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I believe you mean "trotting" and I had no idea that snide was a verb. I suppose you will find these things insulting. My apologies. They are observations of fact however and I do not expect to be castigated for making them.

When one places one's face out into the public and begins to make noise, then it is nearly assured that there will be a response. Now you want to condemn my response to Todd as an egregious act of sniding. Well I disagree entirely.

I have suggested at least once that he get in touch with some first class Thomists who are clear on the meanings of both Aquinas and of Catholic teaching and do some serious challenging of his own position from a position of strength on the other side.

As you can see from the note above your's that our Mr. Todd is not interested in challenging his own opinions.

And yes. I am aware of Dr. Barnes and his work. After all I did mention that it is synthetic and that his discussion has precious little to do with Aquinas or Catholic teaching.

And no I do not think there is any point in engaging beyond the most superficial with someone who shows so little interest in any other position, even if it contains truth, especially if it is a truth that has been rejected with such finality.

That is a pandemic in the academy in these days. Perhaps I am just getting old.

Eli

Eli,

What I find insulting is your chastisment of Todd WITHOUT AN ARGUMENT! And I will catigate you until you show him to be in error. Quote Thomas, quote a representative Thomist, quote someone. If he needs to seek out a Dominican or a priest, for Lord's sake, WHO?? Who is this 'Thomist in General' you speak of?

Photios

The fact of the matter is that I have said several things of substance that have been ignored. Nobody bothered to say what do you mean? or ask why I said this or that.

Now you, a third party, are on the attack? What kind of tag-team tactics are these? I have seen where this kind of engagement takes things on this forum, and I am not interested in spending too much time on it at this rate.

I will speak substantially when I think I will be heard and not just brushed off with some canned bookish, nonsensical word string, cut and pasted out of five years of graduate school, and a handful of highly questionable secondary sources that may or may not share meanings for concepts and/or labels.

And I did recommend a seminary on the east coast and named that seminary where good solid teaching on Aquinas can be obtained at a reasonable cost, or where one might go and explore the possibility of communicating with any one of the Thomists on staff there.

I may continue this at some point, or start another thread, but for the moment you need to cool off a bit, and I am not obligated to try to talk to anyone being as shrill and demanding as you are being. Nor am I obligated to instruct the unwilling.

Eli

Can we close a few of these threads? They don't appear to be in sync with what this forum/message board is all about, pleasent discussion, structured and intelligent debate.

Would someone else also confirm what Orthodox Catholic says or claims in his last post, that a byzantine christian does not need to accept roman catholic DOGMAS, such as infallibility of pope (along with universial jurisdiction); immaculate conception etc, when he enters Union with the Roman Sea?

When you join up with the Pope you sign up for the lot. It is a very clear line. You are either on one side or the other here. The same applies to all churches. You are either in or out. There is no middle ground. It's like getting married the inlaws come with the wife/husband. You go with the Pope the deal includes that in matters of faith and morals he is infallible etc.etc.

ICXC
NIKA

Yes, thank you, that is logical. What about Dogmatic Relativism then?
Would a Byzantian christian who joins Union with Rome, be entitled to challenge latin Dogmas in limiting their acceptance or present them as being relatively true?

"As a fundamental element of religion, the term "dogma" is assigned to those theological tenets which are considered to be well demonstrated, such that their proposed disputation or revision effectively means that a person no longer accepts the given religion as his or her own, or has entered into a period of personal doubt. Dogma is distinguished from theological opinion regarding those things considered less well-known. Dogmata may be clarified and elaborated but not contradicted in novel teachings (e.g., Galatians 1:8-9). Rejection of dogma is considered heresy and may lead to expulsion from the religious group, although in the Christian Gospels this is not done rashly (e.g. Mt 18:15-17)."

ICXC
NIKA

I am starting to get complaints regarding this thread and how certain posters are deviating from the subject and starting to make thier posts personal in nature in regards to attacks, offense and demeaning towards each other.

If this can not be discussed without getting personal, then I strongly suggest you do not post. The moderators will not be tolerating this sort of behavior, and will either delete those posts in the future or close the thread. Offending posters will be receiving a formal warning if this behavior continues by PM or email.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+
Moderator/Administrator

Eli,

Who would you recommend reading on Thomas? I am honestly curious. Who do you think best represents your viewpoint? Some of us have jobs and can't exactly just quit and trot off to seminary for a year Though believe me there are days when I wouldn't mind doing it.

I'm pretty sure this is inaccurate where the Eastern Churches are concerned (as demonstrated by virtually all the members of this forum, various cited documents, etc.)

Matt,
Despite what some will say, Pavel is correct on that issue. When it comes to definitive teachings on Faith and Morals, you are either Catholic or not, no matter which of the 20 +/- "sui juris" churches you may want to belong to. While the theology ( a means for the Teaching Church,[i.e. the Pope and the hierarchs of the Universal Church, who, as a body, accept or reject the findings of theologians], of ARRIVING at it's definitive teachings-not the "be all" and "end all" of what is believed), worship, disciplines, and even styles of local governance of the various "sui iuris Churches in communion with the Roman Church may, and do, legitimately vary, the essence of what is defined as matters of Faith and Morals to be held by the faithful does not vary. Hope this is helpful.

Deacon Robert

Dear Matt,

There is no one single text that satisfies the criteria for a smoking gun in these matter of nature and grace either in universal Orthodoxy or in the Catholic Church.

There are three Catholic theologians of the 20th century, who satisfy the criteria so to be worthy to be named as a classical theologian in the Church, not in the titular sense of SS Gregory and Symeon, but in the sense of one who prays first and unceasingly, and does his or her intellectual work through prayer.

Now these three men have written on the doctrinal aspects of nature and grace. There are many others before them who have written on the apophatic aspect of the religious life in the west and the corpus of the doctrinal work, cannot be read with full profit without knowing something of the actual lived spiritual life and writings of the monks and nuns who came before them. That is why I directed the participants here to the Dominican research site and Jordan Auman's article on the spiritual life in particular. If you are interested and absolutely cannot find the article then I will go and look. It is of a historical nature on the monastic history of the prayer of union. So you won't find St. Thomas or St. Gregory mentioned in comparison or contrast there.

The three theologians of the 20th century whose work is foundational are Henri de Lubac, Hans Us von Balthasar and Kark Rahner. Since there is no such thing as perfection in theological discussion,

I will start you off by telling you that of the three, Karl Rahner errs on the side of nature. In other words the preservation of the integrity of concept of human nature, vis a vis the power of divine grace is his primary emphasis. Henri de Lubac, along with Aquinas, errs on the side of protecting our vision of the Divine omniscience. And Hans Urs von Balthasar sees the possibility of our misconstruing Father Henri and and so Father Hans writes to make small adjustments and improvements in Father Henri's work. Father Hans also wrote about a foundational error introduced into Thomism by Father Cajetan, a canon lawyer at the Council of Trent, and one who wrote a gloss to the theological Summa. That error, recognized but left unadressed in theological circles, led to generations of incremental mis-readings of Aquinas.

I cannot offer to show you all of that in A, ONE, SINGLE book. It has taken me years and much work to filter through texts and ask questions and make things fit into a sensible whole which comports with Church teaching.

I will also tell you this. My journey began with an attempt to understand the Church's very simple teaching on a very complex subject which is GRACE. The journey began, as it should, in the pages of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That is where I suggest anyone her who is truly interested to begin.

I will say this. I will walk away from this discussion the moment I sense that any of you will begin carping in an attempt to bring the wrath of moderation on my head.

There is too much bias in evidence on this Forum. Much of it done in ignorance, so I do not mean to attribute malice, but I will not be party to it willinging, nor will I be open to discipline simply because I am making an effort to simplify a very difficult subject that is distorted in the west by generations of erroneous scholarship, and local pieties that were not in line with universal magisterial teaching.

If what I am doing here is accepted with interest I will continue if not I will stop immediately.

I will say in concluding that there is a hiearchy of truths in the Catholic Church, and within each doctrinal teaching and sets of explanations there are core truths that can be identified. The east is held to teaching the core truths but NOT held to teaching them in the same manner, nor in the same mode as the west. Therein lies the nuanced solution in the tussle over who is commanded to believe what.

That is all I have time for at the moment.

Eli

Eli,

Thank you for that informative post. I had heard of those theologians before but you related them in a way I was not familiar with.

Matt