable, and theologians themselves often seem to articulate them wrongly, at least compared to how their patriarchs do.)
The Filioque also isn't a theological barrier. The way it's formally understood in Catholicism is not in conflict with accepted Orthodox or Oriental theology, but for various reasons Orthodox see it as an offense to synodality and respect for previous councils' compromises about how far to go in textually articulating the Trinity. I would think most Orthodox theologians see themselves closer theologically to the Oriental churches, but Oriental churches have changed the creed in much more significant ways--IIRC, the Armenian Church added whole new paragraphs. Not that Orthodox theologians are any more willing to overlook these changes, but they certainly don't make much hay about them.
Note that one of the ancient Syrian churches (I always get their names confused) is poised to reunite with the Catholic church. All the doctrinal stuff has long been ironed out, which took about a century, IIRC, from the beginning of earnest dialogue. The sticking point relates to the Catholic church demanding the Syrian church replace their organically evolved clerical disciplines and practices with comprehensive written canonical rules similar to the Catholic church (Latin and Eastern). In truth, the division between the Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental, and Syrian churches have always been primarily cultural (lay) and political (clerical), not theological. The theological differences have tended to be exaggerated on all sides in service of political (clerical, state, and social) machinations. The 19th century Catholic dogmatic pronouncements were largely triggered by political and social revolutions in Europe which caused turmoil among Catholics, with subsequent political and cultural backlashes that resulted in the peculiar theological focus that unfolded and overwhelmed the typical ecumenical circumspection of church leaders.)
Theological differences among churches nominally in union with each other are often arguably no less significant than between churches where union is supposedly not possible. And there has often been de facto union. For example, for several periods throughout the centuries the Orthodox and Oriental churches in Egypt de facto placed their churches under the authority of the rival patriarch while they weathered political winds and suppressions, without the feared theological contamination divisive theologians claimed were inevitable, and despite the claimed differences being deemed much greater and more incompatible than they're believed to be today.
Re: The Legacy of Nicaea
#27The ecumenical councils were in some ways the means by which they imprisoned and cut away what is valid (according to some presuppositions) to leave only what is sound (according to the presuppositions of the apostles).
It is the opposite of enlighenment carte-blanche thinking, to take a multivariate attack on delusion through reason anchored in a legacy of wisdom. Too bad the schism broke our understanding of this, but it is still preserved in Eastern Orthodoxy.
Re: The Legacy of Nicaea
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Lay members of these various churches certainly seem to believe there are huge theological differences, which they infer from the differences in day-to-day practices. But if you read the views of most of the high-level clergy and theologians in all these churches (and not the fringe, e.g. not the monks on Mt. Athos, or bishops trying to score political points), the differences are incredibly thin and not at all signi…
Re: The Legacy of Nicaea
#29> “rejection of reason,” the same instrumentalized, utilitarian, and reductionist force that has pushed us to the edge of ecological collapse. This "rejection of reason" is also why we have anti-vaxxers and a host of other problems. Rejecting reason is insanity.
The attempt to “rationalize” and discover what this higher intuition is saying might look like rejecting reason, even if temporarily. But I think it underscores what is really meant by “rejecting reason”— that understanding the true meaning of a logical argument requires a vigilant process directed by a higher moral directive, to ensure nothing “evil” is laundered through it.
Re: The Legacy of Nicaea
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Lay members of these various churches certainly seem to believe there are huge theological differences, which they infer from the differences in day-to-day practices. But if you read the views of most of the high-level clergy and theologians in all these churches (and not the fringe, e.g. not the monks on Mt. Athos, or bishops trying to score political points), the differences are incredibly thin and not at all signi…