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ANATHAMA!

AND YOU BELIEVE THAT SATAN DOES NOT EXIST?

LORD HAVE MERCY!

Dear wild goose.

Thank you for your description of Christianity in Europe. It is interesting to hear the view that Christianity is far from dead there. I note that the biggest positive response to my own book (a study of images of Genesis) has come from Europe - also from the Philippines and an Archbishop there, Netherlands, and England.

Taize certainly has my vote of confidence... always has since I first came to know something about it. I am glad it is still vibrant after all these years. If I lived nearby I would be at Taize as much as I could afford to visit. A remarkable display of God bring all his children together no matter the particular creed. It reminds me of the Pro-Life movement in America which is composed of Catholic, Protestant, Jews, Presbyterians, etc� to such an extend that all spend more time actually doing the gospel than just talking about it.

Interesting response - I keep an open mind.

-ray

Satan ... non-existent ... just what he wants the world to believe ... while the father of deception and lies moves in the shadows...

Compare the morality of the US of A , say 1955 to 2005 ... a small example ...

St. Athanasius pray for us .

james

So who was it that tempted Our Lord in the wilderness by asking Him to turn stones into bread - Adam Sandler? :rolleyes:

I think you need to prayerfully re-read the Gospels, because most of what we know about the Devil comes from Our Lord's own words. He certainly would have known the difference between "psychological problems" and "demons", don't you think?

Hi TG,

"He certainly would have known the difference between 'psychological problems' and 'demons',..."

He certainly DID know the difference and He used, as did the Evangelists, the language of His day.

When read carefully, the Holy Gospels reveal a depth of knowledge of human psychology, just not expressed the same way Freud or Jung would have done so.

It is a grave mistake to take the idiom of the 1st century of the Christian era and literalise it. It can be no more said that Jesus believed in the existence of the satan, than it can be said that I believe there is a lot of prime real estate in the Everglades of S Florida!

The episode you glanced at while responding to my post reveals three elements:

1. Jesus
2. Satan
3. a narrator

Any piece of written material that contains a narrator who refers to the protagonist in the third person and the antagonist in the third person... is not personal testimony.

We have a story of Jesus' temptation, not an eye witness account. If it is an eye witness account... which of the major broadcasting companies where there recording it all: CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, ETC.?

We must be careful not to make too much of a story.

What the story indicates is that Jesus had an inner, intra-personal struggle with His call to be Messiah/Christ/Anointed One.

JFK was great.

MLK, Jr. was great.

But both of them failed, in certain areas of their personal lives, to live out the high calling to which they were called.

Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did not.

JFK and MLK both lost battles, inner, intra-personal battles; Jesus did not.

I hope that helps. blessing, wg

Dear Pani Rose,

The above looks like a shout; I hope it is not. blessing, wg

Hi james,

Compare what Jesus, Our Lord, said in His day, twice(?) perhaps:

Matthew 12.39 But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

Matthew 16.4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah." So he left them and departed.

Jesus goes a bit further back than '55... he goes back to '33, the first '33. blessing, wg

Actually, it doesn't help much, because I'm rather disturbed that you seem to be putting JFK and MLK on the same level as Christ.

You said:

There's a famous photograph of His Holiness visiting 'satan' in jail. He forgave him and prayed with him.

Jesus once (at least!) called Peter Satan... but this 'satan' later led the Church! :-)

Evil power is thoroughly human... as you yourself witnessed. grace and peace, wg
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I say:

Satan or demonic influence is that which works through weak individuals.

For instance: You speak about psychiatry, yet the woman that Freud based most of his theories on insisted that she was possessed by a demon.

Now when we speak of possession, we must realize that there are two kinds. One is intentionally given to another through occult practices or excessive hatred and jealousy and the possession occurs against that person's will. These are the one's that Jesus and the apostles exorcized. The other kind is when a weak individual lust's and desires something to the extent that he is willing to subjecate himself to a demon in order to obtain it.

Hard to understand, I know. When is something done through a person's free will, and when is it not?

As I stated, one can not give another their own experiences in life. I know what I saw, and it explained the many years of friction that I and others lived through because of that person. They lacked logic or reasoning (as is usual the case with people under subjecation), yet managed to control (and destroy) 'all' through back stabbing and manipulation.

My experiences have been verified by hearing of similar experiences by certain devout people I know.

Pope John Paul did not consider the person that shot him 'satan'. He merely considered that person a weak individual that allowed satan to use him. It was for this reason that he didn't follow up on who, or what group was behind that action.

As for Jesus calling Peter satan, I have said that same thing to the person I loved the most when tempted through 'goading' into a sinful state. (Temper and plain meaness that I was unable to control). Needless to say, that person was quite hurt and thought I was condemning them.

Zenovia

Sorry TG,

You seem to be sorely mistaken. It is not possible to read that into what I wrote.

Perhaps we would disagree on just how great each of those two men were, but as fellow Christians, we both know that there is no comparison between Christ and any other human who's ever lived, who is living or who will ever live. blessing, wg

Interestingly enough, our pastor gave his homily last Sunday on this very topic, and reiterated that the Catholic Church teaches that Satan is, indeed, a real person. Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

Wild Goose, which of the following statements
most accurately describes what you believe:

A) Satan never existed.
B) Satan did at one time exist,
but no longer exists.
C) Satan does exist, but has no
power over mankind or the world.

antonius

Hi TG,

"the Catechism"

Yes! My Catholic colleague and I have two copies of the Catechism in our (shared) office; he's got the hard back and I've got the paper back... but neither(!) one says anything about Satan being a 'person,' as you say.

Here's what the Catechism actually says:

1. good angel
2. then bad (evil) angel
3. creature

... never a person.

You cut and pasted well, sister,... but failed to read! LOL

Why the Catechism says what it says is another matter and of some concern and mystery to many of us. There are many (yes, many) erroneous assumptions of Biblical texts in the three passages of the Catechism as you've cut and pasted here.

What I was thankful to read is that "the Church teaches" so and so. The Church desperately needs to re-visit the Bible before the next Catechism is published, in my humble estimation.

What the Church teaches based upon what the Church may have believed about certain passages of Scripture and Apocrypha and Deuterocanonicals and other writings, which the Church may have held in some estimation at other points in Her history but which no longer get our attention... and what the Church may choose to believe in the future may be miles apart. It is my fervent prayer that the Catholic and Orthodox scholars who no better will actually be asked to contribute to the next Catechism. If I, as an ecumenical Christian of limited academic knowledge, know these things, then surely there are many scholars out there who do as well. blessing, wg

Kind of you to ask, antonius, thanks.

The power named:

1. evil
2. Satan
3. The Devil
4. demons/demonic

(all from a Biblical point of view, leaving out other loan words from other cultures to whom Israel related)

is human power gone awry, or with the potential to go awry.

The power still named Satan today only has power because some humans still attribute power to this name. Ever since the ministry of Jesus and the 70 (St Luke 10.1-24) this power has been defeated; Jesus said, "I saw Satan fall."

The Creed reminds us:

... Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell (or to the dead); the third day He rose again from the dead;

Jesus went to hell and closed it down, I would say. Therefore I agree with a portion of paragraph 633 of the Catechism, p. 144. See other references to hell there.

Upon His Resurrection, Jesus had (and still has) conquered hell, the grave, death, the abode of the dead, etc.

The Catechism, in my estimation, has been more concerned to repeat much of what it has always said, ignoring the fact that we no longer live in the first 1-4 centuries of the early Church!

Church Teaching/Tradition has been promulgated over and again... with somewhat reckless abandonment of how the Church has continued to grow in Her understanding of the Bible.

As I said in the last post to TheistGal, there are innumerable Catholic (and perhaps Orthodox) scholars around today who are able to articulate new ways of doing catechesis. They are ignored because the status quo seems untouchable.

This is altogether a sad situation. Why? because since the Advent of Christ, there is nothing in all creation of which any Christian (or human!) should fear, neither hell nor satan... as the Apostle Paul wrote:

We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, "For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8.28-39 blessing, wg

I guess that says it all ...