De fe y razón - Of faith and reason

Creation of man: concordance between scientific findings, the Genesis account and Catholic doctrine

2011-09-25T13:49:00.000-03:00

We will deal with the subject of how to make compatible the Roman Catholic interpretation of the Genesis narrative about the creation of man with current scientific consensus on related subjects. First we will address two objections to the RC position and then will present a plausible conceptual framework that satisfies all scientific, biblical and RC doctrinal constraints.

***

The main objection that Professor Coyne raises against the biblical account rests on this supposedly scientifically-ascertained discrepancy, as stated in this post on his blog:

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/adam-and-eve-the-ultimate-standoff-between-science-and-faith-and-a-contest/

"Mitochondrial DNA points to the genes in that organelle tracing back to a single female ancestor who lived about 140,000 years ago, but that genes on the Y chromosome trace back to one male who lived about 60,000-90,000 years ago."

But plain fact is, recent scientific findings show not only that there is no such discrepancy, but also that, if 140,000 years ago is indeed the most plausible time for Mitochondrial Eve, there is a remarkable coincidence:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929711001649

The American Journal of Human Genetics, Volume 88, Issue 6, 10 June 2011, Pages 814-818

doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2011.05.002

A Revised Root for the Human Y Chromosomal Phylogenetic Tree: The Origin of Patrilineal Diversity in Africa

Fulvio Cruciani, Beniamino Trombetta, Andrea Massaia, Giovanni Destro-Bisol, Daniele Sellitto, Rosaria Scozzari

Abstract: To shed light on the structure of the basal backbone of the human Y chromosome phylogeny, we sequenced about 200 kb of the male-specific region of the human Y chromosome (MSY) from each of seven Y chromosomes belonging to clades A1, A2, A3, and BT. ... An estimate of 142 KY was obtained for the coalescence time of the revised MSY tree, which is earlier than that obtained in previous studies and easier to reconcile with plausible scenarios of modern human origin.

To note, the researchers were not from a Pontifical University but from Sapienza Università di Roma, a place where the Pope has not been exactly welcome lately.

***

The main objection that Professor Rosenhouse raises against Professor Feser's interpretation, as stated in this post on his blog:

http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2011/09/one_more_round_on_original_sin_1.php

is that it plainly disagrees with the account in Genesis 2: 4-8:

This is the story of the heavens and the earth at their creation. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens—

there was no field shrub on earth and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the LORD God had sent no rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the ground,

but a stream was welling up out of the earth and watering all the surface of the ground—

then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

The LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed.

We will show that Professor Feser's interpretation, or a modified version thereof, can perfectly agree with the Genesis account.

We will use this notation:

t-men = true men = theological men = metaphysical men = with an infused spiritual soul

q-men = quasi men = without an infused spiritual soul

where "men" above can be replaced by "women" or "people" as fit.

We have two basic possible cases for the creation of Biblical Adam & Eve:

1L. Spiritual-only Leap: they were biologically identical to the surrounding q-people, differing only by having been infused a spiritual soul.

2L: Physical & Spiritual Leap: they underwent BOTH a brain-enhancing mutation AND the infusion of a spiritual soul.

To note, Biblical Adam & Eve are the only t-people for which infusion of a spiritual soul could have occurred at any time after birth (and in our personal opinion, it probably occurred after they had become independent of their respective q-parents). In the case of all their descendants, infusion of the soul took place at conception.

Case 2L poses a problem with the conceptual framework proposed below in which t-men mated with q-women, in that ensuring that the brain-enhancing mutation would be passed on to the resulting t-offspring would have required some degree of divine intervention. On the other hand, case 2L has a variation 2L+ involving a far greater degree of divine intervention to provide genetic diversity. It was proposed by Drew in Professor Coyne's blog on a comment dated June 2, 2011 at 9:07 am:

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/adam-and-eve-the-ultimate-standoff-between-science-and-faith-and-a-contest/#comment-107005

and subsequently selected by Professor Coyne in this post:

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/winners-adam-and-eve-contest/

as the best way to reconcile Genesis narrative and genetic data regarding overall theological and biological plausibility.

We must point out that case 2L+ has the same disadvantage as the creationist view that the universe was created 7500-7200 years ago looking as if it were much older, including scattered fossils on earth of animals that never actually existed. In this case, mankind would look as if there has never been a population bottleneck smaller than a few thousand people while in fact we are all descended from only two people. Although to be fair, we must also point out that the quasi-miraculous divine intervention in case 2L+ (we say quasi-miraculous because mutations do happen naturally, though the degree involved in this case is extremely unlikely to happen by chance), in contrast with the creationist view of the age of the universe, not only or even mainly would have had the purpose of fulfilling the literal narrative of Genesis but also, and much more importantly, would have had the practical purpose of enabling mankind to achieve a healthy level of genetic diversity without having to resort to mating with beings that, while physically humans, were metaphysically animals. Still, in our view the conceptual framework for case 1L (or more unlikely 2L) that we propose below is just as plausible both theologically and biologically, though it might seem somewhat shocking to some theists. (And moreover, case 2L+ and our proposed framework could have coexisted.)

(Clearly, in creation case 2L+, Adam & Eve could have undergone not just a mutation but a full speciation event involving a macro-mutation.)

Now, even though Professor Rosenhouse may think that all human intellectual capabilities reside purely at the biological level, we will assume he is kind enough to allow theists to posit that the highest of those capabilities derive from the operation of a spiritual soul.

With that assumption, both basic possibilities for the creation of Adam & Eve perfectly agree with Genesis 2: 4-8, as q-people were just not intellectually able "to till the ground" by themselves. Which is quite obvious, since t-people actually started agriculture only 10,000 years ago. And it is also quite obvious that, from a metaphysical viewpoint, q-people, like chimps or gorillas, were just "dust of the ground".

***

We will now present a conceptual framework that, by imposing a most reasonable restriction on the possibility of interbreeding between t-people and q-people, satisfies all of the following constraints:

C1. Current scientific evidence for all living people being descended patrilineally from one most recent common ancestor or MRCA, "Y-chromosomal Adam", who lived approx. 142 KY ago.

C2. Current scientific evidence for all living people being descended matrilineally from one MRCA, "Mitochondrial Eve", who lived approx. 174 KY ago.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040580910000493

Theoretical Population Biology, Volume 78, Issue 3, November 2010, Pages 165-172

doi:10.1016/j.tpb.2010.06.001

Alternatives to the Wright–Fisher model: The robustness of mitochondrial Eve dating

Krzysztof A. Cyran, Marek Kimmel

C3. Current scientific evidence for no human or pre-human population bottleneck ever that was smaller than a few thousand people. To note, we are not qualified to say whether that evidence is solid or provisional, and just take it at face value for the purpose of this work.

C4. Genesis text.

C5. Catholic teaching on original sin, which only cares about Adam and fatherly transmission of original sin, as stated in:

- Trent: http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct05.html

- St Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2081.htm

C6. Zoological and historical evidence on how groups of chimps or people deal with other groups competing for the same land.

The proposed "Catholic concordant conceptual framework" is as follows:

Biblical Adam and Eve were created according to case 1L (or more unlikely 2L), as mentioned above.

Biblical Adam is Y-chromosomal Adam. Mitochondrial Eve could be either Biblical Eve or a matrilineal ancestor thereof, as explained below. (Clearly, in creation case 2L+ they are the same t-woman.)

Adam and Eve themselves had intercourse only with each other.

Starting with Adam's children, or perhaps grandchildren, t-people, and specifically t-men, had to start dealing with q-people competing for the same land, and they took care of them in the only way worthy of modern humans: by killing them all, with the possible exception here and there of some young attractive q-women, which were spared to be used as "wives", or more exactly sexual slaves. Hey, they looked as good as t-women but did not talk! What else could a hard-working, hard-fighting t-man ask for? Thus, the restriction is simply that t-men mated with q-women as extensively as needed to satisfy C3 above, but t-women never mated with q-men. (Clearly, in creation case 2L+ no interbreeding with q-people is necessary to satisfy C3.)

Here an objection could be raised about why a similar degree of interbreeding did not occur with Neanderthals or Denisovans in Eurasia after the Out-of-Africa event. The answer is quite simple: as the Neanderthal and Denisovan lineage had diverged from the lineage leading to t-men around 800-600 KY ago, Neanderthal and Denisovan females, in contrast with q-women, looked really awful from the perspective of t-men, so that very few t-men had such a terribly bad taste or were in such dire sexual need as to take them as sexual slaves.

Regarding the offspring resulting from t-men having intercourse with q-women, there are two possibilities that satisfy C2:

I1: Interbreeding resulted in t-men who were reproductively viable. Either there was no female offspring, or that female offspring was sterile. In this case Biblical Eve is Mitochondrial Eve.

I2: Interbreeding resulted in both t-men and t-women who were reproductively viable. In this case Mitochondrial Eve was the matrilineal MRCA of BOTH Biblical Eve AND all the q-women that t-men mated with.

This framework clearly satisfies C1, C2 and C3 by design. Satisfaction of C1 implies satisfaction of C5, as, in St. Thomas Aquinas' words, "original sin is transmitted to the children, not by the mother, but by the father." C6, though a much more loose constraint than the others, is also satisfied. Whereby we can now focus on C4.

Since we have already shown that this framework fully agrees with the account in Genesis 2: 4-8, we will now focus on another passage, Genesis 6: 1-4, where we add between parentheses the corresponding elements of this framework, to show their remarkable (and quite unexpected by this blogger) degree of concordance:

When human beings (q-people) began to grow numerous on the earth and daughters (q-women) were born to them,

the sons of God (t-men) saw how beautiful the daughters of human beings (q-women) were, and so they took for their wives whomever they pleased.

Then the LORD said: My spirit shall not remain in human beings forever, because they are only flesh. Their days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years. (Therefore the interbreeding was against divine will, as would be expected.)

The Nephilim appeared on earth in those days, as well as later, (could "later" refer to the much less frequent intercourse with Neanderthals and Denisovans after Out-of-Africa?) after the sons of God (t-men) had intercourse with the daughters of human beings (q-women), who bore them children. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown. (this seems to imply that those "children" born by q-women were only male, which would support I1 above.)

***

At this point some shocked Christian could argue: How could it be that God would have planned that the formation of mankind, at least at the level of its genetic diversity, be carried out through immoral actions? And the Christian answer is quite straightforward: Did not God plan that the redemption (new creation) of mankind be carried out through evil human actions like the betrayal of Judas and the condemnation of Jesus by the Sanhedrin?

In neither case did God positively order or even approve the respective evil human actions. Rather, from eternity, He foresaw them, permitted them, and included them in his creative/redemptive plan (CCC 311-312, 599-600).

On launching a joint study on the Shroud to ascertain whether it was stolen in 1204

2010-08-18T18:01:00.005-03:00

This post will be of a completely different nature than all the previous posts related to the issues of doctrinal disagreement between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. While previously I have focused on truth (orthodoxy) I will now focus on charity (orthopraxis). And the best introduction for this topic is probably what Jonathan Andrew Deane wrote in comment #130 to this article of his authorship (emphasis added):

Consequently, the commitment to ecumenism must be based upon the conversion of hearts and upon prayer, which will also lead to the necessary purification of past memories. With the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Lord’s disciples, inspired by love, by the power of the truth and by a sincere desire for mutual forgiveness and reconciliation, are called to re-examine together their painful past and the hurt which that past regrettably continues to provoke even today. All together, they are invited by the ever fresh power of the Gospel to acknowledge with sincere and total objectivity the mistakes made and the contingent factors at work at the origins of their deplorable divisions.

Pope John Paul II said in his book "Crossing the threshold of hope" chapter 22: "It is legitimate to affirm that between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox the difference is not very deep. ... At the same time, we must also note that the difficulties of psychological and historical nature are sometimes greater in the Orthodox Churches than in some of the communities born from the Reformation." Clearly the only way to overcome those "difficulties of psychological and historical nature" is by practicing charity, which "does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth" (1 Cor 13:6) and must be practiced "not in word or speech but in deed and truth" (1 Jn 3:18). But the practice of charity involves keeping the Commandments, including "you shall not steal". And if someone has sinned against this commandment, they must repair the harm caused, returning the stolen goods (CCC #1459). "Every offense committed against justice and truth entails the duty of reparation, even if its author has been forgiven" (CCC #2487). And in the case of theft, "in virtue of commutative justice, reparation for injustice committed requires the restitution of stolen goods to their owner: ... Those who, directly or indirectly, have taken possession of the goods of another, are obliged to make restitution of them" (CCC 2412).

I said before that I honestly believe that the One Church founded by Jesus subsists in the Catholic Church in communion with the See of Rome. But how can the See of Rome ask the Eastern Orthodox Churches to acknowledge its primacy of jurisdiction and its infallibility while it retains property that was stolen from them? And that stolen property is none other than the most precious Christian relic, the Shroud of Turin. There has been an overwhelming accumulation of solid evidence that the Shroud is the same relic as the "Mandylion" that was taken in an undetermined date to Edessa, where it was discovered in the city walls between 525 and 544 AD and placed in a church built specially for the relic, in which it was until 944, when the byzantine emperor Romanos I Lekapenos moved it from Edessa to Constantinople. There it was kept in the Imperial Palace until 1204, when it was taken to Athens and then to France as a result of the sack of Constantinople in the infamous Fourth Crusade.

Thus charity, by its requirement of justice and truth, demands that the Holy See, in view of the evidence accumulated recently - particularly by research conducted by staff of the Vatican Archives -, make an offer to the Patriarchate of Constantinople to undertake a joint scientific and historical study to ascertain whether the Shroud of Turin was indeed stolen from Constantinople in 1204, so that, if the study concludes in the affirmative, the relic will be handed over to the Patriarchate or whoever they designate (as it is possible that the Patriarch might not perceive Istanbul as the optimal location for the Shroud). This is legally possible because ownership of the Shroud passed to the Holy See in 1983.

The evidence comprises the following items (note particularly items 5, 7 and 8):

1) A greek manuscript with the sermon of Archdeacon Gregory of Hagia Sofia the day the relic arrived to Constantinople (15 August 944) [1]. This sermon had been lost, but was rediscovered in the Vatican Archives (Codex Vaticanus Graecus 511) and translated by Mark Guscin in 2004 [2].

2) A miniature from 1081 (Miniatura Skylitres (1081-1118)) showing emperor Romanos I Lekapenos (920-944) kissing the Shroud when it arrived from Edessa. In the scene the Shroud is unfolded and the emperor kisses the part of the head while other person holds the cloth. (Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, vitrina 26, 2, folio 131, r).

3) The cloth is in the catalog of relics of the Imperial Palace of Constantinopla made by the Nicholas Soemundarson (Thingeyrensis), an Icelandic pilgrim in 1157 [3]. It is also in a list from 1201 made by Nicholas Mesarites, the skeuophylax (overseer) of the treasuries in the Pharos Chapel of the Boucoleon Palace of the emperors in Constantinople [4].

4) The account by knight Robert de Clari of the Fourth Crusade [5]:

"There was another of the churches which they called My Lady Saint Mary of Blachernae, where was kept the sydoines in which Our Lord had been wrapped, which stood up straight every Friday so that the features of Our Lord could be plainly seen there. And no one, either Greek or French, ever knew what became of this sydoines after the city was taken."

5) A letter dated 1 August 1205, written by Theodore Angelos aka Theodore Komnenos Doukas, who was cousin of two former byzantine emperors and second uncle of former emperor Alexios IV Angelos (the one who had enticed the Crusaders to seize Constantinople), and addressed to Pope Innocent III [6]:

"Theodore Angelus wishes long life for Innocent [III], Lord and Pope at old Rome, in the name of Michael, Lord of Epirus and in his own name. In April of last year a crusading army, having falsely set out to liberate the Holy Land, instead laid waste the city of Constantine. During the sack, troops of Venice and France looted even the holy sanctuaries. The Venetians partitioned the treasures of gold, silver, and ivory while the French did the same with the relics of the saints and the most sacred of all, the linen in which our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after his death and before the resurrection. We know that the sacred objects are preserved by their predators in Venice, in France, and in other places, the sacred linen in Athens . . . Rome, Kalends of August, 1205"

6) Nicholas of Otranto, abbot of Casole monastery in southern Italy, travelled in 1205 with the papal legate, Benedict of St. Susanna to Constantinople. The most plausible interpretation of his account in 1207 is that he saw the burial linens of Jesus "with their own eyes" outside the capital, probably in Athens [7].

7) Max Frei, a renowned Zurich criminologist, in 1973 took pollen samples and identified a total of 58 different pollens on the Shroud. According to him, these pollens are native to areas around:
- the Dead Sea and the Negev
- the Anatolian Steppe of central and western Turkey (which includes Edessa)
- the immediate environs of Constantinople
- Western Europe

8) Barbara Frale, a researcher at the Vatican Secret Archives [8], announced in 2009 that, as part of her study of the trial of the Knights Templar, she had brought to light a document (the Chinon Parchment) in which Arnaut Sabbatier, a young Frenchman who entered the order in 1287, testified that as part of his initiation he was taken to “a secret place to which only the brothers of the Temple had access”. There he was shown “a long linen cloth on which was impressed the figure of a man” and instructed to venerate the image by kissing its feet three times [9].

This fits with the concidence between the name of one of the Knights Templar burned at the stake in 1314 with the Grand Master Jacques de Molay, Geoffroi de Charney (first name sometimes spelled Geoffrey, surname sometimes spelled de Charnay and de Charny), and the first documented owner of the Shroud in Europe, Geoffroi de Charny (first name sometimes spelled Geoffrey), who very probably was nephew of the former.

Those who support this initiative, apart from making statements to that effect in their sites or blogs, may want to send correspondence to:

Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/index.htm

President: H.E. Msgr. Kurt Koch

Pontifical Council for Culture
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/cultr/index.htm

Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Patrimony of the Church
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_commissions/pcchc/index.htm

Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_commissions/archeo/index.htm

President (of all 3 above): H.E. Msgr. Gianfranco Ravasi

Notably, Msgr. Ravassi prepared the meditations for the Way of the Cross on Good Friday 2007, which featured biblical stations, as opposed to traditional [10]. At the station "Jesus is denied by Peter", Msgr. Ravassi reflected upon

all of us who daily make petty betrayals, protecting ourselves with cowardly justifications, letting ourselves be overcome with base fears. But, like the Apostle, we too can take the road that brings us to Christ’s gaze and we can hear him give us the same charge: you, too, "once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers!"

Let's pray that Msgr. Ravassi can make the case to the Successor of Peter that turning back from the betrayals of past generations may be the only path to be able again to strenghthen his Eastern brothers.

References:

[1] http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/terms/Gregory_Referendarius.htm

[2] http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/guscin3.pdf

[3] http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/terms/Nicholas_Soemundarson.htm

[4] http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/terms/Nicholas_Mesarites.htm

[5] http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/terms/Robert_Of_Clari.htm

http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/clari4.htm

[6] http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/terms/Theodore_Angelus.htm

[7] http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/terms/Nicholas_Of_Otranto.htm

[8] http://asv.vatican.va/en/pers/personale/Barbara_Frale.htm

[9] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6040521.ece

http://www.vatican.va/news_services/or/or_quo/cultura/079q04a1.html (in Italian)

http://www.vatican.va/news_services/or/or_quo/cultura/137q05a1.html (in Italian)

[10] http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2007/documents/ns_lit_doc_20070406_via-crucis_en.html

Discerning where the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus subsists

2010-08-18T13:15:00.016-03:00

It is important at this juncture to state plainly the main purpose of this site: help people make their way to the fullness of the knowledge and love of God by becoming members of Jesus Christ in his mystical body which is the Catholic Church. This is the one Universal Church in which subsists the fullness of Christ's body united with its Head, the Church that receives from Christ "the fullness of the means of salvation" which He has willed:

1. correct and complete confession of faith,

2. full sacramental life, and

3. ordained ministry in apostolic succession (which is a prerequisite for 2).

Additionally, this Catholic Church, by enjoying continued divine assistance including infallible magisterial authority, does not suffer from the problems of ecclesiastical deism and definition of the scriptural canon that affect Protestantism.

Let's place ourselves for a moment in the shoes of the people making that journey. They see a menu of "totalities of particular Churches in communion with one another" that might in principle be "the" one Catholic Church founded by Christ: RC, EO, OO and SSPX (the last included only as theoretical example), in order of decreasing volume. Then they start to narrow the menu by making these initial steps:

- Regarding SSPX, it is impossible that, if until 1962 the RC was "the" Church, then at Vatican II only one RC bishop (Lefebvre) was right and all the other RC bishops and the Pope were wrong. So this option is discarded.

- Regarding OO, it is necessary to examine the historical context of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. This is because the discernment of whether the Catholic Church subsists in the RC, EO or OO candidates cannot possibly be done by using principles specific to any of the candidates. Therefore the following facts must be checked:

- Second (“Robber” for RCs and EOs) Council of Ephesus in 449: 130 attendants. Council of Chalcedon in 451: at least 370 attendants, who in their overwhelming majority signed its confession of faith.

- Was the high number of diophysite attendants in Chalcedon due to the diophysite side having embarked on a massive consecration of bishops during the run-up to the Council in order to tilt the vote to their favor? No.

- Were many of those signing the diophysite position pressed in any way by the emperor so as to render their vote invalid? No.

Therefore the OO option is discarded.

Thus those comprising the target audience of this site have to choose between the RC and EO options. The choice is not trivial because the issues of doctrinal disagreement between RCs and EOs (mainly Filioque, Papal Primacy and those related to Palamism) are serious enough that, as a consequence, the technical position of each side is that the other side is in material heresy in a number of matters (even when members of a particular side may choose not to use the h-word for reasons of charity or courtesy). As a result, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus subsists in only one of the two sides. Notably, each side has a completely different view on the consequences of this objective reality on the status of the other side regarding possession of the means of salvation listed above. Thus:

- RCs believe that EOs lack 1 but have 2 and 3.

- most EOs believe that RCs lack 1, 2 and 3.

Let's review the issues of doctrinal disagreement and their status to appreciate their seriousness:

- The Lateran IV Ecumenical Council (1215) defined the dogma of Absolute Divine Simplicity (ADS), which was confirmed by the Vatican I Ecumenical Council in its Constitution "Dei Filius" (1870). The teachings of EO St Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), which were adopted by the EO Churches in three councils held in Constantinople (1341, 1347 and 1351), are against that dogma.

- Pope Benedict XII in his Constitution "Benedictus Deus" (1336) defined the dogma of Beatific Vision whereby saints in Heaven see the divine essence, which was confirmed by the Ecumenical Council of Florence (1439). The teachings of EO St Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), which were adopted by the EO Churches in three councils held in Constantinople (1341, 1347 and 1351), are against that dogma.

- The Ecumenical Councils of Lyon II (1274) and Florence (1439) defined dogmatically, quoting from the latter, "that the holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son, and has his essence and his subsistent being from the Father together with the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and a single spiration", doctrine commonly designated as Filioque. EOs do not accept that dogma, with some EOs denying it outright and other EOs considering it just a theologumenon.

- The Ecumenical Council of Florence (1439) defined the dogma of papal primacy, which was confirmed by the Vatican I Ecumenical Council in its Constitution "Pastor Aeternus" (1870), which added the definition of papal infallibility. Both dogmas are denied by EOs.

To discern in which side the One Church founded by Jesus subsists, the primary path is to check which of the two doctrinal positions is supported or refuted by the 73 books of the Bible (72 if we count Jeremiah and Lamentations as one) that both sides recognize as inspired. Here is a summary of the results of the checks I made in previous posts:

Filioque: RC position supported by Jn 17:26 and Rev 22:1.

Papal Primacy: RC position strongly supported by Mt 16:17-19 and additionally by Jn 21:15-17.

Teachings of EO St Gregory Palamas:

O1. "God is being and not being." Against Ex 3:14 and Wis 13:1. Strongly against Jn 4:24.

O2. Divine essence-energies distinction.

O3. Deification (theosis) through divine energies only. Strongly against Jn 17:26.

O4. Saints in Heaven see only the divine energies. Strongly against 1 Cor 13:12 and 1 Jn 3:2. Against Mt 5:8.

Therefore the biblical texts overwhelmingly support the RC position in almost all the points of disagreement, and are neutral in the rest.

The secondary path to confirm which side is the One Church founded by Jesus is to examine the Ecumenical Councils of Lyon II and Florence, which were attended by Eastern bishops who in their overwhelming majority (in Florence all the Eastern bishops but one) approved the decrees defining the doctrine of Filioque. Regarding those Councils, there are two possibilities:

a. That at least one of those Councils was indisputably Ecumenical (and not just "RC" Ecumenical, which of course for RCs are truly Ecumenical), meaning by that that the positive vote of the majority of Eastern bishops was valid. In this case, the fact that both Councils are accepted by RCs and rejected by EOs would independently confirm that the One Universal Church founded by Jesus subsists in the RC Church.

b. That in both Councils most of the Eastern bishops did not act freely and in right conscience, but were pressed and/or bribed in a way that rendered their vote invalid. To note, this latter possibility would not prevent both Councils from being "RC" Ecumenical, neither would it affect the conclusion from the examination of biblical passages that the One Universal Church founded by Jesus subsists in the RC Church. It would just not provide additional independent confirmation for that conclusion.

It should be noted that, independently of the final result of the discernment, since there is only one Universal Church founded by Jesus, and from the serious doctrinal disagreements between the RC and EO sides it is clear that the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus subsists in only one of the two sides, then only one of the two sides can be properly called "Church" as a whole, and the proper term for the totality of particular Churches comprising the other side is "the XX Churches".

Thus the proper terms for the sides as a whole are either

a. "the RC Church" and "the EO Churches", or

b. "the RC Churches" and "the EO Church".

If my plain stating of this fact sounds uncharitable to some ears, I strongly suggest reading the "Note on the expression "Sister Churches"" from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, dated June 30, 2000 and signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The core points are 9 to 12. It's at:

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000630_chiese-sorelle_en.html

Appendix:

It might be useful to have a formal description of the framework involved in this discernement. Let us call System any of the options among which we are discerning, so that:

System = {Sources, Entities, Corpus, Rules}

Thus, a System is comprised of (the examples of Sources and Entities are from the RC Church):

- Sources of Divine Revelation = {Scripture, Tradition}

- Authoritative Entities = {Ecumenical Council, Pope}

- Corpus: definitions by Entities of the content of the divine revelation in the Sources, including the identification of the Sources

- Rules: Subset of Corpus defining Entities, how they work, and particularly how they define the Corpus.

The one divinely-founded System must exhibit several levels of logical consistency:

1. Instrumental: capacity for identifying infallibly and dynamically (i.e. at any time as needed) the content of the divine revelation in the Sources (and the Sources themselves), and for transmitting that content trans-historically and geographically.

2. Historical: abidance by Rules.

3. Internal: absence of contradiction between definitions in Corpus and content of Sources, and between definitions in Corpus themselves.

4. External: absence of contradiction between definitions in Corpus and physical laws or historical facts.

5. Extraordinary: confirmation by occasional targeted breakings of physical laws (miracles).

I posit that all five levels of logical consistency are relevant in principle to discern between Systems, although in some practical cases the evidence from looking at one of the levels might be strong enough to dispense with the need to look at the others. Thus I discarded the OO option above on the basis of just historical consistency, by looking at historical context for the Council of Chalcedon. The importance of external consistency can be appreciated by imagining the consequences to any System that had defined geocentrism as dogma. (By the way, the RC Church never did so, even when its authorities prohibited for a long time the publication of books supporting that theory and, as is well known, gave Galileo a hard time.)

Thus, the main levels for discerning between the RC and EO options are:

- instrumental: superbly covered in Ray Stamper's comments #88 and #89 to this article), and

- internal: covered in my previous posts and summarized above.

As I said above, in order for the EO Churches to exhibit historical consistency, it is critical for them to claim that in Lyon II (1274) and Florence (1439) the third point in the examination above of the Council of Chalcedon applied to the Eastern bishops, who were either pressed by the Emperor in the first case and practically bribed by the Pope, in the context of the Ottoman threat, in the second. Sure enough that claim does not cause the RC Church to exhibit historical inconsistency, because the Western bishops were under no pressure.

Finally, regarding extraordinary consistency, either the RC Church has received ample confirmation at this level, or many RC Saints had very serious mental problems or were pathological liars, or the RC Church has been forsaken by God as playground for the dark side. (BTW, I am talking only about RC Church-approved miracles like Lourdes. I perceive Medjugorje as a purely human phenomenon in the very best case.)

Point 4. Beatific Vision: angels and saints see the divine essence.

2010-08-15T18:46:00.019-03:00

I will finally address the fourth of the four points of RC-EO disagreement related to the teachings of EO St Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), which is, in its RC and EO versions:

C4. Beatific Vision: Pope Benedict XII in his Constitution "Benedictus Deus" (1336) defined that saints in Heaven "see the divine essence with an intuitive vision and even face to face, without the mediation of any creature by way of object of vision; rather the divine essence immediately manifests itself to them, plainly, clearly and openly, and in this vision they enjoy the divine essence." The Ecumenical Council of Florence (1439) confirmed it in a more succint manner, defining that saints in Heaven "clearly behold the triune God as he is".

On the other hand, RC St Thomas Aquinas distinguishes between vision and comprehension. Creatures in the beatific vision see the whole, but they do not comprehend it wholly. Only God wholly comprehends God, as no created intellect can comprehend the divine essence (according to Aquinas, not even the glorified soul of Jesus, although I do not know whether this specific point is generally accepted RC doctrine or just Aquinas' personal opinion.)

O4. Saints in Heaven do not see the divine essence, only the divine energies.

Of course, one way to solve the disagreement would be to prove that there is no ontological distinction between the divine essence and energies, i.e. to solve point 2. However, I will proceed the other way.

There are two NT passages that are most relevant regarding this issue:

At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. (1 Cor 13:12)

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 Jn 3:2)

Most clearly, the statements that "I shall know fully, as I am fully known." and that "we shall see him as he is" are not compatible with Palamas' doctrine that the blessed do not see the divine essence. Moreover, the Pauline statement seems at first sight even incompatible with Aquinas' restriction that the blessed do not comprehend the divine essence, because God certainly does comprehend mine!

Regarding the possible objection that the two quoted passages refer to the vision of Jesus in glory like (Rev 1:13-16) and not to the vision of God, an objection which seems to be reinforced by the Pauline reference to God "whom no human being has seen or can see" (1 Tim 6:16), I answer:

First, that the interpretation of the two passages quoted first as referring to the vision of God and not (only) of Jesus in glory is the most logical by far is clearly seen when we take into account that:

1. It does not make sense to refer to the future vision as the two passages do if it is only of a (however much) glorified human nature.

2. The last noun before "he" and "him" in the second passage is "God" (which unequivocally refers to the Father as it is used in the expression "children of God"), and therefore those pronouns refer to God.

Second, that St Paul's statement at (1 Tim 6:16) refers only to human beings on earth is clearly seen when we read it in conjunction with Jesus' statement: "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God" (Mt 5:8). And at this point it may be useful to compare the interpretations of both statements on the vision of God, regarding:

- what is meant by "God", and
- the circumstances of the vision or lack thereof.

xx -- The clean of heart will see God (Mt 5:8). -- No man has seen or can see God (1 Tim 6:16).

RC -- Essence, in Heaven. -- Essence, on earth.

EO -- Energies, in Heaven and on earth. -- Essence, on earth and in Heaven.

While the EO interpretation of "God" in (Mt 5:8) as referring to the divine energies and in (1 Tim 6:16) as referring to the divine essence is clearly arbitrary, the RC interpretation of (Mt 5:8) as referring to Heaven and of (1 Tim 6:16) as referring to earth is completely logical as it derives directly from the verbal tense used in each statement:

(Mt 5:8): "will see" = future => in Heaven

(1 Tim 6:16): "has seen or can see" = past and present => on earth

Point 3. Union with God is through his essence. Also Filioque.

2010-08-15T18:35:00.003-03:00

The second and third of the four points of RC-EO disagreement related to the teachings of EO St Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) are, in their EO version:

O2. There is a real, ontological distinction between divine essence and divine energies. God is his essence and his energies. The divine essence is the cause of the divine energies, which are uncreated. Each divine Person is the divine essence and the divine energies.

O3. Deification (theosis) is union with God through his energies (uncreated energy of the Holy Spirit = uncreated grace), and not through his essence.

Let's assume for a moment that O2 is true, and examine O3 in light of the last statement in Jesus' priestly prayer:

"I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." (Jn 17:26)

Jesus is asking that "the love with which the Father has loved Him" may be in us. Is Jesus talking about the love with which the Father eternally loves the Son in the Godhead, or about the love with which the Father loves the Son in his human nature? The answer is just two verses before:

"that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world." (Jn 17:24)

and in case there were any remaining doubts related to which one is the nature whose glory Jesus is talking about (which should be clear from the past tense anyway), there is this also this verse:

"And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed." (Jn 17:5)

Therefore it is clear that "the love with which the Father has loved Jesus", which Jesus asks that "may be in us", is the love with which the Father eternally loves the Son in the Godhead. Now, assuming that there is a real, ontological distinction between divine essence and energies, the love with which the Father eternally loves the Son "ad-intra" must necessarily be at the level of the essence. And if this love is in us, then the proposition that we only interact with God's energies is false.

Now, let's try to learn more about that love by looking again at Jn 17:26. Jesus is placing that love on an equal standing with Himself regarding the desired presence of both in the disciples. This can be seen even more clearly in some translations of that verse, such as in the New Jerusalem Bible:

"so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them." (Jn 17:26b)

The only possible interpretation then is that the love with which the Father eternally loves the Son in the Godhead is the Holy Spirit. So Jesus is asking that the Holy Spirit may be in us. He is thus fulfilling at this moment the promise He had made earlier to the disciples:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate ("Paraclete") to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you. (Jn 14:16-17)

And at this point, with the help of God and asking for the light of the Holy Spirit, we can address the issue of Filioque. Can the love with which the Father eternally loves the Son remain unidireccional? Will not the Son reciprocate by eternally loving the Father with the same love? Or does this truth revealed by Jesus apply only to the activity of the Son "ad-extra":

To this Jesus replied: "In all truth I tell you, by himself the Son can do nothing; he can do only what he sees the Father doing: and whatever the Father does the Son does too." (Jn 5:19)

If God is love, and if the Son is "the exact imprint of God's being" (Hb 1:3), there can be no possible doubt that the love with which the Father eternally loves the Son is eternally and equally reciprocated. And since this love is the Holy Spirit, this is a most clear and firm basis for affirming "that the holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son, ... and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and a single spiration." (Ecumenical Council of Florence, session 6)

So, the Filioque is central to the RC conception of God.

Point 1. God is He Who Is.

2010-08-15T18:16:00.057-03:00

I will address here the first of the four points of RC-EO disagreement related to the teachings of EO St Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), which is, in its EO version:

O1. "God is being and not being." (EO St Gregory Palamas)

The biblical passage that is most relevant regarding this issue is precisely the fundamental revelation for both the Old and the New Covenants: the revelation of the divine name to Moses in the theophany of the burning bush:

God said to Moses, "I Am Who I Am." And He said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I Am has sent me to you.'" (Ex 3:14)

The expressions in bold above, which in the original Hebrew text are:

"Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" = "I Am Who I Am"
and
"Ehyeh" = "I Am"

were translated in the Septuagint as:

"Ego Eimi Ho On" = "I Am The One Who Is" / "I Am He Who Is"
and
"Ho On" = "The One Who Is" / "He Who Is".

The fact that the Septuagint translators chose this rendering instead of the (counterfactual) literal translation "Ego Eimi Ho Ego Eimi" is not seen as a fluke by Roman Catholics (RCs) and Eastern Orthodox (EOs) but as a providential design, intended to enable the synthesis between ontology and biblical faith. To note, the Christian certainty that the Septuagint rendering conveys the correct sense of the original Hebrew text does not arise only, or even primarily, from linguistic or philosophical reasons, but from two facts:

a. It is confirmed by a key teaching in one of the two Old Testament books originally written in Greek, the Wisdom of Solomon, a teaching which clearly echoes in Rom 1:19-21:

For all men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing Him Who Is, (Wis 13:1)

The coincidence is even clearer in the NETS Septuagint translation at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/, where both Exodus' "He Who Is" and Wisdom's "Him Who Is" are rendered as "The One Who Is".

b. It is in agreement with the centuries-old patristic tradition, as attested by the following two quotes:

St Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300 – c. 368). On the Trinity - Book 12 [1]:

"For according to the words spoken to Moses, He Who Is has sent me unto you, we obtain the unambiguous conception that absolute being belongs to God;"

St Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329 – 389 or 390). Fourth Theological Oration [2]:

"As far then as we can reach, He Who Is, and God, are the special names of His Essence; and of these especially He Who Is, not only because when He spake to Moses in the mount, and Moses asked what His Name was, this was what He called Himself, bidding him say to the people “I Am has sent me”, but also because we find that this Name is the more strictly appropriate. For the Name theos (God), ... would still be one of the Relative Names, and not an Absolute one; ... But we are enquiring into a Nature Whose Being is absolute and not into Being bound up with something else. But Being is in its proper sense peculiar to God, and belongs to Him entirely,"

To note, it is only in the context of the revelation of the divine name at the burning bush that we are able to understand these three assertions of his divinity by Jesus in John's Gospel:

"For if you do not believe that I Am, you will die in your sins." (Jn 8:24)

"When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I Am" (Jn 8:28)

"From now on I am telling you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I Am." (Jn 13:19)

And if any doubts remained that in the above three instances Jesus is claiming to be the same and only "I Am" of Exodus 3:14, they would be cleared by his statement: "The Father and I are one." (Jn 10:30), which clearly echoes the Shema: YHWH Echad, YHWH is one. (Dt 6:4)

Additionally, there is a well-known RC private revelation that provides a strong confirmation of this sense of Ex 3:14 and of its importance. In his Life of Catherine of Siena, RC Bl Raymond of Capua records what RC St Catherine (1347-1380) had often told him Christ taught her when He first began appearing to her:

"Do you know, daughter, who you are and who I am? If you know these two things you have beatitude in your grasp. You are that who is not; I Am He Who Is. Let your soul but become penetrated with this truth, and the Enemy can never lead you astray; you will never be caught in any snare of his, nor ever transgress any commandment of mine; you will have set your feet on the royal road which leads to the fulness of grace, and truth, and light." (Life, no. 92. Original: "Tu sei colei che non è; Io sono Colui che è.")

(BTW, this is a clear example that Church-recognized private revelations, while they certainly do not "improve" or "complete" Christ's definitive Revelation, can confirm the correctness of a certain interpretation of the Revelation. This is also the exact case of St Mary's words to RC St Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes in 1858: "I am the Immaculate Conception", four years after the dogma of the Immaculate Conception had been defined by Pope Pius IX.)

Catholic magisterium has always taught this sense of Ex 3:14, lately through John Paul II in two audiences (Jul 31 and Aug 7, 1985, available from http://catechesisofthepopes.wikispaces.com/The+Father? ), from which I quote (with a few touches to render the translation more faithful to the Italian original and some rephrasing in the first sentence of the second paragraph):

According to the tradition of Israel, the name expresses the essence. The Sacred Scriptures give different names of God ... But the name which Moses heard from the midst of the burning bush is as it were the root of all the others. He who is expresses the very essence of God, which is Being from itself (original: Essere per se stesso), subsistent Being, as the theologians and philosophers say.

A creature does not possess in itself the source, the reason of its existence, but receives it "from another." This is synthetically expressed in the Latin phrase "ens ab alio". He who creates - the Creator - possesses existence in himself and from himself ("ens a se").

To be pertains to his substance: his essence is to be. He is subsisting Being ("Esse subsistens"). Precisely for this reason he cannot not be, he is "necessary" being. Differing from God, who is "necessary being", the things which receive existence from him, that is, creatures, are able not to be. Being does not constitute their essence; they are "contingent" beings.

These considerations regarding the revealed truth about the creation of the world help us to understand God as "Being." They help also to link this Being with the reply received by Moses to the question about the name of God: "I am who I am." In the light of these reflections the solemn words heard by St. Catherine of Siena acquire full clarity: "You are that who is not; I Am He Who Is". This is the Essence of God, the name of God, read in depth in the faith inspired by his self-revelation, confirmed in the light of the radical truth contained in the concept of creation. It would be fitting, when we refer to God, to write that "I Am" and that "He Is" in capitals, reserving the lower case for creatures. This would also signify a correct way of reflecting on God according to the categories of "being."

Inasmuch as he is "ipsum Esse Subsistens" - that is the absolute fullness of Being and therefore of every perfection - God is completely transcendent in regard to the world. By his essence, by his divinity, he "goes beyond" and infinitely "surpasses" everything created - both every single creature, however perfect, and the ensemble of creation, the visible and invisible beings.

It is clear then that the God of our faith, he who is, is the God of infinite majesty. This majesty is the glory of the divine Being, the glory of the name of God, many times celebrated in Sacred Scripture.

And if it were objected that the self-definition of God as "I Am", "He Who Is" is not incompatible with Palamas' statement "God is being and not being", there is yet one more self-definition of God to consider: "God is spirit," (Jn 4:24) which is clearly incompatible with the notion that "God is ... not being". Thus it is clearly seen that, while the RC doctrine is in complete accordance with the biblical texts, the statement by EO St Gregory Palamas is not.

Moreover, this is clearly confirmed by St. Hilary of Poitiers in precisely the sentences following that quoted above, where the extended quote reads [1]:

"For according to the words spoken to Moses, He Who Is has sent me unto you, we obtain the unambiguous conception that absolute being belongs to God; since that which is, cannot be thought of or spoken of as not being. For being and not being are contraries, nor can these mutually exclusive descriptions be simultaneously true of one and the same object: for while the one is present, the other must be absent. Therefore, where anything is, neither conception nor language will admit of its not being."

And this is a key point because it is sometimes stated that the Filioque disagreement causes RC’s and EO’s to worship a different God. Here there is clearly an even deeper issue. Because for us RC’s, God is Being from itself, subsistent Being, absolute fullness of Being that is infinitely "above" the received, contingent, limited being of creatures, and definitely not “not being”. So we RCs do not worship a God which is “not being”. Our God is He Who Is, YHWH (blessed be his name). And He Who Is is our God:

Shema Yisrael YHWH Eloheinu YHWH Echad.
Hear O Israel: YHWH is our God, YHWH is one. (Dt 6:4)

References:

[1] http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/330212.htm
http://www.monachos.net/content/patristics/patristictexts/164-hilary-trinity?start=11

[2] http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.iii.xvi.html

Four points of RC-EO disagreement related to Palamism

2010-08-15T18:05:00.007-03:00

Even when Filioque, Papal Primacy and possibly indelibility of Holy Orders are usually considered the main points of disagreement between the Roman Catholic (RC) and Eastern Orthodox (EO) Churches, there is an additional significant area of disagreement comprising the issues related to the teachings of EO St Gregory Palamas (1296-1359). Below I list the four points of disagreement in this area, in both their Catholic and Orthodox versions.

RC doctrine:

C1. God is Being from itself, subsistent Being, absolute fullness of Being that is infinitely "above" the received, contingent, limited being of creatures.

C2. Absolute divine simplicity: God is his essence. Each divine Person is the divine essence.

C3: Sanctification or deification: union with God by way of two inseparably connected gifts:

- uncreated grace: the indwelling of the three divine Persons, which is specially attributed to the Holy Spirit only by appropriation. “This wonderful union, which is properly called ‘in-dwelling,’ differing only in degree or state from that which binds the blessed to God in eternal happiness, although it is without doubt produced by the presence of the whole Trinity … is attributed in a peculiar manner to the Holy Spirit." (Pope Leo XIII) [1]

- created grace (sanctifying or deifying grace): the product of the foundational re-creative work (the "new heart" and "new spirit" of Ez 36:26, the "new creation" of 2 Cor 5:17 and Gal 6:15) carried out in the soul by the Holy Spirit, to whom the work of sanctification is specially attributed. Quoting RC St Thomas Aquinas, sanctifying grace is "a permanent quality placed by God in the very essence of the soul" (i.e. it is an accident and not a substance), which enables the soul to be inhabited by the Holy Spirit in a unitive, vivifying mode (Ez 37:14), i.e. in a mode that causes the soul to share in divine life, in divine nature (2 Pe 1:4). [2]

C4. Beatific Vision: saints in Heaven see the divine essence.

EO doctrine:

O1. "God is being and not being." (EO St Gregory Palamas)

O2. There is a real, ontological distinction between divine essence and divine energies. God is his essence and his energies. The divine essence is the cause of the divine energies, which are uncreated. Each divine Person is the divine essence and the divine energies.

O3. Deification (theosis) is union with God through his energies (uncreated energy of the Holy Spirit = uncreated grace), and not through his essence.

O4. Saints in Heaven do not see the divine essence, only the divine energies.

In my view the less difficult issue of the four is point 3, where the disagreement, if we leave aside the essence-energies issue, is mostly a matter of emphasis. While EOs have placed emphasis in uncreated grace, i.e. receiving the Holy Spirit, RCs have placed emphasis in created grace, the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul. But RC's do believe in uncreated grace, i.e. divine indwelling, and EOs would most probably agree that the Holy Spirit does some very important work in the soul. The main disagreement in this point is that which is a direct consequence of the essence-energies distinction, as EOs believe that only the energies of the Holy Spirit interact with the faithful, and not the essence.

Conventions:

RC-only saints are prefixed "RC St". EO-only saints are prefixed "EO St".

References:

[1] Fr. John A. Hardon S.J. "Course on Grace - Part Two - B - Grace Considered Intensively - Chapter XIII. Sanctifying Grace and the Indwelling Trinity"
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Grace/Grace_004.htm

[2] Fr. John A. Hardon S.J. "Course on Grace - Part Two - A - Grace Considered Intensively - Chapter VIII. Sanctifying Grace"
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Grace/Grace_003.htm

The rock in Mt 16:18: a matter of body language

2010-07-30T14:56:00.009-03:00

One issue of disagreement between Roman Catholics (RC) on one side and Eastern Orthodox and Protestants (EO&P) on the other is the interpretation of Mt 16:18. Literally translated from Aramaic into English, the 1st half of Mt 16:18 would be:

"And so I say to you, you are Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church". (Mt 16:18)

Where both instances of "rock" were "kepha" in the original Aramaic, in which the same word kepha is used for a rock or a man's name. When the text was translated to Greek (by Matthew or the final author), as the word "petra" for a rock is feminine, the 1st Kepha was changed to "Petros" (masculine ending) to make it suitable for a man's name.

The issue of disagreement between the RC and EO&P interpretations comes from Jesus' implicit body language. I will make it explicit between () to render the two interpretations of Mt 16:18:

"And so I say to you (pointing to Simon), you are Rock, and (still pointing to Simon) upon this rock I will build my church". (RC interpretation)

"And so I say to you (pointing to Simon), you are Rock, and (now pointing to Himself) upon this rock I will build my church". (EO&P interpretation)

To note, the EO&P interpretation is conceptually in line with 1 Peter 2:4-5, which uses "lithos" = "stone" instead of "petra" = "rock":

"Come to Him (Jesus), a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and, like living stones (the faithful), let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 2:4-5)

Thus, in the EO&P interpretation Jesus is the rock / cornerstone upon which the Church is built, and Simon is just another living rock / stone in the Church's building, just like any other faithful is.

Actually, the EO&P interpretation is correct in a certain sense: at the personal, spiritual, existential level Jesus is the rock upon which we the faithful are built like living stones (the same rock referred to many times in the Psalms, which is logical since Jesus is "I Am", YHWH), and this truth applies to Simon, his successors the bishops of Rome, and any other faithful. The problem is that it is not logical to interpret Jesus' words in Mt 16:18 in that sense, for several reasons:

1. Why would Jesus rename Simon as Rock only to say immediately that He Himself was the rock?

2. More importantly, why would Jesus rename Simon as Rock if He was meaning that Simon was just another living rock in the Church's building?

3. Even more importantly, the only way to interpret adequately Mt 16:18 is by reading it within the whole statement by Jesus. Let's see what the EO&P interpretation looks like:

17: Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. (In this verse Simon is definitely special.)

18: And so I say to you, you are Rock, and upon this rock (Myself) I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. (In this verse Simon is just like any other faithful, even though he is renamed for some strange reason.)

19: I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (In this verse Simon is again special. And thanks to the fact that in Greek personal pronouns have differerent forms for singular and plural, it cannot be argued that there was yet another change in Jesus' body language and now He is pointing to the circle around Him so that "you" refers now to the 12 Apostles.)

We must use reason to interpret the Scripture. An interpretation of Mt 16:18 where "upon this rock" does not refer to Simon defies all logic.

On the role of good works in salvation

2010-07-23T13:27:00.013-03:00

This article gathers a couple of comments I posted on "Called to Communion" on July 21-22, 2010.

First of all, "salvation" here is understood in the Roman Catholic sense of "sharing in divine life", "partaking in divine nature" (which is at the very least roughly equivalent to the Eastern Orthodox concept of "theosis" if we leave aside the essence-energies distinction, see 2 posts forward), and definitively not in the "ad extra", forensic justification sense.

Having said that, let's see what the Scripture says about the role that good works play in our salvation.

First of all, Jesus Himself makes it unequivocal that good works are necessary to remain in salvation. This is stated in positive statements in John's Gospel, chapters 14 and 15:

“Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” (Jn 14:21)

“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” (Jn 14:23)

“Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” (Jn 15:9-10)

“You are my friends if you do what I command you. … This I command you: love one another.” (Jn 15:14,17)

The Apostle John, in turn, makes the same concept clear in negative statements in his first letter:

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him. (I Jn 3:15)

If someone who has worldly means sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion, how can the love of God remain in him? (I Jn 3:17)

And as if all the above were not enough, there is this gem from Paul:

And whoever does not provide for relatives and especially family members has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (I Tim 5:8)

Now, besides being necessary to remain in salvation, do good works also add to salvation, meaning that by performing them we grow in God's life and love and consequently will be rewarded a greater degree of glory in Heaven?

Let’s listen first to the Teacher Himself:

“And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple–amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.” (Mt 10:42)

This is expanded in the Last Judgment passage, which I will not quote for obvious length reasons (Mt 25:31-46). And if it were argued that what this passage says is that works of charity are necessary to remain in salvation but do not add to salvation, the previous parable where the talent of the lazy servant was given to the servant who already had ten talents should clear the matter.

“Sell your belongings and give alms. Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy.” (Lk 12:33)

“There is still one thing left for you: sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Lk 18:22)

Let’s now go to Paul. First, this exhortation to Timothy is an exact echo of the last two quoted exhortations by Jesus:

Tell them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. (1 Tim 6:18-19)

The following passage also uses the figure of the foundation, but now in the more conventional way of applying it to Jesus Christ:

But each one must be careful how he builds upon it, for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire (itself) will test the quality of each one’s work. If the work stands that someone built upon the foundation, that person will receive a wage. But if someone’s work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Cor 3:10-15)

Sometimes the Apostle uses the metaphor of a temple, which God builds with our cooperation, and other times he uses the metaphor of a body, which God makes grow with our cooperation. Sometimes both are used simultaneously, as in Ef 4:11-16, from which I quote:

Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body’s growth and builds itself up in love. (Ef 4:15-16)

Then there is this:

we do not cease praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding to live in a manner worthy of the Lord, so as to be fully pleasing, in every good work bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God, (Col 1:9-10)

which is related to:

make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love. If these are yours and increase in abundance, they will keep you from being idle or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Pe 1:5-8)

As the last two quotes mention “knowledge”, let’s learn from Jesus what that is:

“Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.” (Jn 17:3)

If this knowledge is eternal life, it cannot be purely intellectual. This is made crystal clear by John in his first letter:

Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (I Jn 2:4)

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. (I Jn 4:7-8)

So, if salvation is having eternal life, and if eternal life is vital knowledge of God, and if by “living in a manner worthy of the Lord”, i.e. “living the truth in love”, we “in every good work bear fruit and grow in the knowledge of God”, then by good works we not only remain in salvation but also grow in salvation = eternal life = God’s love. As John says:

if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us. (I Jn 4:12)

On physical evil

2010-04-19T11:34:00.001-03:00

The existence of physical evil in nature has posed a difficult problem to many people: how can it be compatible with a Creator who is infinitely powerful and good? We will consider this issue focusing on two main points:

1. what creatures can be the passive subjects of physical evil, i.e. suffer it, and

2. what events affecting those creatures can be designated as physical evil.

Regarding point 1, it is evident that the concept of physical evil refers necessarily to living creatures. The explosion of a supernova that does not affect any life-bearing planet does not constitute physical evil. And moreover, such explosions along the history of the universe were essential for the production of adequate quantities of the heavier chemical elements that are necessary for life. Similarly, a volcanic eruption or an earthquake before there was life on Earth did not constitute physical evil. And moreover, those phenomena are consequences of plate tectonics, which was vital for the existence of life on Earth.

Now, once life appeared and started to evolve on Earth, at what point could the deaths or injuries of living organisms caused by e.g. a volcanic eruption start to be considered physical evil?

- Clearly deaths or injuries of bacteria, archaea, protists, plants or fungi do not qualify as evil, since those organisms cannot possibly experience suffering because they do not have a nervous system. Thus we are left with animals except porifera (sponges) and placozoa.

- And as a simple decentralized nervous system such as that of Ctenophora (comb jellies) and Cnidaria (anemones, corals, jellyfish) works in a basic reactive fashion and cannot experience real suffering, we are left with animals with a central nervous system.

- And as a complex brain is necessary to experience true suffering, we are left in principle with arthropods (insects, crustaceans, arachnids), molluscs and vertebrates as the potential passive subjects of physical evil. We will stop here for now, and will group them together under the term "higher level animals".

Regarding point 2, physical evil would consist of suffering experienced by such higher animals, with suffering leading to death possibly the most extreme case. At this point it is useful to analyze separately some of the causes of death and its associated suffering:

1. old age

2. natural disaster (e.g. volcanic eruption)

3. attack by predator

4. starvation

Notably, if death by old age were considered physical evil, then a world without physical evil would have some very curious properties, as higher level animals would be immortal. First, once the individuals of a particular species have reached a certain number, they should stop reproducing. (Otherwise, since higher level animals would not die from any cause, there would not be enough physical room on the planet for them.) But once they stop reproducing, they would stop evolving. Therefore a world without physical evil where death by old age is considered physical evil would be incompatible with creation of living creatures by evolution. One way to surmount this difficulty would be to define that, for animals (*), death by old age is not physical evil and that only deaths where the subject does not reach its lifespan potential are (i.e. cases 2, 3 and 4 in the list above).

Consideration of natural disasters leads to a curious consequence as well: unless higher level animals were intelligent enough to distance themselves from volcanoes, in order to avoid physical evil plate tectonics should have stopped once those animals appeared. So what's the cause of physical evil in this case: the fact that plate tectonics remained active after higher animals appeared (clearly not) or the fact that animals were not intelligent enough to distance themselves from volcanoes?

But it is the case of starvation whose analysis can provide the most insight. Not an abstract case, but the specific case of St Matthew Island in the Bering Sea in Alaska. In 1944, 29 reindeer were introduced to the island, which was covered with a thick mat of lichens at that time. With the abundance of high quality forage, the reindeer population increased rapidly due to a high birth rate and low mortality (no predators), rising to 1300 animals in 1957 and to 6,000 by the summer of 1963. By 1963 lichen, normally the most important winter forage, had been almost completely depleted by overgrazing, and sedges and grasses were expanding into the sites previously occupied by lichens. The increasing difficulty in obtaining adequate food was evident in the fact that the 1963 reindeer were considerably smaller in both body mass and skeletal proportions than the 1957 animals: in 1963 average body weights had decreased from 1957 by 38 % for adult females and 43 % for adult males. With the reindeer population on an already poor physical condition as a result of competition for high quality summer forage during the summer of 1963, deep snow accumulation during the winter of 1963-64 further restricted the availability of the already depleted winter forage, and almost the entire reindeer population died of starvation, with only 42 animals surviving.

In this case, was physical evil caused by the fact that lichen did not grow fast enough to compensate for the grazing rate? Clearly not, because if lichen had grown at twice its actual rate, the reindeer population would have just reached a maximum of 12000 in 1966 and crashed the next harsh winter. So doubling the rate of growth of lichen would just double the total amount of suffering. Rather, the cause of starvation was just the fact that the reindeer were not intelligent enough to realize that the island had a finite carrying capacity (i.e. could sustainably support a finite reindeer population) and that they should stabilize their population once it reached that carrying capacity. Instead, they were acting like yeast in culture media in a Petri dish, which keep doubling their population until the nutrient is exhausted and then die off. But while death of yeast is not evil because they do not experience suffering, death of reindeer is. Or is it not?

And lastly we have the attacks by predators. Notably, the absence of predators in Matthew Island was one of the factors leading to the population explosion and dieoff. But isn't one kind of death worse than the other? Wouldn't the violence involved in death by predators make it a worse fate than an apparently peaceful death by starvation? Not according to the book of Lamentations, at least: "Better for those who perish by the sword than for those who die of hunger, who waste away, as though pierced through, lacking the fruits of the field!" (Lam 4:9)

We thus come back to our successive restriction of the animals that can be the passive subjects of physical evil. Why stopping at a complex brain and consider physical evil the death of an insect? Why not demanding that the brain must have neocortex, which restricts the selection to mammals? Why not demanding that the neocortex must feature a large frontal lobe, which further restricts the selection to the great apes and humans? Or in functional terms, why not demanding that the animals must be self-aware, i.e. able to pass the mirror test, which would add dolphins and elephants to the last list? And why not just demanding that the brain be developed enough to support the operations of a spiritual soul, leaving just us humans? Why indeed not starting from that point, demanding that, for physical evil to be tragic, its passive subject must be a person with a spiritual soul?

In our view the last is the only correct approach, as any other threshold to define physical evil is arbitrary. Thus, we posit that physical evil exists in two fundamentally different kinds: non-tragic when it affects animals and tragic when it affects humans. Non-tragic physical evil is part of God's design in creation, and exists in view of the overall greater good of the material cosmos. In contrast, tragic physical evil was not part of the original design in creation, as man was originally "shielded" from the physical evil that would have affected him otherwise as a result of its biological nature: as long as man remained in the divine intimacy, he would not have to suffer or die (Gen 2:17; 3:16, 19). It was as a result of original sin that man lost that privilege ("preternatural gift") and became subject to physical evil just as animals are. With this approach, there is no problem whatsoever harmonizing physical evil with the existence of an all-powerful, infinitely good Creator.

(*) In contrast to the case of animals, for humans the preternatural gift of bodily immortality would not necessarily have implied that at some point in time they would have had to stop reproducing, because bodily immortality did not imply that each person would have stayed alive on Earth until the end of times. Along the line of 1 Cor 15:51 "We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed," it is legitimate to assume that, if man had not sinned, after a certain number of years (120, 365, 969, whatever), the body of each person would have been glorified without dying and that person would have been taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, to enjoy the Beatific Vision.