Phil and w.c;

I think your points may well summarized in the folllowing words of w.c:

"However, I see Christianity as the fulfillment of the other religions, wherein God, the uncreated, became human for the first and only time. This advent of God into human history has, IMO, the attributes Phil describes, where the second person of the Trinity, the risen Christ, continues to create the world through Himself, and is, in that way, available to all who seek God."

I don't deny the continuing works of Christ in creation and his availabilty for all humanity. Christ's availabilty is one thing and embodying his body is another thing. Mystical body of Christ for me is the body we can unite with and making it part of our consciousness. The more a person surrenders to the Christ, the more their individuality unites with that of the Christ. It is so explicit. Through this process the Christ is slowly integrated at the human level. So, when it comes to embody the mystical body of Christ I recognize the necessity of explicit faith. Now I have one question to both of you. Do you think it is possible to embody the mystical body of Christ without explicit faith?

Just glancing at the above quote in Grace's post I am struck by the idea that Christ's essence isn't available through creation, only His energies, and that the apprehension of the divine through the created world is indirect and indeed, more of anapprehension of created energy than of uncreated.

I see you have thoroughly dissected my different post, w.c. I'll take that as a compliment. I'm afraid I don't have the time or energy to return the favour so I'll only respond in dribs and drabs, as befits my capacities.

"That's what sounds like the Pharisee to me, where a potentially deep love of God is experienced in a person's heart, not happening to fall under the semantic mantel of Christianity, and yet it is summarily dismissed as idolatrous without any appeal to how truth may appear via the tranforming effects of the personality."

Only certain aspects of truth are revealed through tranformation of personality. Nor is salvation concomitant with that transformation. It can be healing, nurturing, whatever, without having any impact on the eternal destiny of the soul of an individual. I suppose this has something to do with the nature of sin. And so aspects of God, if it is God, filter into various religions bearing fruit at an earthly level without impacting on the eternal soul for the simple reason that it is not personality transformation, fruits of the Spirit or anything else which saves the soul at an eternal level, nor is it even a form of relationship with Christ, but, rather, a direct response to the work done at Calvary. Indeed, the very differences in cosmologies of say Hinduisim and Christianity, the idea of reincarnation versus that of eternal salvation, indicate a difference in emphasis as regards what takes a man to God. I don't believe that attaining what you call the true self is equal to attaining salvation or union with God. It is more in keeping with the cycle of birth and rebirth. The same may apply to many forms of mystical experience. The first(true self) works on an earthly plane, while the second(the saved soul) relates to the heavenlies; the first can be achieved through any religious/meditative etc practise; the second is only achieved through the body and blood of Christ who died for our sins.

"You seem to make no room at all for what Catholics call implicit faith, or the presence of the Word throughout creation that meets human souls where they yearn for God and serve Him in others. And so a Hindu who keeps Christ's commandments to love God and neighbor with all his heart would somehow pull up short in your scenario here, suggesting that what you view to be Christ's commandments are different than mentioned in Matthew 22: 34-40. Otherwise, if these are in fact the commandments you have in mind, then you seem to be saying that loving God and neighbor is only possible for a Christian under certain explicit tems of faith."

On the contrary, I am a firm believer in the presence of the Word throughout creation and am delighted when I consider how the Word meets human souls in grace, but that presence is no guarantee of a soul's yearning and that yearning has to be met with repentance and the admission of a need for some act of God to cover the sin that blocks the path to finding God. I also think the yearning can be a yearning after something else, something unquantifiable, something other, which can be mistaken for a yearning after God.

Furthermore it is not the Word in creation that reveals God but the person of the Son incarnate. The Word only witnesses to God, it doesn't reveal Him. I think I said that before somewhere, but no matter. So then it is not the presence of the Word that meets a need but the presence of the Son! Emphasis in this argument has to move away from Jesus as the Word to Jesus as the Son.

Also, Paul's ministry makes it quite clear that it is not the keeping of any commandments that leads to God. The simple fact is that NO MAN, not even a Christian, can keep the whole law or love God with his whole heart anyway. These things are only expressive of a desire, a movement, not necessarily a finding, and definitely not salvation. If a Hindu could love God with his whole heart etc, then sure, take him to heaven straight away, but he can't. Neither can I. So the falling short has to be met and it's met in the sacrifice of Christ, hence the need to explicitly believe in that sacrifice. That's God's love and grace, meeting the need in His Son, not the acceptance of anyone without the need being met.

Because y�all are bandying about the term, Pharisee, I had to familiarize myself with it:

quote:

After the conflicts with Rome (A.D. 66-135) Pharisaism became practically synonymous with Judaism. The great Machabean wars had defined Pharisaism: another even more terrible conflict gave it a final ascendancy. The result of both wars was to create from the second century onward, in the bosom of a tenacious race, the type of Judaism known to the western world. A study of the early history of Pharisaism reveals a certain moral dignity and greatness, a marked tenacity of purpose at the service of high, patriotic, and religious ideals. As contrasted with the Sadducees, the Pharisees represented the democratic tendency; contrasted with the priesthood, they stood for both the democratic and the spiritualizing tendency. By virtue of the Law itself the priesthood was an exclusive class. No man was allowed to exercise a function in the Temple unless he was able to trace his descent from a priestly family. The Pharisees consequently found their main function in teaching and preaching. Their work was chiefly connected with the synagogues, and embraced the schooling of children and missionary efforts among the heathen tribes. Thus, in a sense, Pharisaism helped to clear the ground and prepare the way for Christianity. It was the Pharisees who made idealized nationalism, based upon the monothism of the prophets, the very essence of Judaism. To them we are indebted for the great apocalypses, Daniel and Enoch, and it was they who made common the belief in the resurrection and future reward. In a word, their pedagogical influence was an important factor in training the national will and purpose for the introduction of Christianity. This great work, however, was marred by many defects and limitations. Though standing for the spiritualizing tendency, Pharisaism developed a proud and arrogant orthodoxy and an exaggerated formalism, which insisted on ceremonial details at the expense of the more important precepts of the Law (Matt., xxiii, 23-28). The importance attached to descent from Abraham (Matt., iii, 9) obscured the deeper spiritual issues and created a narrow, exclusive nationalism incapable of understanding a universal Church destined to include Gentile as well as Jew. It was only through the revelation received on the road to Damascus, that Saul the Pharisee was enabled to comprehend a church where all are equally the "seed of Abraham", all "one in Christ Jesus" (Gal., iii, 28-9). This exclusivism, together with their over valuation of external levitical observances, caused the Pharisees to be ranged in opposition to what is known as prophetism, which in both the Old and New Testament places the main emphasis on character and the religious spirit, and thus they incurred not only the vehement reproaches of the Precursor (Matt., iii, 7 seq.), but also of the Saviour Himself (Matt., xxiii, 25 seq.).

Phariseeism sounds like an instance of "moderation in all things" having been broken by something that is otherwise good. One problem I have with referring to Stephen, or anyone else, as a Pharisee is that the truth is that we all to some extent a Pharisee. We are all concrete in our beliefs to some extent or else we wouldn�t believe in things in the first place. I have yet to run into anyone who is both soft-line (as opposed to hard-line) regarding their beliefs and who has anything significant to say, which is not to be confused with distinct beliefs being expressed in a considerate rather than an ill-tempered fashion. Clear beliefs draw boundaries and it will forever be so. Of course, I think that what we consider an un-Pharisee attitude these days is holding distinct opinions but with no intent to really enforce them on anyone who doesn�t want them. And yet this is just the disingenuous (or so often just ill-conceived) attitude of the so-called tolerant "live and let live" left who are VERY Pharisee-like in promoting this attitude which disguises itself as a soft, mellow, un-intimidating, non-dogmatic ideology. But the truth is just the opposite.

We HAVE to enforce certain ideas or else there is no book, doctrine or political philosophy that has meaning and thus there would be no structures and institutions, and thus there would be no freedoms worth enjoying. And surely this conversation between WC and Stephen shows the difficulty of reconciling the doctrinal Bible with the idea and attitudes of being Christ-like which, as far as I�m concerned, are soft-line and forgiving rather than hard-line and dogmatic by nature. Turning the other cheek is a deep metaphor even for, I believe, how we thump the Bible, even if the Bible is technically correct about something. It�s ironic that from the distinct, unambiguous, concrete beliefs regarding Jesus that out of this flows a soft edge that sort of wraps around again and informs us as to how we ought to grasp these concrete beliefs in the first place.

BTW, most of my posts are written stream of consciousnes style which may account for certain discrepancies in the logic. I kind of go in for all this intuitively rather than rationally, if you know what I mean. There! That's my excuse!

Let's see where we are, here:

1. We all agree that explicit faith is the ideal and that its conscious, deliberate rejection is a serious matter.

2. We all agree that we are saved through Christ and the action of the Spirit, whether that response is through implicit or explicit faith.

3. We all agree that Brad is a Pharisee!
(OK, so is everyone else. )

But as this thread is about the "mystical body," Grace now points us back "on topic" by asking:
Do you think it is possible to embody the mystical body of Christ without explicit faith?

In the context of the discussion on "implicit faith," I hear the question asking if this kind of faith incorporates one into the Body of Christ.

Recall that membership in the Body is formally established through Baptism and maintained through faith I would answer that the "Baptism of Desire" (as properly understood) and the attendant implicit faith which accompanies it is sufficient. To deny otherwise would seemingly be an affront against the compassion and mercy of God.

See this link for as detailed and depthful a discussion of this matter as you'll find anywhere. Here's the conclusion:

quote:

This teaching of the Church far from taking away the obligation to be baptized or to enter the Church rather affirms to us not only the necessity for entering the Church but also the necessity for baptism. It shows us the real implications for willfully neglecting to receive baptism and enter the Church, which is the sole ark of Salvation. Even if the Church teaches that it is possible to attain salvation by of the "baptism of desire" or "Baptism of Blood", she is not teaching that it is the ordinary means of salvation for anyone. It would only be by a moral miracle that a person could be saved in such a manner, since what is by definition beyond the ordinary is extraordinary. There is no question of individuals being saved by their own efforts, without God's grace, and therefore outside the Church. On the contrary, it is stated that because these individuals are holding to the true teaching of Christ that they are joined invisibly to the Church. Thus, strictly speaking, one does not say "non-Catholics may be saved" or "Protestants can go to heaven." There are no non-Catholics in the Church and there are no non-Catholics in heaven. The only souls in heaven are those who have joined themselves to the Church in fact or desire.

BTW, most of my posts are written stream of consciousnes style which may account for certain discrepancies in the logic. I kind of go in for all this intuitively rather than rationally, if you know what I mean. There! That's my excuse!

Stephen, I�m very much at home with that style and thinking and find much value in it. And I�m also amazed by those whose thinking is more logical, structured, and systematic. There is much value in both (and surely there are more types�I particularly like the simple logic of children), although gaps in understanding between the two are inevitable. But I find the intuitors can fill out the often bare, skeletal framework that the logicians produce and thus evoke otherwise overlooked real-life meaning. The logicians, on the other hand, keep the intuitors honest, grounded, and from flying off too far in their fancies of flights, and, via their logic, provide perhaps the best and greatest grist for the intuitive thinker�s mill.

That's a nice wee summary, Brad. Thanks. I must admit I sometimes lose patience with more logical, systematic thinkers. Your summation might come in handy the next time I'm locked in debate with all those Logical Logicsons out there.

Phil, maybe you could enlighten me on the Catholic church's position on taking the Eucharist with regards membership of the body of Christ. I went to a Catholic mass the other week and thought I'd better abstain until I knew the party line, so to speak. I spoke to a priest at the end and he seemed to suggest that my soul would have fried if I had taken the host, which I find ridiculous and pretty insulting.

"We all agree that Brad is a Pharisee!"


Ah, Phil . . . that's not fair, can't you see?

quote:

"We all agree that Brad is a Pharisee!"


Ah, Phil . . . that's not fair, can't you see?

If there is a body of Christ to be attached to, you two are showing more and more signs of being attached through the funny bone. This is still a developing Christology and it�s not quite ready for formal critiquing yet.

Hee hee!

Stephen, here is a good article about the Catholic practice of "closed Communion." See what you think.

Stephen and Grace:

As Phil has opined, and we've all probably recognized by now, there won't be any turning back the clock on these very old divisive issues. At least we're not out for each other's hide over it any more.

Stephen:

No need to apologize for getting your K dander up. Mine was as well, and as you allude, I have a hot button on this issue, and others (anyone notice?).

But let me catch up a bit with the distinctions Stephen and Grace are making. I agree whole- heartedly with the essential difference between uncreated and created energies, or K effects through creation and the Holy Spirit as the purely transcendental gift of Christ. We can all wander through the woods and imbibe Rudolph Otto's "mysterium tremendum" at times. But this expression of the Word through creation is still not what I'm attempting to describe when referring to my Hindu friends; their acquaintenance is with a completely personal, intimate God of love, not simply the created yearnings leading to states of yogic meditation. And so what I'm arguing for here is the possibility that spontaneous devotion of the heart can lead a person, without a particular creed fashioning his ideas of it, to an encounter with this God of love.

Besides, it would hard to draw a solid line between the Word made flesh in creation and Jesus Christ when it comes to someone claiming their hearts to be pierced with Divine love. We can muddle about and question the authenticity of this person's conversion experience, and say it doesn't necessarily mean they have encountered Christ, but that only leads to a stale kind of certainty on our part.

After all is said, we are simply not responsible for their experience or the measuring of its legitimacy. But I think we lose no discernment just in being open to them as people like anyone else. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, after all her years in serving the poor, spoke of serving Christ in all of them, with no need to convert Muslims or Hindus to an explicit position of Christian faith unless they were drawn to it. What mattered was the experience of grace in the variety of forms it took as death approached.

And so I think the dismissal of this possibility of kinship is as much fraught with our own uncertainties and fears as it is with concern over the salvation of others whose experience suggests we are not completely unique in our claim. That said, I can say that my experience of the Holy Spirit was unique to my Christian path, which reappeared after a sorjourn through Buddhism and Hinduism. These latter paths were somewhat culturally estranging, with Buddhism a focus on immmanent presence via the powers of the mind and heart, and Hinduism seeking a devotional relationship similar to what another poster describes elsewhere in her kundalini-lover experience. In Hinduism there was also a strong component of devotion to God in the transcendental sense, with simple dependence upon His grace. In the presence of a Hindu saint I experienced deep peace that was sustained over days and not at all a trance state, but just the result of coming into her presence. This is, of course, a potentially trecherous path to follow, as in guru-disciple relationship, which I was never able to embrace.

But as unique as the Holy Spirt is on this path of rediscovering the Christ of my childhood, I do wonder what would happen if a Lectio Divina group were organized around participants of several faiths. This would be a chemistry experiment gone bad by the standards of many Protestants, but either the HS blesses or not. I suggest this because I believe the descent of the Holy Spirit is mainly a matter of receptivity, and that other faiths, as well as many discursive practices of Christian prayer, are simply too busy with the machinations of the mind to notice. As such, I believe the Holy Spirit would grace anyone who might open to God in this simple, child-like, personal way, where the Word as the Second Person of the Trinity embodies God in the heart of the aspirant as Father.


Now, question is . . . . do I really believe everything I just said?

"This is still a developing Christology . . . "


Hey Phil, where did Brad get that word?

J.B.?

Brad, Stephen, w.c. and Phil sorry for my intrusion on your heavy duty discussions which I am following with great interest, but I need to address Stephen.

Stephen, you made me crack up laughing with a memory that came back to me as I read your post about abstaining from receiving the Eucharist at Catholic Mass and the consequences of taking the host would you have done so according to the Priest.

Before I left California, I attended a Russian Orthodox Catholic Mass. I desired to receive the Eucharist being right with God and was approaching the altar of the Priest who handed out the host. He looked at me and asked my name. After giving my name, he replied that I could not receive the host because, and these are his exact words: "you are not one of us, and must eat from the visitor's table". This was hard for me to swallow, but I stayed for the completion of the Mass, which by the way was very interesting. Lots of mystery and intrigue in the preparations of the blessing of the Eucharist.

What can I say, I felt crushed and knew in my heart that I had been worthy to receive, but this Priest saw me as a stranger and not part of his flock.

So now you guys can continue with your deep insights, which I am also itching to get into, but for now I am just biding my time.