Blotty
The fact that there is no prophecy in the New Testament that false teachings will take over (that's the "great apostasy") after the first century (for the contrary, yes) and that only 1,800 years later a charlatan (Russel) living on a continent that had not yet been discovered had to be "restored", is important because it follows that the true Christian faith is not to be found among the religious sects created in the modern age.
How can you really explain Matthew 16:18 from a "Restorationist" perspective?
From their point of view, what happened between the death of the apostles and the establishment of their denomination? Basically nothing. As if only Jesus had promised that after the death of the apostles you are left to yourselves, do whatever you want.
Who was the bearer of Watchtowerite Christianity in 875? And in 1278? There is no historical continuity at all.
Although they show a couple of historical precedents (like Servetus), they are individual examples, not carriers of continuity along the mainline Church. Well, this is like communist historiography, which considers all revolutions and peasant uprisings as its historical prototype.
Nobody talked about "inspired" councils, but about their "infallibility". Do not confuse the two. The infallibility of the Church can be derived from the Scripture. With the New Testament religion, the revelation is completed; we cannot expect any new revelations in terms of content; the religion of the New Testament is destined for all ages and religious demands in its unchanging form until the end of history, and in this sense, it is absolute.
Therefore, the infallibility of the Church is not inspiration, as inspiration would imply a new revelation, while infallibility refers to the interpretation, preservation, transmission, and teaching of the existing revelation without error.
God knows the weaknesses of human nature very well, so He wanted to assure His own that if a "dispute arises among the brethren", there should be an authority which derives not from itself but from God, and if it speaks in the name of God, then it undoubtedly teaches infallibly.
This task is fulfilled by the "organ" of the Catholic Church, visible and functioning in human persons, the Teaching Office (Magisterium). This Magisterium is the actual successor to the apostolic college led by Peter, according to the Catholic faith, which teaches in its power, thus fulfilling the promise of Jesus Christ: "behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20) This Magisterium is not the master of revelation, but its servant and guardian, much like the whole Church, in line with the above, is not the master, but the herald of revelation. If a dispute arises about the revealed nature of a truth of faith, due to divine assurance, this service, this office, through the Holy Spirit, affirms or rejects it.
The Word, revealed and embodied by the Holy Spirit, is authentically interpreted by the Church, living in the Holy Spirit sent by the Word. This revelation ended with the age of the apostles, and what Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit told them as revelation is passed on (paradósis, traditio), living in the Church through the same Holy Spirit. In this, the Catholic and Protestant teachings do not differ from each other. According to Protestants, its entirety is found exclusively in the Holy Scripture (sola Scriptura), while according to Catholics, it is primarily a living word, part of which is embodied in the inspired Holy Scripture.
It's impossible to have a new universal revelation; that is, private revelations, no matter how valuable the enlightenments and edifying elements they contain, cannot be the sources of new, universally valid and universally obligatory supernatural religious knowledge, and they can add nothing to the apostolic deposit of faith.
There can be no essentially new truths of faith; any new dogma is only the unveiling in a new form of an element of the deposit of faith that has been present from the beginning. It's impossible, in earthly life, to have a new kind of knowledge of truths of faith that differs from the believer's acceptance in some form of gnosis, or a fundamentally new interpretation of truths of faith in the spirit of modernism.
"For the doctrine of faith which God hath revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention, to be perfected by human ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ, to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence, also, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our holy mother the Church has once declared; nor is that meaning ever to be departed from, under the pretense or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them. Let, then, the intelligence, science, and wisdom of each and all, of individuals and of the whole Church, in all ages and all times, increase and flourish in abundance and vigor; but simply in its own proper kind, that is to say, in one and the same doctrine, one and the same sense, one and the same judgment. [...]
If any one shall assert it to be possible that sometimes, according to the progress of science, a sense is to be given to doctrines propounded by the Church different from that which the Church has understood and understands: let him be anathema." (First Vatican Council)
Before an article of faith was dogmatized, it could be freely debated among theologians, but Jesus gave the Church the charisma of infallibility so that what the Church decided definitively would remain infallible for the faithful. The Church fulfills its teaching mission by faithfully preserving the deposit of faith (depositum fidei) it has received from the direct recipients of revelation, protecting its integrity and interpretation from all falsification, and presenting it authentically and with divine authority to all generations and to every age in all suitable modes of human instruction. Since this divinely appointed method of transmitting revelation is the only one suitable for people to accept the revelation in a manner corresponding to its origin, that is, with the faith due to the word of God, the Church's proposition (propositio Ecclesiae) is the only direct rule of faith for every person. However, the living teaching of the Church itself conforms to the Scripture and Tradition, as it draws its content from them as sources. Therefore, Scripture and Tradition are the indirect rules of faith, insofar as they guide the direct rule of faith, the teaching Church.
Christians who do not recognize universal councils as infallible are not Catholics, but Protestants. Imagine, there is not only the Watchtower, and everyone else. Protestants generally accept the content of the decisions of the early councils, but do not accept the Church as infallible (obviously, then they would not have seceded). But the Watchtower also uses the Bible based on a canon determined by a council, since how would they know that exactly those 27 books make up the canon of the New Testament? It was determined by the Church.
As a Catholic, I naturally believe in the infallibility of the Church. I believe that the two thousand year history of the Catholic Church is the greatest proof of the truth of the religion founded by Christ, since despite the many historical twists and difficulties, the Church has never disappeared.
It is clear from the Scripture that Jesus Christ envisioned a Church and founded one. Protestants also profess unity and uniqueness to some extent, as this fact is undoubtedly included in the Bible. However, since they cannot justify denominational unity, they either have to profess that the Church currently forms an invisible spiritual unity in the faith of Christ's redemption, i.e., the unity of the invisible Church, which will become visible in the future, or they apply the concept of one, unified, and true Church to their own denomination. In another exposition, we have already verified the requirement of the visibility of the Church, as well as the necessity of the Church's apostolicity, i.e., its continuity, and its infallibility. Thus, we are now trying to prove that the Church, and Christianity, cannot become a scene of schisms and disunity, and that the different visible ecclesiastical communities necessarily have to agree, otherwise they will detach from the body of the Church. Not only is an invisible spiritual unity necessary, but also a practical, visible, concrete unity. Denominationalism is a scandal. It is Jesus's will that we should be one, but not just in some indeterminate faith or the so-called fundamental tenets of faith (like the faith in Redemption) but in the entire creed and in all significant faith-based and moral questions that can influence or affect the path of an individual to salvation.
The Israel of the Old Testament may have fallen into idolatry and sin, but not into such a "great apostasy" as the Watchtower's interpretation of the two-thousand-year history of Christianity suggests.
Of course, I am not the person in any matter of authority, but it is not enough for you to mention names, I - unlike you - did not add a complete book, but highlighted one or two paragraphs related to the subject.
I do not rely on "Greek philosophy", but on reason, since the combined synthesis of faith and reason leads to the truth. In any case, you won't get hold of me by telling me that "this is philosophy!", it's such a Watchtower name-calling taunt, for any kind of thought-terminating cliché, as if a 5-year-old child would say: be-bebeee.
"“On the one hand, it claims that he is 1. Lord and God” - Lord is applied in different senses to different people" - In the New Testament, who should I call "the Lord" besides God? "Lord and God" can only be the one almighty God.
"if most bibles were honest about the divine name in the Hebrew scriptures this correlation would be nullified." - There are many Bible translations that have "Yahweh" where the Masoretic text has YHWH. On the other hand, the Old Testament divine name primarily associated with the First Temple cult is foreign to the theological environment of the New Testament
"God can be applied in different senses. As has already been demonstrated." - Yes, in the New Testament in two ways: 1. the one true God, 2. the false gods of the pagans and Satan. Demigods, minor gods, there are none.
""So what kind of talk is it when JWs claim that the New Testament does not know anything about a "dual nature"?" - because he gave up one for another (Phil 2:7)" - The verse you marked does not prove that what was before him, by becoming a man, ceased to be what He was, with the incarnation.
The kenosis doesn't mean "putting down" the deity, but taking up the humanity. He did not empty himself of the deity (which is impossible), it means He did not cling to His heavenly glory, but emptied Himself and took on the form of a servant. The eternal existence of the Son and His incarnation are contrasted in a similar way in John 1:14 and Galatians 4:4. Philippians 2:5-10 praises the Son's willingness to sacrifice and His love, with which He embraced the humble human fate and the work of redemption. The text refers to Jesus' three modes of existence: His eternal pre-existence, His earthly life, and His glorification according to his humanity after the resurrection. He did not regard possession of divine glory as something to be clung to as spoils, but He emptied Himself. It cannot not be understood as a renunciation of His deity, but rather that when He took on human nature, he retained His deity, but sought what belongs to true earthly humanity, the form of a servant, and not the glory as the divine person, but he was still fully God, while "hiding" his rank on earth, in the state of self-emptying. His behavior expresses humility, and He continued this throughout His earthly life: He was obedient to the point of death on the cross. He became like us in all things (Romans 8:3), for only in this way could He live a meritorious life, and only in this way could He represent us in His sacrifice. We apply kenosis to the person of the Son, insofar as He accepted the incarnation, but we also apply it to the earthly life of Christ, insofar as He went to the ultimate limit of renunciation. The completeness of kenosis was the acceptance of death. Paul mentions obedience to the point of death to highlight the complete acceptance of the servant's position.
Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother: What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed. With his incarnation, he took on human nature and will no longer put it down. On the other hand, 1 Timothy 2:5 is particularly problematic for the WTS theology, since they believe that Jesus ceased to be human when he died, and that his resurrection actually means recreation, restoration to be an angel, kind of docetism, cf. Lk 24:31."For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus"
So if Jesus ceased to be man, then we no longer have a mediator. Let's say that in the case of JWs, he is not mediator for the rank-and-file members (only for the "anointed" class, thus the inner party), to whom the majority of members belong based on the two-class salvation regime invented in 1935.
"The bible says flesh is flesh and spirit is spirit, the 2 are never intertwined" - And who said that his incarnation meant that the Logos "became flesh" (John 1:14), that what was spirit until then became flesh? It's no what was spirit, converted into flesh, but the Person, i.e who existed as spirit from eternety made flesh, it was not the spirit that became flesh, but the divine person took on human nature alongside his divine nature. This is the principle of hypostatic unity, the person unites the two natures.
"even the angels who took human form did not have both natures" - Who said that angels were incarnate, like Jesus did? The Son, the Logos, is the only person who did this. You will hardly find parallels, as it is unprecedented and unique.
The clearest derivation that the single person of Jesus Christ is the person of the Word can be deduced from the statement of Saint John's prologue: "And the Word became flesh" (John 1:14). The Bible proclaims the same Jesus of Nazareth as true God and true man. It describes both divine and human attributes of the same being. This can only be explained in such a way that we are talking about one person who possesses both divine and human properties and is the subject of both divine and human activities. The ultimate subject of properties and actions, according to philosophy, is always the "hypostasis", which is called a person (in Greek: prosopon; in Latin: persona) among intelligent beings (angels, humans).
The Bible asserts that the same one lay swaddled in the manger, whom the angel announced as the Son of the Most High. The same one was baptized in the Jordan like other people, but during this, the heavenly voice named him the beloved Son of the Father. He was hungry in the wilderness like a man, but angels served him as God. He dozed off tired on the Sea of Galilee as a man, then commanded the storm like God upon waking up. As a man, he was tormented and sweated in the Garden of Gethsemane, then as God, he laid the soldiers to the ground with a single word. He was buried as a man, and he rose from it with divine power.
Furthermore, statements like these are very characteristic: "No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man (who is in heaven)" (John 3:13); "...you killed the author of life" (Acts 3:15); "...Christ, who is God over all, forever blessed" (Romans 9:5), who physically descended from them.
It is a dogma that the Word took on human nature at the moment of its conception. "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman" (Gal 4:4). Thus, the Son's dispatch coincides with his human birth, or conception. This is also how the words of the Apostles' Creed are interpreted: "Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary".
Another dogma is that the personal union (hypostatic union) never ceases, it lasts forever. The Nicene Creed, in opposition to the Origenists, quoted the words of the angelic greeting "of his kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:33). The church fathers also referred to other scriptural locations: "But he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever" (Heb 7:24). "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Heb 13:8).
As to how the human and divine natures were connected, the answer is that it is the mystery of the Incarnation. So how can a man be God? Only in such a way that the divine personality also takes on human nature, almost dresses in human body and spirit; but besides, of course, remains the one who has been from eternity; God, the only begotten, eternal, divine Son of the Father. This dual nature is expressed by the term "God-man", or otherwise: the "incarnate Word".
How could finiteness and infiniteness, human weakness and divine perfection unite in Jesus? The only contradiction would be if in Jesus the divine and human attributes merged into one nature and thus mutually corrupted each other. However, this is not the case. On the contrary, Jesus remained a full God and at the same time a full man. In his humanity, he was small and weak, but in his divinity, he was infinite and omnipotent. In his humanity, he became like us in all things except sin, but in his divine nature, he was undoubtedly far above us. In his human nature, he was born, grew, learned, tired, was hungry, thirsty, cried, sweated, suffered, died, rose again; in his divine nature, he was eternal changelessness. All this did not cause any contradiction or split in him, but on the contrary: they complemented each other wonderfully.
"“so ontologically inferior to the Father regardless of his incarnation, why did he only have to "learn" obedience "in the days of his [being] flesh"?” - I can reflect this question straight back and say if Jesus has existed forever why did he need to learn it? Surely he would already have known it." - As God knew, but as a human it was a new aspect. That's why he could say that he didn't know certain things, he learned certain things as a human.
Therefore, the question hinges on Christ's dual nature. This is an 'absolute mystery', so we will never understand it. Jesus, as God, knew and knows the day of the final judgement, as a man he did not. However, as a human he could know, because in the Gospel, the phrase "not even the Son" appears in a peculiar way: the Son does not know the time, in the sense that his mission does not extend to communicating the timing. The humanity of Jesus is endowed with infused knowledge /scientia infusa/. As a human, he only knew infallibly what was part of his mission, but at any time he could know anything as God /e.g., Peter's tax money in the fish's belly/. Why? Because the Logos within him supplemented the person.
Moreover, the dual nature raises several such questions: Did Jesus die or not? After all, God never dies - Jesus, as God, is immortal, as a human, he died for sinful humanity. Did Jesus know the time of his birth when he was an embryo? As an embryo, no, as God, yes.
Theologians are in general agreement that Jesus had a) the beatific, or intuitive, vision of God; b) infused knowledge, and c) acquired knowledge (Catholic Encyclopedia, 930). The Three Kinds of Human Knowledge were Distinct, but not Separate
“[The] three kinds of human knowledge in Christ, required by what Scripture and revelation say of the God-man, did not hinder or exclude but rather complemented one another. The three were required on different grounds and existed on different levels, while uniting in one human consciousness for the purpose of Christ’s mission” (ibid., 938, 939).
The three kinds of knowledge were the acts and possession of one human intellect and one human awareness; they were distinct, not separated. Their perfect harmony, however, remains mysterious; it is part of the very mystery of Christ.” (ibid., 939)
"It also doesn't mean David was in Bethlehem for all eternity or existed in Bethlehem for all eternity" - Of course not, since the text does not say that David was already in Bethlehem "in the beginning". This statement is made only of the Logos. But here this argument is adressed:- To be continued -Ἐν - Always introduces a prepositional phrase and always occurs with the dative. It has many definitions (“The uses of this prep. are so many-sided, and oft. so easily confused that a strictly systematic treatment is impossible.” BAG, 257. “ ˙En is the workhorse of prepositions in the NT, occurring more frequently and in more varied situations than any other.” Wallace. Grammar, 372.) , but its generic definition, and the one used here is in.
ἀρχῇ - Is occurring in the dative due to its pairing with εν, and is therefore describing the way in which the Word “was.” The word’s overarching idea is “first.” Depending on usage, it is translated as beginning, primary, first, head, authority, ruler, etc. Here it is obviously paralleling the LXX usage in Gen 1:1 '᾿Εν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν' where the prepositional phrase again precedes the sentence’s main idea; “God created heaven and the Earth in the beginning.” The parallel may seem to supply an answer as to the question of “what beginning?” but John’s allusion is unnecessary as the grammar itself answers the question for us. The anarthrous noun is no way less definite due to the lack of the article. (Robertson says about the lack of the article in prepositional phrases that, “[Prepositional phrases] were also often considered definite enough without the article....) In translation, an indefinite article makes no sense, “In a beginning,” and still begs the question. Indeed, inserting the indefinite article into the English translation still renders “beginning” definite, as “a beginning” must be subordinate to some event, though that event is unnamed. It is therefore proper to render the phrase, “In the beginning.”
Another point to consider is that ἀρχῇ is without limitation. That is, there is nothing in the sentence or the immediate context that can determine what beginning. It is justifiable therefore to assume that John intended that this “beginning” is the first beginning; the beginning of all that was created by God. “One can push back the "beginning" as far as you can imagine, and, according to John, the Word still is.” White, James. John 1:1 Meaning and Translation. Found at: http://vintage.aomin.org/JOHN1_1.html, Jan 12, 2014. This idea would include not just the material and spiritual, but also the immaterial- the time/space continuum. This perfectly parallels the idea found in Gen 1:1 in both the LXX as well as its Hebrew original; “The heavens and the earth” should rightly be taken as a merism for “all things,” (A fuller treatment is given under Context) which seems to be what is intended here. “In the beginning” is therefore to be understood as that point in time immediately following the “time” when there was nothing else besides God. [...]ἦν - “was.” John employs the imperfect tense of ei˙mi (verb, “to be”) here. In general, the imperfect tense is used to convey a “(usually) past continuing” action. This is called the “Customary Imperfect.” “For the most part, the aorist takes a snapshot of the action while the imperfect (like the present) takes a motion picture, portraying the action as it unfolds. As such the imperfect is often incomplete and focuses on the process of the action…The imperfect is frequently used to indicate a regularly recurring activity in past time (habitual) or a state that continued for some time (general).” Wallace, Grammar, 541; 548. It is “imperfect” in that the action is not “perfected,” ie., it was not completed at once. In English, we do not have a corresponding tense that precisely replicates the imperfect. Generally, the past tense of “to be” is conjoined with a present participial verb. Here, a good equivalent would be “was being/existing.” If we were to accept this understanding of ἦν, we would understand this clause as meaning that the Logos “was already existing” in the beginning. Because arche is being taken in the sense of “the beginning of time,” reading ἦν as a customary imperfect would mean that the Logos would need to precede, include, and follow “the beginning.”
An exception to this is the Aoristic Imperfect. Daniel Wallace explains,“The imperfect tense is rarely used just like an aorist indicative, to indicate simple past.” A.T. Robertson adds that,
“They are sometimes called “aoristic” imperfects. This term is not a happy one, as Gildersleeve shows in his criticism of Stahl for his “synonym-mongering” and “multiplication of categories.” The only justification for the term is that, as already shown in the discussion of the aorist, it is not possible always to tell whether some forms are aorist ind. or imperf. ind.” (Robertson, Grammar, 882.)In regards to the word in question he adds:
“Hence we need not insist that ἦν (Jo. 1:1) is strictly durative always (imperfect). It may be sometimes actually aorist also.” (Ibid., 883.)On the other hand, Robertson also states, “Three times in this sentence John uses this imperfect of ei˙mi/, ‘to be,’ which conveys no idea of origin for God or for the Logos, simply continuous existence.” Robertson, A.T. Word Pictures of the New Testament. Found at: http://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/robertsons-word-pictures/john/john-1-1.html Wallace says otherwise and mainly limits the use to the verb lego:
“The imperfect tense is rarely used just like an aorist indicative, to indicate simple past. This usage is virtually restricted to elegen in narrative literature. Even with this verb, however, the imperfect usually bears a different nuance.”Another footnote: “Contra BDF, 170 (§329):‘The aorist serves for a simple reference to an utterance previously made (especially for a specific pronouncement of an individual); the imperfect for the delineation of the content of a speech.’ Many examples of the imperfect fit this description (cf., e.g., Mark 4:21, 26; 6:10; 7:9; 12:38; Luke 5:36; 6:20; 9:23; 10:2; 21:10), but not all (e.g., Matt 9:11; Mark 4:9; 8:21, 24). Further, the imperfects that seem to be used aoristically also frequently have the aorist indicative (eipen) as a textual variant. This use of the imperfect is akin to the instantaneous present in that it usually involves a verb of saying as well.” Grammar, 553.He then lists examples of this use of the imperfect as Matt 9:24; Mark 4:9; 5:30; 6:16; 8:21, 24; Luke 3:11; 16:5; 23:42; John 5:19; 8:23; 9:9. For clarity, Robertson does state though,
“But one must not think that the Greeks did not know how to distinguish between the aorist and the imperfect. They ‘did not care to use their finest tools on every occasion,’ but the line between aorist and imperf. was usually very sharply drawn.”Even though Robertson admits this, his statement about the possibility of reading ἦν as an aorist still stands. So, we are unable to make a definitive statement about the reading in the first clause. John’s intention will become more apparent in the second and third clauses.
In regard to the two major views- the traditional view that the Logos is divine and the Arian view that the Logos is a lesser being- the inability to define how the verb is acting only affects the latter view. For the traditional view, whether ἦν is acting as an aorist or imperfect matters little. Because the traditional view presupposes (partly based on the interpretation of the verse in question) the infinite nature of the Logos, it goes without saying that the Logos “was” in the beginning in the aorist sense, but due to the presupposition, is not limited to that. Interpreting ἦν as an imperfect makes for a fuller meaning. On the other hand, if ἦν is interpreted as an imperfect, the typical Arian understanding fails entirely. The Arian view requires the aoristic treatment. If the λόγος of 1a is understood to transcend the ἀρχῇ, he necessarily is not bound to time, and is therefore timeless. This idea will be expanded upon in the section on theology.