I asked Vox three theological questions which in all honesty I expected him to ignore as I know he hates theological debates and the inevitable retardation that follows.
I have a hard time talking to Protestants about Mary, because the normal average Protestant opinions about her sound like the most disgusting blasphemies to me, now that I am Catholic.
There's something almost Talmudic about their belligerent irreverence for Our Lady. We're talking about the woman who carried the DNA of Jesus Christ within her for every moment of her life on earth. The insistence on diminishing her as some sort of inconsequential vessel is the strangest aspect of protestantism for me.
Well, the Devil hates Mary because she is a woman yet he has no power over her. Martin Luther didn't like women much (since he advised to just rape the maid if the wife is not willing) so it's no surprise that the importance of the Blessed Virgin is gone in Protestantism. On the whole Protestants don't seem to like women very much with their "Purity culture" and such nonsense.
I think the enemy hates her so much because she has the position he always wanted, and yet she is just a human being.
Fallen angels think biological life is primitive and disgusting, and they can’t stand the fact that human saints, especially Our Lady, are exalted to levels they never had.
Imagine you’re a 14 billion year old incomprehensible Lovecraftian entity, and God on a whim makes some girl more powerful than you.
Jesus as God created his own body from scratch, as various 2nd century teachers said. Judaizers invented Mary due to their Talmudic matriarchialism. It would be more Docetic for God to become a baby as he could never be a real one becauae could never be a blank slate like a baby. God incarnating as anything less than a full grown man would just be fakery.
You haven’t been banned yet because someone correctly chastised you and you serve as example. Comment ever again and you will be banned and blocked permanently.
I am just curious: what "disgusting blasphemies" do you speak of? I understand the non-Christian attacks; the Bible records that the people of Nazareth thought she had Jesus by "stepping out" on Joseph (calling him son of Mary, not son of Joseph), etc. I truck no support of that.
I don't understand how saying "Mary was a woman with a husband, other kids, and the same flaws the rest of us have" is disgusting. Scripture makes it quite clear that sex inside of marriage and God's guidelines was ordained by God for the current age where marriage is necessary. Paul commands married people to have sex regularly, and to only abstain for short periods of time when otherwise fasting or praying, to prevent an opening for the Enemy to attack. The Jews were commanded to multiply, and under the Law a childless marriage was a sign of sinfulness and God's disfavor.... ("Jews had a concept of a sexless marriage" is a heretical invention of the third or fourth century AD by people who had no clue about first century Judaism.)
Mary wasn't perfect, but she was obedient when she needed to be. We don't need her to be perfect, and making her more than what she was obscures that God uses imperfect people to execute his perfect will.
You mean well, apparently, but you are abysmally ignorant of your professed religion. Mary had no other Children. She was set aside for God. What happens in the Bible to anyone who so much as touches that which is for God alone?
The only Jewish people set aside were the Nazarenes, and they did so as a foreshadowing of Christ. (IMHO, this is why the Jewish Christians continued the practice despite clearly believing that other parts of the Law were fulfilled.) And even then, that is for a period of time that ends with a sacrifice.
Again IMHO, but trying to attribute some special nature to Mary lessens both her and us. Mary wasn't sinless or free of original sin, she just obeyed God. It cost her years on the run from the Herods, her reputation ("bar Miriam" / "son of Mary" was an accusation of adultery), she got to watch her son get crucified, and then most of the rest of her family, friends, and church were martyred. Trying to make her into this perfect virgin super-woman is counter-productive and unnecessary. She's highly favored not because of her special nature, but for her faith and obedience DESPITE her all too human nature.
First of all, your ecclesiology leaves you with no position from which to accuse anyone else, least of all Catholics, of heresy.
Second, I sympathize with your position, having been Protestant myself until recently. I would rather not repeat what is blasphemous about typical Protestant mariology.
Rather, I advise you to look into Catholic Mariology. A proper Mariology is necessary for a proper Christology. He is just as much her son as he is God’s son.
I have been studying Catholic and Orthodox positions on Mary since 1991 or 1992, so please don't think I am coming at this from a position of ignorance. I am aware of the origins of the Marian myths in (or in parallel to) the third and fourth century pseudo-gospels. The third and fourth centuries were hard on Christianity: on one hand you had the last gasps of the Greek gnostics wanting to deny that Christ was a man, and you had the Arians wanting to deny his deity. The writings of the third century reintroduced Mary to emphasize that Jesus was a man born of woman, but the myth building then started around her like it did around Jesus himself.
Heresy really isn't that hard to define. The Councils of Nicea and Constantinople were all about trying to stomp out Arianism and define some easy checklists for Christians to use to diagnose heresies. From the Gospels to Nicea, there is no evidence anywhere in the record that any understanding of Mary other than "mother of Jesus" is required for salvation or understanding Christ's nature. Even Ephesus wasn't about venerating Mary, the Theotokos title was being rejected because people were grasping at the last straws of Arianism and trying to reject that Jesus as God could be born.
I am well aware of Catholic Mariology, I just find it undocumented, inconsistent, and unnecessary at best, and heretical in its extreme.
That will be enough from you now. I don’t detect malice in you, but your blasphemous nonsense remains blasphemous. I will leave your comments up but don’t comment here again.
Oh. A couple of more matters: today, April 23, is my 83rd birthday.
Secondly, I must commend you very highly, Mr. Filotto, Sir, on your exchange with Vox. Your patience is commendable. I find protestants to be extremely irritating. Thus I will not argue with any of them for any reason about anything.
I don't agree with everything you post, but I do appreciate your explanations of things, and the ability to learn about what true Catholics believe. It's quite enlightening, so thank you for your posts.
I'm rather mystified that he takes Jesus having "brothers" literally. While on the cross, Jesus willed His Mother to St. John as if she wasn't John's "own" before, pretty definitively indicating to me that John was *not* her son. If it was something where John didn't have responsibility because he was a younger son, then care for her would have passed to him (or to James) automatically after Jesus' death, if he was an actual son. But He had to explicitly delegate that responsibility.
Reminds me of the time when it was taught that politics, religion and money were never discussed. Especially with women in the room.
I'm inferior on the advanced theological level of the subject. A simple peasant grasp of the concept: The Catholic faith is the OG. Other faiths are an interpretation and reformation of the OG and will therefore always be lacking in full understanding and application.
I've been an avid, everyday reader of VD's blog since 2004 and his old WND articles. He helped me leave atheism and Misean Libertarianism, and I thought he did a good job explaing the errors of both those above and Calvinism. Overall, I like much of what he has to say.
But I have noticed he has a hesitancy to fully criticize Catholicism (I recall he had a post saying he wanted to avoid it but I can't recall why), and when he does, his style gets more rhetorical than usual. I even recall him saying something along the lines that if the Catholic Church had a holy pope, he still wouldn't join because of the same reasons as C.S. Lewis: "I'm a man of Ulster."
So I agree with your conclusion he wants to avoid having to submit to an authority he views as corrupt or dumber than him.
Everyone has a weak link in their mind. I like much of what Vox has to say and how he thinks on various subjects, but I've always found him weak on him explaining what he actually believes and what are his true objections to Catholicism.
And that's okay. I don't read him for his theology.
Indeed. None of us are perfect. Vox fails in multiple areas when it comes to Catholicism, and it's fairly obvious to rigorous thinkers, but then, as we all know, we all see through a glass darkly. Unfortunately, this specific "patch" of "smoke" over his glass is a rather important one, so I hope in time he finds his way to admitting it and perhaps polishing it a bit.
Thank you for the post. Alot of this is way over my paygrade and I did not understand half of what Vox was saying just by his posts/threads. You laid it out clearly and that is appreciated.
To a certain extent, I even somewhat agree with him that although there are rules, a probabilistic approach to salvation is not a bad idea. Or at least not a bad outlook, in that redemption is an option.
That being said, I'm still a proper Catholic, and having a clear cut set of rules is one of the main reasons it resonates so much with me. Frankly, I don't care for this level of theological debates because a) I'm not informed enough b) I can reference the 1917 code of canon law c) I can ask a priest and d) it creates discord among "serious Christians"(quotations because retarded so called Christians should be corrected)
It just always ends in the same way with me; who the hell am I to say what is proper doctrine when we have two mellenia of dogma, a bilble and the code of canon law? That is my layman take, correct me if I'm in error, but in the end I just do my best to follow the rules.
RE: Vox. Two things: 1) A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. 2) Vox's inability to see is most simply a matter of grace. Specifically, sanctifying grace, the existence of which no protestant believes exists. He. first, must see his own need for such graces: then he must ask for them.
In such cases of another of God's recalcitrant children, we can achieve more advancement in possible conversion of such a one by prayer, than by argument.
I have pretty much given up trying to convert ANYone by argument. If "they" ask me, I'll tell them (the truth), but if they want to argue with me, I won't.
Most people who argue simply want to prove they are right, and are not really interested in arriving at a solution. They really don't want to learn anything. They already know everything. What most of us really need is a huge dose of true humility. (HUMILITY: noun: to see yourself as God sees you.)
One last thing which came to my mind while reading your latest missive: from the Old Testament, and St. Augustine: Whom God loveth He chastiseth, and He scourgeth every son whom He receives. As St. Augustine pointed, out, "...even His own."
And since you are of Spanish/Mexican ancestry, and from the land of Our Lady of Guadalupe, you SHOULD be an informed and practicing Catholic. Instead, you appear to be horribly infected with anti-Catholic, and possibly pagan lying propaganda, which, again, you appear to be too stupid to notice.
You, Sir, obviously don't have any idea of what you are talking about. And obviously, you are of Mexican/Spanish ancestry. Just remember, if you throw out the Mother, the Son will be certain to follow her.
We real Catholics never "worship' the Mother of Our Lord: we respect and love her as the Mother of Her Son, and we hope that by doing so, we please Her Son.
Also, although you appear to be too stupid to understand this, I was simply quoting a King and a saint of HIS opinion about what HE would do, or wish to do, about anyone who denigrates the Mother of Our Lord.
Mary does not have to be sinless for Jesus to be sinless. We inherit our sinful nature from Adam, not Eve; this is abundantly clear in Scripture. The theory that Mary had to be sinless was a pseudo-Gnostic invention. When they couldn't strip Jesus' human nature, they theorized that "well he can't be sinless if he came from a nasty, sinful woman", so they pseudo-deified Mary to take away her human nature. And further and further out on the ledge they went: "a super woman wouldn't have sex, so Joseph has to be old so he won't want it", etc. Soon enough you're thirty feet out on a 5 foot branch.
We have records of Mary sinning. She told Jesus to execute the miracle of Cana when he wasn't yet supposed to start doing miracles, and told her he wasn't supposed to do it. She also came to the house with her family to take Jesus home as a madman, which was against God's will (Jesus uses the crowd to prevent them from doing so so he won't have to argue with them).
Everyone is different, but most Veneration borders on both Gnosticism and Idolatry, only saying term X1 is not equal to X2 when it sure sounds like X. Mary being sinless is in conflict with scripture, not documented in Scripture, and unnecessary. It is no more degrading to Mary to say that she was a sinful, saved person than it it degrading to say the same about Paul, Peter, the apostles, or anyone else in the church.
I must compliment you on your success in showing God's love through your ability to discuss apologetics in a rational, effective manner. The entire Internet has been uplifted by your wisdom, wit, and Christ-like behavior.
Why don't you read what is said in the bible about this matter and try to believe and understand it? Luke 1:28. The angel (Gabriel) said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." Does that tell you anything at all? She is "full of grace", and God is with her. What do you suppose that means? Or are you calling the angel a liar or stupid or infatuated or what?
The only truly biblical religion on earth is Catholicism. You protties pick and choose and ignore what doesn't suit you.
Here is a book for you to read (assuming you CAN read and understand):
My answer to your questions would have been: I do not engage sedevacantists. Their understanding of papal authority is dominated by the approximately 150-year period since Vatican I (they rarely cite documents prior to Pastor Aeternus), i.e., the period of peak ultramontanism, which has tended to morph into a hyperpapalism contrary to both faith and reason.
Then why are you here? Don't engage. Go away. Especially since you are both retarded, and a liar, given the whole of Canon 188.4 rests on a papal Bull ex-cathedra from the 16th century, you idiot, which predates Vatican I by a couple of centuries. Again, too stupid to comment here. don't do it again. Parma-ban/block will follow if you do.
Can an institution be used by God for the help and salvation of humanity? That is obviously true. Would this institution be infallible? Ah, there's the rub. Obviously, the God of Creation could create such an institution. It would likely be done in a way that is not immediately logical and obvious to the mind of man. I don't have much to say about this theological debate. I will say that my heart tells me that the Kurgan's interpretation has more heart and soul, and dare I say charity?
My father used to mock the idea of the Mary being a virgin. He struggled with faith and God and atheism his entire life. He also said, "Scientists haven't been able to measure or weigh the soul." Thus proving, I guess, that the soul doesn't exist. There's a kind of pedanticism and benighted rationality and focus on the visible that doesn't really lead in the right direction, spiritually. Well, that's enough theology for me this morning! Cheers, brethren. Into the fray.
A couple of points, as I think understand Vox's perspective on these points well enough:
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> The reason being He said He would be with us until the end times.
Correct. However, I do not think it follows that the church and/or doctrine must be infallible insofar as either are represented by a specific institution or organisation. The doctrine could be divinely preserved as it moves from, for the sake of argument, the RCC to the Russian Orthodox Church to the Church of England and then back again, as the specific institutions become more or less corrupted. "Church" meanwhile is the word used for the Latin "ecclesia", which goes back to the Greek "ekklesia", and *that* meant the public assembly of Athens, ie the citizenry, or at least those able to vote and such. To my understanding that's a rather more fluid and ambiguous term than the much more formal, structured approach taken with the church. So having a body of believers right up until the end times, even if they have never formally been a part of [insert denomination here] is also possible.
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> So… if I understand him correctly Vox believes God has a system (or rules), but he breaks it for love of us.
God breaking His system / rules is not necessary if the rules do not forbid Jesus from coming down and redeeming us.
So we're just little clueless leaves on God's river with no sure way of knowing what's right or true, according to your "maybe". And you think that is how a LOVING God would do things. We have very different definitions of love in that case.
And as per your logic, God's game with us is then just a boy playing with dolls too, since hey, it doesn't matter if we mess up, he'll just break the rules again.
1. Hardly clueless, given Scripture, but I agree that there is obviously less certainty with this approach compared to the RCC's position. As for definitions of love... I'm British and you're Venetian: say no more ;) ...
2. The point I was trying to make was that He is *not* breaking the rules or the system. because they allow Him to intervene.
Is there ever a line he does NOT intervene in? Or is not going to? Because if no… then it’s not actually love. We are puppets. And if yes, then there are SPECIFIC RULES.
See how that works?
And if there *are* specific rules why would a LOVING God not give you a way to:
A) know what they are
B) know they are the true (and therefore infallible)
There are definitely times that He will not intervene - the classic one from the Bible is blaspheming the Holy Spirit - but on (A) and (B) the fact is that people have argued for quite literally millennia over those rules, with no end in sight. When the Bible itself has (1) the Word is God, and (2) Jesus saying that He is the Word, that seems like a topic with very little wiggle room to say the least, but you know as well as I do how much the arguments over His divinity raged.
So what? We have 2000 years of empirical EVIDENCE! The Catholic Church rules when followed created the BEST situation and societies for humanity. Nothing else comes even close. And the measure of their success is DIRECTLY proportional to how closely they followed the rules. Protestantism literally caused the inversion of that.
Your “argument” like Vox’s and every other Prottie AT BEST boils down to “whataboutism”. As in “But you had a corrupt Pope (or 30)! Bit THAT Catholic is a bad guy! But, but, but…”
No. Shut the fuck up and pay attention:
1. The MAGISTERIUM is infallible. Not the people in it. So the People in it individually are irrelevant. All are flawed.
2. If you managed to get your head out your ass long enough to actually DO 1. above, THEN, pay attention to the RULES (the dogma) of Catholicism and realise that:
A) it uses ROMAN LAW. Not some bastardised legal system designed to protect the top criminals. So it uses LOGIC! So you need to be able to do logic and grasp the essence of Roman Law to even be able to follow the arguments and LOGIC of Catholicism.
B) every society that followed those rules, insofar as they did achieved awesome things unmatched by other societies that did not.
C) Catholic dogma has two parts: an immutable one (divine law) and a mutable part (ecclesiastical law), so don’t be a moron and conflate the two.
The ONLY “valid” argument Protties have against Catholicism is basically:
“Ah… ah… well… uh… (drool)… that’s like ah.. a LOT of words and like… rules and like Aw Mah Gawd, LOGIC to keep in one skull! And ah… too hard…”
Well, yes, yes, you are right, you were raised in a superstitious, nonsensical, contradictory, mass murderous fake religion that rejected reason as the whore of the devil from the start, so yes, you ARE too fucking stupid to keep up. So what you do then is what all Catholic peasants did for two millennia:
1. Realise these are things above your intellectual station and you have not the capacity to even understand them, much less argue about them, so…
2. Shut the fuck up and do what a VALID Catholic priest tells you. And lo and behold, insofar as you do, your family and life are better off for it.
3. In ANY case, don’t try to argue with someone that understands the things you are not even aware exist.
1. I understand the argument about the infallibility of the Magisterium & not the specific people.
2a. I know that Catholic Canon Law is based on the Roman system. However, as we're talking about the way in which we can (a) know God's rules for us, and (b) whether they are True or infallible, "you need to be able to do logic" is rather a big flaw in your argument given MPAI. You and Vox are both, I am quite certain, smarter than I am, and you can both, I am quite certain, do logic. Yet you both disagree. Plenty of other smart people capable of doing logic have also disagreed with arguments set forth by the RCC. If even very smart people are incapable of agreeing on what the rules are, and whether they are True, then the great masses of humanity haven't a hope in hell of doing so. This does not reflect well on the claim you made that God would have ensured those rules are discoverable by us, and that we could know them to be True.
2b. Yes, the Catholic legacy is very impressive, no doubt about it. I would say that the Orthodox legacy is also very impressive, albeit in different ways (and I think less so), and that even the Protestant legacy has been very impressive. Not nearly as long as the Catholic one, to be sure, but "it was all going swell until those dastardly Prots ruined it" could easily be changed to "it was all going swell until those dastardly Enlightenment thinkers ruined it" etc.
2c. I know.
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Again, if these matters are above my intellectual station and I cannot understand, let alone argue about, them... God has evidently *not* revealed what He wants me to do very well, has He? Per your argument, all I can do is go to a valid Catholic priest. How I'm supposed to judge the validity of said priest is not answered though. It's not like I can use logic after all - I'm not capable of doing it! I could go to someone much smarter than me I suppose... except that they disagree with one another (see: you, Vox, and plenty of others).
In defense of Vox on the Nicene Creed, we would never have got a filioque controversy if we had stuck with the 325 just saying "And in the Holy Ghost." Would be no need to argue about if he "proceeds from the Father" or "proceeds from the Father and the Son" if the procession wasn't mentioned at all. And it would match the Apostles Creed that also just says "And I believe in the Holy Ghost." Maybe the path for the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches to have unity is to drop any mention of the "procession."
Also, giving the title "the Lord and Giver of life," to the Holy Spirit only, and not to the Father and Son, has always puzzled me. What in particular makes this a title of the Spirit but not of the Father and Son? If anyone knows, please tell me.
Since I commented at Vox's place I will concentrate on the following observations. Please forgive my cod Latin.
1. There appears to be a revival in the UK (Deo gratiae) it is happening in the Roman Church and among the Pentecostals. It is not happening in the Anglicans, who have gone full clown world. So people want the gospel, and they want a visible church.
2. However all churches get corrupted continuously. This happened in the time of the Apostles -- and Paul warned Corinth about this and had to write to the Galatians about it. We can expect heretics, grifters, predators and the unrighteous to covet the place on the stage, in front of the altar. I have seen this happen in ultra-correct church groups (the magisterium has nothing compared with the most legalistic ultra calvinists) and more frequently among the more liberal. Thus all churches are imperfect.
3. My conclusion is that men are not that reliable. The Holy Spirit does guide us, but most of us are fairly deaf.
4. I therefore avoid slagging off people who have a theological model that is not mine. We are all fallen, we all cannot comprehend the mind of God, we all know in part. At the last day Christ will correct us.
What worries me is that many people who put on the Armour and waded into their typewriters to defend the Holy, Apostolic Bride of Christ -- when the prelates and cardinals were debauching the church -- are now broken, and at times faithless. I worry that their faith was in the human institution, and not Christ. When I hear that this Trad Cath or this Ortho Bro has lost his faith, because of scandal (ie offensive evil in the church) I grieve.
And that is happening all too often. We may find we are all hiding our clergy in the back room, because the gospel may be defined as hate speech.
When that happens, the fact that when two or three are gathered in the name of Christ will not be a formula, it will he the means by which we worship and commune with God.
1. truth attracts. Sadly most are deaf, dumb and blind to it.
2. no. ultra calvinists are the opposite of logical. they are idiotic legalists. As usual, as an anglo, you have no CLUE what Roman Law is like and yet you think you do and hence make a value judgement on it, which is ridiculously wrong.
3. The Holy Spirt does not guide Humanity as a general rule. The CHURCH and its apostles was entrusted with the truth and infallible doctrine of God. Because Jesus set it up that way. Anything other than following this infallible magisterium is a deviation from truth.
4. You don't need faith to point out idiotic lack of logic. And it should ALWAYS be pointed out, so people (with a brain) stop listening to idiots that can't reason their way out of a paper bag.
Why grieve for NPCs? They were never faithful. Just pretending. This is why the road to Hell is well travelled.
And I don't care at all if I have to hide a priest or two under the floorboards to help them continue their work. As the only thing the French ever said that was good: Dieu et mon droit.
I have a hard time talking to Protestants about Mary, because the normal average Protestant opinions about her sound like the most disgusting blasphemies to me, now that I am Catholic.
Their retardation in this is indeed a hard thing to stomach
King St. Louis IX once said about a Jew who had denigrated Our Lady: "...he should have a sword thrust into his stomache as far as it will go."
Amen.
There's something almost Talmudic about their belligerent irreverence for Our Lady. We're talking about the woman who carried the DNA of Jesus Christ within her for every moment of her life on earth. The insistence on diminishing her as some sort of inconsequential vessel is the strangest aspect of protestantism for me.
Well, the Devil hates Mary because she is a woman yet he has no power over her. Martin Luther didn't like women much (since he advised to just rape the maid if the wife is not willing) so it's no surprise that the importance of the Blessed Virgin is gone in Protestantism. On the whole Protestants don't seem to like women very much with their "Purity culture" and such nonsense.
I think the enemy hates her so much because she has the position he always wanted, and yet she is just a human being.
Fallen angels think biological life is primitive and disgusting, and they can’t stand the fact that human saints, especially Our Lady, are exalted to levels they never had.
Imagine you’re a 14 billion year old incomprehensible Lovecraftian entity, and God on a whim makes some girl more powerful than you.
Jesus as God created his own body from scratch, as various 2nd century teachers said. Judaizers invented Mary due to their Talmudic matriarchialism. It would be more Docetic for God to become a baby as he could never be a real one becauae could never be a blank slate like a baby. God incarnating as anything less than a full grown man would just be fakery.
You haven’t been banned yet because someone correctly chastised you and you serve as example. Comment ever again and you will be banned and blocked permanently.
Various second century heretics, you mean. Repent, heretic, and ask the Mother of God to pray for you.
No.
I am just curious: what "disgusting blasphemies" do you speak of? I understand the non-Christian attacks; the Bible records that the people of Nazareth thought she had Jesus by "stepping out" on Joseph (calling him son of Mary, not son of Joseph), etc. I truck no support of that.
I don't understand how saying "Mary was a woman with a husband, other kids, and the same flaws the rest of us have" is disgusting. Scripture makes it quite clear that sex inside of marriage and God's guidelines was ordained by God for the current age where marriage is necessary. Paul commands married people to have sex regularly, and to only abstain for short periods of time when otherwise fasting or praying, to prevent an opening for the Enemy to attack. The Jews were commanded to multiply, and under the Law a childless marriage was a sign of sinfulness and God's disfavor.... ("Jews had a concept of a sexless marriage" is a heretical invention of the third or fourth century AD by people who had no clue about first century Judaism.)
Mary wasn't perfect, but she was obedient when she needed to be. We don't need her to be perfect, and making her more than what she was obscures that God uses imperfect people to execute his perfect will.
You mean well, apparently, but you are abysmally ignorant of your professed religion. Mary had no other Children. She was set aside for God. What happens in the Bible to anyone who so much as touches that which is for God alone?
The only Jewish people set aside were the Nazarenes, and they did so as a foreshadowing of Christ. (IMHO, this is why the Jewish Christians continued the practice despite clearly believing that other parts of the Law were fulfilled.) And even then, that is for a period of time that ends with a sacrifice.
Again IMHO, but trying to attribute some special nature to Mary lessens both her and us. Mary wasn't sinless or free of original sin, she just obeyed God. It cost her years on the run from the Herods, her reputation ("bar Miriam" / "son of Mary" was an accusation of adultery), she got to watch her son get crucified, and then most of the rest of her family, friends, and church were martyred. Trying to make her into this perfect virgin super-woman is counter-productive and unnecessary. She's highly favored not because of her special nature, but for her faith and obedience DESPITE her all too human nature.
First of all, your ecclesiology leaves you with no position from which to accuse anyone else, least of all Catholics, of heresy.
Second, I sympathize with your position, having been Protestant myself until recently. I would rather not repeat what is blasphemous about typical Protestant mariology.
Rather, I advise you to look into Catholic Mariology. A proper Mariology is necessary for a proper Christology. He is just as much her son as he is God’s son.
I have been studying Catholic and Orthodox positions on Mary since 1991 or 1992, so please don't think I am coming at this from a position of ignorance. I am aware of the origins of the Marian myths in (or in parallel to) the third and fourth century pseudo-gospels. The third and fourth centuries were hard on Christianity: on one hand you had the last gasps of the Greek gnostics wanting to deny that Christ was a man, and you had the Arians wanting to deny his deity. The writings of the third century reintroduced Mary to emphasize that Jesus was a man born of woman, but the myth building then started around her like it did around Jesus himself.
Heresy really isn't that hard to define. The Councils of Nicea and Constantinople were all about trying to stomp out Arianism and define some easy checklists for Christians to use to diagnose heresies. From the Gospels to Nicea, there is no evidence anywhere in the record that any understanding of Mary other than "mother of Jesus" is required for salvation or understanding Christ's nature. Even Ephesus wasn't about venerating Mary, the Theotokos title was being rejected because people were grasping at the last straws of Arianism and trying to reject that Jesus as God could be born.
I am well aware of Catholic Mariology, I just find it undocumented, inconsistent, and unnecessary at best, and heretical in its extreme.
That will be enough from you now. I don’t detect malice in you, but your blasphemous nonsense remains blasphemous. I will leave your comments up but don’t comment here again.
Oh. A couple of more matters: today, April 23, is my 83rd birthday.
Secondly, I must commend you very highly, Mr. Filotto, Sir, on your exchange with Vox. Your patience is commendable. I find protestants to be extremely irritating. Thus I will not argue with any of them for any reason about anything.
Happy belated birthday 🎂
I don't agree with everything you post, but I do appreciate your explanations of things, and the ability to learn about what true Catholics believe. It's quite enlightening, so thank you for your posts.
You’re welcome. And no one agrees with everything anyone else believes, so that’s just normal.
I don't really have much to add.
I'm rather mystified that he takes Jesus having "brothers" literally. While on the cross, Jesus willed His Mother to St. John as if she wasn't John's "own" before, pretty definitively indicating to me that John was *not* her son. If it was something where John didn't have responsibility because he was a younger son, then care for her would have passed to him (or to James) automatically after Jesus' death, if he was an actual son. But He had to explicitly delegate that responsibility.
"And he also had another response from the AI he trained (I think) "
FYI, somebody else built that AI. Trained it on Vox's writing. He's on SG and recently created an X Vox DAI bot.
Thanks for the correction.
That wasn’t an AI that Vox was quoting. It was an email exchange with me.
The *replies* were by his AI; wakey wakey buddy. And your attempt at being a smartboi in those emails is pretty sad too.
Ah, I misunderstood. Thank you for clarifying.
Reminds me of the time when it was taught that politics, religion and money were never discussed. Especially with women in the room.
I'm inferior on the advanced theological level of the subject. A simple peasant grasp of the concept: The Catholic faith is the OG. Other faiths are an interpretation and reformation of the OG and will therefore always be lacking in full understanding and application.
As Chesterton wrote… the simple peasant version of things is almost always the correct one.
I've been an avid, everyday reader of VD's blog since 2004 and his old WND articles. He helped me leave atheism and Misean Libertarianism, and I thought he did a good job explaing the errors of both those above and Calvinism. Overall, I like much of what he has to say.
But I have noticed he has a hesitancy to fully criticize Catholicism (I recall he had a post saying he wanted to avoid it but I can't recall why), and when he does, his style gets more rhetorical than usual. I even recall him saying something along the lines that if the Catholic Church had a holy pope, he still wouldn't join because of the same reasons as C.S. Lewis: "I'm a man of Ulster."
So I agree with your conclusion he wants to avoid having to submit to an authority he views as corrupt or dumber than him.
Everyone has a weak link in their mind. I like much of what Vox has to say and how he thinks on various subjects, but I've always found him weak on him explaining what he actually believes and what are his true objections to Catholicism.
And that's okay. I don't read him for his theology.
Indeed. None of us are perfect. Vox fails in multiple areas when it comes to Catholicism, and it's fairly obvious to rigorous thinkers, but then, as we all know, we all see through a glass darkly. Unfortunately, this specific "patch" of "smoke" over his glass is a rather important one, so I hope in time he finds his way to admitting it and perhaps polishing it a bit.
Thank you for the post. Alot of this is way over my paygrade and I did not understand half of what Vox was saying just by his posts/threads. You laid it out clearly and that is appreciated.
To a certain extent, I even somewhat agree with him that although there are rules, a probabilistic approach to salvation is not a bad idea. Or at least not a bad outlook, in that redemption is an option.
That being said, I'm still a proper Catholic, and having a clear cut set of rules is one of the main reasons it resonates so much with me. Frankly, I don't care for this level of theological debates because a) I'm not informed enough b) I can reference the 1917 code of canon law c) I can ask a priest and d) it creates discord among "serious Christians"(quotations because retarded so called Christians should be corrected)
It just always ends in the same way with me; who the hell am I to say what is proper doctrine when we have two mellenia of dogma, a bilble and the code of canon law? That is my layman take, correct me if I'm in error, but in the end I just do my best to follow the rules.
RE: Vox. Two things: 1) A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. 2) Vox's inability to see is most simply a matter of grace. Specifically, sanctifying grace, the existence of which no protestant believes exists. He. first, must see his own need for such graces: then he must ask for them.
In such cases of another of God's recalcitrant children, we can achieve more advancement in possible conversion of such a one by prayer, than by argument.
I have pretty much given up trying to convert ANYone by argument. If "they" ask me, I'll tell them (the truth), but if they want to argue with me, I won't.
Most people who argue simply want to prove they are right, and are not really interested in arriving at a solution. They really don't want to learn anything. They already know everything. What most of us really need is a huge dose of true humility. (HUMILITY: noun: to see yourself as God sees you.)
One last thing which came to my mind while reading your latest missive: from the Old Testament, and St. Augustine: Whom God loveth He chastiseth, and He scourgeth every son whom He receives. As St. Augustine pointed, out, "...even His own."
Catholicism is 4 point Calvinism. You just admitted it. Therefore its heresy.
And since you are of Spanish/Mexican ancestry, and from the land of Our Lady of Guadalupe, you SHOULD be an informed and practicing Catholic. Instead, you appear to be horribly infected with anti-Catholic, and possibly pagan lying propaganda, which, again, you appear to be too stupid to notice.
You, Sir, obviously don't have any idea of what you are talking about. And obviously, you are of Mexican/Spanish ancestry. Just remember, if you throw out the Mother, the Son will be certain to follow her.
We real Catholics never "worship' the Mother of Our Lord: we respect and love her as the Mother of Her Son, and we hope that by doing so, we please Her Son.
Also, although you appear to be too stupid to understand this, I was simply quoting a King and a saint of HIS opinion about what HE would do, or wish to do, about anyone who denigrates the Mother of Our Lord.
So, piss off.
Mary does not have to be sinless for Jesus to be sinless. We inherit our sinful nature from Adam, not Eve; this is abundantly clear in Scripture. The theory that Mary had to be sinless was a pseudo-Gnostic invention. When they couldn't strip Jesus' human nature, they theorized that "well he can't be sinless if he came from a nasty, sinful woman", so they pseudo-deified Mary to take away her human nature. And further and further out on the ledge they went: "a super woman wouldn't have sex, so Joseph has to be old so he won't want it", etc. Soon enough you're thirty feet out on a 5 foot branch.
We have records of Mary sinning. She told Jesus to execute the miracle of Cana when he wasn't yet supposed to start doing miracles, and told her he wasn't supposed to do it. She also came to the house with her family to take Jesus home as a madman, which was against God's will (Jesus uses the crowd to prevent them from doing so so he won't have to argue with them).
Everyone is different, but most Veneration borders on both Gnosticism and Idolatry, only saying term X1 is not equal to X2 when it sure sounds like X. Mary being sinless is in conflict with scripture, not documented in Scripture, and unnecessary. It is no more degrading to Mary to say that she was a sinful, saved person than it it degrading to say the same about Paul, Peter, the apostles, or anyone else in the church.
Man…. I can feel IQ points dropping as read that nonsense!
I must compliment you on your success in showing God's love through your ability to discuss apologetics in a rational, effective manner. The entire Internet has been uplifted by your wisdom, wit, and Christ-like behavior.
It sure as shit hasn’t by your blasphemous retardation.
Why don't you read what is said in the bible about this matter and try to believe and understand it? Luke 1:28. The angel (Gabriel) said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." Does that tell you anything at all? She is "full of grace", and God is with her. What do you suppose that means? Or are you calling the angel a liar or stupid or infatuated or what?
The only truly biblical religion on earth is Catholicism. You protties pick and choose and ignore what doesn't suit you.
Here is a book for you to read (assuming you CAN read and understand):
https://www.eclipseofthechurch.com/Library/Martin_Corruptions.pdf
My answer to your questions would have been: I do not engage sedevacantists. Their understanding of papal authority is dominated by the approximately 150-year period since Vatican I (they rarely cite documents prior to Pastor Aeternus), i.e., the period of peak ultramontanism, which has tended to morph into a hyperpapalism contrary to both faith and reason.
Then why are you here? Don't engage. Go away. Especially since you are both retarded, and a liar, given the whole of Canon 188.4 rests on a papal Bull ex-cathedra from the 16th century, you idiot, which predates Vatican I by a couple of centuries. Again, too stupid to comment here. don't do it again. Parma-ban/block will follow if you do.
Can an institution be used by God for the help and salvation of humanity? That is obviously true. Would this institution be infallible? Ah, there's the rub. Obviously, the God of Creation could create such an institution. It would likely be done in a way that is not immediately logical and obvious to the mind of man. I don't have much to say about this theological debate. I will say that my heart tells me that the Kurgan's interpretation has more heart and soul, and dare I say charity?
My father used to mock the idea of the Mary being a virgin. He struggled with faith and God and atheism his entire life. He also said, "Scientists haven't been able to measure or weigh the soul." Thus proving, I guess, that the soul doesn't exist. There's a kind of pedanticism and benighted rationality and focus on the visible that doesn't really lead in the right direction, spiritually. Well, that's enough theology for me this morning! Cheers, brethren. Into the fray.
But WAIT! You said brethren! Have we the same mother?!
A couple of points, as I think understand Vox's perspective on these points well enough:
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> The reason being He said He would be with us until the end times.
Correct. However, I do not think it follows that the church and/or doctrine must be infallible insofar as either are represented by a specific institution or organisation. The doctrine could be divinely preserved as it moves from, for the sake of argument, the RCC to the Russian Orthodox Church to the Church of England and then back again, as the specific institutions become more or less corrupted. "Church" meanwhile is the word used for the Latin "ecclesia", which goes back to the Greek "ekklesia", and *that* meant the public assembly of Athens, ie the citizenry, or at least those able to vote and such. To my understanding that's a rather more fluid and ambiguous term than the much more formal, structured approach taken with the church. So having a body of believers right up until the end times, even if they have never formally been a part of [insert denomination here] is also possible.
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> So… if I understand him correctly Vox believes God has a system (or rules), but he breaks it for love of us.
God breaking His system / rules is not necessary if the rules do not forbid Jesus from coming down and redeeming us.
So we're just little clueless leaves on God's river with no sure way of knowing what's right or true, according to your "maybe". And you think that is how a LOVING God would do things. We have very different definitions of love in that case.
And as per your logic, God's game with us is then just a boy playing with dolls too, since hey, it doesn't matter if we mess up, he'll just break the rules again.
1. Hardly clueless, given Scripture, but I agree that there is obviously less certainty with this approach compared to the RCC's position. As for definitions of love... I'm British and you're Venetian: say no more ;) ...
2. The point I was trying to make was that He is *not* breaking the rules or the system. because they allow Him to intervene.
Is there ever a line he does NOT intervene in? Or is not going to? Because if no… then it’s not actually love. We are puppets. And if yes, then there are SPECIFIC RULES.
See how that works?
And if there *are* specific rules why would a LOVING God not give you a way to:
A) know what they are
B) know they are the true (and therefore infallible)
There are definitely times that He will not intervene - the classic one from the Bible is blaspheming the Holy Spirit - but on (A) and (B) the fact is that people have argued for quite literally millennia over those rules, with no end in sight. When the Bible itself has (1) the Word is God, and (2) Jesus saying that He is the Word, that seems like a topic with very little wiggle room to say the least, but you know as well as I do how much the arguments over His divinity raged.
So what? We have 2000 years of empirical EVIDENCE! The Catholic Church rules when followed created the BEST situation and societies for humanity. Nothing else comes even close. And the measure of their success is DIRECTLY proportional to how closely they followed the rules. Protestantism literally caused the inversion of that.
Your “argument” like Vox’s and every other Prottie AT BEST boils down to “whataboutism”. As in “But you had a corrupt Pope (or 30)! Bit THAT Catholic is a bad guy! But, but, but…”
No. Shut the fuck up and pay attention:
1. The MAGISTERIUM is infallible. Not the people in it. So the People in it individually are irrelevant. All are flawed.
2. If you managed to get your head out your ass long enough to actually DO 1. above, THEN, pay attention to the RULES (the dogma) of Catholicism and realise that:
A) it uses ROMAN LAW. Not some bastardised legal system designed to protect the top criminals. So it uses LOGIC! So you need to be able to do logic and grasp the essence of Roman Law to even be able to follow the arguments and LOGIC of Catholicism.
B) every society that followed those rules, insofar as they did achieved awesome things unmatched by other societies that did not.
C) Catholic dogma has two parts: an immutable one (divine law) and a mutable part (ecclesiastical law), so don’t be a moron and conflate the two.
The ONLY “valid” argument Protties have against Catholicism is basically:
“Ah… ah… well… uh… (drool)… that’s like ah.. a LOT of words and like… rules and like Aw Mah Gawd, LOGIC to keep in one skull! And ah… too hard…”
Well, yes, yes, you are right, you were raised in a superstitious, nonsensical, contradictory, mass murderous fake religion that rejected reason as the whore of the devil from the start, so yes, you ARE too fucking stupid to keep up. So what you do then is what all Catholic peasants did for two millennia:
1. Realise these are things above your intellectual station and you have not the capacity to even understand them, much less argue about them, so…
2. Shut the fuck up and do what a VALID Catholic priest tells you. And lo and behold, insofar as you do, your family and life are better off for it.
3. In ANY case, don’t try to argue with someone that understands the things you are not even aware exist.
1. I understand the argument about the infallibility of the Magisterium & not the specific people.
2a. I know that Catholic Canon Law is based on the Roman system. However, as we're talking about the way in which we can (a) know God's rules for us, and (b) whether they are True or infallible, "you need to be able to do logic" is rather a big flaw in your argument given MPAI. You and Vox are both, I am quite certain, smarter than I am, and you can both, I am quite certain, do logic. Yet you both disagree. Plenty of other smart people capable of doing logic have also disagreed with arguments set forth by the RCC. If even very smart people are incapable of agreeing on what the rules are, and whether they are True, then the great masses of humanity haven't a hope in hell of doing so. This does not reflect well on the claim you made that God would have ensured those rules are discoverable by us, and that we could know them to be True.
2b. Yes, the Catholic legacy is very impressive, no doubt about it. I would say that the Orthodox legacy is also very impressive, albeit in different ways (and I think less so), and that even the Protestant legacy has been very impressive. Not nearly as long as the Catholic one, to be sure, but "it was all going swell until those dastardly Prots ruined it" could easily be changed to "it was all going swell until those dastardly Enlightenment thinkers ruined it" etc.
2c. I know.
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Again, if these matters are above my intellectual station and I cannot understand, let alone argue about, them... God has evidently *not* revealed what He wants me to do very well, has He? Per your argument, all I can do is go to a valid Catholic priest. How I'm supposed to judge the validity of said priest is not answered though. It's not like I can use logic after all - I'm not capable of doing it! I could go to someone much smarter than me I suppose... except that they disagree with one another (see: you, Vox, and plenty of others).
One last thing: Mr. Filotto: Does the name Archbishop Arrigo Pintonello mean anything to you?
Not off the top of my head but I am notoriously bad with names.
In defense of Vox on the Nicene Creed, we would never have got a filioque controversy if we had stuck with the 325 just saying "And in the Holy Ghost." Would be no need to argue about if he "proceeds from the Father" or "proceeds from the Father and the Son" if the procession wasn't mentioned at all. And it would match the Apostles Creed that also just says "And I believe in the Holy Ghost." Maybe the path for the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches to have unity is to drop any mention of the "procession."
Also, giving the title "the Lord and Giver of life," to the Holy Spirit only, and not to the Father and Son, has always puzzled me. What in particular makes this a title of the Spirit but not of the Father and Son? If anyone knows, please tell me.
Since I commented at Vox's place I will concentrate on the following observations. Please forgive my cod Latin.
1. There appears to be a revival in the UK (Deo gratiae) it is happening in the Roman Church and among the Pentecostals. It is not happening in the Anglicans, who have gone full clown world. So people want the gospel, and they want a visible church.
2. However all churches get corrupted continuously. This happened in the time of the Apostles -- and Paul warned Corinth about this and had to write to the Galatians about it. We can expect heretics, grifters, predators and the unrighteous to covet the place on the stage, in front of the altar. I have seen this happen in ultra-correct church groups (the magisterium has nothing compared with the most legalistic ultra calvinists) and more frequently among the more liberal. Thus all churches are imperfect.
3. My conclusion is that men are not that reliable. The Holy Spirit does guide us, but most of us are fairly deaf.
4. I therefore avoid slagging off people who have a theological model that is not mine. We are all fallen, we all cannot comprehend the mind of God, we all know in part. At the last day Christ will correct us.
What worries me is that many people who put on the Armour and waded into their typewriters to defend the Holy, Apostolic Bride of Christ -- when the prelates and cardinals were debauching the church -- are now broken, and at times faithless. I worry that their faith was in the human institution, and not Christ. When I hear that this Trad Cath or this Ortho Bro has lost his faith, because of scandal (ie offensive evil in the church) I grieve.
And that is happening all too often. We may find we are all hiding our clergy in the back room, because the gospel may be defined as hate speech.
When that happens, the fact that when two or three are gathered in the name of Christ will not be a formula, it will he the means by which we worship and commune with God.
1. truth attracts. Sadly most are deaf, dumb and blind to it.
2. no. ultra calvinists are the opposite of logical. they are idiotic legalists. As usual, as an anglo, you have no CLUE what Roman Law is like and yet you think you do and hence make a value judgement on it, which is ridiculously wrong.
3. The Holy Spirt does not guide Humanity as a general rule. The CHURCH and its apostles was entrusted with the truth and infallible doctrine of God. Because Jesus set it up that way. Anything other than following this infallible magisterium is a deviation from truth.
4. You don't need faith to point out idiotic lack of logic. And it should ALWAYS be pointed out, so people (with a brain) stop listening to idiots that can't reason their way out of a paper bag.
Why grieve for NPCs? They were never faithful. Just pretending. This is why the road to Hell is well travelled.
And I don't care at all if I have to hide a priest or two under the floorboards to help them continue their work. As the only thing the French ever said that was good: Dieu et mon droit.