"West's materialism/nihilism can be traced to Rome, Aquinas, Filioque, etc." -??

[TerrorDæmonum]

I want to clarify that my posts on this thread are all aimed at answering the OP's question. They are commentary on contributions, not arguments against anybody I responded to.

They are for the OP to consider for the question asked, about what was wrong with what he was reading and cited in the OP.

I read some of my posts and think one might interpret them as an argument against the person I was responding to, but it wasn't personally directed at them, but responses for the context of this thread.

[Ragnarok]

It seems more like geographic condemnation to be honest. Protestants are numerous and their theologies varied, but they all stray from the Catholic Church's teachings and theology. They even oppose St Thomas directly most of the time.

I don't think anybody denies that one of the reasons why theology diverged was geography. The Eastern Orthodox elevate Saint John Chrysostom, the Cappadocian Fathers (Saint Basil the Great, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, and Saint Gregory of Nazianus) as way more authoritative than the Western Fathers; simply put, if Augustine contradicts the above-stated authority, Augustine is wrong.

The reverse is true with the Roman Catholics, who elevate Saint Augustine, Sanit Ambrose, Saint Irenaeus, and Saint Gregory the Great as way more authoritative than the Eastern Fathers.

This is even true when considering the works of condemned heretics - Tertullian still has a noticeable influence on Western theology, as Origen has an influence on Eastern theology.


If you read Saint John Chrysostom's description of Baptism in his Catechital Treatise, you can see it parallels Eastern descriptions of Baptism:
newadvent.org/fathers/1908.htm

If you read Saint Augustine's description of Baptism, it parallels Western descriptions of Baptism:
newadvent.org/fathers/15093.htm


If you read Saint Gregory of Nyssa's description of Hell, he identifies it as a lake of fire proceeding from Christ that was identical to the light which glorifies the saved.
https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2011/01/teaching-of-gregory-of-nyssa-on.html

Saint Gregory the Great, on the other hand, depicts it as a physical location underneath the Earth separated from God.
https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2018/03/a-dialogue-about-hell-with-saint.html

[Ragnarok]

Paul was a Pharisee who arrested Christians to be executed for blasphemy.
Saint Augustine was born a pagan who indulged in lavish hedonism, only later to become a Manichean (a religion which believed Zoroaster, Jesus, and the Buddha were all prophets of God) and then became orthodox shortly after Manicheanism was outlawed.

Indeed.

However, St. Paul and St. Augustine didn't set out to lecture and correct the Church after their conversion, did they? Rather, they submitted to her. Their conversion was genuine. The same can't be said of Eugene Rose's.

They both repudiated what they perceived to be heretics outside the Church. Saint Augustine against the Donatists, Saint Paul - well just read any of his Epistles. And it was after they were given proper ecclesial authority; Father Seraphim Rose was a Priest and a monk, he didn't lecture others before then.

[Goldfinch]

Paul was a Pharisee who arrested Christians to be executed for blasphemy.
Saint Augustine was born a pagan who indulged in lavish hedonism, only later to become a Manichean (a religion which believed Zoroaster, Jesus, and the Buddha were all prophets of God) and then became orthodox shortly after Manicheanism was outlawed.

Indeed.

However, St. Paul and St. Augustine didn't set out to lecture and correct the Church after their conversion, did they? Rather, they submitted to her. Their conversion was genuine. The same can't be said of Eugene Rose's.

They both repudiated what they perceived to be heretics outside the Church. Saint Augustine against the Donatists, Saint Paul - well just read any of his Epistles. And it was after they were given proper ecclesial authority; Father Seraphim Rose was a Priest and a monk, he didn't lecture others before then.

Heresy isn't merely perceived. It's objective. St. Paul and St. Augustine were saints: an apostle and a doctor of the Church respectively. Rose was ordained a priest in a schismatic sect after pursuing Oriental esoterism whose influence seldom leaves its adherents. His past is relevant, unlike the aforementioned saints, precisely because he publicly lectured and opposed the Church of Christ.

[Ragnarok]

Some relevant quotes which I think are helpful in explaining how it could be possible that the West and East diverged (if you are familiar with each church's positions)

On Baptism:

Such is the defilement from which the laver of the Jews cleansed. But the laver of grace, not such, but the real uncleanness which has introduced defilement into the soul as well as into the body. For it does not make those who have touched dead bodies clean, but those who have set their hand to dead works: and if any man be effeminate, or a fornicator, or an idolator, or a doer of whatever ill you please, or if he be full of all the wickedness there is among men: should he fall into this pool of waters, he comes up again from the divine fountain purer than the sun's rays. And in order that you may not think that what is said is mere vain boasting, hear Paul speaking of the power of the laver, Be not deceived: neither idolators, nor fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor covetous, not drunkards, not revilers, not extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 And what has this to do with what has been spoken? Says one, for prove the question whether the power of the laver thoroughly cleanses all these things. Hear therefore what follows: And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the spirit of our God. We promise to show you that they who approach the laver become clean from all fornication: but the word has shown more, that they have become not only clean, but both holy and just, for it does not say only you were washed, but also you were sanctified and were justified. What could be more strange than this, when without toil, and exertion, and good works, righteousness is produced? For such is the lovingkindness of the Divine gift that it makes men just without this exertion. For if a letter of the Emperor, a few words being added, sets free those who are liable to countless accusations, and brings others to the highest honors; much rather will the Holy Spirit of God, who is able to do all things, free us from all evil and grant us much righteousness, and fill us with much assurance, and as a spark falling into the wide sea would straightway be quenched, or would become invisible, being overwhelmed by the multitude of the waters, so also all human wickedness, when it falls into the pool of the divine fountain, is more swiftly and easily overwhelmed, and made invisible, than that spark. And for what reason, says one, if the laver take away all our sins, is it called, not a laver of remission of sins, nor a laver of cleansing, but a laver of regeneration? Because it does not simply take away our sins, nor simply cleanse us from our faults, but so as if we were born again. For it creates and fashions us anew not forming us again out of earth, but creating us out of another element, namely, of the nature of water. For it does not simply wipe the vessel clean, but entirely remoulds it again. For that which is wiped clean, even if it be cleaned with care, has traces of its former condition, and bears the remains of its defilement, but that which falls into the new mould, and is renewed by means of the flames, laying aside all uncleanness, comes forth from the furnace, and sends forth the same brilliancy with things newly formed. As therefore any one who takes and recasts a golden statue which has been tarnished by time, smoke, dust, rust, restores it to us thoroughly cleansed and glistening: so too this nature of ours, rusted with the rust of sin, and having gathered much smoke from our faults, and having lost its beauty, which He had from the beginning bestowed upon it from himself, God has taken and cast anew, and throwing it into the waters as into a mould, and instead of fire sending forth the grace of the Spirit, then brings us forth with much brightness, renewed, and made afresh, to rival the beams of the sun, having crushed the old man, and having fashioned a new man, more brilliant than the former.

Baptism, therefore, washes away indeed all sins— absolutely all sins, whether of deeds or words or thoughts, whether original or added, whether such as are committed in ignorance or allowed in knowledge; but it does not take away the weakness which the regenerate man resists when he fights the good fight, but to which he consents when as man he is overtaken in any fault; on account of the former, rejoicing with thanksgiving, but on account of the latter, groaning in the utterance of prayers. On account of the former, saying, What shall I render to the Lord for all that He has given me? On account of the latter, saying, Forgive us our debts. Matthew 6:12 On account of the former, saying, I will love You, O Lord, my strength. On account of the latter, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord; for I am weak. On account of the former, saying, My eyes are ever towards the Lord; for He shall pluck my feet out of the net. On account of the latter, saying, My eye is troubled with wrath. And there are innumerable passages with which the divine writings are filled, which alternately, either in exultation over God's benefits or in lamentation over our own evils, are uttered by children of God by faith as long as they are still children of this world in respect of the weakness of this life; whom, nevertheless, God distinguishes from the children of the devil, not only by the laver of regeneration, but moreover by the righteousness of that faith which works by love, because the just lives by faith. But this weakness with which we contend, with alternating failure and progress, even to the death of the body, and which is of great importance as to what it can overcome in us, shall be consumed by another regeneration, of which the Lord says, In the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, Matthew 19:28 etc. Certainly in this passage He without doubt calls the last resurrection the regeneration, which Paul the Apostle also calls both the adoption and the redemption, where he says, But even we ourselves, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, ourselves also groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption, of our body. Romans 8:23 Have we not been regenerated, adopted, and redeemed by the holy washing? And yet there remains a regeneration, an adoption, a redemption, which we ought now patiently to be waiting for as to come in the end, that we may then be in no degree any longer children of this world. Whosoever, then, takes away from baptism that which we only receive by its means, corrupts the faith; but whosoever attributes to it now that which we shall receive by its means indeed, but yet hereafter, cuts off hope. For if any one should ask of me whether we have been saved by baptism, I shall not be able to deny it, since the apostle says, He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Titus 3:5 But if he should ask whether by the same washing He has already absolutely in every way saved us, I shall answer: It is not so. Because the same apostle also says, For we are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, we with patience wait for it. Romans 8:24-25 Therefore the salvation of man is effected in baptism, because whatever sin he has derived from his parents is remitted, or whatever, moreover, he himself has sinned on his own account before baptism; but his salvation will hereafter be such that he cannot sin at all.

On Hell:

To that objection, she replied, we answer this. The speculative and critical faculty is the property of the soul's godlike part; for it is by these that we grasp the Deity also. If, then whether by forethought here, or by purgation hereafter, our soul becomes free from any emotional connection with the brute creation, there will be nothing to impede its contemplation of the Beautiful; for this last is essentially capable of attracting in a certain way every being that looks towards it. If, then, the soul is purified of every vice, it will most certainly be in the sphere of Beauty. The Deity is in very substance Beautiful; and to the Deity the soul will in its state of purity have affinity, and will embrace It as like itself. Whenever this happens, then, there will be no longer need of the impulse of Desire to lead the way to the Beautiful. Whoever passes his time in darkness, he it is who will be under the influence of a desire for the light; but whenever he comes into the light, then enjoyment takes the place of desire, and the power to enjoy renders desire useless and out of date. It will therefore be no detriment to our participation in the Good, that the soul should be free from such emotions, and turning back upon herself should know herself accurately what her actual nature is, and should behold the Original Beauty reflected in the mirror and in the figure of her own beauty. For truly herein consists the real assimilation to the Divine; viz. in making our own life in some degree a copy of the Supreme Being. For a Nature like that, which transcends all thought and is far removed from all that we observe within ourselves, proceeds in its existence in a very different manner to what we do in this present life. Man, possessing a constitution whose law it is to be moving, is carried in that particular direction whither the impulse of his will directs: and so his soul is not affected in the same way towards what lies before it , as one may say, as to what it has left behind; for hope leads the forward movement, but it is memory that succeeds that movement when it has advanced to the attainment of the hope; and if it is to something intrinsically good that hope thus leads on the soul, the print that this exercise of the will leaves upon the memory is a bright one; but if hope has seduced the soul with some phantom only of the Good, and the excellent Way has been missed, then the memory that succeeds what has happened becomes shame, and an intestine war is thus waged in the soul between memory and hope, because the last has been such a bad leader of the will. Such in fact is the state of mind that shame gives expression to; the soul is stung as it were at the result; its remorse for its ill-considered attempt is a whip that makes it feel to the quick, and it would bring in oblivion to its aid against its tormentor. Now in our case nature, owing to its being indigent of the Good, is aiming always at this which is still wanting to it, and this aiming at a still missing thing is this very habit of Desire, which our constitution displays equally, whether it is baulked of the real Good, or wins that which it is good to win. But a nature that surpasses every idea that we can form of the Good and transcends all other power, being in no want of anything that can be regarded as good, is itself the plenitude of every good; it does not move in the sphere of the good by way of participation in it only, but it is itself the substance of the Good (whatever we imagine the Good to be); it neither gives scope for any rising hope (for hope manifests activity in the direction of something absent; but what a man has, why does he yet hope for? as the Apostle asks), nor is it in want of the activity of the memory for the knowledge of things; that which is actually seen has no need of being remembered. Since, then, this Divine nature is beyond any particular good , and to the good the good is an object of love, it follows that when It looks within Itself , It wishes for what It contains and contains that which It wishes, and admits nothing external. Indeed there is nothing external to It, with the sole exception of evil, which, strange as it may seem to say, possesses an existence in not existing at all. For there is no other origin of evil except the negation of the existent, and the truly-existent forms the substance of the Good. That therefore which is not to be found in the existent must be in the non-existent. Whenever the soul, then, having divested itself of the multifarious emotions incident to its nature, gets its Divine form and, mounting above Desire, enters within that towards which it was once incited by that Desire, it offers no harbour within itself either for hope or for memory. It holds the object of the one; the other is extruded from the consciousness by the occupation in enjoying all that is good: and thus the soul copies the life that is above, and is conformed to the peculiar features of the Divine nature; none of its habits are left to it except that of love, which clings by natural affinity to the Beautiful. For this is what love is; the inherent affection towards a chosen object. When, then, the soul, having become simple and single in form and so perfectly godlike, finds that perfectly simple and immaterial good which is really worth enthusiasm and love , it attaches itself to it and blends with it by means of the movement and activity of love, fashioning itself according to that which it is continually finding and grasping. Becoming by this assimilation to the Good all that the nature of that which it participates is, the soul will consequently, owing to there being no lack of any good in that thing itself which it participates, be itself also in no lack of anything, and so will expel from within the activity and the habit of Desire; for this arises only when the thing missed is not found. For this teaching we have the authority of God's own Apostle, who announces a subduing and a ceasing of all other activities, even for the good, which are within us, and finds no limit for love alone. Prophecies, he says, shall fail; forms of knowledge shall cease; but charity never fails; which is equivalent to its being always as it is: and though he says that faith and hope have endured so far by the side of love, yet again he prolongs its date beyond theirs, and with good reason too; for hope is in operation only so long as the enjoyment of the things hoped for is not to be had; and faith in the same way is a support in the uncertainty about the things hoped for; for so he defines it — the substance of things hoped for; but when the thing hoped for actually comes, then all other faculties are reduced to quiescence , and love alone remains active, finding nothing to succeed itself. Love, therefore, is the foremost of all excellent achievements and the first of the commandments of the law. If ever, then, the soul reach this goal, it will be in no need of anything else; it will embrace that plenitude of things which are, whereby alone it seems in any way to preserve within itself the stamp of God's actual blessedness. For the life of the Supreme Being is love, seeing that the Beautiful is necessarily lovable to those who recognize it, and the Deity does recognize it, and so this recognition becomes love, that which He recognizes being essentially beautiful. This True Beauty the insolence of satiety cannot touch ; and no satiety interrupting this continuous capacity to love the Beautiful, God's life will have its activity in love; which life is thus in itself beautiful, and is essentially of a loving disposition towards the Beautiful, and receives no check to this activity of love. In fact, in the Beautiful no limit is to be found so that love should have to cease with any limit of the Beautiful. This last can be ended only by its opposite; but when you have a good, as here, which is in its essence incapable of a change for the worse, then that good will go on unchecked into infinity. Moreover, as every being is capable of attracting its like, and humanity is, in a way, like God, as bearing within itself some resemblances to its Prototype, the soul is by a strict necessity attracted to the kindred Deity. In fact what belongs to God must by all means and at any cost be preserved for Him. If, then, on the one hand, the soul is unencumbered with superfluities and no trouble connected with the body presses it down, its advance towards Him Who draws it to Himself is sweet and congenial. But suppose , on the other hand, that it has been transfixed with the nails of propension so as to be held down to a habit connected with material things — a case like that of those in the ruins caused by earthquakes, whose bodies are crushed by the mounds of rubbish; and let us imagine by way of illustration that these are not only pressed down by the weight of the ruins, but have been pierced as well with some spikes and splinters discovered with them in the rubbish. What then, would naturally be the plight of those bodies, when they were being dragged by relatives from the ruins to receive the holy rites of burial, mangled and torn entirely, disfigured in the most direful manner conceivable, with the nails beneath the heap harrowing them by the very violence necessary to pull them out?— Such I think is the plight of the soul as well when the Divine force, for God's very love of man, drags that which belongs to Him from the ruins of the irrational and material. Not in hatred or revenge for a wicked life, to my thinking, does God bring upon sinners those painful dispensations; He is only claiming and drawing to Himself whatever, to please Him, came into existence. But while He for a noble end is attracting the soul to Himself, the Fountain of all Blessedness, it is the occasion necessarily to the being so attracted of a state of torture. Just as those who refine gold from the dross which it contains not only get this base alloy to melt in the fire, but are obliged to melt the pure gold along with the alloy, and then while this last is being consumed the gold remains, so, while evil is being consumed in the purgatorial fire, the soul that is welded to this evil must inevitably be in the fire too, until the spurious material alloy is consumed and annihilated by this fire. If a clay of the more tenacious kind is deeply plastered round a rope, and then the end of the rope is put through a narrow hole, and then some one on the further side violently pulls it by that end, the result must be that, while the rope itself obeys the force exerted, the clay that has been plastered upon it is scraped off it with this violent pulling and is left outside the hole, and, moreover, is the cause why the rope does not run easily through the passage, but has to undergo a violent tension at the hands of the puller. In such a manner, I think, we may figure to ourselves the agonized struggle of that soul which has wrapped itself up in earthy material passions, when God is drawing it, His own one, to Himself, and the foreign matter, which has somehow grown into its substance, has to be scraped from it by main force, and so occasions it that keen intolerable anguish.

Touching this point I dare not rashly define anything: for some have been of opinion that hell was in some place |237 upon the earth; and others think that it is under the earth: but then this doubt ariseth, for if it be therefore called hell, or an infernal place, because it is below, then as the earth is distant from heaven, so likewise should hell be distant from the earth: for which cause, perhaps, the Prophet saith: Thou hast delivered my soul from the lower hell;69 so that the higher hell may seem to be upon the earth, and the lower under the earth: and with this opinion that sentence of John agreeth, who, when he had said, that he saw a book sealed with seven seals: and that none was found worthy, neither in heaven, nor in earth, nor under the earth, to open the book, and loose the seals thereof:70 he added forthwith: and I wept much: which book, notwithstanding, afterward he saith was opened by a lion of the tribe of Juda. By which book, what else can be meant but the holy scripture, which our Saviour alone did open: for being made man, by his death, resurrection, and ascension, he did reveal and make manifest all those mysteries which in that book were closed and shut up. And none in heaven, because not any Angel; none upon earth, because not man living in body; not any under the earth was found worthy: because neither the souls departed from their bodies could open unto us, beside our Lord himself, the secrets of that sacred book. Seeing, then, none under the earth is said to be found worthy to open that book, I see not what doth let, but that we should believe that hell is in the lower parts, under the earth.

[Ragnarok]

So, from the article posted here, Protestants moved closer to Orthodoxy, considering that Papal authority, Purgatory, priestly celibacy, etc, were condemned as non-Orthodox practices and doctrines.

In some respects to praxis and those doctrines yes (although Priestly celibacy is still a thing in Orthodoxy, it's just applied differently; Priests are not allowed to get married after ordination, they must do so beforehand).
Not in respect to Christology, Cosmology, and "Theology" as a study of God's nature.

[Ragnarok]

Paul was a Pharisee who arrested Christians to be executed for blasphemy.
Saint Augustine was born a pagan who indulged in lavish hedonism, only later to become a Manichean (a religion which believed Zoroaster, Jesus, and the Buddha were all prophets of God) and then became orthodox shortly after Manicheanism was outlawed.

Indeed.

However, St. Paul and St. Augustine didn't set out to lecture and correct the Church after their conversion, did they? Rather, they submitted to her. Their conversion was genuine. The same can't be said of Eugene Rose's.

They both repudiated what they perceived to be heretics outside the Church. Saint Augustine against the Donatists, Saint Paul - well just read any of his Epistles. And it was after they were given proper ecclesial authority; Father Seraphim Rose was a Priest and a monk, he didn't lecture others before then.

Heresy isn't merely perceived. It's objective. St. Paul and St. Augustine were saints: an apostle and a doctor of the Church respectively. Rose was ordained a priest in a schismatic sect after pursuing Oriental esoterism whose influence seldom leaves its adherents. His past is relevant, unlike the aforementioned saints, precisely because he publicly lectured and opposed the Church of Christ.

Sure, but you can't follow that logic pursuant to the Orthodox paradigm, who views the Catholics as heretical. And may God help you if you are in the wrong ecclesial body.

I personally am less harsh for a man who repudiated his hedonism and indulgent interest in Eastern esoterism to a liturgical and Sacramental life in trying to follow Christ, particularly one who committed his life to the defense of foundational orthodox theology and moral values, particularly in our post "Sexual Revolution" era. Especially at that time when there weren't Ecclesia Dei, SSPX, or even reverent Novus Ordo parishes like today - the late 70s and 80s were in some regards a height of liturgical absurdity in the mainstream Roman Catholic Church.

He's given probably the most rational defense I've read on a traditional conception of Genesis - especially compared to Evangelical retards like "Dr. Dino" Kent Hovind.

[TerrorDæmonum]

In some respects to praxis and those doctrines yes (although Priestly celibacy is still a thing in Orthodoxy, it's just applied differently; Priests are not allowed to get married after ordination, they must do so beforehand).

And married men can become priests in the West.

They seem to forget this.

Celibacy means refraining from marriage. And priests cannot be married after ordination in the Church.

The Orthodox seem to often raise their conventions, disciplines, and culture to the level of dogma and compare it to the West's, and pretend it is "heretical".

All people can do this if they don't know better, but the Orthodox theologians seem to be inexcusably guilty of it.

[Michael Wilson]

Great discussion; thank you to all the participants. I appreciate Ragnarok's insights and knowledge of Orthodox theology.