Bernard of Clairvaux on the Immaculate Conception

“I am frightened now, seeing that certain of you have desired to change the condition of important matters, introducing a new festival unknown to the Church, unapproved by reason, unjustified by ancient tradition. Are we really more learned and more pious than our fathers? You will say, ‘One must glorify the Mother of God as much as Possible.’ This is true; but the glorification given to the Queen of Heaven demands discernment. This Royal Virgin does not have need of false glorifications, possessing as She does true crowns of glory and signs of dignity. Glorify the purity of Her flesh and the sanctity of Her life. Marvel at the abundance of the gifts of this Virgin; venerate Her Divine Son; exalt Her Who conceived without knowing concupiscence and gave birth without knowing pain. But what does one yet need to add to these dignities? People say that one must revere the conception which preceded the glorious birth-giving; for if the conception had not preceded, the birth-giving also would not have been glorious. But what would one say if anyone for the same reason should demand the same kind of veneration of the father and mother of Holy Mary? One might equally demand the same for Her grandparents and great-grandparents, to infinity. Moreover, how can there not be sin in the place where there was concupiscence? All the more, let one not say that the Holy Virgin was conceived of the Holy Spirit and not of man. I say decisively that the Holy Spirit descended upon Her, but not that He came with Her…I say that the Virgin Mary could not be sanctified before Her conception, inasmuch as She did not exist. if, all the more, She could not be sanctified in the moment of Her conception by reason of the sin which is inseparable from conception, then it remains to believe that She was sanctified after She was conceived in the womb of Her mother. This sanctification, if it annihilates sin, makes holy Her birth, but not Her conception. No one is given the right to be conceived in sanctity; only the Lord Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit, and He alone is holy from His very conception. Excluding Him, it is to all the descendants of Adam that must be referred that which one of them says of himself, both out of a feeling of humility and in acknowledgement of the truth: Behold I was conceived in iniquities (Ps. 50:7). How can one demand that this conception be holy, when it was not the work of the Holy Spirit, not to mention that it came from concupiscence? The Holy Virgin, of course, rejects that glory which, evidently, glorifies sin. She cannot in any way justify a novelty invented in spite of the teaching of the Church, a novelty which is the mother of imprudence, the sister of unbelief, and the daughter of lightmindedness”

Epistle 174

Liturgical Ecumenism?

Something worth reading here.

Fast Times or a Beautiful Mind?

This means nothing. But I needed a laugh. So I went to the blog readability test site. I entered Triablogue and got,

Then I entered James White’s Alpha and Omega Ministry’s URL and got this.

Then I plugged in this site and got,

Is Anybody Home?

“And here we close the loop upon a matter first addressed at the begining of this essay, that of the relationship between a ‘natural theology’ and a ‘negative theology’. If it is certainly wrong-in terms at least of the reading of Thomas-to set them in that opposition according to which a natural theology tells us about God those things-his existence and his nature-which a negative theology forbids us, nonethless, any account is equally flawed according to which a proof of God’s existence leaves us with nothing at all but an unoccupied space of ‘negativity’ on the other side of creation. It is because they feared some such apophatically inspired absolutization of the negative which would have to be indistinguishable from a nihilistic atheism (since it would allow no room for any criterion on which to distinguish them) that Milbank and Pickstock thought it necessary to attribute to Thomas some mode of experience, presupposed to reason’s exercise, of the ‘actuality’ of perfection. But there is no need to appeal on Thomas’ behalf to any such experience in order to insure against a purely nihilistic account of the unknowability of the rationally transcendent, or of the aesthetically sublime, as the ase may be: and it is better not to do so, since as I have said, there is absolutely no evidence that Thomas thought the human intellect was ever in possesison of such an experience. For Thomas apepared to think that there are only two ways in which God can be known this side of death: either by reasons’s graft, or else by faith’s gift. For Thomas there is no experience of God of any kind in this life.”

Denys Turner, Faith, Reason and the Existence of God, 119-120.

“But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep: and when they were awake, they saw his glory,  and the two men that stood with him.” Luke 9:32

Elvira, Mistress of the Cheesy

Some of my readers probably won’t get the title of this blog entry. They probably aren’t Yanks or they are probably too young to remember Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, spoof TV show. (If you like Mystery Science Theatre 3000, it was kind of like that, except it was limited to bad, really bad  horror flicks.) The show was pretty cheesy, but it got the attention of plenty of young men for obvious reasons.

Apologetics can be cheesy too or perhaps better said, cheesy apologists. Such are the types who toss out references to little known events as evidence for their views without any substantial investigation or argument and without showing any proficiency in the sources that they cite. Unfortunately the Internet is replete with such persons who simply recycle oft repeated claims.

One of these is in reference to the council of Elvira in the late third century/early fourth century. (Its exact date can’t be fixed.) Elvira was a local synod in Spain which put forward 81 canons. Canon 36 is usually trotted out in reference to icons. Rarely is the text of the canon given and almost never analyzed. Sometimes the claim is that Elvira forbade all images. Sometimes the claim is that there was no uninamity regarding the legitimacy images in the early church or similar claims. I don’t think the canon supports either claim.

Basil Answers Mackie

“But why did we not have sinlessness in our structure, one may ask, so that the will to sin would not exist in us? Because indeed it is not when your household slaves are in bonds that you consider them well disposed, but when you seem them willingly fulfill your wishes. Accordingly, God does not love what is constrained but what is accomplished out of virtue. And virtue comes into being out of free choice and not out of constraint. But free choice depends on what is up to us. And what is up to us is self determined. Accordingly, the one who finds fault with the Creator for not fashioning us by nature sinless is no different from one who prefers the nonrational nature to the rational, and what lacks motion and impulse to what has free choice and activity.

St. Basil the Great, Homily Explaining that God is Not the Cause of Evil, 74.

Orthodox Patristics

If you have not seen this site yet, run (don’t walk) to your nearest terminal and start reading. I’m please to see Mr. Jamie Kelley writing on these topics. Besides being an excellent patristic student working on his doctorate, Mr. Kelley is also very well versed in the theology of Fr. John Romanides of blessed, and besides Sopko, Metallinos, Gabriel, and Dragas he will probably be the next expert on his theology.