I’m Confessin’

February 18th, 2010
  • Jesus gave His apostles (and, presumably, their successors) the power to forgive sins.   The form of this is not specified.
  • Our knowledge of the Church’s theology of penance in the earliest years of the Faith is meagre.   Essentially the problem was that of dealing with sins committed after Baptism.
  • A powerful current of thought in the 2nd century Church favoured the view that no remission was possible for sins deliberately committed after Baptism.
  • This view is in line with the author of Hebrews and the author of 1 John.
  • There were more liberal views among some of the earliet Fathers but we are completely in the dark about the practical arrangements.   It is more than likely that there was corporate public confession with the absolution pronounced by the bishop or presbyter.
  • With the dawn of the 3rd century the rough outline of a recognised penitential discipline was beginning to emerge, although there are still no signs of a sacrament of private penance (i.e., confession to a presbyter followed by absolution)
  • The system which seems to have existed in the Church was wholly public, involving confession, a period of penance and exclusion from communion, then formal absolution and restoration.
  • There is plenty of evidence that sinners were encouraged to open their hearts privately to a presbyter but nothing to show that this led up to anything more than counsel.
  • Certainly in the last decades of the 2nd century adultery, homicide and idolatry (or apostasy) seem to have been treated in practice, if not in theory, as unforgivable.   This was relaxed over a long period of time and local practice varied.
  • In the 4th and 5th centuries there is no hard evidence of one-to-one private confession.  Even St. Augustine is quite positive that the only form of penance known to him is public confession plus private confession of sins at home.
  • It is not until much later that the present form of confession to a priest, followed by absolution came into being.
  • One to one confession is practised by Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anglo-Catholicism and Lutheranism.
  • One to one confession and absolution is practised within Mormonism,   In Buddhism one confesses to one’s superior,   In Hinduism   there is no formal penance involving another party but holy men have a ready ear

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, projected by John Paul II, confession of everyday sins in this sacrameent is
not strictly necessary.   These may be dealt with in the Mass or in private prayer.   The confession of serious sins is required at least once a year.

It is interesting to note that Jesus did not require confession of sins before He healed and forgave sins.

(With acknowledgements to Dr.JND Kelly)

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Miracles

January 31st, 2010
  • One of Jesus’ own sayings acknowledges that there were other exorcists at work.   Furthermore, we have stories of rabbis and charismatic teachers in Palestine.
  • Jewish miracle-workers cured diseases but there is a notable lack of reports of curing any kind of lamesness or paralysis.
  • The most common miracle attributed to holy men of Jesus’ time is the procuring of rain-fall.   Such a miracle is never attributed to Jesus…
  • Jesus is credited with three instances of a very notable miracle:  that of raising the dead to life.

The assumption that the ancient world was credulous is not justified.   Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Plutarch, Philostratus and Josephus express reserve towards miracles.

  • Even if one disallows some of Jesus’ miracles on the grounds of mis-recollectioon, symbolic act etc. - there remains a substantial body of material which has no close parallel in the ancient world.
  • Taking the period of 200 years before to 200 years after the birth of Christ, the number of miracles recorded which are remotely comparable to those of Jesus is astonishingly small.
  • Hanina Ben Dosa, when seeking a cure by prayer and Nakdimon, when seeking rain-fall, argue and barter with God, as Abraham had once done.
  • The miraclous activity of Jesus conforms to  no known pattern.   At times He has to be persuaded to heal and the range of miracle is astonisshing.
  • More miracles are attributed to Jesus than to anyone else in the ancient world,

Walking On The Water

Parallels to Jesus’ walking on the water are to be found in principle in accounts of levitation.   Examples of this are to be found in instances recorded of the lives of some Catholic saints and Eastern holy-men   It is perhaps the most commonly mentioned miracle in yogic and Tibetan Buddhist literature.

Stories of levitation are well accredited in both history and the present-day.

Jesus’ walking on the water may be a more advanced degree of levitation.

Water Into Wine

From the 1930s onwards Dr. J.Rhine in America conducted experiments to demonstrate that the mind can influence matter.   The movement of dice ejected by a mechanism down a shute were apparently effected by acts of willing on the part of observers.

Even more startling were experiments involving a jar of tap water.   Experimenters concentrated on the water and willed it to change its nature.   In some cases the composition of the water  changed.

In the Soviet Union before the fall of Communism an experiment took place in laboratory conditions in which the candidate tried by will-power to separate the yolk from the white of an egg.   It worked.

Almost as amazing as the experiment is the fact that the experiment was reported: in a dialectical materialist society such experiments were not supposed to succeed.

Recently (2008) an artificial arm has been removed from the body and has been controlled by will-power by the owner.

All of these show that in principle the mind controls matter.   This is what underlies but to a very much greater extent the turning of water into wine,

Footnote:  A report on 1/10/08 shows that religious belief can help to relieve pain.

Researchers at Oxford University carried out brain scans on Roman Catholic and atheist/agnostic volunteers.   The volunteers were shown paintings of the Virgin Mary  and Leonardo’s Lady with an Ermine.   After looking at each painting for 30 seconds the volunteers were zapped with electrical pulses for 12 seconds.   Each time they were asked to rank how painful the schocks were on a scale of 0 to 100

The researchers describe how Roman Catholics and non-believers reported similar levels of pain after viewing the Leonardo painting but the two groups responded very differently to the Virgin Mary painting, with Catholics experiencing 12% less pain.

Preliminary studies on lapsed Catholics suggest images of the Virgin Mary lessen their sense of  pain too. the researchers said.

Salvation

  • Through Christ’s life, death and resurrection the mystery of God’s love is revealed.   We are saved; all this is pure, unmerited gift,
  • We can be assured of salvation but this ought not to lead us to be presumptuous.   The word of Christ and His acraments give us this assurance.
  • The word “saved” in the Synoptic gospels means a “healing” by Jesus, often through faith on the part of an individual or another.
  • Justification and sanctification are two aspects of the same divine act.   By pronouncing us righteous God also makes us righteous.
  • Baptism is the unrepeatable sacrament of justification and incorporation into Christ.
  • While we are not saved because of good works we are created in Christ for good works   (For a different emphasis see Mt.25 - the sheep and the goats).
  • In Lutheranism a paradox is sometimes stated as  “We are at once just and sinners”.
  • Salvation is in Jesus alone.   It is a process rather than a single act.   Faith is identical with the love of truth which saves.   Through hope we are saved.   Faith without works cannot save.   Salvation is attained by those who persevere to the end.
  • It cannot be forgotten that Jesus said that the outcasts of society (the tax-gatherers and prostitutes in His day) go into the Kingdom before the religious establisshmeent of His day.

The Church

Jesus never wrote a book; He founded a Church

The early Church was led by the apostles, with Peter at the helm.   Soon we have the emergence of deacons and presbyters(local officers)   Bishops also exist in the New Testament.   In Corinth we have apostles, prophets, teachers,miracle-workers, healers, helpers, administrators

In the earliest years of the Church after the N.T. period the usual pattern was bishops and  deacons plus travelling missionaries - apostles and prophets.   Eventually, these latter officers disappear and bishop, presbyer and deeacon becomes the norm.   It is not until the 4th century that an individual believer is called a priest.

A special place in the early Church is reserved for the Bishop of Rome, taken to be the successor of Peter.   The following Fathers of the Church ascribe a primacy to Rome and to Rome disputes and clear teaching are ascribed.   Thus St. Clement of Rome, St Ignatius, St Irenaeus, St. Polycarp, Bishop Polycrates of Ephesus,Tertullian, St. Cyprian of Carthage, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine…

From these we have such statements as:  “an overseer of love” “If one wishes to know the true faith, then it suffices to ascertain the teaching of this one Church”  “If Italy is in thy neighbourhood then thou hast Rome, from whence for us (in Africa) the teaching authority already exists”"The Roman Church is the mother and the root of the Catholic Church..”.

2

Beginniing in the early 4th century we have the conciliar movement.   Major disputes over doctrine (e.g. the divinity of Christ), after a long period of discussion were settled not by Rome,although Rome’s influence was impressive but by  General  Councils.

In 1054 the Greek Speaking Church of the Eastern Empire and the Latin Speaking Church of the West split.   There had been considerable strain between the two for many years prior to 1054.   Thus we have the Orthodox and Catholic denominations.

An important feature in the dispute - and it remains until to-day - is the standing of the Pope.   The Orthodox believe that a special place belongs to the Pope.   They ascribe to him a primacy of honour, together with the right (under certain circumstances) to hear appeals from all parts of Christendom.      They see Rome’s mistake as being to turn the primacy of love into a supremacy of external power and jurisdiction.   (Sadly this mistake is prevalent to-day)

With regard to the New Testament the content was only finally agreed upon at the end of the 4th century and even then there was some uncertainty in  the East over the inclusion of Hebrews and Revelation.

Prior to that there was a variety of books which were used in worship, alongside books which were eventually placed within the Canon of Scripture.   Thus we have such books as The Gospel of the Hebrews, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Peter, The Book of James, The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Bartholomew,The Acts of John and many, many more.

Prior to the use of these apocryphal books and the authentic books ,the early Church relied on oral transmission of the Gospel.

Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (130-202 AD), preferred oral transmission to the written word.   He writes: “The distant barbarians on the Rhine cannot read, yet without the external aid of a scripture they are established in a right path, for the Holy Spirit Himself writes the true confession ‘without ink and paper’ on their heart.   Consequently, the preaching of the Church has no need, provided it proclaims Christ as He really was and is, to refer constantly to the books in which the apostolic message is recorded”.

What is to be said about Christian re-union?   With 38,000 churches and sects across the world it is no easy task.   Furthermore, attempts to date have produced only very meagre fruit.

All Christians accept the N.T. as agreed at the end of the 4th century.   Most have sacraments such as Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  There is a general consensus about right and wrong (the Ten Commandments +).   Most agree on the Social Gospel, although American Fundamentalism is out of line.   Most can agree with the definitions of the Faith in the first millennium.

To be true to the apostolic period and the period of the first four centuries of the Faith, it would seem that any re-union should take in:

A ministry of bishops, presbyters and deacons plus the ministries set out by St Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians.

The Bishop of Rome to have a world-wide ministry, a “presidency of love”.   Jurisdiction to be dropped from the vocabulary.

Academic freedom to be guaranteed.   Controversial findings of scholars to be discussed openly, not suppressed.

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit has been the most neglected member of the Trinity in much of the history of Christendom.   What is the role of the Spirit?

  • Conceives Jesus,given in Baptism, expels demons, speaks in us when called to witness, Pentecost, Gifts of the Spirit, Wisdom, Faith, Encouragement, Joy, pervades the Church, heals,dwells in individual believer, a foretaste of heaven, love, teaches, principle of prayer, agent of holiness, speaking forth (=prophecy), remains forever,inspires Jesus to speak, reveals mysteries of God, is given in answer to prayer,seat of consciousness and psychic functions, proceeds from Jesus and the Father, witnesses.

Jesus And His Enemies

The gospels record enmity between Jesus’ opponents and himself.   The Sadducees (who provided the priests in the Temple) were mainly instrumental in having him crucified.   The Scribes were religious lawyers.   The Pharisees were far and away his main opponents,

The Talmud, a Jewish compilation of rabbinic traditions and way of life, which is Pharisaic in origin, contains some remarks hostile to the Pharisees which find the same faults in them as appear in the NT.

It would seem that the Pharisees’ hostility to Jesus arose from the threat they thought Jesus held for their position as religious leaders.

In the gospels the Pharisees watch Jesus closely to find fault with him.   They try to trap him.  They propose trick questions.   They are scandalised by Jesus’ conduct : mixing with publicans aand sinners; his laxnesss in Sabbath observance; his healing on the Sabbath, although this was not agaiinst mainstream Judaism, his neglect of ritual ablutions.

Furthermore,they object to Jesus’ claim to be able to forgive sins.   They object when Jesus is triumphantly welcomed by his disciples.

When they ask for a sign, Jesus calls them an adulterous and wicked generation.   He condemns their exclusiveness as harsh and their rigour in the law as intolerable.   They are blind with self-inflicted blindness.   A recurring word in the invective discourses is “hypocrites”.   They are “whited sepulchres”, concerned with looking devout while malicious at heart.   They are “a brood of vipers”.

There are several ways of looking at Jesus’ hard words.

The words were actually uttered by Jesus and they are deserved

They reflect a basic problem with the Pharisees but they were embellished by the early Church which found itself in conflict with the Pharisees.

They reflect oriental exaggeration.   Jesus was not Anglo-Saxon!

The words were uttered by Jesus but they were over-emphasised by the oral tradition underlying the gospels as part of the invective against the Pharisees.

If Jesus had spoken in this way of the Nazis, no-one would have objected to the language used; indeed, he would have been warmly applauded.

In Jesus’ eyes the Pharisees were blocking the way to salvation for the men and women of his time and, therefore, colourful, memorable imagery is needed.

There were seven types of Pharisee and in rabbinic tradition only one of them, the Pharisee who is devoted to the love of God, receives unqualified commendation.   It is likely, therefore, that Jesus did not attack all Pharisees.
The frequent use of the word “hypocrite” might literally refer to those who were appearing to be true Pharisees but, in fact, were only play-acting.   The genuine Pharisee and Scribe were not play-actors, whatever else they might be.
Jesus’ hard sayings, as in Matthew 23, are a lamentation rather than unmitigated denunciation.
It should never be overlooked that Jesus died for his enemies as well as his supporters.   From the cross he utters the words: “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do”.

(With acknowledgements to Professor J.McKenzie)

Heaven

Throughout history Humankind has believed that there is a life after death.   It is a universal belief.
Of the five main religions to-day three (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) believe in a personal after-life; two (Hinduism and Buddhism) believe in re-incarnation  and the achievment of nirvana and absorption into the infinite.

In the New Testament Jesus after His ascension dwells in heaven

The heavens which in the O.T. are unattainable  by humanity (with the exception of Elijah) become in the NT the place of dwelling and reward for the Christian.

The Christian is a citizen of heaven.   He looks forward to a home which God will build for him in heaven.

The Christian’s inheritance, reward and treasure are all in heaven.

The Father and the Son prepare mansions in heaven for the disciples.

The names of the disciples are written in the records of heaven.

Those who rise with Christ are with Him taken into heaven.

The risen, like Christ, are endowed with the qualities of  the heavenly body.

There has been a long-standing tradition in Christendom that at the Second Coming there will be a general resurrection.   The earthly body will be transformed: there will be a new heaven and a new earth.   On this basis heaven as understood and experienced at the moment will not be the final resting-place of Humanity: it is an interim state.
Others interpret the N.T. evidence differently.   The parts which deal with the general resurrection are taken to be vivid apocalyptic language and the whole point of apocalyptic literature is that it is not meant to be taken literally.
Purgatory is seen by Catholics and Orthodox as a state in which the souls of the departed are prepared before being admitted to heaven.   Prayers may be said for them.  This practice stems from the closing chapters of 2 Maccabees.
In traditional Christian thought Hell is the eternal abode of the damned.   Much contemporary Christian thought rejects the idea of vindictive punishment as incompatible with belief in a loving God.   The imagery about Hell in the N.T. and in Jewish thought at the time of Jesus is regarded by contemporary Christian writers as just that.   The emphasis has moved on to Hell as separation from God.

It is possible that the damned, rather than being conscious of their experience of unending hell-fire, are snuffed out.
There is a growing  opinion that at the end of time all will be saved; otherwise God’s plan for Humanity will be thwarted.

Judaism and Islam share with Christianity a belief in  hell,

Spiritualism claims to be able to communicate with the departed.   Such objective investigations as have taken place have not come up with a convincing verdict.   It should be added that the main sweep of world-religions is opposed to Spiritualism.

It is likely that what Spiritualists believe to be a departed spirit talking through a medium is an illustration of telepathy or a tapping into Jung’s collective unconscious

Jesus And The Dead Sea Scrolls

Ever since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Spring of 1947 critics have used them to discredit Christianity.
A general idea has entered the public sub-conscious that, somehow or other, the case for Christianity has been  damaged by the Scrolls.

There are radical differences between Jesus and the Dead Sea Teacher of Righteousness.

There never came a time when it was held that the Messiah had come, whereas the Church proclaimed from its inception that the Messiah had come in the person of Jesus.

The Teacher of Righteousnes looked for the apearance of three figures at the time of the end - a prophet, a priest and a king.   The N.T. writers see these three roles coinciding in Jesus.

The N.T. depicts Jesus as the Son of God.   No such title is given to any figure in the Dea Sea community.
There are verses in the N.T, that predicate the title “theos” (god) of Jesus.   There is nothing remotely similar in the Scrolls.

It is possible that there are similarities between the teachings of Jesus and the Scrolls.   This is not surprising when one allows that both Jesus and Scrolls come from Judaism.

The Teacher of the Scrolls did not claim or possess the authority of Jesus

He was not conscious of being above the Law.

He worked no miracles.

He was not a master of parable or aphorism.

The Scrolls consign publicans and sinners to eternal perdition whereas Jesus mingled with them.

Even in the persecutions to which the Teacher  and Jesus were subjected there are noteworthy differences.   The enemies of the Teacher were anonymous, their identity veiled under the titles “Wicked Priest”, “Prophet of Lying” etc..   They were men of violence, impure, lovers of riches - in a word, violators of the Law.   Jesus’ enemies, on the other hand, are prominent and  known:  the Sadducees, the Pharisees and Scribes.

Departed Souls

In the Catholic and Orthodox Churches the faithful are encouraged to ask their departed relatives and friends to join their prayers to those being offered on earth.   It is a two-way process.

In the Catholic Church, although this is not widely advertised, it is permissible for those in this life to talk to the departed, although the departed cannot reply.   The Church is strongly against anything smacking of Spiritualism.

Jesus - A Mythical Hero?

Certainly one can find ample evidence in the NT to support the idea of Jesus as an idealised hero figure.
Jesus performs healing miracles; He performs nature miracles; He even raises the dead.

In the many disputes with His opponents within Judaism, He never loses.

His teaching and bearing are seen to soar above what His contemporaries and even the Prophets and Moses had to offer.

He refuses to crack at His trial or on the cross.   He makes provision from the cross for His mother, gives hope and comfort to the penitent thief and forgives His enemies.

Death cannot contain Him: He appears to His followers after His death.

The foregoing may be said to have the flavour of the mythical heroes of the ancient world and  one might conclude that the figure of Jesus has been idealised like them.   And yet, and yet…

On one occasion, when on home ground, Jesus did not perform many “mighty works…because of their unbelief”; indeed, the account in Mark may be translated “….He could do no mighty work there…..”
Jesus weeps, e.g., at the death of His friend, Lazarus.

He perspires heavily in Gethsemane and tries to avoid the anguish of what lies before Him.   War heroes did not behave like this.

We read Jesus saying from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” - hardly the words creative reporters would have written the  for an idealised figure.

In Mk 10:18, Jesus is reported to have said, “There is none good but God”.   Not quite what inventors would have put into the mouth of the supposed Saviour.

Most puzzling of all, Jesus, who is projected as the Messiah in the gospels and elsewhere in the NT, fails to fulfil many of the Messsianic expectations in the native air of Palestine in the years spanning His life-time.
Jesus actually took it upon Himself to amend Tradition in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, where there are several passages in which Jesus says: “You have heard from the past…..but I say to you…..”   Just who does Jesus think He is?!   Again, hardly the sort of approach inventors of a Messiah, fulfilling Jewish expectations, would have devised.

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The Problem of Evil

January 19th, 2010

One of the problems - probably the most important problem in that it turns so many away from God - which has to be faced fair and square by the believer is:  Why has a good God permitted so much evil to happen?  Why do the wicked flourish and the just suffer?    How account for the diseased, mis-shapen lives of so many, particularly in the Third World - the slums, mass starvation, the wars around the world, the despair to which suffering and wrong have driven countless numbers?

  • It has to be stated at the outset that there is no simple, single answer to the Problem of Evil - at least no-one has so far come up with it!
  • By way of partial answer it might be said that the common theme of fiction and epic is victory won through trial and suffering and life without some suffering would be the play of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.
  • Many of the virtues are developed by conflict  with pain and vice: endurance, courage, temperance etc..
  • There are mysterious sufferings that are not caused by human beings Really, in the world to-day, it is suggested that, perhaps, 80-90% of our pain and suffering is caused by other human beings.   We could wipe out so many diseases if we wanted to.   We already have done so but more needs to be done,
  • But this raises the question: why do these diseases exist in the first place?   This is part of the 10-20% of the mysterious suffering of which we have no answer at present.
  • The most wicked example of one people inflicting pain and death on another is the Holocaust.   This surely adds enormous weight to the case against God.   Yet, many of the survivors of the death camps emerged as virtual saints (although it has to be conceded that many also emerged broken).
  • One survivor was Rabbi Hugo Gryn.   He says: “  In a certain sense Auschwitz destroyed my childish notions.   But it was in Auschwitz and some of the other camps I was in, in my teens, that my faith was forged.   I understood then, and I understand it even better to-day, that Auschwitz was revelation, too.   It was revelation of what happens when an evil principle is harnessed to up-to-date technology…..What you cannot say is that God did it.   It isn’t true.   People did it - godless people”.
  • There is a further conclusion which emanated from Rabbi Hugo Gryn, and it is one which has become widespread among the churches since World War II: that God Himself is “in the mess”, suffering with His creation and that we, like Job, may get no real answer out of the whirlwind but God is there transforming the situation so that we turn from cursing to worship.
  • A Christian viewpoint on WW II comes from  Stuart Blanch, the Anglican Archbishop of York in the Eighties: “Actually the experience of being involved in the military where people you knew were dying around you had the effect on me that it had on many aircrew: that it gave them perhaps awareness of the realities which they had never experienced before or never thought about.   There was a disproportionately large number of men in the Air Force who, as a result of their experience, were later ordained”.
  • God is holding the whole universe in being and enabling each tiny part of it to go on being itself.   Is it likely, therefore, that He is not in the pain of the universe?
  • The purpose of God cannot  finally be defeated.   We see this in the Crucifixion and Resurrection.
  • We see from the above that, whatever intellectual objections remain, people in great  danger and stress find that God brings good out of evil.
  • In the New Testament we see Christ suffering at the end of His life and especially on the Cross.   But the Cross is not the end of the story; in the Resurrection death and suffering are transcended.   Christians and others believe that in the after-life things will appear quite differently.  Speculation will be subsumed in a new reality.
  • Christ does not explicitly argue the goodness of God in creating this particular world and in permitting evil nor prevail over adversaries with philosophical arguments.   He gives a more significant answer in the portraying of God as the Father and Himself as the suffering Redeemer.   Before this vision the hard surface of the Problem of Evil begins to crumble.
  • We are surrounded by mystery.   We are asking for an explanation of God’s inner counsels.   Again, we are asking for an explanation of the purpose of this world before that purpose has been fully accomplished; we want to turn to the end of the story when we are only half-way through; to stand outside time and space when we re still in time and space; we are aattempting to get Heaven into our heads instead our heads into Heaven!
  • As St. Augustine says:  “God Almighty would in no way permit evil in His works were He not so omnipotent and good that even out of evil He could work good”.
  • The explanation of the phenomena of the natural world does not lie within the natural world  and Science which describes these phenomena, telling how they occur, cannot tell us why they occur as they do.   These are familiar considerations.   So, too, must the explanation of the facts of moral experience lie beyond this world.
  • An article appeared in “The Times” (London) in January, 1995, which points to forces beyond the human.   A prison chaplain called at St. Thomas’ Hospital, London.  He was shaking with  shock.   He had just witnessed a possession in a prison of which  he was chaplain; he  had just come from the cell of a  22-year old Asian man where he had witnessed the man being possessed by a ghost.   Writing about the case in “The British Journal of Psychiatry” Dr. Anthony Hale, senior lecturer in Psychiatry at St. Thomas’ Hospital, compared the young man’s power to that of the small girl in the film, “The Exorcist”.   What startled the psychiatrists was the description the chaplain gave of the incident he had witnessed.   He had seen a cloud bearing thee image of an old woman descend on the man’s chest.   According to Dr. Hale, this sort of condition may occur in an otherwise well-adjusted person in a culture with strong beliefs in possession and is normally dealt wwith by exorcism.   Dr. Hale treated the man with an anti-psychotic drug which succeded where exorcism had failed.   The possessions ceased but recurred when the man failed to take his drugs.   Dr. Hale stated :”In a multi-ethnic psychiatric service, possession by a ghost must be considered  as a possible diagnosis”.
  • It is rarely stated by theists the the Problem of Evil exists for atheists.   For God substitute unaided Evolution and the same agonising difficulties remain.   Why did Evolution bring about evil?  Surely, it could have arranged things differently?  If it had the power to produce Leonardo, Newton,Lister, Curie, Pasteur, Keynes, Einstein, F.D.Roosevelt, Mandela etc.,. would it not have the power to replicate these over and over again so that solutions to the world’s problems might have been solved very much earlier?  The difference between the theist and the atheist approach is that in the one there is a n after-life, in the other there isn’t.
  • Evil is not a thing, an entity, a being.   It is a wrong choice or damage done by a wrong choice.   It is no more positive than blindness.
  • Who’s to say that we know all God’s reasons?  
  • The after-life:  a different way of viewing things.
  •  The degree of suffering (as opposed to the extent) is confined to that of the person who suffers most.
  • No perfect solution intellectually.
  • Satan the agent of evil in Nature.
  • Since love must be chosen, love cannot exist without freewill so with evil.
  • Fall of humankind leadss to corruption of world: “Everything is connected to everything else”.
  • Evil is the absence of good.
  • Concepts such as yin and yang argue that evil and good are complimentary.
  • The case for Evil being deeper than human shortcomings is argued by Dr. CEM Joad in his book, “The Recovery of Belief (1951):  “For am I really to believe that the passions, the rages, the callous indifference to human suffering, the unbridled lust for domination and display exhibited by the men of restless energy and dominating will who have fought their way to power during the last forty years, are adequately to be explained as the by-product of a feeling of inferiority engendered by neglect in school?”.

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Experiences of God?

January 7th, 2010
  • The Centre for Religious Experience Research is housed in the library at the University of Wales at Lampeter.    The Centre was established in 1969 by the marine biologist, Sir Alister Hardy, who was both a Darwinian and a member of the Unitarian Church.   He believed that we do have a spiritual nature and that there is an extra-sensory reality beyond the individual self.   The work of the Centre covers the main religious faiths in the world plus the experiences of those who belong to no faith.   The Centre has some 6,000 accounts which form “evidence” of the “other”.
  • To the question: “Have you ever felt as though you were very close to a powerfull spiritual force that seemed to lift you out of yourself?”   the following replies were given:

                                            Great Britain            USA

Once or twice                           17%                  18%

Several times                         9%                     12%

Often                                            5%                      5%

TOTAL                                        31%                    35%

The above are taken from samples of the whole populations

  • Features of Religious Experience:
  1. Unifying vision, all things are one, part of a whole
  2. Timeless and spaceless
  3. Sense of reality, not subjective
  4. Blessedness, joy, peace and happiness
  5. Feeling of the holy, sacred, divine
  6. Paradoxical, defies logic
  7. Ineffable, can’t be described in words
  8. Loss of sense of self
  • Several physiological states have been found to be connected with Religious Experiences.   Intense arousal produced by ecstatic dancing and singing is one trigger for Religious Experience, although equally high arousal from sport or exercise has no such effect.
  • It is well established that the left hemisphere of the brain is the main locus of language, number and logic.   The right hemisphere is weaker on these but stronger on vision and space, music, emotions and holistic perceptions.   It seems likely that this is where religion belongs.
  • Religious Experiences are very rewarding: distress is relieved and personal problems are often resolved.  The good mood produced often lasts for months.   There may be physiological mechanisms for bringing about these effects but it seems that the motivator comes from outside.

On a personal note, I was received into the Catholic Church in 1973.   I accepted Catholic teaching on everything except birth control.

About 20 years ago I developed doubts about parts of the Catholic Church’s teaching on Mary.   To all intents and
purposes  I was an agnostic on this.  

In early November, 2009 I was at Confession and the priest was praying over me when I had an experience of the Virgin Mary.   There were no symbols of Mary in the room and I had not been thinking about her; suddenly I sensed the Virgin Mary within me and had a mental image of her.

When I “came to” my doubts had disappeared; this has continued.   I would never have put money on this happening.
There are excesses of devotion to Mary by those on the right-wing fringes of the Catholic Church; I still fail to be
attracted by these but the mainstream teaching I accept. I feel very relaxed about the whole matter.

Those to whom I have mentioned this experience fall into two groups.   The first group is supportive; the second group (which contains believers) is embarrassed (well, we’re all English) or hostile.

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Virgin Birth

December 13th, 2009

Wikipedia - The Virgin Birth (Other articles include: In the Beginning; The End is Nigh?; Christian ~Social Teaching; The Problem of Evil; Did Jesus Exist?; Jesus and the World Religions; Jesus and the Future; Baptism; Binding and Loosing; Do Animals Have Souls?; The Conversion of Israel; Contraception; Holy Communion; Jesus and Ancient Authors; Homosexuality; Reproductive Technologies)

The Virgin Birth was not part of the main apostolic preaching in the earliest days of the Christian faith.   For example, the replacement for Judas had to be a “witness to the Resurrection” (Acts  1:21-22).

Jewish tradition did not expect the coming Messiah to be born of an intact virgin despite the questionable Septuagint translation of the Hebrew “young woman” in Isaiah as “virgin”.

Those critics who suggest that the Christian belief stemmed from outside influences have in mind such instances as the following virgin birth stories:
Dionysos, Attis, Perseus, Plato, Apollonius, some of the Pharaohs, Alexander, Augustus, Karna, Zoroaster.

Other cultures which have virgin birth motifs include:  African tribes, the Inuit, native North Americans, the ancient Toltecs and Aztects, the Persians and the Finns.

Because other religions and cultures from the ancient world have accounts of virgin births it does not follow that Christianity is simply one among many.   There is no exact parallel to the Virgin Birth of Jesus.

The early Church is unlikely to have been attracted by some of the virgin birth accounts of the Graeco-Roman world.   Many were little more than crude sexual behaviour on the part of the deity.   Wisdom 14:24,26 and Romans 1:24 show how Greek-speaking Jews and Jewish Christians would have reacted to such conduct.

There is a strong tide within N.T. scholarship,including many who wear clerical collars, to reject the historicity of the details of the Christmas accounts.

The annunciation, the shepherds, the magi, the star, the flight into Egypt…..are rejected as mythical.   For these scholars  the Virgin Birth which is left standing surrounded by flattened  discarded elements is not sacrosanct, either.   It, too, is rejected.

It is a mystery why the early Christians should have invented a virgin birth for Christ, if,indeed, it did not happen.   As we have seen, there is no exact parallel to the Virgin Birth in the ancient world and the earliest writers in the post-apostolic era accept the Virgin Birth.

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In The Beginning

December 4th, 2009

A large majority of cosmologists, physicists and astronomers have virtually decreed that the universe came into being as a result of a Big Bang.   They claim that its dying echoes can be heard from all quarter in the form of  microwave radiation, with distant galaxies flying away from us at immense speeds.   The cause of the Big Bang, however,  remains an enigma to Science.

A slight alteration in the initial heat of the universe or in its total mass or any other factor would have prevented its formation.  Without a fine adjustment of heat in the shrinking core of a hot star, carbon would not have been produced.   Our planet swept up from debris of an exploding star; on this all life systems depend.    A further co-incidence relates to the formation  of the atmosphere and oceans.   There are self-regulatory mechanisms which have kept the climate almost constant over 3 billion years despite a 25% increase in the Sun’s luminosity.   Life emerged in the oceans; however, the salinity of the living cell’s internal fluids or external environment must never exceed 6% for more than a few seconds.   Conditions on Earth have been almost always optimal for life.

Other co-incidences include:  Just the right distribution of gases in the early universe;  the primitive dynamic  equilibrium; the right heat of the universe; the relative weight  of neutrons, protons and electrons; the fine balance between gravity and electro-magnetism; the precise  value  of the strong nuclear force;  and all the necessary ingredients were already in place at Time Zero, able to come together for the Creation.

(With acknowledgements to Bishop Hugh Montefiore for this section.)

Over the centuries Christian philosophers have felt it possible to prove the existence of God.

Some of the points made by Professor Richard Swinburne of Oxford University in this connection are:

  • It is fundamentally reasonable to believe in God
  • When a rational person finds all the cards in the pack are the same or all the flowers in some neighbourhood are exactly the same,he/she says: “There must be an explanation for this”.   When lookig at the universe, the enquirer must say: “I can explain why everything in the universe behaves the same if it has one Being who created it and gave it that power”.
  • An argument for the existence of God has as its premise the order of the universe; this makes the conclusion probable - but not certain - that God exists.
  • The Rationalist is credulous: he/she must start by believing experiences as they seem to be, in the absence of evidence to the contrary; otherwise he/she would never believe anything about the universe.
  • The former Master of Churchill College, Sir Hermann Bondi, FRS, a prominent Humanist, said: “In my acquaintance with scientists I find belief and non-belief.   I know sufficient numbers of scientists of each persuasion to be willing to make two statements as being stupid and palpably untrue prejudices viz. that a person, being a scientist, must accordingly be a believer in a revealed religion - or the opposite statement…..Some feel there must be an intelligence, an architect of all this grandeur, an architect that may be called God but without ascribing to this unknown entity any interest in our human affairs or in our prayers.   If I rightly understand it, this was Einstein’s view)”.
  • Lord Winston, Professor of Fertility Studies at London University, has stated that religious belief is genetic and has been so for 40,000 years.
  • It is interesting to note that Stalin, the foremost atheist in the world  from the Twenties to the Fifties prayed during the Battle of Moscow in WW2.   According to his bodyguard he went down to a small chapel in the basement of the Kremlin, knelt down, put his hand on a book of the gospels and prayed.
  • It is also interesting to note that Stalin’s successor, Georgi Malenkov, towards the end of his life became a member of the Orthodox Church although he, too, was for a time the foremost atheist in the world.
  • Since the demise of Communism  Gorbachev  and Putin have become members of the Orthodox Church
  • It is instructive to read that Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot were all atheists.  They had no Higher Power to whom they were answerable.   When confronted with this Professor Dawkins says that Stalin was as he was because of his Communism, not his atheism - little realising that atheism, according to Marx and Lenin, is an essential part of Communism!   Also, in Soviet Russia “scientific atheism” was a compulsory subject  in state universities for all careeers before 2001.

The End Is Nigh?

The first pre-Christian reference to the End is to be found in an Assyrian tablet dated 2800 B.C.   “Our earth is degenerate in these latter days,   There are signs the world is speedily coming to an end.   Bribery and corruption are common”.

It seems that for as long as people have been in the world they have been predicting the end of it.   The first record of a Christian doomsday cult hails from 156 AD.   These were the Montanists, who believed  that Jesus would return within their lifetime.

In the 4th century AD St. Martin of Tours was saying that the Antichrist had already been born and was among us.   Down the centuries theologians have been equally as sure and equally wrong.

The approach of the first Millennium produced widespread speculation about the End.

In the16th. century Thomas More thought that the End was imminent.   Luther forecast the End, as did John Wesley - both comfortably outside their own life-span!

Isaac Newton, a Deist, wished to be remembered as a theologian rather than as a scientist.   He was obsessed with numbers in the Bible and made innumberable prophesies, including the End.

Billy Graham has recently said: “The Second Coming is on the horizon”.

There are literally thousands of apocalyptic sects making prophesies about the End,   They are independent and come to conflicting conclusions.   Many might be called Zionists:  the key to the End is to be found in what is taking place in and around Israel.

The Irvingites prophesied that the End would occur in 1835,1838,1842,1845,1855,1866 and 1877.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have prophesied the End in 1914,1918 and 1925.   Eventually, the prophecy was softened to “before the end of the 20th.century”.

Many claimed Marian visions have been reported in the last 30 years:  Nicaragua, Spain, Taiwan, Medjurgorje, Rwanda, Austria, Syria,Chile, Argentina, Ireland, England, Italy, Korea, Egypt, the Phillipines, N.Ireland, Ukraine, USA, Ecuador, Canada, former Czechoslovakia, Australia and Iraq.

Most of these contain rumblings of the End.   None has been approved by Rome.

One of the pre-requisites of the End  is that the Gospel be preached to all peoples.   We are not there yet.

In Saudi Arabia the Faith is officially banned.   In Borneo there are an estimated 775 tribes whose languages the West does not understand.   There are said to be a further 100 across the world

About 300 pilgrims a week arrive at Tel Aviv to witness the End.   They are variously dressed as Jesus, Mary, Moses, Gabriel etc..   They have one-way tickets.   The manager of the airport puts them all on return flights home!

The End will come one day.   No-one knows whether it will be within the next 50 or 100 or 200 or 1000 etc. years.

Christian Social Teaching

In Gen 1:28-9 God gives to human beings control of the earth so that it may supply their needs in abundance

The ideal state of Israel during the reign of Solomon is not just the abundance of the national wealth but the fact that “Judah and Israel lived in security , everyone under his own vine and under his own fig-tree” (1 Kings 4:25).

The Hebrew Bible takes the possession of private property for granted and is at pains to protect it (e.g. Ex 21:1-23:19, the Decalogue).

In the O.T.  there is a marked reluctance to any interference with private property, not least by enforced taxation (e.g. Prov 29:4)

The Wisdom literature contains a number of exhortations to work hard and warns that failure to do so will result in poverty (e.g. Prov 6:6-11, 10:4,   20:13) and the wealth that God destines for human beings is the reward for their own effort to acquire it” (Eccls 3:13).

There are limitations in the Bible on the individual’s freedom to use his wealth.   The sabbath year, the jubilee and other provisions in the O.T. outline the special  duty to relieve poverty but on the basis of individual rights to leasehold (from God) of land.   In the administration of law, however, no bias was to be given to rich or poor (Ex 23:2-3; Deut 1:17; Lev 19:15).

In the second section of the Book of the Covenant (Ex22:21-23:19) we find an appeal to conscience to help the poor and needy.

It is when the rich use their economic power to destroy the freedom and independence which is every Israelite’s heritage that they are attacked in the O.T., not simply for being rich (e.g. Jer 22:13-19.

When the prophets inveigh against the rich, it is not because of their wealth as such but because of their enjoyment of it while ignoring, or taking advantage of, others’ needs.

In parts of the O.T. we meet a conception of the poor which is religious and not restricted to social and economic poverty.   This appears, for example, in Zeph 3:12 and Ps.108(109):22.

In later  passages of the prophets post-exilic Judaism identified piety with poverty and lowliness.   Such passages mean that true religion is not simply identified with membership of the depressed economic class but more an attitude of spiritual outlook.(Is 29:19,61; Jer 20:13)

In the Dead Sea writings we find a developed sense of the piety of poverty, the devout poor.   In the pre-70 A.D. rabbinical writings poverty is often viewed as a curse.

(With acknowledgements to Professor J.R. Porter)

Jesus

There are two points which need to be made about Jesus in this context.

  1. Jesus was not born as the poorest of the poor,   The only reason that he was born in a manger is that Joseph could not find accommodation for them in “a hotel”.  He could have afforded it otherwise he would not have asked.A carpenter was reasonably well up the economic scale in the ancient world.   The poorest of the poor would have been the long-term unemployed, including the beggars, and slaves.
  2. Liberation Theology, although commendable in its struggle against economic exploitation of the poor in Latin-America, is determined to politicise the life and particularly the death of Jesus.

Insofar as Jesus was actually crucified by the occupying power in Palestine - the Romans - a political power may be said to have killed Him.   Jesus, however, did not see His death in political terms, but in theological terms.   At His arrest He protests that He is not leading a rebellion against the state.(Mt 26:55; Mk14:48; Lk 22:52)

Unlike Moses and Mohammed Jesus was not a legislator.   As Hans Kung has written:  “Jesus did not produce any programme for the renewal and transformation of political structures.   He did not raise in principle either the question of slavery or that of women, still less the universal emancipation of Man.   Nor did He outline any commercial, political or cultural ethics….”.   Furthermore, according  to Kung, the Christian message does not give any detailed information regarding the problem of a technical solution to the “riddle of the magic square: how full employment, economic growth, price stability and a favourable balance of payments can be simultaneously achieved”.

Jesus did not reject money: in the Sermon on the Mount, for example,He insisted on the practice of alms-giving and He paid taxes to an oppressive regime.   His band of followers had money (Judas was the treasurer).

There can be no doubt that He warned against the danger of riches (Mt 6:19-21,24; Lk 6:24; Mk10:30-31)

In His teaching to the masses He emphasised love of God and love of neighbour.   He even advocated love of enemies.   In the Parable of the Sheep and Goats He illustrated what will be expected of people at the individual judgement: how we have treated the most vulnerable members of society.   This is the keynote of Christian Social Teaching.

It is instructive that after the Ascension the Apostles established “Christian Communism”, as we learn from the early chapters of Acts.

In keeping with the teaching of Jesus and His Apostles we are obliged to hold in  our political leanings the poor (whether at home or abroad) ever before our eyes.   As some main-line churches put it: the bias to the poor.

Pacifism

In many parts of the O.T. and in some parts of the N.T. God is depicted as a God wrath.   Jesus is quoted, however, as saying “Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors”; “Do not resist one who who is evil.But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”.

Some of the early Christian writers (the Fathers) make the same point:Origen, Tertullian , for example.

Against the idea of Jesus the pacifist it has been argued that His words were not meant to be taken literally - they were couched (as were other parts of His teaching) in colourful, striking language, complete with Oriental exaggeration and “poetic licence”; that He was not laying down detailed guidance for every conceivable situation - He was not a legalist; that the examples He cited do not deal with a threat to life; that He did not tell us how to react if the injury is about to be inflicted on a third party; that His followers carried swords.

St Augustine pointed out that, when Jesus was struck on the cheek at His trial, instead of accepting it silently or turning the other cheek, He answered back.

The evidence from the early centuries of the Faith is ambiguous.   The first evidence of Christians joining the army dates from 173, when a number was recruited by Marcus Aurelius, near the Danube.   Christians were very unhappy about joining the army because, at least among the officer was compulsory to sacrifice to the Emperor.

With the conversion of Constantine opposition to military service was dropped, as the Church now formed the government.   By the year 410 the army had become a “closed shop” for Christians!

Eventually, the concept of the Just War emerged: a war must be declared by proper, supreme authority; the cause must be just; last resort; principle of proportion; reasonable chance of success and the right intention.

The nuclear threat has undermined some of the Just War points.

During the Second World War the Anglican Archbishop  of Canterbury, England stated: “Far better some years of ‘total war’ with the misery and waste and increasing bitterness of spirit than the riveting of that diabolical Nazi system upon more and more people”.

In 1983, before the collapse of Communism, Cardinal Hume of  Westminster, England arguing for the retention of the Bomb, said:  “The acceptance of deterrence on strict conditions and as a temporary expedient leading to progressive disarmament is emerging as the most widely accepted view of the Roman Catholic Church”

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Tricks of Light and Colour?

December 4th, 2009

Wikipedia- The Resurrection (Other articles in this section include: Life after life; the O.T.; Jesus and the gospels; Miracles; Salvation; the Church; the Holy Spirit; Jesus and His enemies; Heaven; Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls;Departed souls; Jesus - a Mythical Hero?; Non-originality of Jesus’ Teaching?; Capital Punishment; Abortion; Animal Rights; The Commanding Heights; Euthanasia; Inspiration; I’m Confessin’; How did we get the Bible?; Jesus and the Mystery-Religions; Lies, Damned Lies; and Statistics)

The remarkable point about the Resurrection, if it is invention, is that it did not conform to what Judaism in the 1st century AD Palestine    expected.   The literature between the Old and New Testaments contains several different, sometimes conflicting speculations on the after-life: As a state of unending sleep; immortality reserved to the nation, an incorruptible existence, a bodily resurrection of the righteous etc..The individual Resurrection of Jesus does not conform to these.

The Empty Tomb

It is frequently argued by N.T. scholars that the accounts of the Empty Tomb came very late in the day.   They go on from there in many cases to say that it was something of an invention,    What is the counter-argument?

The distinguished R.C. theologian from America, Fr. Raymond E. Brown - a Liberal of sorts- sets out his conclusion on the Empty Tomb thus:”The tomb of Jesus was not itself part of the eschatological events.   Jesus was buried in a certain place.   If that place was known, it could have been visited at a certain time.   If the tomb was visited, and it contained the corpse or skeleton of Jesus, it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand how the disciples could have preached that God raised Jesus from the dead, since there would have been irrefutable evidence that He had not done so”.

Professor R.H. Fuller, by no means a Traditionalist, can yet write: “We come now to the empty tomb narrative.   This, we have argued, belongs to the primary stratum of the Gospel tradition despite its absence from Paul.   In the N.T. it serves as a presupposition for the keryma rather than as part of the kerygma itself”.

The eminent Jewish scholar, Professor Geza Vermes, has stated:”But in the end, when every argument has been considered and weighed, the only conclusion acceptable to the historian must be that the opinions of the orthodox, the liberal sympathiser and the critical agnostic alike - even perhaps the disciples themselves - are simply interpretations of the one disconcerting fact: namely that the women who set out to pay their last respects to Jesus found to their consternation, not the body, but an empty tomb”.

Professor Vermes’ co-religionist, Dr. Pinchas Lapide, even goes so far as to berate Christian scholars for their downgrading of the bodily Resurrection of Jesus.   He accepts on the evidence of the gospels that Jesus rose bodily from the dead.

The Appearances

Mark’s gospel ends at 16:8.   We do not have the  original ending.   What we have is a collection of accounts of the Resurrection which over the years became attached to 16:8.

Mark’s abrupt ending tells us that the women fled from the tomb “for trembling and astonishment had come upon them;  and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid”.   Both Matthew and Luke say that they “departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and  ran to tell his disciples”.   Matthew also relates that, as the women were on their way from the tomb to the city, Jesus met them, and they took hold of his feet and worshipped him.
In Matthew we have a Resurrection account which is not in Mark or Luke.   In Luke we have appearances only in or near Jerusalem.   In John we have appearances in both Jerusalem and Galilee.   Why these variations?  The answer is that the evangelists were selective with the Resurrection appearances, as they were with the material they used with the accounts of Jesus’ ministry.

Were the appearances hallucinations?   On the basis of the evidence we have, the answer must be in the negative.   Those hallucinating normally do so with regard to 2 or 3 scenes,   The appearances to the disciples cover more locations.

The far-from-Traditionalist  theologian, Professor E.P. Sanders writes: “I do not regard deliberate fraud as a worthwhile explanation.   Many of the people in these lists were to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming that they had seen the risen Lord, and several of them would die for their cause.   Moreover, a calculated deception should have prduced greater unanimity”.

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Mary

November 15th, 2009

All Christians honour Mary.   She had the unique honour of giving birth to Jesus.   With so much agreement  why are there divisions about Mary within Christendom?

“Mother of God”

The Council of Ephesus (431 AD), one of the great Ecumenical Councils of the Church, had to deal with the Nestorian heresy.   In a nutshell Nestorius and his supporters taught that the Word did not become flesh so much as “inhabit” man; that in Christ there are two persons; that Mary was not the Mother of God, simply the Mother of Christ.

The Council condemned Nestorius and in the process declared Mary to be Theotokos (literally the God-bearer).   In English Theotokos became rather unhappily “Mother of God”

Perpetual Virginity

In the gospels reference is made to the “brothers of Jesus”.   The most natural reading might be to conclude that,although Jesus, according to the gospels, was Mary’s first-born, Mary had other children, too.    The counter-argument is that the Greek word translated “brother” can also be translated “cousin”.

In Mt.1:18  we read that Mary became pregnant before she and Joseph “came together”.

In Mt.1:25 we read that Joseph “knew her not till she brought forth her first-born son”

The question to be answered is whether the two passages above suggest that Joseph and Mary had intercourse after the birth of Jesus.   Catholics and Orthodox say “No”; most Protesstants and Anglicans say “Yes”.

Immaculate Conception Of Mary

In 1854 Pope Pius IX promulgated the following doctrine:  “The Most Holy Virgin Mary was, in the first moment of  her conception  by a unique gift of grace and privilege of almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin”.

In Scripture we read in Lk.1:28: ‘And the angel being come in said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women.’   To be full of grace is to haave the characteristic of complete sinlessness.   To have this requires that it has always been the case beginning with entry intoo life i.e., from conception.   The only other
person who is “full of grace” is Christ.

Although this dogma was not proclaimed until 1854, its roots go back to the earliest centuries of the Church so there was, from a Catholic viewpoint, no question of the Pope having invented a brand new doctrine.

Neither the Greek nor the Latin Fathers teach the Immaculate Conception explicitly; there may be a case, however, for saying that they taught it implicitly.

There is an abundance of reference in the early Fathers to Mary as the Second (by implication sinless) Eve:

  • Justin Martyr (100-163) writes:  “Christ became man by the Virgin so that the disobedience which proceeded from the serpent might be destroyed in the same way as it originated.   For Eve, being a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word from the faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced to her  the good things…….answered: Be it done to me according to thy word”.
  • Irenaeus (130-202), the first great theologian of Christendomm, represented the tradition of both East and West.   He wrote: “Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying: Behold the handmaid of the Lord……….Eve, however, disobedient: for she did not obey, even though she was still a virgin.   Inasmuch as she, having indeed Adam for a husband,  yet being still a virgin, became disobedient: and was made both for herself and the whole human race the cause of death, so also Mary, having a husband destined for her yet being a virgin, by obeying, became the cause of salvation both for herself  and the whole human race.   And for this reason (namely for the sake of the parallelism between Eve and Mary)  does the Law call her who was betrothed to a man, even though she was still a virgin, the wife of him to whom she was betrothed, signifying the transference from Mary to Eve.   Thus was the knot of Eve’s disobedience, dissolved by Mary’s obedience; for what the virgin Eve had tied up by unbelief, this the virgin Mary loosened by faith”.Elsewhere Irenaeus  refers to Mary as the “pure womb which regenerates men unto God”.
  • Tertullian (155-222) and Origen (185-254) similarly use the parallelism between Eve and Mary.   Ephrem (306-375) declared: “Thou (Christ) and Thy mother are the only ones who are totally beautiful in every respect”.   Augustine (354-430) said:”All men must confess themelves sinners except the Holy Virgin Mary, who I desire, for the sake of the honour of the Lord, to leave entirely  out of the question, when the talk is of sin”.

The Assumption Of Mary

In 1950 Pope Pius XII promulgated that:  “Mary, the immaculate perpetually Virgin Mother of God, after the completion of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven”.

In the O.T Elijah is said to have been raised to heaven body and soul; in the apocryphal Jewish writings Enoch similarly; and in the NT (Mt. 27: 52-53)it is recorded that “…the graves were opened: and many of the saints that had slept awoke and coming out of the tombs after His Resurrection came into the holy city and appeared to many.  Among the Fathers the earliest witnesses to the belief are Timothy of Jerusalem  and Epiphanius in the latter part of the 4th.century.   Ambrose (340-397) tells us the circumstances of Mary’s death are unknown and Jerome (340-420) on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he visited the holy sites,, makes no mention of Mary’s tomb.   In the East a feast of the Assumption seems to have existed even before the Council of Ephesus (431)

Marian Apparitions

Marian devotion is heightened at shrines where there have been claims that the Blessed Virgin Mary has appeared.   Since 1930 the Vatican has taken note of 83 claimed apparitions of the Virgin. in Italy; 30 in France; 20 in Germany; 12 in Spain and smaller numbers in other countries.   Only 7 have been given even an “informal approval” by the Vatican.   Even such approval does   not amount to any addition to Revelation.   Thus such Marian shrines as Lourdes and Fatima cannot be regarded as affecting Revelation.   At the very most they remain no more than an “optional extra”.

The Founding Fathers of Protestantism

  • Luther said that Mary’s prayers may be sought; that she was without sin; and that she may be called Queen of Heaven.
  • Calvin and Luther said that Mary was perpetually Virgin, as did John Wesley.
  • Zwingli, Calvin and Luther said that Mary may be venerated.
  • Calvin referred to Mary as “treasurer of grace”, even if not in the full Catholic sense.

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Can We Trust The New Testament?

November 4th, 2009

This article brings together the arguments expressed in many articles scattered around this website for trusting the New Testaameent.   Cross-references occur as the article proceeds.

The existence of God.

Before coming to the main thrust of this article it is necessary to establish the existence of God; otherwise this article loses its main thread.   The cross-reference is the article above this.   Add to this “the God gene”, which causes Humankind throughout history to  be religious

Manuscripts

In all there are about 8,000 manuscripts containing all or part of the NT.   In translating the NT decisions have to be made as to which documents to use.   There are inevitably discrepancies, which account for the differences between the various New Testaments on sale.   However, only some 1-2 % affect a major doctrine.   An example of this is the Johannine Comma: in 1 John 5:8 we read ‘There are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water and the blood and these three agree’; somewhere along the line in a few manuscripts the following words were added ‘and these are one in Christ Jesus; and there are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Son and the Spirit’.    The cross-reference is to the NT documents under Parables.

  • 2 Tim 3:16 :”Every inspired scripture has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error…..” (New English Bible)How does this reference tie up with the above paragraph and with some of the points which follow?

    One might say that Shakespeare and Mozart were inspired by God (indeed, Mozart said as much) but it does not mean that everything they wrote is perfect.   Something has to be left for human insight.   Cross-reference is to Inspiration under Resurrection

  • From time to time it is argued that several of those who projected the NT were so committed to belief in what they were preaching or writing that they gave their lives for the Gospel.   This only proves, of course, that they were sincere but not necessarily right.

  • The theologies of the evangelistsThese may seem to conflict.   To take one instance:  Mark portrays the disciples as without understanding following Jesus’ walking on the water; Matthew has them worship Him as the Son of God.   Both tendencies are credible in light of the disciples’ mixture of faith and disbelief elsewhere and each fits into distinctive emphases of the gospels in which they appear.

  • Events may appear in contradictory order in different gospels; a passage may be so abbreviated that it contradicts a fuller parallel; Sayings of Jesus may appear in different contexts; an unique event may be told twice in apparently contradictory ways; and names and numbers may appear to contradict each other.   One explanation of these apparent contradiction is that ancient writers often compress stories and use material as they think fit to suit the basic aim of their composition.

  • It is possible - no more - that Mark may have been the companion of Peter; that Matthew is one of the apostles; and that John, too, is an apostle.   If so, three of the four evangelists are eye-witnesses.The cross-reference is to Jesus and the gospels under Resurrection
  • Jesus is the best attested figure in the Ancient World.Apart from the thousands of manuscripts of the NT, a comparison with other figures from the Ancient World reveals that, whereas the time span from the composition to the earliest copy we have is 100-250 for the NT, the time-span for Caesar is 950 years and then only 10 copies; for Tacitus 1000 years (20); for Plato 1450 years (7); for Herodotus 1300 years (8); for Sophocles 1400 years (193); and for Aristotle 1400 years (49)

    The Jewish historian, Josephus, active in the 1st century AD, refers to Jesus and there are (unflattering) references to Him in the Talmud, dating from the early centuries of the Faith.

    There are many apocryphal gospels and epistles in the vey early  centuries of the Faith which vouch for the existence, status and teaching of Jesus.

  • In the 20th century Jewish scholars have set out to reclaim Jesus for Judaism.   They concentrate on the gospels and have little time for the rest of the NT, seeing St. Paul as the creator of Christianity at variance with the Jesus of history, which they see as genuine.Such scholars as the following are representative of this movement:   Claude Montefiore, Joseph Klausner, Israel Abraham, Samuel Sandmel, David Flusser, Geza Vermes, and Pinchas Lapide etc..   Lapide even accepts the Resurrection but does not regard Jesus as the Messiah.
  • Archaeology has proved the reliability of Acts which at one time was regarded as suspect.   Most of the ancient cities mentioned in Acts have been identified.   Acts mentions a riot in Ephesus and represents a civic assembly taking place in a theatre.   This latter point is confirmed by an inscription which speaks of silver statues of Artemis (Diana) to be placed in the theatre during a full session of the civic assembly.Acts also relates that a riot broke out in Jerusalem because Paul took a Gentiile into the Jewish temple.   Inscriptions have been found which read in Greek and Latin, “”No foreigner may enter within the barrier which surrounds the temple and enclosure.   Anyone who is caught doing so will be personally responsible for his ensuing death”.

    For some time in the 20th century there were doubts as to whether Jesus could have been crucified outside Jerusalem, as Caesarea was the place for crucifixions.   It emerged that sometimes abandoned quarries were used.   This was confirmed in the early Sixties when restoration work began in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre when it was discovered that 5 meters below the church there was a quarry.

    Several more examples can be given.

  • About 1/3rd of Jesus’ teaching is given in the form of parables in the Synoptic Gospels.   Parables are used elsewhere in the Ancient World but to nowhere the  same extent of Jesus’.   The cross-reference is to Parables

  • The healings performed by Jesus, again the most numerous in the Ancient World, are cross-referenced to Healings under Parables

  • The non-healing miracles are cross-referenced to Miracles under Resurrection.

  • The exorcisms by Jesus are cross-refernced to Exorcisms under Is There A God?

  • The gospels

The  dominant hypothesis among NT scholars is that Mark is the first gospel, used independently by Matthew and Luke.   These latter also drew on a common source (consisting mainly of sayings rather than happenings) usually given the symbol Q - as well  as each  using sources of material distinctive to himself.   Behind these sources lies an oral tradition,   We can thus get back quite close to the life of Christ.

As to the trustworthiness of this method of communication, two points need to be made.   The first is that the semitic mind is very retentive.   Examples can be given to-day from the Middle East of people learning the Koran by heart.   The second is the Ancient World had its own form of short-hand.

The gospels were written partly because the expected Second Coming had not taken place, partly because the first-generation Christians were ageing or dying and it was thought necessary to put something in writing: preaching aids were needed.   We discover from both John’s gospel and Luke’s gospel that others had written gospels before them.

A possible authenticity test for the teaching of Jesus is: can the teaching be found in more than one gospel source?   This is a useful test as far as it goes, for,  if Mark and the document Q mentioned earlier give us a similar impression of the content of Jesus’ teaching, then it is reasonable to believe that it is an authentic impression.   The limitation is that teaching outside these  parameters is not authentic: e.g., the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son.   However, it is a useful tool as far as it goes.

Scholars suggest that much of the teaching given in the gospels is in the form of Aramaic poetry.

A point which suggests authenticity is that there are differences between the gospels and the rest of the NT which fiction-writers would have eliminated.   There is no real teaching on the Church itself in the gospels yet elsewhere in the NT this became an important issue.   Even baptism, which very soon became the rite of initiation into the Christian fellowship is sparsely mentioned in the gospels.   The question of Jews and non-Jews is not really dealt with in the gospels but it was important elsewhere.   The term “Son of Man” is the most widely used title for Jesus in the gospels but hardly appears anywhere else.   Likewise, the “Kingdom of God”, which was the heart of Jesus’ teaching, is hardly mentiooned in the rest of the NT.

  • Veracity of the NT shown by:

  1. The apostles not being portrayed in a favourable light

  2. Clash between Paul and James on Justification being reported

  3. The “dark side” of Jesus being reported: e.g., the cursing of the fig-tree and  the language used by Jesus towards His opponents.   The cross-reference is to The Hard Sayings of Jesus under Parables’

  4. If the early Church had invented Jesus they would have made sure that the word “Christ” would have been consistently used.   In fact, in the gospels it is used as a title whereas in St. Paul’s writings it is used as a name.

  • Jesus is the only figure among World Religion founders who forgives sins.   To His contemporaries this suggested divinity.

  • It was not a subject for applause in the 1st century AD or in parts of the world to-day but Jesus not only liberated from sins, He also liberated from social injustice.   He was biased in favour of the poor, prostitutes and the hated quislings, the tax-gatherers.

  • The Transfiguration

This sole vision involving  three of His apostles shows the divine breaking through into this life: a theophany.   It is so extraordinary that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to invent.

Other claimed visions in Catholicism - but not on this scale - include Marian apparitions at Banneux, Fatima, Guadalupe, La Salette, Lourdes, Mexico City, Pontmain…..There are many claimed cases of visions of  by the saints  of  the Catholic Church.    These, however, do not affect Revelation.   (See next article.)

  • The Resurrection

This was not expected in the manner in which  it occurred.   There is nothing in the OT or the Jewish literature which followed it to lead one to expect the Empty Tomb, the Appearances in the Upper Room, the Appearance on the Lake of Galilee …..The cross-reference is to the article at the head of Resurrection.

  • “Life after Life”   Experiences of those who have “died” for a few minutes on the operating table confirm what some parts of  the NT has to say about the after-life.   See Life after Life under Resurrection.

  • To what extent is Jesus unique and unlikely to have been created by the early Church?    Here are some examples:

  1. Jesus is portrayed as divine in parts of the NT, something which would have been unthinkable in a Jewish milieu.   If it were not true, it would have been blasphemous.   We read such passages as “I and my Father are one” (Jn 10:30-35); “Before Abraham was I am” (Jn8:58);  “His state was divine” Phil:2:5-6)…..

  2. The forgiveness of sins, already mentioned.

  3. Preaching the Kingdom of God, unique in Judaism and the Pagan world.  It is multi-faceted.

  4. Within His milieu Jesus more than others associated with outcasts: e.g., lepers, prostitutes, quisling tax-gatheerers….

  5. The only founding-father of World Religions to suffer martydom for the forgiveness of sins.

  6. Healings and exorcisms took place within the Ancient World but to nothing like the extent as those performed by Jesus.   It is noticeable that, unlike other healers and exorcists, Jesus did not overtly pray when performing His miracles.

  7. Many Jewish scholars draw attention to the uniqueness of the teaching of Jesus within Judaism.

  8. The Resurrection.   It is sometimes said that the Ancient World was full of gods dying and rising again.   However, these are mythical stories and do not go into the detail of the gospel accounts of Jesus’ Resurrection.

  9. Jesus referring to Himself as the Son of Man, a reminder of the same name in the book of Daniel, with possible divine connections.

  10. The Lord’s Supper.   This is original in degree, rather than principle.   It was established in the context of a Passover and , as St. Paul wrote: “Christ is our Passover”.   In the early Church it was celebrated in the context of an agape, a Christian love feast.   It has echoes of the Messianic Banquet, mentioned several times in the OT, the Dead Sea Sect, the rabbinic writings and apocryphal Jewish literature.   There are also accounts of divine communion in sacred meals in the Ancient World.   The Lord’s Supper is the only one still being celebrated.

  11. The range of Jesus’ knowledge:  He knows He is going to be crucified;  He has telepathic powers; His knowledge and perception are detected by the people; He has foreknowledgee of the Fall of Jerusalem; He has foreknowledge of the Parousia…..The cross-refeerence is to the article that follows this: Jesus’ Knowledge

  12. Impact.   Jesus is the leading figure  in history.    Three examples of appraisal of Jesus are:

  • Napolean: “I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man.   Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison”.

  • HG Wells: “Judging a person’s greatness by historical standards,  Jesus stands first”.

  • Jung:   “The coming of Christ itself evokes the spirit of anti-Christ; only when the full light shines in the darkness is the intensity of the darkness made manifest”.

  • It is quite miraculous that a World Faith should have split into 38,000 sects and still be standing!

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Right Time For Jesus’ Birth

October 4th, 2009

Conditions were just right for the birth of Christ:

  • * In Jewish theology
    a)  Apocalyptic literature was in full swing with its prophetic message
    b)  Messianic expectations were in the air.   Professor Geza Vermes has listed several:

    1. The Messiah will be victor over the Gentiles, a saviour and restorer of Israel
    2. The Messiiah will appear in trappings of royalty
    3. The Messiah is associated with the image of the Priest-King
    4. The Messiah will be a Prophet-Messiah - another Moses but with an added Messianic dimension
    5. The Messiah will be slain as an unsuccessful commander-in-chief

    (c)   There was a feeling within Judaism that there was a new phase needed in its development

  • Synagogues existed in many cities of the Roman Empire - awaiting the early Christian missionaries
  • Within the Roman Empire buoyant trade was responsible for the development of an elobarate network of well built roads and a system of  shipping.   Bandits had been driven away from most of the overland routes and piracy had practically been brought to an end.   All was set for the expansion of the Gospel
  • The Greeks had developed education.   It had influenced the Wisdom literature of the NT,   Most of the populace at the time of Christ could speak, read and write Greek; some could speak Latin as well.   The OT was already in Greek
  • What of China and India?   These played no part in the early years of the Faith.

Then as now they are in the timeless mists of Hinduism/Buddhism/ natural religion
awaiting widespread evangelism.

Addendum:   The period in world history in which Jesus was born was enormously creative from a spiritual, moral and intellectual point of view.   Dr. John Hick has pointed out that Gautama (the founder of Buddhism), Mahavira (the founder of Jainism), Confucius, the great Hebrew points (especially Isaiah and Jeremiah, Pythagoras, Aristotle ….all lived in the period roughly from 800 BC to 200 AD.   From that point of view human progress had reached a stage  here civilisations were eager to take on board new spiritual and moral developments.

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