Men and Women are from Eden by Mary Healy

[skellmeyer]

[quote name='Birgitta Noel' date='Sep 13 2005, 02:29 AM']West is most definitely not a pseudo-scholar.  No one who can write a 530pg book on these teachings is a pseudo-scholar.  Now, that is not to say that he doesn't sometimes speak in error.  He's only human.  I'd have to hear exactly what he heard though to know whether he was truly in error.[/quote]

That doesn't follow.

For instance, Dan Brown recently wrote quite a thick book that has quite a lot of discussion of religion and he's a pseudo-scholar. Publishers tend to publish what sells, not necessarily what is accurate.

And I don't make that comparison lightly. West's Friday schtick was built around the concept "pain is good." That's the very first heresy presented in the Da Vinci Code. Pain is NOT good - it is morally neutral and naturally evil. But West doesn't understand the theology of the body, so he makes a freshman error in theology.

[quote]As for his explaination about mortification, there is some truth to that.  I know he tries to meet people where they are, and this may be such a case.  Or not.  I wasn't there.[/quote]

I was. So were several diocesan officials. None of them were pleased. His first Naked Without Shame series was so bad it had to be redone (even though it contains a lot of stuff that brought him a lot of heat from professional theologians, they didn't destroy the stock - they are still trying to move it. So you can get that first tape series at a reduced price now and many people do, thinking they are getting a "bargain.".)

West teaches a theology of pleasure, not a theology of the body. There's a difference.

[quote]When we heard him I heard nothing that seemed heretical or off kilter.  I do know that some find him to be condescending in his tone.  Though I think that's more of a personality issue than a true condesencion.  I could be wrong....
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Consider his eschatology. At the last presentation I was at, he said "Heaven doesn't make any sense without hell." That's Calvin's double predestination - the idea that God HAD to make hell, that the angels HAD to fall. It's a formally condemned proposition. It sure ain't JP II.

Now, anyone can mis-speak, I agree. But when these two errors were pointed out to him after the talk, he DEFENDED the ideas.

[Brother Adam]

[quote]His first Naked Without Shame series was so bad it had to be redone (even though it contains a lot of stuff that brought him a lot of heat from professional theologians, they didn't destroy the stock - they are still trying to move it. So you can get that first tape series at a reduced price now and many people do, thinking they are getting a "bargain.".)[/quote]

Okay, so I"ve listened to the 10 cd set twice now, what exactly in it is heresy? I've also read "Good News about Sex and Marriage", Theo of the body for beginners, and have worked some through the larger text on Theo of the body explained.

So what specific examples out of his published texts are heretical? I mean, if he is that horrible on stage, it must show up in the writing.

[Laudate_Dominum]

The author of [i]Men and Women are from Eden[/i] seems quite orthodox.
She is a professor of Theology and Sacred Scripture at Christendom College.

[b]Education: [/b]
B.A., University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, Government and Pre-medicine
M.A., Franciscan University, Steubenville, OH, Theology
M.A., Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, Philosophy
S.T.L., International Theological Institute, Gaming, Austria, Theology
S.T.D., Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, Biblical Theology

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='skellmeyer' date='Sep 13 2005, 08:53 AM']


Consider his eschatology. At the last presentation I was at, he said "Heaven doesn't make any sense without hell." That's Calvin's double predestination - the idea that God HAD to make hell, that the angels HAD to fall. It's a formally condemned proposition. It sure ain't JP II. 
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Heaven doesn't make sense without hell. If everyone is guarenteed a place up there, that means either we are perfect or there is no such things as sin.
Makes perfect sense to me.

[skellmeyer]

[quote name='Brother Adam' date='Sep 13 2005, 09:15 AM']Okay, so I"ve listened to the 10 cd set twice now, what exactly in it is heresy? I've also read "Good News about Sex and Marriage", Theo of the body for beginners, and have worked some through the larger text on Theo of the body explained.

So what specific examples out of his published texts are heretical? I mean, if he is that horrible on stage, it must show up in the writing.
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I didn't say his tape set or books were heretical, I pointed out two extremely problematic statements he made and defended in a recent set of talks. There are more.

Now, I recently had the opportunity to talk with people from his parish who have graduate theology degrees. We were discussing the four different major errors I had heard him make in the two-day series I heard in May - they came up with several more he's given to his parish.

The conversation was quite illuminating. People with solidly orthodox Catholic theological training don't like this guy much. They like Hahn, Staples, Madrid, Keating, but West? Sorry. Not West.

Similarly, I said the first tape set brought him a lot of heat from theologians. It's literally been five years since I've listened to his tapes (and I refuse to do it again as it causes me to scream at the stereo) so I don't remember all the problems in it anymore, but one of the things I remember is his discussion of art and his assertion that you can't be a great artist unless you are living TOB.

That's just silly. A person's charism has nothing to do with his state of salvific grace. If I have the charism to be a teacher, for instance, I can teach wonderfully while still being in a state of mortal sin. The charism isn't given me for MY salvation, it operates for the persons I interact with.

Now, would I be an even better teacher if I WERE in a state of grace? Probably. But if I have the teaching charism and I am in a state of mortal sin, I might still be better than most of the teachers out there who are in a state of grace.

Consecrated men have this issue all the time - the sacrament of Holy Orders confers a charism to perform certain sacramental and teaching functions. They can be in a state of mortal sin and still perform the functions, still live out the charism. It's not a good idea, but it is eminently possible.

West's assertion to the contrary is a freshman theology mistake.

As for his books, I understand he now has a string of people going through them correcting him, which is how he gets his nihil obstats. It should be kept in mind that a nihil obstat is NOT an infallible statement of the Magisterium. They are often erroneously granted (or erroneously denied).

I've personally had a work endorsed by Dr. Scott Hahn, but denied an NO in Steubenville diocese (on 42 "grounds" - all of them spurious), while being granted an NO in Columbus (home of the only pontifical college outside of Rome) with compliments on having produced such a fine work.

The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917, for instance, has an NO, but its article on education is plainly wrong. It says parents get their authority to teach their own children from the bishop. Actually, parents get their authority to teach their own children directly from Christ (just like the bishop does) through the power of the sacrament of marriage, which they confer on each other.

That's a pretty basic mistake, and it leads to all kinds of other errors, including clericalism and contraception. I've actually got a book coming out at the end of the month which discusses the ramifications of that error on education in the United States (Deception: Catholic Education in America). That one error arguably magnified the effectiveness of the culture of death ten-fold.

So, a nihil obstat just means it got past one overworked theologian, the censor librorum. The bishop may or may not have even read the book. He might just trust his CL and grant the necessary approbation. Imprimaturs and nihil obstats aren't indicative of anything, really. Publishers pursue them only when they are trying to market their book to a specific conservative audience. Otherwise, they don't bother.

[skellmeyer]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Sep 13 2005, 10:24 AM']Heaven doesn't make sense without hell. If everyone is guarenteed a place up there, that means either we are perfect or there is no such things as sin.
Makes perfect sense to me.
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See? It does make perfect sense. Except for one problem.

God made everything good.
God doesn't make anything without a reason.

This leads to the difficulty.

Hell was not created for man - it was created for the angels who chose to refuse God's love. Men go there because they act like the fallen angels did. That is, men who end in hell are in a place not specifically made for them.

So, if God HAD to create hell, then He must have created some of the angels just in order to beaver dam them to that hell. This is double predestination - the idea that GOD sends everyone to hell.

Catholic faith says God sends NO ONE to hell. We choose to go there ourselves.

Now, God's will ordains that we are all meant for heaven - angels and men both. What would have happened if all the angels and all men had chosen to love Him? Remember, every one of them were made to love Him. If we had all done what we were made to do, there would be no reason to have hell and it would not exist.

So, in that case, you would have a heaven without a hell and that heaven would make perfect sense because everyone did exactly what they were made to do - love God.

God is Beauty, Goodness and Truth. God is utterly rational. Everything He says and does makes sense. So, when we say God is Love, we say that Love is rational. If Love is rational, then heaven makes sense of itself. It doesn't need anything else. God is self-sufficient.

It is perfectly accurate to say the opposite of what West says. You can say that hell doesn't make any sense. And in one respect, it doesn't: to choose hell, we have to act irrationally, we have to act against our own interests and God's interests.

Hell does not make sense of heaven.

But to say that heaven doesn't make sense without hell is to say that evil HAS to exist. That's Manicheanism - the idea that there are two duelling gods in the universe, one pure good and the other pure evil, and that it has to be so. Calvin's double predestination is simply Manicheanism dressed up as Christianity.

Like most Americans, West comes at theology from the perspective that the choice of the human individual is of paramount importance.

That's why he's both very popular and very dangerous. He's popular because he feeds into the erroneous preconceptions that Americans have of themselves and their relationship with God. He's dangerous for exactly the same reason - he reinforces absolutely wrong theological understandings.

[p0lar_bear]

--Short hijack--

Welcome to phatmass Mr. Kellmeyer

---hijack over--

[skellmeyer]

[quote name='p0lar_bear' date='Sep 13 2005, 11:04 AM']--Short hijack--

Welcome to phatmass Mr. Kellmeyer

---hijack over--
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Thanks!
Glad to be here. :

[cmotherofpirl]

THere is a check -in thread at the top of open mic.

[Old_Joe]

I would also recommend Sex and the Sacred City. It's more geared towards group studies.