Ask a Theologian IV

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Why did it take us 1800 years to get to deontological ethics and the categorical imperative? It seems like something that could be read very easily out of Judeo-Christian morality and theology.

 

[Plotinus]

Hey Plotinus, it's probably the first time I post in your thread so first of all I like to say that I really appreciate how much work you invest here and I've gotten a great amount of insight on multiple topics already.

Thanks, glad to help!

Now I thought I'd also burden you with some extra work in form of a question. I hope it's not too much "out there" because it concerns a topic which is very confusing too me.

I'm referring to what I would call the "popular Christian" notion of heaven and hell. I think I can safely claim that most people who grew up in a predominantly Christian country would immediately associate a couple of attributes with them.

For example, heaven is often associated with being above us (the German words for heaven and sky are even identical), pictured as consisting of fluffy clouds, is sometimes depicted as the place where both angels and the souls of dead people "live" in some sort of wish-fulfilling paradise.

Hell on the other hand is portrayed as the domain of Satan, a place of fire and brimstone that's somewhere "below", where those who are not permitted into heaven are subjected to torture or other unpleasant penalties.

I'm calling these portrayals "popular Christianity" because everyone seems to know them, but from all I know about Christian theology, this is not what Christians actually believe in at all (am I right about that?).

Nevertheless, most everyday Christians, like those who consider themselves Christians but don't put a lot of emphasis on the details, seem to subscribe to these notions. Things like "I'll see my dead relatives in heaven" or "you'll end up in hell if you do that" are actually believed in, with all the implications I've sketched above. At least that is my impression.

So in the end, my question is, is this observation correct? Or do I take Christians who say something like that too seriously and/or literally? If so, can you explain where these ideas come from and how they became so closely associated with Christianity?

Thanks for your trouble

I think you're broadly right. As I understand it, the official position of orthodox Christianity since roughly the fourth or fifth centuries has always been: when you die, your soul goes to heaven or to hell, but these are temporary places or states and merely give you a sort of foretaste of your final destination. On the Day of Judgement, your soul leaves heaven or hell and is reunited with your body, and judged. After that you go to your eternal reward in the new heavens and new earth or your eternal fate in the lake of fire. Unlike heaven and hell, these final destinations are physical and your experiences there are bodily.

However, you're quite right that popular piety almost entirely overlooks both the concept of bodily resurrection and the idea of subsequent destinations for the dead after heaven and hell. This is funny because in the early years of Christianity, the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of the dead was pretty much the defining feature of Christianity. Also of course it's pretty prominent in the New Testament. Perhaps many Christians read "resurrection" and just mentally translate it into "going to heaven". Anyway, I think that most Christians do not believe that heaven involves fluffy clouds and being "up" or that hell involves fire and being "down", and they may not believe that they're places at all, more states of being - either being perfectly with God, in the case of heaven, or perfectly without him, in the case of hell.

As for where these ideas came from, heaven and hell are basically Greek concepts, as is the notion of the immortality of the soul and the idea that it survives death and goes somewhere else. The more traditional Jewish idea was that the body is necessary for life, and when you die you're just dead, and if you're to have any kind of life after death it's necessary for God to raise you from the dead. Christianity inherited both of these ideas, one from Judaism and one from Greek religion/philosophy, and it combined them into the rather clunkily complex picture I outlined in the first paragraph.

The aforementioned Tom Wright has written and spoken a lot about this topic - he is very keen to make people aware that the "heaven" and "hell" of popular piety are unbiblical and that the concept of resurrection is both quite different and more authentically Christian.

I've never heard of any Evangelical who didn't believe in baptism and (Symbolic) communion...

Everything else seems more or less accurate.

Exactly, "symbolic". When I say that evangelicals don't believe in sacraments, I mean they don't believe that they are sacraments, which means physical actions or objects that literally convey divine grace. They don't believe in a Real Presence in the Eucharist (let alone transubstantiation), at least not a Real Presence different from that found in any gathering of believers. They don't believe that baptism is anything other than a symbolic recognition of a person's faith. This is another point on which modern evangelicalism is sharply divergent from the views of Augustine and indeed the whole of the ancient church. (Would an evangelical agree with Ignatius of Antioch that the Eucharist is the "medicine of immortality", for example?)

Thanks! The first blog post's synopsis seemed essentially Sabellian. It even used the word "modes" in its clarification. What's the difference exactly?

That summary does seem to be out-and-out modalism, you're right. But whether that's fair to Leftow, I don't know. The subsequent blog posts on his defence of Latin Trinitarianism (as opposed to his attack on Social Trinitarianism) might be more helpful.

I also recall you being pretty big on Social Trinitarianism in the past. Did Leftow change your mind?

I remember thinking that his arguments were very powerful, although I don't now recall what they were!

I can imagine you wouldn't take that well. What did he say that was so rude?

You can see for yourself - it's in this article. (Incidentally, on the topic of this paper, I find his assessment of Lewis rather odd - particularly his view that the ethical sections of Mere Christianity are the best. I'd say they're by far the worst.)

Why did it take us 1800 years to get to deontological ethics and the categorical imperative? It seems like something that could be read very easily out of Judeo-Christian morality and theology.

It depends on what you mean by "deontological ethics". To my mind, a deontological theory is simply any theory of right-making properties that isn't consequentialist. Now consequentialism only really developed, at least as an explicitly articulated position, in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. So on the one hand, one can say that before that time all (act-focused) ethics was deontological; on the other, one can say that the reason no-one articulated deontological ethics as such until that time was because no-one had articulated the consequentialism against which deontological ethics is defined. A bit like saying that no-one was an anti-communist until communism was invented.

The Bible and the early Christian moralists had a great deal to say about right and wrong, of course, but as far as I know they didn't philosophise much about what makes certain actions right and certain actions wrong. The Bible basically gives you lists of right and wrong actions (more or less), such as the Ten Commandments. But why is it right to e.g. love your neighbour, and wrong to e.g. murder him? You could come up with any number of explanations, which might be deontological or consequentialist, but the Bible doesn't favour any of them. It says you should do what God commands, but it doesn't say that this is what what makes the actions that God commands right (perhaps God commands them because they're right), so I don't think one could even see biblical warrant for a divine command theory.

However, it's important to recognise that in classical antiquity ethics tended to focus not on what makes actions morally right but on what sort of character one ought to develop - that is, it tended to be about virtue ethics, which is quite distinct from both deontological and consequentialist ethics (although it's possible to combine them). In the Middle Ages, which is when Christians really started thinking rigorously about ethics, they inherited this approach, particularly from Aristotle. So to apply categories such as deontological or consequentialist ethics to someone like Aquinas - who was, after all, primarily an ethical philosopher - is rather to miss the mark. He was a virtue theorist. The emphasis in ethical philosophy of actions rather than character - and with it the interest in what makes actions right or wrong - is a much more modern development, and one that was required for both deontological and consequentialist ethics proper.

 

[Leoreth]

Thanks! Do you have any explanation where the above/below and heaven=sky idea came from? I don't think the Greeks viewed Elysium as such.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Exactly, "symbolic". When I say that evangelicals don't believe in sacraments, I mean they don't believe that they are sacraments, which means physical actions or objects that literally convey divine grace. They don't believe in a Real Presence in the Eucharist (let alone transubstantiation), at least not a Real Presence different from that found in any gathering of believers. They don't believe that baptism is anything other than a symbolic recognition of a person's faith. This is another point on which modern evangelicalism is sharply divergent from the views of Augustine and indeed the whole of the ancient church. (Would an evangelical agree with Ignatius of Antioch that the Eucharist is the "medicine of immortality", for example?)

Ah, you mean that they don't believe in sacraements that actually physically convey divine grace. You'd be right on that point I think. I'm not sure how that differs from any other Protestant sect though (Not including Anglicans as Protestants for sake of simplicity.) I know that at least some Lutherans believe in consubstantiation (What's the actual difference between this theory, real precense, and transubtantiation? I'm not convinced I completely understand it) but I don't know whether they think baptism has a physical effect or not.

 

[_random_]

(What's the actual difference between this theory, real precense, and transubtantiation? I'm not convinced I completely understand it)

In transubstantiation, the elements are no longer bread and wine, but rather flesh and blood that happen to resemble bread and wine in all their physical qualities. In consubstantiation, the presence of Christ's body and blood enter and permeate the elements (water in a sponge being the classic analogy), but they are still bread and wine. "Real presence" is a catch-all term for views holding that the body and blood of Christ are really present in the Eucharist.

 

[GhostWriter16]

OK, so what's the theological difference. If Christ is really present, does it really matter whether its alongside bread or in place of the bread? Either way, you're still receiving Christ in communion, transubstantiation just strikes me as more bizarre.

And yeah, I'll get to the other stuff, but its going to take me a solid couple hours to do, and I won't have that time until I get back from vacation

 

[Jehoshua]

EDIT: realised a certain individual basically said everything that I did

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As to the theological problem. Well firstly consubstantiation is simply wrong from a Catholic (and EO i so believe) view in that it rejects the idea that the bread and wine
"become" the body and blood of Christ as it is written in scripture and as is constantly upheld in sacred tradition. With it being a step down so to speak from the reality to the idea that Christ merely intincts himself into the liturgical elements.

Really consubstantiation, at least to my view is a step towards the idea that communion is merely symbolic, and indeed protestantism from its lutheran origins did indeed develop (in many instances) in that direction.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Is there any way to scientifically test the fact that the bread is no longer bread, or is it purely a spiritual transformation? Aren't you still technically eating bread? I don't quite understand the doctrine.

 

[_random_]

Is there any way to scientifically test the fact that the bread is no longer bread, or is it purely a spiritual transformation?

From my understanding of Catholic doctrine, no to both. The elements are physically transformed into flesh and blood, but the flesh and blood retain the accidents of bread and wine and thus resemble bread and wine in all their observable qualities. It makes a bit more sense if you've studied up on Aristotlean philosophy.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Doesn't Paul condemn this type of philosophy somewhere?

 

[Jehoshua]

Doesn't Paul condemn this type of philosophy somewhere?

http://fortherecordapologetics.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/does-paul-condemn-use-of-philosophy.html

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Collossians 2:8 "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ"

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This is merely a warning not to be decieved by erroneous philosophy and teachings that are contrary to Christ and divine truth. It is not a condemnation of philosophy in general. The link I posted goes in more detail in giving an apologetic for those people who would argue that Paul condemns philosophy.

Furthermore I would like to add that Catholic philosophy in general often simply makes use of terminology from greek philosophy. So in the case of transubstantiation it is making use of terms from aristotelian philosophy to describe a christian idea (which is that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ).

 

[GhostWriter16]

I know it wasn't condemning all philosophy, but yeah, I was more thinking of it condemning Greek philosophy, which I guess it doesn't strictly do.

 

[Plotinus]

Certainly Colossians 2:8 isn't a general condemnation of Greek philosophy - it would be ridiculous if it were, given that Greek philosophy influenced not only the New Testament but parts of the Old Testament too (at least in the Catholic canon). The prologue of John is arguably taken directly from Stoicism and Middle Platonism (although equally arguably it has nothing to do with them). As Jehoshua said, the verse is an attack not on philosophy per se but on ideas and traditions (not just philosophical) that in the author's opinion are contrary to Christ, as a reading of the whole chapter makes clear.

(By the way, authorship of Colossians is disputed, with probably a majority of experts thinking it's not by Paul.)

As for Aristotelianism, obviously medieval Christian theology was hugely influenced by Aristotle (though early Christian theology wasn't - the early Christians hated him), but I don't think this makes it harder to understand the doctrine of transubstantiation given that it can easily be stated without explicit Aristotelian terminology, and in any case Aristotelianism is just rigorous common sense, so there's nothing particularly difficult about it. Transubstantiation is simply taking 1 Cor 11:24 seriously: "This is my body", together with the observation that there is no perceptible change to the bread and wine. The doctrine, then, is that the bread is literally transformed into Christ's body, and the wine into his blood, but that the physical properties don't change. So after consecration, there is no more bread and no more wine - rather, there is Christ's body with all the physical properties of bread, and his blood with all the physical properties of wine. Obviously this means there could be no empirical means of testing whether it had happened or not, because the consecrated elements would be indistinguishable from bread and wine by any empirical test.

I must say that this makes far more sense to me than consubstantiation, which seems to me barely coherent. I don't see how bread can become Christ's body and yet also remain bread as well - surely it must be one thing or the other. Any attempt to make sense of this seems to me to come perilously close to the heretical doctrine of impanation, associated with the thirteenth-century theologian John of Paris, according to which Christ is "incarnate" in the bread in precisely the way that he is incarnate in his human body. In fact Reformed theologians did attack the Lutherans for teaching impanation.

Transubstantiation is interesting, though, because it's an example of how the medieval Christians used Aristotelian philosophy in ways that Aristotle himself would never have dreamed of. For Aristotle, the notion that properties could detach themselves from substances and go off to join other substances would have been absolutely absurd, because a property simply cannot subsist by itself - at least an accidental property can't. But the doctrine of transubstantiation states that precisely this happens. Moreover, I don't think that Aristotle would have understood the notion that a substance can be transformed into another substance that already exists. He understood the notion of a substance being transformed into another substance - this happens when you die, for example, because a living person is a different kind of thing from a dead body - but it's quite another matter for a substance to become identical with another, pre-existing substance. But the doctrine of transubstantiation says that this happens, too, because Christ's body already exists in heaven, but at the moment of consecration, the bread ceases to be bread and is transformed into Christ's body. Christ's body does not travel from heaven to the altar - it remains in heaven, but somehow what was previously bread is transformed into it. And it's transformed into the whole of Christ's body, too, not just part. Similar use of Aristotelian terminology to express doctrines such as the Trinity and incarnation are also utterly alien to Aristotle's thought, who would have considered all these things quite incoherent. So I would take with a pinch of salt the often-expressed claim that all this stuff is fundamentally Aristotelian. It may be expressed in Aristotelian language but the tendency of thought is really quite different.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Certainly Colossians 2:8 isn't a general condemnation of Greek philosophy - it would be ridiculous if it were, given that Greek philosophy influenced not only the New Testament but parts of the Old Testament too (at least in the Catholic canon). The prologue of John is arguably taken directly from Stoicism and Middle Platonism (although equally arguably it has nothing to do with them). As Jehoshua said, the verse is an attack not on philosophy per se but on ideas and traditions (not just philosophical) that in the author's opinion are contrary to Christ, as a reading of the whole chapter makes clear.

OK.

(By the way, authorship of Colossians is disputed, with probably a majority of experts thinking it's not by Paul.)

Among Christian experts, or secular ones? I think this point could be quite important. Isn't the general orthodox Christian opinion that Paul wrote all the books he said he wrote? And wouldn't the alternative be to simply remove them from the canon, since the books do say quite clearly that Paul wrote them? (This as opposed to something like Matthew or John which, while the majority opinion is that the aforementioned people wrote them, is not actually stated to have been written by those people in the text, and thus you could argue that someone else wrote it without contradicting the text.)

As for Aristotelianism, obviously medieval Christian theology was hugely influenced by Aristotle (though early Christian theology wasn't - the early Christians hated him), but I don't think this makes it harder to understand the doctrine of transubstantiation given that it can easily be stated without explicit Aristotelian terminology, and in any case Aristotelianism is just rigorous common sense, so there's nothing particularly difficult about it. Transubstantiation is simply taking 1 Cor 11:24 seriously: "This is my body", together with the observation that there is no perceptible change to the bread and wine. The doctrine, then, is that the bread is literally transformed into Christ's body, and the wine into his blood, but that the physical properties don't change. So after consecration, there is no more bread and no more wine - rather, there is Christ's body with all the physical properties of bread, and his blood with all the physical properties of wine. Obviously this means there could be no empirical means of testing whether it had happened or not, because the consecrated elements would be indistinguishable from bread and wine by any empirical test.

So, what reason is there to take "This is my body" literally? That seems, at surface, to be one of the most obvious symbolic things in the Bible, particularly because he says "Do this in rememberance of me, plus the fact that Christ was physically present, in person, when the Eucharist was first instituted. However, that's simply my Evangelical bias talking, without really using tradition, and just using Scripture.

Also, if there is no bread, why would it test as bread? I mean, I can understand Christ being present spiritually in the bread (Isn't that consubstantiation? Or is that a different position that I don't know the name of?) and that not being able to be tested, but if its actually not bread in any sense but still scentifically tests as bread, is science lying to us? Thus, by logical conclusion, God would be lying to us?

Also some other questions and points:

I understand what you were saying above (I've decided not to go through with quoting every paragraph of text and respond individually and instead respond specifically to the points I have further questions on, though I assure you I'm reading and considering every answer you give me) about everyone cherry-picking in some sense, simply by choosing which religion you are. However, while I agree that you can identify with a group and reject one or a couple of its major tenants while rejecting others (For instance, almost nobody who belongs to a political party agrees with their party on everything, and we generally derogatively refer to those that do as partisan hacks) however, I don't see how you can claim to believe in something that claims it is infallible and then reject it. For instance, the Bible clearly claims itself as infallible, so wouldn't somebody who made that sort of a claim about themself wrongly be untrustworthy? For instance, you used the pastor example, and while yes I can listen to the preacher and consider what he has to say and occasionally disagree without completely disregarding him, if my pastor claimed he was infallible, and I didn't believe it (Which I wouldn't) I wouldn't claim to take him seriously. And for the record, all of the small, crazy, random Protestant churches that you get google ads for and who claim to have all of the truth even though almost nobody believes in their doctrine, I ignore them too

I guess, the meat of the matter is, why would something inspired by a perfect God have flaws, and if it did, why would you trust God at all for allowing his word to be flawed?

2. What was the early Christian view of the church. When early Christians talked about the church, did they view "The Church" as "The body of believers" or did they view it as a single, visible Church. And if the latter, is it possible to take the Early Christians as anything but Catholic (Since conceivably the Catholic Church was the earliest visible Church, and if they thought the specific Church was important, they'd all be Catholic.)

3. What are the origins of Sola Fide? Did Luther actually make it up (Well, or get it from Paul) or did any Church Fathers or people earlier than him believe in it?

4. What are the origins of veneration of the Saints? And to what degree do you understand and accept the differences between veneration and worship?

5. Does it make sense to view "For all have sinned" to literally include everyone (Including Mary) and did the Church Fathers view it this way?

6. How old is the doctrine of Universalism, and for how long was it popular in early Christian history before the Catholic Church officially condemned it? Also, other than using liberal arguments like "A loving God wouldn't send anyone to Hell" is there any good solid Biblical reason to believe in it? At least anything that remotely comes close to the many verses that discuss eternal punishment?



Also, just a note, I was well aware that the Church Fathers thought baptism was necessary for Salvation, in fact, I knew this even before I started looking at them at all. However, as you stated, nobody would have ever thought of becoming a Christian and NOT wanting to get baptized back then anyways. I don't really object to that sort of idea (I still don't think its really going to happen today) but because Salvation, at least in Evangelical Christianity, has everything to do with the state of ones' heart, and not with a physical action. Paul says the same in Acts: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved." He doesn't say "Believe and get baptized" and IIRC the only part of the Bible that does (Mark 16:9-20) is supposedly most likely a second-century insertion anyways, which would explain baptism being necessary for Salvation being mentioned there.

 

[Masada]

I think this point could be quite important. Isn't the general orthodox Christian opinion that Paul wrote all the books he said he wrote?

You've heard Paul speak?

 

[GhostWriter16]

You've heard Paul speak?

OK, you're correct, I slipped. If Paul didn't actually write the book, it would be someone else (Presumably a forger) who claimed Paul wrote it.

That said, my point remains, since I think the orthodox position is that the whole Bible is true, and the very idea of a forger writing a book kinda contradictst that idea (Unless that ISN'T the orthodox position, but I think historically it is.)

 

[Masada]

OK, you're correct, I slipped. If Paul didn't actually write the book, it would be someone else (Presumably a forger) who claimed Paul wrote it.

Paul could well have written the book, endorsed the work as his own and subsequent parties could well have added to it. That would seem the sane position to adopt. Rather than supposing either (A) Paul had to have wrote it and therefore that no change could have occurred (quite why is beyond me) or (B) that the text was forged, which denies Paul's authorship and would be contentious.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I too think that transubstantiation makes no sense and that a symbolic view is correct, but it is true that most of the earliest christian writings do support the Catholic position even if not in the same terms. I'm pretty sure I've come across some of the Church Fathers noting that there are others who disagree though, so writings supporting the symbolic view may have been suppressed by those considered more orthodox.

The Didache (which is probably older than much of the New Testament, much less any writings of the church fathers) certainly does not endorse transubstantiation; its instructions for the Eucharist does not even mention the body or the blood. Here the wine symbolizes the line of David, and the bread symbolizes the gathering together of the church.


As Plotinus and others have pointed out many times, the bible never claims to be infallible. You are reading a lot into the text of that verse of Timothy which is not there. Even if your view that inspired=infallible were correct, it does not tell us what actual texts are to be considered infallible.


The church means "those who have been called out." It included many local communities of believers who were originally pretty much self governing but maintained communion with each other.


I believe that Sola Scriptura has often been claimed to be of Islamic origin, as Muslims consider the Koran to be completely infallible and reject all earlier traditions. They so still rely heavily on Hadith and their own traditions too though. I believe many in the early church may took a rather strong Prima Scriptura view elevating scripture above other traditions, but don't know of any Christian advocates of true Sola Scriptura or Nuda Scriptura before Luther.


There are different words for worship and veneration in Greek and Latin. Theoretically intercession to dead saints is no different than asking living Christians to pray for you and veneration of saints is simply respect given to someone of excellent character, but I tend to think they go too far in practice. Of course I (like Pope John XXII) reject the notion that saints join God in heaven rather than remaining in an unconscious intermediate state between death and the resurrection in the last days, so praying to saints makes no sense to me.


There were some noncanonical gospels claiming that Mary was sinless (some even claimed that she was the incarnation of the archangel Michael) and was assumed into heaven rather than suffering death. The Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary were however never not dogma until the second half of the 19th century, under the same Pope who decided to create the dogma of Papal Infallibility (which John XXII had vehemently opposed when the Jesuits first fabricated the doctrine). There have been those who believed such things since the 12 century, but they were a minority. However during the first 5 centuries of the church Mary described as "in every respect holy", "in all things unstained", "super-innocent" and "singularly holy." Augustine of Hippo (probably the most influential church father, in my opinion an overwhelmingly negative influence) is quoted as saying "As regards the mother of God, I will not allow any question whatever of sin," although his view was apparently that she was born with original depravity but by the grace of God overcame it and committed no personal sins.


Plotinus has in the past said that Universalism as a Christian doctrine is older the the doctrine of Eternal Damnation. The first Christians who argued in favor of the natural immortality of the soul were Universalists. Universalism was far from universal in the early church, but it was a well tolerated minority position in 4 out of the 6 main centers of Christianity before Augustine popularized Eternal Damnation. Augustine came from the tradition of the church at Carthage, which held the dogma of Eternal Damnation. The church at Ephesus (which according to tradition had been led by the disciple John and Mary long after the other disciples had died) held to Conditional immortality.

 

[Plotinus]

Among Christian experts, or secular ones? I think this point could be quite important. Isn't the general orthodox Christian opinion that Paul wrote all the books he said he wrote? And wouldn't the alternative be to simply remove them from the canon, since the books do say quite clearly that Paul wrote them? (This as opposed to something like Matthew or John which, while the majority opinion is that the aforementioned people wrote them, is not actually stated to have been written by those people in the text, and thus you could argue that someone else wrote it without contradicting the text.)

When I say "experts" I mean secular biblical scholars, although it seems to me that a majority of them are Christians. Which makes sense, since one would expect Christians to be more interested in the Bible than non-Christians and become scholars of it. I'm sure that the majority opinion among e.g. Christian ministers is that Paul wrote Colossians, but that's because most Christian ministers aren't biblical scholars.

Colossians is an interesting case because its authorship really is disputed, as opposed to outright denied. In the case of the pastoral epistles and Ephesians, the scholarly consensus is pretty much universal that they are not by Paul. The language, ideas, and church structure presupposed by them are unpauline. However, Colossians is harder. It's like Ephesians, but less so (in fact much of Ephesians is based on Colossians). The ideas in Ephesians that show it to be unpauline are present in Colossians, but to a lesser degree, so it's conceivable that Paul really did write it at at time when his thinking had been developing. Some scholars think this is the case, others don't. I must say when I read it I thought it seemed unpauline, but then I'm no expert. 2 Thessalonians is also similar, in that scholars are divided over whether Paul wrote it or not; the main reason to suppose that he didn't is that it contradicts 1 Thessalonians, but otherwise it seems perfectly pauline, so the question there is to what extent one is prepared to accept that Paul could contradict himself.

As for the general orthodox opinion, traditionally of course it's always been assumed that the books of the New Testament that claim authorship were written by those authors. This is, in part, because people in antiquity were almost unbelievably gullible about such things and almost always took it completely for granted that books were written by the named authors. This was so even when those books were obviously spurious. I've mentioned before how Jerome - one of the greatest scholars who ever lived - took it for granted that the "letters" between Paul and Seneca were authentic, despite the fact that they're pretty much the most obviously inauthentic documents ever written. So did Augustine. Another example is the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite (a character in Acts, mentioned as one of Paul's converts in Athens). These writings were "discovered" in the early sixth century and quickly became popular and widely accepted, despite the fact that they used all kinds of technical philosophical terminology that didn't exist in the first century, and even quoted Ignatius of Antioch, a second-century author. In fact it wasn't until modern times that people realised these writings were spurious.

So, yes, the church traditionally assumed that all New Testament writings were authentic, but it thought that about everything. We know now that texts such as the Paul-Seneca correspondence and the works of Dionysius were written by other authors, and we see no reason to suppose that the church was actually right about their authorship; I see no reason to suppose that the church was any more right about the New Testament writings.

Also, it's one thing to say that Christians generally uncritically accepted the authenticity of all these things, and another to say that it was a point of orthodox doctrine. Orthodox doctrines generally get articulated and defined only when there's disagreement. Now there was some disagreement in the early church over the authorship of some New Testament writings, but only those whose authors are not specified in the text (e.g. Hebrews and Revelation, which claims to be by "John" but doesn't identify which one). As far as I know no-one in antiquity or indeed the Middle Ages tried to argue that e.g. Ephesians was not really by Paul. Marcion did edit the New Testament rather drastically, but that was purely on doctrinal grounds (i.e. he cut out the bits he didn't like). So the issue never came up.

I think that, today, most liberal Protestant and Catholic Christians have no particular problem with the idea that some biblical books are inauthentic. The Catholic position is that the Bible is infallible on all spiritual matters, which means that it's quite possible that it's erroneous on some other matters, and presumably the claim "Paul wrote this" is a non-spiritual claim.

So, what reason is there to take "This is my body" literally? That seems, at surface, to be one of the most obvious symbolic things in the Bible, particularly because he says "Do this in rememberance of me, plus the fact that Christ was physically present, in person, when the Eucharist was first instituted. However, that's simply my Evangelical bias talking, without really using tradition, and just using Scripture.

I suppose one would say that if there's no clear indication that a saying should not be taken literally, one should take it literally - that's the default understanding. I don't really see what makes it obviously symbolic, at least no more so than pretty much any other theological claim in the New Testament. Jesus tells his disciples to "do this in remembrance of me", but that doesn't mean he's not speaking literally - he could be telling them to continue to eat his literal body in remembrance of him. When the Reformers were arguing about this, Luther famously wrote "This is my body" on the table in chalk and sat back, refusing to say any more, because he thought that the plain statement settled the matter once and for all. This perhaps tells you rather more about Luther's personality than about how to interpret the Bible, though.

You're right that Jesus was physically present in person, but that doesn't mean the bread couldn't have been his body as well, because transubstantiation is a miracle that involves the entirety of Christ's body being present on the altar even though it is also entirely present in heaven (and also entirely present on innumerable other altars, probably). It's no more impossible that Christ's body could have been present on the table in front of Jesus than it is that it can be present in two different churches at the same time.

Also, if there is no bread, why would it test as bread? I mean, I can understand Christ being present spiritually in the bread (Isn't that consubstantiation? Or is that a different position that I don't know the name of?) and that not being able to be tested, but if its actually not bread in any sense but still scentifically tests as bread, is science lying to us? Thus, by logical conclusion, God would be lying to us?

This is quite a good point. Yes, one might say that if the elements appear to be bread but are not, then God is somehow being deceitful. I've said before that this is an argument against taking the creation accounts in Genesis literally, because there too, if they are true then God is deceitful in creating a universe that appears in every respect to be very ancient when in fact it is not. I suppose the fundamentalist answer to that is that God isn't deceitful because he's told us the truth in the Bible, so perhaps the Catholic answer to your objection would be the same, that God isn't deceitful because he's told us in the Bible (and in church teachings) that the bread isn't bread at all. Whether that's a good answer or not, I'm not sure.

As I understand it, consubstantiation is the claim that the bread really does turn into Christ's body (i.e. Christ's body isn't just there alongside it), but it remains bread as well. The important point is that Christ isn't just there spiritually - this is closer to the Reformed view - but his body is present.

I understand what you were saying above (I've decided not to go through with quoting every paragraph of text and respond individually and instead respond specifically to the points I have further questions on, though I assure you I'm reading and considering every answer you give me) about everyone cherry-picking in some sense, simply by choosing which religion you are. However, while I agree that you can identify with a group and reject one or a couple of its major tenants while rejecting others (For instance, almost nobody who belongs to a political party agrees with their party on everything, and we generally derogatively refer to those that do as partisan hacks) however, I don't see how you can claim to believe in something that claims it is infallible and then reject it. For instance, the Bible clearly claims itself as infallible, so wouldn't somebody who made that sort of a claim about themself wrongly be untrustworthy? For instance, you used the pastor example, and while yes I can listen to the preacher and consider what he has to say and occasionally disagree without completely disregarding him, if my pastor claimed he was infallible, and I didn't believe it (Which I wouldn't) I wouldn't claim to take him seriously. And for the record, all of the small, crazy, random Protestant churches that you get google ads for and who claim to have all of the truth even though almost nobody believes in their doctrine, I ignore them too

Well, the Bible doesn't claim to be infallible. It just doesn't. Even if it did, it wouldn't be the case that "the Bible" claims that "the Bible" is infallible - it would be the case that a particular biblical author claims that some texts are infallible. The Bible is not like the Iliad, a single text which really does claim divine inspiration for the whole thing. The Bible is a collection of books. Talking about it as if it can make claims about "itself" is just wrong to start with.

Even putting that aside, though, I think it's perfectly possible to take a source very seriously and authoritatively without accepting all its claims about itself. Take the Dalai Lama (who I heard speak last week). Many people take him very seriously as a very authoritative person who speaks with great insight. That doesn't mean that these people really believe his claim to be the reincarnation of his thirteen predecessors, let alone an incarnation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. There are also people who take the Pope very seriously as a spiritually authoritative person but who reject the doctrine of papal infallibility. In fact, when papal infallibility was made a dogma of the church in 1870, a whole group of Catholics split from the Church and became known as Old Catholics, because they rejected this doctrine. They were people who took the Pope to be the representative of Christ on earth, but they did not believe him to be infallible and they did not believe him when he said he was. Similarly, I don't see any problem at all with somebody believing the Bible to be authoritative but nevertheless rejecting its claim to infallibility. Although, as I say, this is a purely academic point, since the Bible doesn't claim to be infallible anyway. And certainly people who reject the notion that it's infallible also reject the notion that it claims to be infallible.

I guess, the meat of the matter is, why would something inspired by a perfect God have flaws, and if it did, why would you trust God at all for allowing his word to be flawed?

One could say exactly the same about the church. Evangelicals believe that the church is flawed, that it does not speak infallibly, and that it has a matter of fact gone wrong in all sorts of ways. Why would God set up a church with such flaws? Why would he allow his church to become flawed? Whatever answer you have for that, can also be applied to the Bible. In both cases the most plausible answer, from a theological point of view, would presumably be that God likes to do things through human beings, who have an unfortunate tendency to be fallible.

2. What was the early Christian view of the church. When early Christians talked about the church, did they view "The Church" as "The body of believers" or did they view it as a single, visible Church. And if the latter, is it possible to take the Early Christians as anything but Catholic (Since conceivably the Catholic Church was the earliest visible Church, and if they thought the specific Church was important, they'd all be Catholic.)

It was very definitely the latter. And, yes, it does make it impossible to take the early Christians as Catholic, at least if you take "Catholic" to mean having that view of the church.

Of course opinions varied. Some Christians viewed the church in rather more spiritualising terms that didn't make such a big deal of its actual institutions, whereas others did not. One might also say that the fact that there were a number of different church organisations would also imply that at least the members of those organisations did not share this view of the church, because if they did, they would not have left the Catholic church. However, that would be wrong, because as far as I can tell, the members of these schismatic churches all regarded themselves as the true Catholic church, and thought that the Catholics were the schismatics. There was a Novatianist bishop of Constantinople called Sisinnius, who was noted for being something of a wit; when John Chrysostom, the Catholic bishop of Constantinople, told Sisinnius that it was shameful for there to be two bishops in the city, Sisinnius replied "There aren't."

3. What are the origins of Sola Fide? Did Luther actually make it up (Well, or get it from Paul) or did any Church Fathers or people earlier than him believe in it?

I think it was a Reformation innovation, as far as I know.

4. What are the origins of veneration of the Saints? And to what degree do you understand and accept the differences between veneration and worship?

Veneration of saints really began with the martyrdoms under the Roman empire, I think. Martyrs were regarded very, very highly indeed. When Cyprian of Carthage knelt down before the executioner's block, the last thing he saw before the blindfold was put on his head was people coming forward from the crowd to place handkerchiefs around the block. They wanted to catch the blood, so that those bloodstained cloths could later be venerated as relics. And really this isn't so surprising. If you belonged to a religion which was illegal and where anyone could be executed for it at any time, you'd probably have a pretty high opinion of those who actually were executed. Martyrdom was known as the baptism of blood, and many Christians longed for it and actively sought to be martyred (and many didn't, of course).

(Christians who had been willing to be executed, but who for some reason were reprieved, were known as "confessors" and were held to be almost as holy as true martyrs, since they had shown they were prepared to be martyred.)

After the early fourth century, Christians were no longer martyred, and so naturally people started instead to venerate the great saints of the past (martyrs and others). Relics became more and more important, thanks to the operation of simple laws of economics: there was more demand for them (because there were more Christians), but there were fewer of them (because no more were being produced). Inevitably they came to be seen as more and more holy.

(This is despite the fact that persecutions were still going on outside the Roman empire, notably under the Sassanids, who slaughtered far more Christians than the Romans ever did. This seems not to have made much of an impact on Roman Christians, but I don't know why.)

This coincided with the rise of greater interest in what one might call the physical aspects of faith, especially geography. Before the fourth century, no-one seems to have been very interested in the places where Jesus actually lived and worked or the important sites mentioned in the Gospels. After that time, though, they became very interested in these things. Constantine's mother oversaw a series of archaeological excavations in Palestine (very unusual for antiquity) which sought to identify locations from the Gospel. These were later held to have discovered relics such as the True Cross as well. Palestine was re-invented as "the Holy Land" and people started going on pilgrimages to it and to other holy places.

Veneration and worship do seem to me to be clearly different things, at least as they were defined in the course of the Iconoclasm controversy. However, to what extent they are distinguished in practice is another matter. Also, I think the distinction before then was a lot hazier. Justin Martyr famously claimed in the second century that Christians worship the Father, the Logos, the angels, and the Holy Spirit. As that indicates, Christians at that time really hadn't got the Trinity worked out, but they also weren't very clear on their attitudes to the angels either.

5. Does it make sense to view "For all have sinned" to literally include everyone (Including Mary) and did the Church Fathers view it this way?

No-one thinks that it includes literally everyone, at least no-one who thinks that Jesus was sinless. I don't see any logical problem with thinking that it includes everyone else. But it seems to me from a purely hermeneutical point of view that it's placing too much weight on the verse. Paul thought in groups rather than in individuals. His point in those chapters is that pagans are pretty horrible (which all Jews thought), and that Jews are actually just as bad (which Jews did not typically think). He's not making legally precise assertions about individuals. That's not to say that if you'd asked Paul, "Do you think there has ever been anyone who lived without sin?" he would have denied it. I just mean that it's not the question he's trying to answer there, at least not as I see it.

As MagisterCultuum said, Augustine seems to have thought that Mary should at least be regarded as sinless, but of course his official view was that everyone is sinful. To what extent this was the standard Christian view, I'm not sure. I'm inclined to think there was no standard view of the matter until the Pelagian controversy forced people to think about it.

6. How old is the doctrine of Universalism, and for how long was it popular in early Christian history before the Catholic Church officially condemned it?

It's uncertain. Universalism was certainly around in the third century. Clement of Alexandria (probably) and Origen of Alexandria (very probably, but not certainly) were universalists. In the fourth century Titus of Bostra and St Gregory of Nyssa (far more explicitly) were universalists. These are some impressive names, but they hardly constitute a majority. I think that there was no settled view on the matter at this time, although individuals certainly could have clear views (Gregory's brother Basil seems to have rejected universalism quite unequivocally). In The city of God, Augustine discusses the view that punishment is not eternal as something that evidently some people in his day believed, but how many is unclear.

Also, other than using liberal arguments like "A loving God wouldn't send anyone to Hell" is there any good solid Biblical reason to believe in it? At least anything that remotely comes close to the many verses that discuss eternal punishment?

1 Corinthians 15:20-28 is the passage that's usually cited, though I think that Romans 5:18 is a clearer statement of universalism. I gave some other reasons that Christians have had for this view here.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It's uncertain. Universalism was certainly around in the third century. Clement of Alexandria (probably) and Origen of Alexandria (very probably, but not certainly) were universalists. In the fourth century Titus of Bostra and St Gregory of Nyssa (far more explicitly) were universalists. These are some impressive names, but they hardly constitute a majority. I think that there was no settled view on the matter at this time, although individuals certainly could have clear views (Gregory's brother Basil seems to have rejected universalism quite unequivocally). In The city of God, Augustine discusses the view that punishment is not eternal as something that evidently some people in his day believed, but how many is unclear.

Isn't Augustine's argument here seriously undercut by the fact that he never mastered Greek, and was presumably depending on a Latin translation? The meaning of the Latin aeternum is not an exactly identical to that of αἰώνιον, as the Greek could refer to a long but finite length of time as the Universalists prefer. (It seems to me that the nearest Latin equivalent to αἰών is saeculum and so its adjective form αἰώνιον should be translated saeculare, even though secular it is so strongly associated with the things of the current age/world rather then the next one and would seem odd describing profound religions matters like the final fate of souls.)

Also, the English translators of that passage seem to be doing a disservice and strengthening Augustine's case by using for ever where Augustine would have been using the much more faithfully translated Latin phrase in saecula saeculorum ("unto the ages of ages"). (Or would he have been using an Old Latin translation that translated this phrase less accurately than the Vulgate does, and supported his view more strongly?)