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There were a number of dissenting views over the years, and ultimately the issue was settled at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Chalcedonian Creed declared the following:

 

"We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us."

 

As far as being tempted in the desert goes, there's a concept known as the "communication of idioms." Basically if the scriptures, or anything else for that matter, says something about Christ, then that could be referring to either his humanit or his divinity, but not necessarily both. In other words, if I say "Christ is a man," then it is a true statement since his human gender is male, even though God as such doesn't necessarily have a gender. In the desert, Christ's humanity was tempted by the devil, even though his divinity was beyond temptation.

 

 

And yet the Chalcedonian creed declares the two natures to be "indivisibl[e]" and "inseparabl[e]", so I don't see how we can say it attacked this but not that.

 

I'm trying to resolve this in my head, and I think the examples of the other human aspects can help, but being an outsider I may be on the wrong track (perhaps even a gnostic track). Does God die? No, of course not, that's nonsense. But an incarnate God dies. To define Jesus as fully God and fully man means that we cannot separate the two. So God does not die but God-in-the-flesh does (and remains dead for three days). Similarly God is not a man that He can be tempted, unless He's God-in-the-flesh who is tempted in actuality.

 

But I'm not sure how Catholic this line of thinking is.

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I'm not Claire (in case there was any confusion on that point), but I believe the reason is that Catholic doctrine is founded on Aristotelian and neoPlatonic philosophy.

 

This is not true.

 

It is not that Catholic doctrine is founded on neo Platonic philosophy - it is founded on Christ.  It is merely that most of neo Platonic philosophy is compatible with Christian doctrine

Edited by anatess
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And yet the Chalcedonian creed declares the two natures to be "indivisibl[e]" and "inseparabl[e]", so I don't see how we can say it attacked this but not that.

 

I'm trying to resolve this in my head, and I think the examples of the other human aspects can help, but being an outsider I may be on the wrong track (perhaps even a gnostic track). Does God die? No, of course not, that's nonsense. But an incarnate God dies. To define Jesus as fully God and fully man means that we cannot separate the two. So God does not die but God-in-the-flesh does (and remains dead for three days). Similarly God is not a man that He can be tempted, unless He's God-in-the-flesh who is tempted in actuality.

 

But I'm not sure how Catholic this line of thinking is.

 

Got did not get divided nor separated when the Persons proceeded from Him.  God ousia remains one.  Wrapping yourself around the "how" that is possible is the Great Mystery... because... we don't know exactly what that ousia is.

 

But... this is nothing new to LDS thought.  We don't know exactly what that exalted material is that is God and how it can be Omni-anything... so, really, all you need to add to it is that somehow, that exalted material has the power to manifest itself in 3 separate persons with all personhood qualities.

 

So all you really need to do is... for everytime that you used the word GOD in the quoted post above - you have to qualify - are you talking about the God ousia?  Or are you talking about the persons?  Because - God did not die - Jesus, the person died... etc. etc.

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This is not true.

 

It is not that Catholic doctrine is founded on neo Platonic philosophy - it is founded on Christ.  It is merely that most of neo Platonic philosophy is compatible with Christian doctrine

 

I disagree profoundly, though I do not pretend to a deep knowledge of Roman Catholicism.

 

The great apostasy, the very existence of which Catholicism denies, was well under way by the end of the first century AD. By the middle to late second century -- that is, by about 150 AD and after -- the Church was long-vanished from the earth, and only remnants remained among the sincere and benighted faithful, only the very oldest of whom had ever belonged to a true and living church. All was confusion.

 

By the time of the great convocations from which emerged the various creeds, the Priesthood and the truths of the gospel had been lost from the earth for centuries. The men involved in these efforts may have, in some (or even many) cases, been honest and sincere men who sought God and not their own comfort. But admirable though they may have been, that is irrelevant. They did not have the Church that Christ had established. That was long gone, centuries ago. And they had lost a great many of the foundational teachings of Christianity.

 

They did the best they could, and the best they could do was to graft Greek philosophy into the tattered remnants of Christianity they had left. The result was Christianity as known in the Middle Ages and as survives today outside the Restored Church. All of this talk about ousia and two Substances and so forth -- it's all Greek philosophy. In the LDS view, it is a mass of confusion (no pun intended).

 

I have nothing but respect for honest and sincere Catholics. In fact, I have a great deal of respect for the Roman Catholic Church, which after all preserved scriptures and as much of primitive Christianity as they could figure out how to do, and shepherded Europe through its most barbarous period in recorded history, finally reestablishing a civilization of sorts and even leading the way to the Renaissance. But from an LDS viewpoint, let's not pretend for a moment that their religion is founded upon the living Christ. It is not. There is precisely one religion today so founded, whatever its imperfections.

Edited by Vort
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Vort, let's be polite.  I know you're intending to defend the LDS viewpoint, but that doesn't mean we need to bash the Catholic.  Truth is never dependent on putting the other guy down.

 

I was curious as to the Catholic perspective on things, hence the "Ask a Catholic" thread (I'm a huge proponent of inter-faith dialogue and respect).

Edited by Jane_Doe
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How am I being impolite? Are you suggesting that stating LDS doctrine and my understanding of history in a non-confrontational manner is per se offensive?

 

Honestly, yes. 

 

Every Catholic I know would say that their faith is based in Christ.  For someone else to come and say "No, your faith is not based in Christ!" is rude.  I'm not saying that such statements are wrong or right, but it is rude.  That's because the only person who can tell you what "John" thinks is John himself.  To do otherwise is no different than having someone come up to you and say "Oh, you're a Mormon, then you believe XYZ..." without ever letting you speak.  Have you had an experience like that Vort?  

 

Again, the only person to that can say what "John" believes is John himself.  Hence why I asked a Catholic what she (as a Catholic) thinks.

Edited by Jane_Doe
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The one distinction I would make on the "is Catholicism based on Aristotelian/Platonic metaphysics" question is largely what Jane said, our beliefs are based on Christ's teachings. However, we do also believe that some divine truths are knowable apart from revelation, though even then those truths would be very difficult to discover and intermixed with errors. That being said, in instances where secular philosophy has discovered a divine truth, it makes sense to employ the proofs they used in defending and defining the faith. Basically philosophy is a tool at the theologian's disposal.

 

Aristotelian and Platonic philosophies just happen to have been particularly effective in these regards. Outside of Aristotle, I don't know of any pre-Christian philosophers who's arguments lead to the necessary conclusion of there being a (single) god. As a result, they were heavily used, particularly by Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, who are probably the two biggest heavyweights in forming Christian thought, particularly in the west (after Paul and the other Apostles, of course).

 

 

And yet the Chalcedonian creed declares the two natures to be "indivisibl[e]" and "inseparabl[e]", so I don't see how we can say it attacked this but not that.

 

I'm trying to resolve this in my head, and I think the examples of the other human aspects can help, but being an outsider I may be on the wrong track (perhaps even a gnostic track). Does God die? No, of course not, that's nonsense. But an incarnate God dies. To define Jesus as fully God and fully man means that we cannot separate the two. So God does not die but God-in-the-flesh does (and remains dead for three days). Similarly God is not a man that He can be tempted, unless He's God-in-the-flesh who is tempted in actuality.

 

But I'm not sure how Catholic this line of thinking is.

 

I'm not entirely sure I'm following the question correctly, but I'll try to answer just the same

 

I'd say that most of your analogies are accurate representations of the communication of idioms. It is hard to get your head around. The think you have to try to keep in minds is that, despite having two substances/natures/ousias (different words meaning basically the same thing), Christ is still one person. Satan's attacks were meant to tempt Christ. That being said, only his human nature could be tempted, while his divine nature is beyond temptation.

 

I disagree profoundly, though I do not pretend to a deep knowledge of Roman Catholicism.

 

The great apostasy, the very existence of which Catholicism denies, was well under way by the end of the first century AD. By the middle to late second century -- that is, by about 150 AD and after -- the Church was long-vanished from the earth, and only remnants remained among the sincere and benighted faithful, only the very oldest of whom had ever belonged to a true and living church. All was confusion.

 

By the time of the great convocations from which emerged the various creeds, the Priesthood and the truths of the gospel had been lost from the earth for centuries. The men involved in these efforts may have, in some (or even many) cases, been honest and sincere men who sought God and not their own comfort. But admirable though they may have been, that is irrelevant. They did not have the Church that Christ had established. That was long gone, centuries ago. And they had lost a great many of the foundational teachings of Christianity.

 

They did the best they could, and the best they could do was to graft Greek philosophy into the tattered remnants of Christianity they had left. The result was Christianity as known in the Middle Ages and as survives today outside the Restored Church. All of this talk about ousia and two Substances and so forth -- it's all Greek philosophy. In the LDS view, it is a mass of confusion (no pun intended).

 

I have nothing but respect for honest and sincere Catholics. In fact, I have a great deal of respect for the Roman Catholic Church, which after all preserved scriptures and as much of primitive Christianity as they could figure out how to do, and shepherded Europe through its most barbarous period in recorded history, finally reestablishing a civilization of sorts and even leading the way to the Renaissance. But from an LDS viewpoint, let's not pretend for a moment that their religion is founded upon the living Christ. It is not. There is precisely one religion today so founded, whatever its imperfections.

 

In fairness, I do kind of believe that an LDS person has to believe this. If you're Mormon and you don't think that the rest of Christendom lost its way at some point, you need to re-evaluate which Church you belong to. That being said, I would argue that I simply don't see the evidence for the great apostasy.

 

The Gospel of John was written very late in the first century, so it seems unlikely that the Church was largely apostate at that point. Further, early Church fathers, from the late first century onward, seem to testify of the Bishops being the successors to the apostles in their earthly ministry. Almost everything written by Ignatius of Antioch (circa 100) seems to stress this point, along with his contemporaries Polycarp and Clement of Rome. Irenaeus, who records indicate learned about Christianity from Polycarp (who was himself a disciple of the apostle John), reiterates not just the succession of the faith through the bishops, but also the fact that every church not in agreement with the Bishop of Rome is in error.

 

In fact, the very fact that we have the New Testament canon as such is predicate upon the authority of the bishops, since a formal one wasn't established until several hundred years after the fact (about mid fourth century).

 

My only point on the "mess of philosophy" would again be that it just makes sense to use secular arguments that happen to arrive at divine truths, since your average non-believer who really needs convincing will be more likely to listen to secular arguments vice proofs from revelation.

 

That all being said, I do appreciate where LDS are coming from. There are a bunch of denominations out there, all claiming to be right. This is particularly true in America, which was largely founded by any number of Christian minorities. I can see the appeal of divine revelation saying "this is the right one." That being said, the LDS Church does appear, at least in my perspective, to be part of a broader "Restorationist" trend that was popular in America at the time of its founding and doesn't seem to have any greater merit than any other church founded during that time.

 

As with Vort, I don't mean to be antagonistic. That's just what it looks like to me.

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I don’t think that anyone will deny that some truths can be found by methods other than divine revelation.  As a professional research scientist, I certainly do!  However, things like science/philosophy are very messy, and (as Claire said) subject to error. 

 

As a general trend, I’ve noticed a lot of Catholics heavily use things like science and philosophy to explain their position (I’ve also seen other churches do this as well).  Coming from the LDS perspective this is strange, because you’re trying to use flawed tools to explain an perfect Gospel.  Hence a lot of Mormons can be suspicious of explanations based on (for example) a pagan Greek philosopher.    LDS tend to be more “just ask God” in their methodology for finding theological truth. 

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Honestly, yes.

 

Then we have vastly different understandings of what constitutes giving offense.

 

Every Catholic I know would say that their faith is based in Christ.  For someone else to come and say "No, your faith is not based in Christ!" is rude.  I'm not saying that such statements are wrong or right, but it is rude.

 

Agreed. It's also false. That is not what happened here. I never told anyone "Your religion is not based in Christ". I told a fellow Mormon that her statement was not in accordance with LDS doctrine.

 

That's because the only person who can tell you what "John" thinks is John himself...Again, the only person to that can say what "John" believes is John himself.  Hence why I asked a Catholic what she (as a Catholic) thinks.

 

Pretty positive that I never lectured any Catholics on what they think or believe.

 

To do otherwise is no different than having someone come up to you and say "Oh, you're a Mormon, then you believe XYZ..." without ever letting you speak.  Have you had an experience like that Vort?

 

Of course I have. But that is not what happened in this case.

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 That being said, the LDS Church does appear, at least in my perspective, to be part of a broader "Restorationist" trend that was popular in America at the time of its founding and doesn't seem to have any greater merit than any other church founded during that time.

 

And you won't find greater merit from an intellectual point of view.

 

We do not claim greater intellectual merit. What we claim is the truth by revelation that each individual has a right to. And that merit cannot be debated away, intellectualized away, or otherwise discredited to said individual. That is the great difference. See if you can get a Jehovah's Witness to put intellectualism secondary to spiritual witness and you'll see what I mean. ;)

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I'm not entirely sure I'm following the question correctly, but I'll try to answer just the same

 

I'd say that most of your analogies are accurate representations of the communication of idioms. It is hard to get your head around. The think you have to try to keep in minds is that, despite having two substances/natures/ousias (different words meaning basically the same thing), Christ is still one person. Satan's attacks were meant to tempt Christ. That being said, only his human nature could be tempted, while his divine nature is beyond temptation.

 

This doesn't really jive with "fully God" in my mind. Jesus is fully God and Jesus was tempted, then that means incarnate, mortal God can be tempted. To say only fully man Jesus was tempted suggests there's a part that is not God and so was not tempted. But then we've divided the nature and found a less than fully God. So I still don't think I'm getting it.

 

Do you program? Is it like multiple inheritance with interfaces?

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This doesn't really jive with "fully God" in my mind. Jesus is fully God and Jesus was tempted, then that means incarnate, mortal God can be tempted. To say only fully man Jesus was tempted suggests there's a part that is not God and so was not tempted. But then we've divided the nature and found a less than fully God. So I still don't think I'm getting it.

 

Do you program? Is it like multiple inheritance with interfaces?

 

I don't program, so I have no idea what "multiple inheritance with interfaces" means.. :P

 

The first I should probably point out is that Jesus Christ is a single person with two natures, one fully human and the other fully divine. In other words, you can't distinguish the "fully man Jesus" as a different person from the "fully God Jesus." This is actually a heresy known as Nestorianism which was condemned about ten years prior to Chalcedon at the Council of Ephesus. The monophysite heresy that came after Ephesus, which stated that Christ had a single nature that was both human and divine, is the one the Chalcedon itself was dealing with.

 

What all that basically amounts to is that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. By that we mean that he's 100% human and 100% God. If that doesn't quite work in your mind, then you're probably thinking about it the right way. It's one of those things we chalk up to being beyond our ability to comprehend fully. A good rule of thumb is Catholic theology is that, if you think you fully understand something about God, you're probably wrong somewhere, since fully understanding God isn't really possible.

 

By way of analogy, let's say I had an animal that was fully dog and fully cat in the same sense that Christ is fully God and fully man. You would not be left with a dog/cat hybrid (monophysites again), or a complete dog and a complete cat that were somehow meshed together (Nestorianism). Rather, you would have some thing where every atom of its existence is both completely oriented toward being a dog and completely oriented to being a cat.

 

Taking it back to the temptation, every bit of Christ was both fully human and fully God. In the desert he exercised his human capacity to be tempted and his divine total resistance to temptation simultaneously. Again, this may seem contradictory, but really so is the idea that God can/would be a man in the first place.

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I disagree profoundly, though I do not pretend to a deep knowledge of Roman Catholicism.

 

The great apostasy, the very existence of which Catholicism denies, was well under way by the end of the first century AD. By the middle to late second century -- that is, by about 150 AD and after -- the Church was long-vanished from the earth, and only remnants remained among the sincere and benighted faithful, only the very oldest of whom had ever belonged to a true and living church. All was confusion.

 

By the time of the great convocations from which emerged the various creeds, the Priesthood and the truths of the gospel had been lost from the earth for centuries. The men involved in these efforts may have, in some (or even many) cases, been honest and sincere men who sought God and not their own comfort. But admirable though they may have been, that is irrelevant. They did not have the Church that Christ had established. That was long gone, centuries ago. And they had lost a great many of the foundational teachings of Christianity.

 

They did the best they could, and the best they could do was to graft Greek philosophy into the tattered remnants of Christianity they had left. The result was Christianity as known in the Middle Ages and as survives today outside the Restored Church. All of this talk about ousia and two Substances and so forth -- it's all Greek philosophy. In the LDS view, it is a mass of confusion (no pun intended).

 

I have nothing but respect for honest and sincere Catholics. In fact, I have a great deal of respect for the Roman Catholic Church, which after all preserved scriptures and as much of primitive Christianity as they could figure out how to do, and shepherded Europe through its most barbarous period in recorded history, finally reestablishing a civilization of sorts and even leading the way to the Renaissance. But from an LDS viewpoint, let's not pretend for a moment that their religion is founded upon the living Christ. It is not. There is precisely one religion today so founded, whatever its imperfections.

 

But... this is not Ask an LDS.  This is Ask A Catholic.  And for a Catholic - the Great Apostasy did not happen.

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Agreed. It's also false. That is not what happened here. I never told anyone "Your religion is not based in Christ". I told a fellow Mormon that her statement was not in accordance with LDS doctrine.

 

If you're talking about me, I'm a fellow Mormon who grew up Catholic.  In this thread, I'm answering "Ask a Catholic" questions for Catholics and asking "Ask a Catholic" questions for LDS... and sometimes bridging the gap between the two to make it easier for all of us to relate to the answers/questions.  I mean... it would be really idiotic to have questions in an Ask A Catholic thread and have a Mormon answer from a Mormon perspective.

 

So, for all intents and purposes, your statement about the Catholic foundation in Neo Platonic philosophy and disagreeing with my correction to what the Catholic foundation is, is tantamount to telling a Catholic "The Catholic religion is not based in Christ but on Aristotle".

 

But to hijack the thread for a moment here... There's a reason my religious affiliation is LDS and not Catholic... and I understand the Great Apostasy very well.  But even with the Great Apostasy and all that entails, it is still incorrect to say that the foundation of Catholic doctrine is Aristotle.

Edited by anatess
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If you're talking about me, I'm a fellow Mormon who grew up Catholic.  In this thread, I'm answering "Ask a Catholic" questions for Catholics and asking "Ask a Catholic" questions for LDS... and sometimes bridging the gap between the two to make it easier for all of us to relate to the answers/questions.

 
Okay, that's reasonable.

 

But even with the Great Apostasy and all that entails, it is still incorrect to say that the foundation of Catholic doctrine is Aristotle.

 

Why? It clearly is, unless you accept Catholic doctrine at face value.

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Okay, that's reasonable.

 

 

Why? It clearly is, unless you accept Catholic doctrine at face value.

 

 

The greatest import of the Great Apostasy is the total loss of Authority not total loss of doctrine.  We teach it in missionary discussion even - that certain truths were lost but not all truths.  The Catholic Church may have lost some truths but they haven't put their entire doctrinal foundation on "neo philosophers".

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The greatest import of the Great Apostasy is the total loss of Authority not total loss of doctrine.

 

I never said "total loss of doctrine". I said somewhat the opposite. But the idea that little of the true doctrine was lost is, from an LDS perspective, absurd.

 

The Catholic Church may have lost some truths but they haven't put their entire doctrinal foundation on "neo philosophers".

 

Again, this is a straw man. I didn't say "entire doctrinal foundation". Obviously some elements of Christian teaching survived. I said that Catholic doctrine is founded on Plato and Aristotle. And it is. Even the Catholics recognize that, though they're more likely to say that the Greeks just recognized truth and that's why Catholic doctrine is so similar to Greek philosophy.

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I never said "total loss of doctrine". I said somewhat the opposite. But the idea that little of the true doctrine was lost is, from an LDS perspective, absurd.

 

 

Again, this is a straw man. I didn't say "entire doctrinal foundation". Obviously some elements of Christian teaching survived. I said that Catholic doctrine is founded on Plato and Aristotle. And it is. Even the Catholics recognize that, though they're more likely to say that the Greeks just recognized truth and that's why Catholic doctrine is so similar to Greek philosophy.

 

 

The issue is the word "founded".  Founded means - there's nothing left of the original foundation... it has a new foundation.  That is not true.

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The issue is the word "founded".  Founded means - there's nothing left of the original foundation... it has a new foundation.  That is not true.

 

anatess, this is a bizarre misinterpretation of the word. It's the equivalent of insisting that the statement "Lehites are ancestors of the American Indians" is the same as saying "there are no other ancestors of the American Indian."

Edited by Vort
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anatess, this is a bizarre misinterpretation of the word. It's the equivalent of insisting that the statement "Lehites are ancestors of the American Indians" is the same as saying "there are no other ancestors of the American Indian."

 

I realize that English is only your seventeenth language, but I'm pretty sure you know that the word "founded" doesn't carry the implications you ascribe to it.

 

Yes, I'm probably mixed up on the meaning of the word.  My understanding of "Founded" is that it's the beginning of the doctrine.  Like New York City was founded in 1624 - that is its beginning - there was no NYC before that... although the land existed.  Regardless of what got brought in and adopted to comprise NYC, NYC was founded in 1624 - no NYC before it.

 

As far as "foundation" - the foundation is the concrete that is poured before a house is built.  So, there is nothing of the house before the foundation.  It doesn't mean there wasn't dirt that existed prior... but the foundation - the concrete is what the house is built on.  So, in my application of the word to doctrine - I understood your statement to mean that Catholic doctrine is built on neo-Platonic philosophy.  This is not true.  Catholic doctrine is built on the NT and the Acts of the Apostles (in the bible and in sacred tradition).  Neo-Platonic philosophy is heavily used in its exegesis but not its foundation.

 

So yeah, that's how I understood it for which all my replies addressed.  Sorry if I caused confusion.

Edited by anatess
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