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In preparation for the currently ongoing papal conclave, I decided to read the official rules currently in force, UNIVERSI DOMINICI GREGIS, issued by John Paul II in 1996. The document contains this provision (emphasis added):
Seems simple enough right?
Whoops.
Here I was, a schmuck, reading the canonically promulgated apostolic constitution as if it mattered, as if the supposed men of God involved in this 2000-year-old institution might care about established procedures.
Sure, Francis could have changed the rules, as many popes have done throughout the centuries, but he didn’t. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and neither did anyone else with influence within the Vatican either. How am I supposed to take this seriously if the cardinals and popes don’t even take it seriously?
I wish Christianity were true. I really do. It would certainly make my dating life easier. I’d have a sense of purpose in life, defined rules of virtue to follow, but it just doesn’t make any actual sense. The inconsistency I cited above is relatively minor, but it is illustrative of what one finds everywhere when one digs into the claims of Christianity and treats them with the truth-preserving tools of logic. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus and Vatican II, Matthew 24:34, these are fundamental truth claims that can’t be handwaved away like the finer points of ecclesiastical law.
Obviously, as a Mormon (member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whew) I think you're actually on the right track. It's so blindingly obvious that the Catholic church is bumbling along, with zero internal consistency, for centuries and centuries. It shows up all over. Even today, Catholics are very loud about a number of major issues, but very small numbers of actual Catholics actually agree with their own church's doctrine, much less practice it, and that's even before you look at any history at all. Don't get me wrong, I respect Catholics, I get along with many, I still view the religion as an overall net good, etc. but their doctrine is a mess. I genuinely extra respect the Catholics who attempt to pull the doctrine together into a coherent whole, but I just don't see the hand of God guiding them.
Now, doctrinally, to me, this all goes away quite neatly when you give up on the idea of the Catholic line of authority being unbroken. Clearly they strayed, it's self-evident, so my own faith has the nice idea of needing someone to restore and clarify things and have a modern guide/prophet. I'm not saying that people don't find any inconsistencies in Mormon doctrine, there's a people component to be sure, but it's several orders of magnitude less. I strongly reject this idea that doctrine is developed by groups of people hashing it out. Council of Nicea? Convened by Constantine, he basically says I don't care what you produce as long as it's something unifying, and once you do, we'll burn the writings of dissenters and exile anyone not with the program. All this to say you should meet with the missionaries :)
The Church has existed for 2000 years. Can you name anything else that has 'bumbled along, with zero internal consistency' for so many 'centuries and centuries'?
Perhaps a better expression of my feeling is that Catholic doctrine, insofar as I understand it, explicitly promotes both Scripture and Tradition as (equal-ish) sources of doctrine... but simultaneously claims authority to make New Changes, due to pedigree/authority. Many Protestants view Sola Scriptura as the best source of doctrine, with perhaps a little history as helpful context, though others take a full "we figure it out with scholarship" approach and basically toss all of it out as unerring sources of doctrine. LDS theology by contrast at least has a nice hierarchy where modern clarifications/additions explicitly take precedence, so there really isn't the same kind of core conflict. That's why, at least to me, the Catholic attempt to split the difference, where some New Changes are OK to make and change Scripture and/or Tradition, but not too many, seems contradictory, and I think Catholic theological history reflects that inconsistency. It's possible I've misunderstood this point or been too uncharitable, of course, but that's my impression. How can a Catholic distinguish between a Tradition that's OK to change, and one that isn't? (Also, maybe doctrinal is the wrong word?)
Everyone always forgets the Orthodox, just because they are more spiritual/mystic and far far away …
The Orthodox also hold to both scripture and tradition (and recognize ecclesiastical (not theological) supremacy of the Pope if the schism is mended), so this points to this being the correct position instead of sola scriptura.
The Mormon hierarchy being effective(?) and therefore true is a novel point, but on an emotional level I prefer religion being a bit shrouded in mystery and vague and having thousands of years of wobbly-wobbly history with burning of incense, while Mormonism and Joseph Smith is too modern-american-conman-heretical-cult-constructed for my liking.
The Eastern and Western wings of the Church may disagree profoundly on many matters, but I think we both agree about a guy who said God is an astronaut 😁
As a band, though, they're excellent.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you believe:
We (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) agree on points 1 and 2 but not 3. Heaven is instead a physical place that exists in our universe. Some places are physically closer to it, others physically farther. It's imperceptible to us due to some fundamental characteristics of divine matter (which has interesting implications for dark matter, which we cannot detect except through its influence on gravity) but definitely exists in our universe.
I get that it's seen as heretical to believe God has a physical body and that all things spiritual are physical too. But please don't boil it down to "God is an astronaut," which greatly demeans him in my eyes. I would never call your idea of God a Planeswalker just because you believe he travels between dimensions.
This is also a caricature of the Orthodox view on God. That being said, the Orthodox have little problem connecting the spiritual and the physical.
My admittedly limited understanding is that Mormonism literally believes in God the Father having a basically human physical body though...
The only part of what I said that I can see as a caricature is calling heaven a "dimension". Which, I mean, it is, right? You can say something like "the real heaven is way holier and more profound than the crass connotations of the word 'dimension'" but fundamentally it does match the definition.
Were you talking about the "all things spiritual are physical too"? I wasn't trying to caricature Orthodox beliefs there--that's an LDS belief. We essentially believe that nothing is not made of matter. Spirits are made of spirit matter which may well be composed of spirit atoms. There's not necessarily a fundamental difference between spirit matter and regular matter either.
Yes we believe God the Father has a perfected human physical body. The exact details, like whether he has blood, or is made of atoms, are unknown, but you have it right.
My impression is that most Christian sects find the physical fundamentally distasteful. Jesus' current physical body is de-emphasized. The final resurrection is de-emphasized--most people sort of see heaven as a place we go when we die, and the resurrection as an afterthought. Heaven is seen as a place wholly empty of physical matter, except perhaps for Jesus' body, which is the only thing in the entire realm with a physical form. God the Father having a physical body is seen as worse or inferior somehow than him not having a body.
We see this aversion to physical matter as an artifact of Gnosticism which made its way into the Catholic church over the centuries.
This leads to much deeper theological differences--like ancient Jews, we do not believe in creation ex nihilo. We don't believe God can violate physical laws--though the true laws of physics may be quite a bit different/deeper than what humanity has discovered so far. We don't believe in a God "by definition"--God doesn't need to be the Greatest Conceivable Thing in order to be God. (He may well be, but it's not necessary).
Does the Orthodox church not have this attitude towards the physical?
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I don't want to get any more insulting than I already have, and if I start seriously discussing Christology and the Mormon version thereof, I'm going to step over a line sooner or later. So I'm not trying to dodge you by not engaging, I'm trying to keep the heat level down.
Well, far be it from me to egg you on. I'd much prefer a serious discussion of Christology to passing snipes, though.
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I dont think its really that defined. If you wanted to make it into a scientific model, this propably fits the typical opinions pretty well, but Im not sure you need to. As an analogy, what would happen if roadrunner and coyote were to run into the tunnel holding hands? AFAIC, once youre in the realm of basically-magic already, its fine to say NULL.
Also Im pretty sure the mormon astronaut thing did involve other planets at one point.
I'm not denying that our God can be characterized as an astronaut. He probably doesn't travel through space--some form of instant travel seems more likely--but he's been to space and other planets at some point, sure. I'd just prefer to avoid those dismissive terms.
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