You’re making a bigger deal out of the “disagreement amongst Orthodox” about these issues than is warranted. The only so-called “Orthodox” groups who affirm the acceptability of things like contraceptives are modernists, who almost certainly disagree with Holy Tradition on other matters as well.
As an outsider, I observe the parallel here between the Orthodox tendency to call un-orthodox beliefs 'outside the Tradition' and the Catholic's tendency to do the same thing, even when it is ecumenical. A little ironically, it seems that what gives the Orthodox their name is just in the way they treat the unorthodox. Whereas the Orthodox are able to point at a group of more relative equals, which they think have become unequal, as if to say 'You don't have quorum', the Catholics are forced to look at the 'brain' of their organism and say, "Our brain is not thinking straight."
but why aren’t they doing the same thing about stuff like Liberation Theology, or rampant Modernism, or jewish subversion of traditionally White nations, human rights violation of actual Christians by the secular state of Israel?
This is a strong point. Peace, you are praising the ability of the Catholic Church to come to consensus on various issues, but it seems as if some of these 'modern' issues, say contraception, are fairly straightforward instances of traditional morals commuting across an unambiguous technological issue. Of course, there is value in that unity, but if the so-called modern issues which are being dealt with are small theological fish (so to speak) in a much larger pond of dangerous moral issues, about the latter of which the Church is silent, one might ask if these 'simpler' consensus omnia over condoms are not just clothes to give the appearance of unity.
I am getting the image of someone on the Titanic, after she had been struck, putting duck tape over a narrow fissure in the hull branching off from the main hole. Meanwhile he is just drinking the jet of incoming seawater. I've seen a couple of documentaries recently concerning the heterodoxy within the Catholic Church with respect to the tradition toward things like Satan and Hell, and that many modern Catholics accept that Hell is not a literal place, nor the devil a real being. That's in addition to confirmation of several modern scientistic 'myths'. So in one sense, there is a way in which the Catholic unification under singular leadership and teaching authority can be construed as a strength, but one way in which it can also be construed as a weakness. When others among the church lack the authority to initiate an organism-level response to a massive threat, it becomes like an immune system depending on one cell (the Pope). Of course, the Pope has access to others of high office, to their counsel and to the Church written tradition and magisterium itself. But what happens if a 'bad actor' or a series of them finds their way to that throne?
A concentration of power can also be a weakness. What I'm seeing suggested by King is that their Church might be better situated for an organism-level adaptation to adverse change. Of course, the tradeoff is that their Church as a whole is less stable (not having univocal leadership) to fragmentation. In some sense they can 'tolerate' a certain amount of heterodoxy (below some threshold level) and 'hold together'.
I see the tradeoffs of both. If I were to take a natural example as a model, I'd look at most of the higher animals and find they universally share in having developed central nervous systems, featuring something like brains in all cases. These bodies of trillions of cells are controlled in some respects by autonomous systems within the brain lacking consciousness (automatic functions), but the motion of the whole organism (its life history, if you will) comes from the conscious subjectivity which leads those bodies as the "I". This appears to be a feature of all higher life. We see processes I take as analogous to the Orthodox 'lack of Ecumene' as something characteristic of bacterial colonies which rely on quorum sensing (the diffusion of non-targeted messages by natural processes) to move together, as opposed to one brain.
I'm very inclined to look at God's creation for clues about what's best. The Logos can answer most questions, in my opinion.
This is why I am so naturally inclined toward Catholicism. I think the Ecumene is analogous to the brain. My dispute is with the attachment of a single belief to the office of Pope, which is that one equating him to Christ on earth. I would have no problem if the Church treated him as an elected supreme leader due to his holiness. I want to reject the divine trappings, for I believe what is divine in him is not what sets him apart, because that divine element is present equally in us all. So I say, set him apart for the relevant reasons and let him lead. The trouble comes from seeing this as a divine appointment and not just meritorious on the grounds of less high things - the 'divine right' concept and its cognates are precisely what make this form of authority so dangerous, whereas if he was looked at as 'the best and holiest man for the job', when things went bad it would not be nearly so controversial to boot them from their chair.
one might ask if these 'simpler' consensus omnia over condoms are not just clothes to give the appearance of unity.
My response to this point is my argument about potency, made extensively in my recent comments. Yes, the Catholic Church is in just as dire need of clarity right now as the East is, but the Church in no way and by no argument lacks the potency to address them. What we needed at the time of Vatican II was a council that did what most of the other councils did, and provided anathematizations to things like modernism (which has been condemned magisterially by the Church, be not mistaken, as the synthesis of all heresies), which is to say, we needed a council that exercised the extraordinary Magisterium of the Church, but instead we got only a pastoral council, whose documents, while solid in themselves, were exploited by the same bad actors who wrote them, which exercised only the ordinary Magisterium of the Church. Yes, we need this too, but this could readily be accomplished, whereas, for the reasons I've provided, I don't think the same can be said of the East, certainly not as readily.
I've seen a couple of documentaries recently concerning the heterodoxy within the Catholic Church with respect to the tradition toward things like Satan and Hell, and that many modern Catholics accept that Hell is not a literal place, nor the devil a real being. That's in addition to confirmation of several modern scientistic 'myths'. So in one sense, there is a way in which the Catholic unification under singular leadership and teaching authority can be construed as a strength, but one way in which it can also be construed as a weakness. When others among the church lack the authority to initiate an organism-level response to a massive threat, it becomes like an immune system depending on one cell (the Pope). Of course, the Pope has access to others of high office, to their counsel and to the Church written tradition and magisterium itself. But what happens if a 'bad actor' or a series of them finds their way to that throne?
This is a complex issue that even most Catholics don't understand. First of all, the kinds of statements about heaven and hell come from the same modernists that KOWA has admitted exist in the East, so this is not a uniquely Catholic issue and it does not derive from the papacy. Secondly, the Pope is not the Magisterium; his every word is no infallible. Only under very specific circumstances, outlined by Vatican I, does he exercise infallibility. Pope Francis has never done so; his many off-the-cuff remarks are entirely outside the Magisterium; and the magisterial documents he has written are not de facto dogma by virtue of his having written them. When it comes to that level of the pope's fallible teaching office, recourse to Tradition and later ratification are both required before the what is expected of the faithful rises from "pious acceptance of a charitable interpretation" to "religious assent", and then to "assent of faith". The Papacy does not exist in isolation.
My dispute is with the attachment of a single belief to the office of Pope, which is that one equating him to Christ on earth
I still have the impression that your dispute arises from a lack of clarity on what the papacy is. Listening to too many heretic voices will inevitably lead to a "false catechesis", if you will, on what the papacy comprises.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "attaching a single belief to the office of Pope" - again, the papacy does not exist in isolation from the binding force of tradition. In fact, the kinds of things that the Popes have infallibly declared - ex cathedra statements and confirming Ecumenical Councils - have only been things that the universal Church has already accepted always and everywhere. The intimate relation between the Pope, as a final voice guided by the Holy Spirit in clearing up disputes and establishing doctrine, and the other bishops and the saints, cannot be under-emphasized.
As for equating the pope with Christ on earth, I have already tried to explain 1) the difference between what the Church officially teaches and the kind of phraseology found in non-magisterial texts, and 2) what these non-magisterial texts must be understood to mean in the context of the Tradition and Magisterium of the Church. No where in official Church teaching is the Pope equated to Christ on earth; this word "equation" suggests an essential equality, which is impossible for a creature to possess by essence. There may be analogical comparisons, where the Pope is called the Head (temporally) just as Christ is Head (eternally), but this is not a true equation (univocal speech). Never is the Pope univocally likened to Christ. It is as Aquinas says:
Accordingly schismatics properly so called are those who, wilfully and intentionally separate themselves from the unity of the Church; for this is the chief unity, and the particular unity of several individuals among themselves is subordinate to the unity of the Church, even as the mutual adaptation of each member of a natural body is subordinate to the unity of the whole body
When I look up "viceregent" (not that one really needs to; the definition is practically contained in the word), I get:
n. A person appointed by a ruler or head of state to act as an administrative deputy. Having or exercising delegated power; acting in the place of another, as by substitution or deputation.
n. An officer deputed by a superior or by proper authority to exercise the powers of the higher authority; one having a delegated power; a deputy; a vicar.
This is all the Pope is. He does not exist instead of Christ, but for Him.
I want to reject the divine trappings, for I believe what is divine in him is not what sets him apart, because that divine element is present equally in us all.
Obviously on the level of your interpretation of Matthew 16 and Luke 22, etc., that associates Peter with a metaphor or type of the Church itself, this kind of statement is true. But on the level where Christ, in giving the keys to Peter, established some temporal authority whereby that authority was to bind and loose, to feed His sheep, then this clearly cannot be said of all of us. Some of us are sheep, and some of us are shepherds. The episcopate is hierarchically distinct from the rest of us, even if this is not true at another level of interpretation. And this being so, we must acknowledged a hierarchical teaching authority within the Church, and this is either purely and entirely distributed equally among the bishops, or has its supreme form / representative in the successor of Peter. Most Orthodox shy away from the angle that this authority is perfectly and equally distributed, though some do not. Most affirm the primacy of Peter by try to separate it from teaching authority, from the feeding of sheep - which strikes me as affirming the primacy without affirming the Scriptures that establish it, for if the primacy means anything, its association with the feeding of sheep would seem to suggest is means primacy of teaching authority. And it is in this vein that in my recent comment I have tried to show how the East's lack of this primacy has caused them more than superficial difficulty in working for the salvation of people's souls, since so many of these important disputes are not clearly settled, thus leaving the faithful to rely on their own judgment or impressions of which church has the true teaching - and this is not acceptable.
- the 'divine right' concept and its cognates are precisely what make this form of authority so dangerous, whereas if he was looked at as 'the best and holiest man for the job', when things went bad it would not be nearly so controversial to boot them from their chair.
Who would do the booting? Even if he was merely a leader, as you suggest you would prefer he were, leadership constitutes jurisdiction, and it is jurisdiction that would enable one to "boot" a reigning pontiff.The difficulties that would result - and have resulted for the Church in the absence of a single temporal head, by way of lack of sufficient potency to resolve disputes and therefore provide a clear and universal definitive doctrine to all the faithful, is far worse than the difficulties that admittedly exist with the papal office. Given that our Lord is establishing a temporal system for His Divinely instituted Church, it is not reasonable to expect that a model could be provided wherein no difficulties were possible. The very nature of creation and time and matter, on which we have said so much to say, precludes this very possibility. But our Lord would establish a system that would enable, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the fewest difficulties necessary, and I truly think the papal model is just that system.
I am about to leave, so I don't have the time right away to respond to the whole comment. It was very enlightening, by the way. I have just seen a large number of quotes from various popes over the years that have appeared to contradict what you've said with regard to viceregency, but you are here making the distinction between what qualifies something to enter magisterium versus what any pope 'just says' as a man.
Obviously on the level of your interpretation of Matthew 16 and Luke 22, etc., that associates Peter with a metaphor or type of the Church itself, this kind of statement is true. But on the level where Christ, in giving the keys to Peter, established some temporal authority whereby that authority was to bind and loose, to feed His sheep, then this clearly cannot be said of all of us.
We can't forget Matthew 18 where Christ says to the apostles in the plural, not the singular form found in chapter 16, that they will all have this power of binding and loosing. The keys are a different matter, though, and we've already discussed our reasons for believing Peter has supremacy. I will consider what you've said today. If it is true that this is the way the Church views the Pope, then I am mistaken and I might be able to come around.
I see the tradeoffs of both. If I were to take a natural example as a model, I'd look at most of the higher animals and find they universally share in having developed central nervous systems, featuring something like brains in all cases. These bodies of trillions of cells are controlled in some respects by autonomous systems within the brain lacking consciousness (automatic functions), but the motion of the whole organism (its life history, if you will) comes from the conscious subjectivity which leads those bodies as the "I". This appears to be a feature of all higher life. We see processes I take as analogous to the Orthodox 'lack of Ecumene' as something characteristic of bacterial colonies which rely on quorum sensing (the diffusion of non-targeted messages by natural processes) to move together, as opposed to one brain.
Excellent analogy with the quorum-sense. I’d argue though the Orthodox still have central “brain structures”, since they’re built around Bishops who have and delegate magisterial authority within their own diocese. But certainly, on the level of Local Churches (meaning, not the Church-next-door, but rather one of the fifteen-or-so Autocephalus Archdioceses), the quorum-sense between their respective liaisons, and even individual members going about their daily lives.
I might not have been clear what I mean that there’s no Ecumene - I’m referring to the intact, functioning Christian Empire. What characterized the Early Medieval Period was the fact that the Christian Empire was basically ruling the world. While I can’t prove it yet, I suspect many of the foundational correspondences relied upon by Papal claims to establish Supremacy, are documents that were written under the assumption of the fully-functional Empire. I suspect this has an effect on the way they perceived their relationship with Rome, and the Church in Rome, and her Bishop. I suspect there was a heavy, implied sense of suzerainty and loyalty which had to be maintained in all correspondences, or else it would come across as potentially seditious. I’m not sure what the name is for this phenomenon.
But it’s a real phenomenon. As a parallel in contemporary American writings, Republicans often make sure to affirm the Holocaust Narrative, and talk about how evil Hitler was, in order to deflect any doubt about their loyalty to the regime. They really don’t want to be accused of being “racist”, so they bring these things up all the time like a pinch of incense to Caesar.
Anyway, I suspect a lot of Papal Claims are based on documents written under the assumption of a very real, very powerful Empire, and people really didn’t want to come across as disloyal. There’d be strong incentive to make it look like the thought of rebelling hadn’t even entered their mind.
That’s what I’m talking about when I bring up the Ecumene. As it began to disintegrate, you started hearing more and more “seditious” literature. By the time of the Schism, that threat had long since been replaced by other, far more pressing matters.
EDIT: just to clarify, I’m not accusing them of insincerity. I’m merely pointing out an essential and unavoidable reality about governance. It may have come across as overly cynical.
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