Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis

Started by martin88nyc, February 09, 2019, 10:59:11 PM

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martin88nyc

https://www.gloria.tv/article/F9AwmbtEsRPP1T3hUyNhRPsv9

QuoteThe famous Austrian philosopher Josef Seifert has sharply criticized Pope Francis' Abu Dhabi claim that pluralism and diversity of religions are "willed by God".

In an article published on en.gloria.tv (February 8) Seifert asks, "How can God will religions that deny Christ's divinity and resurrection?"

For Seifert Francis' statement "contains all heresies" and turns God into a relativist who "does not know" that there is only one truth and "does not care" whether men believe in truth or falsity.

He concludes that in his Abu Dhabi document Francis "rejected Christianity" and implies that God must hate the Catholic Church because it rejects any relativization of the Christian religion that would turn it into one of many contradictory religions.

Seifert asks Francis to recant his heresy,

"If he does not do this, I am afraid that Canon Law may apply according to which a Pope automatically loses his Petrine office when professing heresy, especially when he professes the sum-total of all heresies."
"These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Gerard


St. Columba

Ok, but see what Quare wrote recently:

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on January 16, 2019, 07:21:00 AM
The answer is yes, God's positive will is ontologically identical to His permissive will, which are both ontologically identical to His existence.  The distinction between positive and permissive will exists only in our minds but not in God.

If what Quare says above is true, then God does indeed positively will the different religions, making Pope Francis' contention....sound?
People don't have ideas...ideas have people.  - Jordan Peterson quoting Carl Jung

Michael Wilson

One thing is to argue about the identity of God with His attributes, another is to claim that God has positively willed (as what logically follows from what Francis said) false religions or that men have the right to practice these false religions:
Quoteeach individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.
God created human beings through his positive will ergo:  so He must also positively will the existence of false religions.
Each man has the duty to seek the truth and will the good; if men turn aside and adhere to error and commit evil acts, they do not have "the right" to do so.
"The World Must Conform to Our Lord and not He to it." Rev. Dennis Fahey CSSP

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit." Cardinal Pie of Potiers

Kreuzritter

Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 08:51:17 AM
Ok, but see what Quare wrote recently:

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on January 16, 2019, 07:21:00 AM
The answer is yes, God's positive will is ontologically identical to His permissive will, which are both ontologically identical to His existence.  The distinction between positive and permissive will exists only in our minds but not in God.

If what Quare says above is true, then God does indeed positively will the different religions, making Pope Francis' contention....sound?

In that case God wills babies to be raped. And this will for babies to be raped is identical to his existence. But let's take it even further. There is neither any distinction in anything that God wills, all of it being ontologically identical with his existence, which is absolutely simple. The distinction between his willing babies to be raped, flowers to bloom, planets to spin, cows to shit, people to be happy and someone's mom to die of cancer exists only in our minds.

This is where dumb philosophy will get you.

Quare's "God" is a positive nothing, not a person in any sense, but a transcendent locus of unstoppable causal force.

St. Columba

Well, I will let Quare speak for himself...but maybe God's eternal will encompasses all of the evil that will ensue so that a greater good may come about.  So it is not that He wills babies being raped per se, as an isolated act; rather, any instance of babies being raped is part of an overall enterprise that God integrally wills.

...although, I still have trouble with this idea that God sublimates His tolerance for evil under the auspices of a greater good.  Ontologically, I don't even see how a greater good can even come into existence.  God always and already has every good.  Allowing evil so that "accidental" good may abound seems a possible answer, however.
People don't have ideas...ideas have people.  - Jordan Peterson quoting Carl Jung

St. Columba

Kreuzritter, you recently made the claim that evil necessarily exists.  I can dig up the post if you like.

Question: If evil necessarily exists, how can God not will it?

As far as I am concerned, if evil is necessary, then it is in some sense a "part" of God: but God is simple, and does not admit of parts.  So, if evil is necessary, it must be an attribute of God, and if an attribute of God, then, well, you can imagine the blasphemous implication.
People don't have ideas...ideas have people.  - Jordan Peterson quoting Carl Jung

james03

I have already answered this and you have failed to refute it.  Do you believe in Free Will?  If you do, then there is no dilemma.  If you don't, then I understand your problem.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

james03

Getting back to the O.P., Bergoglio has now been accused of heresy 4 times by cardinals and bishops.  He has not recanted.  Make what you want of it.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

awkwardcustomer

Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 02:32:01 PM
...although, I still have trouble with this idea that God sublimates His tolerance for evil under the auspices of a greater good.  Ontologically, I don't even see how a greater good can even come into existence.  God always and already has every good.  Allowing evil so that "accidental" good may abound seems a possible answer, however.

God allows evil so that angels and men might exist.  Is that a greater good, or an "accidental" good?

When God created angels and men He gave them Free Will.  For Free Will to be really free, it has to include the freedom to choose evil.  None had fallen and yet Satan, a third of the angels and Adam and Eve, all chose of their unfallen Free Will to rebel against God.  God must have known this would happen.  And yet He created angels and men nevertheless.

Surely the only way God could eliminate evil from His creation is to destroy, or to never have created, the two races of created beings among whose ranks the evildoers are to found?

Is this how God's permissive will can be explained regarding evil?  It was a price worth paying, without which He could not have created angels and men in the first place? 






And formerly the heretics were manifest; but now the Church is filled with heretics in disguise.  
St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 15, para 9.

And what rough beast, it's hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
WB Yeats, 'The Second Coming'.

St. Columba

Quote from: james03 on February 10, 2019, 03:53:01 PM
I have already answered this and you have failed to refute it.  Do you believe in Free Will?  If you do, then there is no dilemma.  If you don't, then I understand your problem.

Hi James....I think you are referring to me...nice to interact with you friend.

I do believe in free will.  I but do not see where Quare is wrong when he states, "God's positive will is ontologically identical to His permissive will, which are both ontologically identical to His existence.  The distinction between positive and permissive will exists only in our minds but not in God."

Do you agree with Quare's italicized statement immediately above?  If you do, then it seems that God positively wills evil, and the existence of free-will does not solve that problem.  If you don't agree with Quare's statement, then I would be most interested in knowing why, precisely.

Thank you for educating me James.  Have a pleasant evening friend! 
People don't have ideas...ideas have people.  - Jordan Peterson quoting Carl Jung

St. Columba

Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 10, 2019, 06:08:52 PM
God allows evil so that angels and men might exist.  Is that a greater good, or an "accidental" good?

Hi awkwardcustomer.  Thanks for the post friend.

From the point of view that God has always, and will always, possess every good, it seems to me that anything created, as distinct from a transcendent God, will only possibly bring about an "accidental good" or alternatively, an increase in "accidental glory" in God.  I don't see how there could ever be an actual increase of ontological good.  It would imply that God lacked some good, which is impossible.  It also would imply that God, as goodness itself, can essentially change, which is also unpalatable.
People don't have ideas...ideas have people.  - Jordan Peterson quoting Carl Jung

Kreuzritter

Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 07:05:27 PM
I do believe in free will. I but do not see where Quare is wrong when he states, "God's positive will is ontologically identical to His permissive will, which are both ontologically identical to His existence.  The distinction between positive and permissive will exists only in our minds but not in God."

It doesn't even come down to him being "wrong" when I have no reason whatsoever for agreeing with that or the philosophy that lies behind it in the first place. What a subject is is not what he wills, thinks, judges or otherwise does; these are mere actions upon something.  A subject is existential and posesses a certain nature, and out of himself he acts, but he is not his acts. This is why I remain self-identically who I am through time despite what I will, think, judge, etc. constantly changing with respect to time. The divine ousia is precisely that, the I am, a subject, in the primary sense, and the physis or nature of that subject in the secondary sense with which it becomes a generic term; and simplicity applies to the ousia, but it applies to it  just like it does to any transcendental existential subject.

QuoteDo you agree with Quare's italicized statement immediately above?  If you do, then it seems that God positively wills evil, and the existence of free-will does not solve that problem.  If you don't agree with Quare's statement, then I would be most interested in knowing why, precisely.

If God creates a free being and allows him to murder or God directly wills and causes a murder, this is not a mere distinction in my mind. It's an objectivley real distinction,a nd it doesn't go away by claimign they "somehow" becoem one in God.

As I already stated, Quare's "God" is a positive nothing, not a person in any sense, but a transcendent locus of unstoppable causal force. That is not the personal, feeling, loving, suffering deity of the old Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament. It just isn't. It's a construct of "Christianised" pagan philosophy, or rather of pagan philosophy playing with Christian language, and I reject it out of hand.

John Lamb

Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 07:05:27 PMI do believe in free will.  I but do not see where Quare is wrong when he states, "God's positive will is ontologically identical to His permissive will, which are both ontologically identical to His existence.  The distinction between positive and permissive will exists only in our minds but not in God."

Do you agree with Quare's italicized statement immediately above?


Quare's right that God's positive and permissive wills are ontologically identical, because ontologically speaking God is absolutely simple and has only one divine Will identical to His very essence. However, even though there are no ontological distinctions in God the divinely simple Being, there are logical distinctions, and God's positive and permissive wills are logically distinct in the one divine Will or Essence.

So yes, although God's positive and permissive wills are substantially one and the same identical divine Will, the way these two "wills" manifest in creation are logically distinct. In the positive the divine Will is actively causing some metaphysical entity to exist, whereas in the permissive the divine Will is allowing a certain metaphysical defect or deficiency in a thing by causing the thing's existence without supplying its full perfection of being. If you like you can view it as a fountain flowing into two cups, but one cup is leaking: it's the same water but one cup receives its fullness and the other does not – Similarly, it's the same divine Will through which all being or existence flows into creatures, but God permits some creatures to "leak". In fact, in our fallen world all creatures are "leaking". If you ask if God is the cause of the hole through which being leaks out of creatures: only in the sense that He chooses not to patch up the hole, not in the sense that He created the hole to begin with. The reality is we are all entirely hole – entirely "nothing" – until God fills us up, and to the extent that He does fill us up. Revelation teaches that God made the world without these metaphysical holes or leakages, but He permitted them to enter through Adam's sin – Adam's sin is like an enormous rupture or tear in the very fabric of created reality. One of the problems of Christian / Theistic evolutionism is that it fails to preserve this truth and reduces the world-shattering event we call the Fall to a mere local event occurring in some animal somewhere at some time.
"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

Kreuzritter

Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 07:15:17 PM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 10, 2019, 06:08:52 PM
God allows evil so that angels and men might exist.  Is that a greater good, or an "accidental" good?

Hi awkwardcustomer.  Thanks for the post friend.

From the point of view that God has always, and will always, possess every good, it seems to me that anything created, as distinct from a transcendent God, will only possibly bring about an "accidental good" or alternatively, an increase in "accidental glory" in God.  I don't see how there could ever be an actual increase of ontological good.  It would imply that God lacked some good, which is impossible.  It also would imply that God, as goodness itself, can essentially change, which is also unpalatable.

I really don't understand this language. And who's quantifying "good" and keeping tally?

God encounters the potency of all that he can bring forth by virtue of his power and does so out of his love, creating something beautiful and good and establishing a relationship where there was nothing before. That's not God changing in his ousia or physis , though it certainly implies a change experienced by the deity in another sense. But what's the issue? The hypostasis of the Son had to have changed in taking to itself a human nature in time, though it remained unchanged in its divine nature.