Introduction And Question

[prosauce]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1945635' date='Aug 10 2009, 03:35 PM']i'd consider the orthodox church more. that's just me, though.
it's just ironic that you'd make a condition on joining the CC before giving yourself over to its authority, unconditionally.[/quote]

We have to look at the church in a more pragmatic manner rather than from a theological idealistic viewpoint. The Roman Catholic church has the organization, structure, and moral authority to guide believers into the 21st century. I can't say the same for any other church that exists in the West.

For example, the publications on the sanctity of human life that have come out by the roman catholics are incredible. The Just War Doctrine is also amazing. The Roman Catholic Church is also on the forefront of social justice.

What good is it doing us by not submitting to the authority of the pope? I can see the good from an idealistic standpoint, but from a pramgatic view it appears to be quite irrational.

In short, the church of the future is the Roman Catholic Church.

The reason I'm making a condition on joining the CC is because I don't want to fraudulently enter the sacraments. I'm pretty sure that would be highly immoral.

[CatherineM]

We can always use more lawyers around here.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote name='prosauce' post='1945690' date='Aug 10 2009, 07:19 PM']We have to look at the church in a more pragmatic manner rather than from a theological idealistic viewpoint. The Roman Catholic church has the organization, structure, and moral authority to guide believers into the 21st century. I can't say the same for any other church that exists in the West.

For example, the publications on the sanctity of human life that have come out by the roman catholics are incredible. The Just War Doctrine is also amazing. The Roman Catholic Church is also on the forefront of social justice.

What good is it doing us by not submitting to the authority of the pope? I can see the good from an idealistic standpoint, but from a pramgatic view it appears to be quite irrational.

In short, the church of the future is the Roman Catholic Church.

The reason I'm making a condition on joining the CC is because I don't want to fraudulently enter the sacraments. I'm pretty sure that would be highly immoral.[/quote]

is it really a condition you're setting?
would you not join if the beliefs you asked about precluded you from joining?
are you more saying you don't want to enter the sacraments wrongly, i.e. while believing heresey? if that's the case, it's not really a condition but a request for more info.

if you say it's a condition, are you really submitting yourself unconditionally, or just submitting yourself in more of an orthodox sense? i still ask, cause i still don't see, if you're making the condition, how you could ever truly say you're summitting unconditinoally.

not trying to beat a dead horse, just curious.
i do see great wisdom from the CC.
but i don't see many who would defy the authority of the CC per infallibility in the name of something more orthodox and join the CC, and not be a flaming or know-nothing liberal. i'm wondering if that's you, the defy person of which i speak.

Edited August 11, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[Nihil Obstat]

I think you're the first potential convert I've ever talked to who had a problem with the theology instead of the moral doctrine!

[prosauce]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1945803' date='Aug 10 2009, 07:49 PM']is it really a condition you're setting?
would you not join if the beliefs you asked about precluded you from joining?
are you more saying you don't want to enter the sacraments wrongly, i.e. while believing heresey? if that's the case, it's not really a condition but a request for more info.

if you say it's a condition, are you really submitting yourself unconditionally, or just submitting yourself in more of an orthodox sense? i still ask, cause i still don't see, if you're making the condition, how you could ever truly say you're summitting unconditinoally.

not trying to beat a dead horse, just curious.
i do see great wisdom from the CC.
but i don't see many who would defy the authority of the CC per infallibility in the name of something more orthodox and join the CC, and not be a flaming or know-nothing liberal. i'm wondering if that's you, the defy person of which i speak.[/quote]

"Condition" was the wrong word. A better word is "conviction" or "belief".

I wouldn't join the CC if I can't hold these views and partake in the sacraments at the same time. I've come to realize that religious convictions are the most important one individual can have because they're between your soul and the creator. I believe in the orthodox view on Christ, but I could be wrong. I believe that the Roman Catholic view has just as much validity as my own. I also don't see why the Pope's view on the matter is relevant to my communion. Isn't the Eucharist between the believer and Christ?

I don't see why both views are mutually exclusive and why this should prevent communion.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christus_Victor"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christus_Victor[/url]


Gustaf Aulén's Christus Victor

The term Christus Victor comes from the title of Gustaf Aulén's groundbreaking book first published in 1931 where he drew attention back to this classic early Church understanding of the Atonement[1]. In it Aulén identifies three main types of Atonement Theories: the earliest was what Aulén called the "classic" view of the Atonement, more commonly known as Ransom Theory or since Aulén's work known sometimes as the "Christus Victor" theory: this is the theory that Adam and Eve made humanity subject to the Devil during the Fall, and that God, in order to redeem humanity, sent Christ as a "ransom" or "bait" so that the Devil, not knowing Christ couldn't die permanently, would kill him, and thus lose all right to humanity following the Resurrection. A second theory is the "Latin" or "objective" view, more commonly known as Satisfaction Theory, beginning with Anselmian Satisfaction (that Christ suffered as a substitute on behalf of humankind satisfying the demands of God's honor) and later developed by Protestants as penal substitution (that Christ is punished instead of humanity, thus satisfying the demands of justice so that God can justly forgive). A third is the "subjective" theory, commonly known as the Moral Influence view, that Christ's passion was an act of exemplary obedience which affects the intentions of those who come to know about it: it dates back to Anselm of Laon's protege, Abelard, who was its originator.

Aulén's book consists of a historical study beginning with the early church and tracing their Atonement theories up to the Protestant Reformation. Aulén argues that Christus Victor (or as Aulén called it the "classic view") was the predominant view of the early church and for the first thousand years of church history and was supported by nearly every Church Father including Irenaeus, Origen of Alexandria, and Augustine of Hippo to name a few. A major shift occurred, Aulén says, when Anselm of Canterbury published his “Cur Deus Homo” around 1097 AD which marked the point where the predominant understanding of the Atonement shifted from the classic view (Christus Victor) to the Satisfaction view in the original Catholic Church, and later within Protestantism. The Orthodox Church still holds to the Christus Victor view, based upon their understanding of the Atonement put forward by Irenaeus, called "recapitulation" Jesus became what we are so that we could become what he is. (see also Theosis).

Aulén argues that theologians have misunderstood the view of the early Church Fathers in seeing their view of the Atonement in terms of a Ransom Theory arguing that a proper understanding of their view is not concerned with the payment of ransom to the devil, but with the motif of the liberation of humanity from the bondage of sin, death, and the devil. As the term Christus Victor (Christ the Victor) indicates, the idea of “ransom” should not be seen in terms (as Anselm did) of a business transaction, but more in the terms of a rescue or liberation of humanity from the slavery of sin.

Aulén states that the chief distinction between Christus Victor and Satisfaction Theory is the role each gives to God and the Law. Satisfaction Theory, Aulén claims, contains a divine discontinuity and a legal continuity while the central emphasis of Christus Victor is of a divine continuity and a legal discontinuity. Since Satisfaction Theory arose from the penance based system of Anselm of Canterbury, its focus is on Law. God is unable to justly forgive without satisfying the Law's demands and since only a man can fulfill man's obligations to the Law, Christ must become a man in order to keep the Law perfectly and then suffer the punishment intended for us at the hands of his Father. This view, Aulén claims, inserts an opposition into the Divine relationship that does not exist in Christus Victor, and maintains a legal emphasis that is reversed in Early church thought.

Aulén points to the Law as an enemy in the writings of Paul and Luther (who he claims was a forceful advocate of Christus Victor), and claims that the penance systems of Satisfaction Theory and Penal Substitution place an undue emphasis on the role of man and on God's obligation to the Law. Instead by suffering a death that, before the Law, meant an accursed status, Christ, instead of satisfying an obligation, overthrew the power of the Law, since its condemnation of a perfect man was unjust. His subsequent Resurrection, a mark of the Father's favor despite the Law's curse, deprived the Law of its ability to condemn. God the Father and God the Son are thus not set at odds by Calvary, but are united in seeking the downfall of the devil's system of sin, death, and Law that enslaves humanity. This view, Aulén maintains, keeps from the errors of penance systems emphasizing Law and man, and reveals the unity within the Trinity's redemptive plan and the freedom of the forgiveness shown to us by God through Christ.

Unlike the Satisfaction Doctrine view of the Atonement (the “Latin” view) which is rooted in the idea of Christ paying the penalty of sin to satisfy the demands of justice, the “classic” view of the Early church (Christus Victor) is rooted in the Incarnation and how Christ entered into human misery and wickedness and thus redeemed it. Aulén argues that the Christus Victor view of the Atonement is not so much a rational systematic theory as it is a drama, a passion story of God triumphing over the Powers and liberating humanity from the bondage of sin. As Gustav Aulén writes,

The work of Christ is first and foremost a victory over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death, and the devil [2]

[edit] Development of the Christus Victor view after Aulén

While largely held only by Eastern Orthodox Christians for much of the last one thousand years, the Christus Victor theory is becoming increasingly popular with both paleo-orthodox evangelicals because of its connection to the early Church fathers, and with liberal Christians and peace churches such as the Anabaptist Mennonites because of its subversive nature, seeing the death of Jesus as an exposure of the cruelty and evil present in the worldly powers that rejected and killed him, and the resurrection as a triumph over these powers. As Marcus Borg writes,

for [the Christus Victor] view, the domination system, understood as something much larger than the Roman governor and the temple aristocracy, is responsible for the death of Jesus… The domination system killed Jesus and thereby disclosed its moral bankruptcy and ultimate defeat[3].

The Mennonite theologian J. Denny Weaver, in his book “The Nonviolent Atonement” and again recently in his essay "The Nonviolent Atonement: Human Violence, Discipleship and God," traces the further development of the Christus Victor theory (or as he calls it “Narrative Christus Victor”) into the liberation theology of South America, as well as feminist and black theologies of liberation[4]

This trend among Progressive and Liberal Christians towards the Christus Victor view of the Atonement marks a shift from the traditional approach of liberal Christianity to the Atonement known as the Moral Influence view espoused by theologians such as Schleiermacher.[/quote]

[dairygirl4u2c]

christus victor, might also include some other ideas.
other than the inducement of the paraclete, and the resucue of those who are dead but still of God's. i always liked to say jesus' death was the ultimate expression of love. the perfect man, getting a next to worst possible death one could endure. sure, i guess some have been more tortued etc, at some point. but it was never to a person who deserved it less.
i always had issues with the idea of whey jesus didn't fight back- given we'd argue nowadays etc that we have the right of self defense etc. but, i guess it's like that's only a right, it's not an obligation, i guess? especially when it's the government who sentences you to death. (in fact, one might also argue that those innocents who are on death row, don't fight back. i'd think i would? i don't know, it'd make their putting me to death, that much sweeter for them) plus him not fighting back didn't send any mixed signals that peace is the key. i think it did send mixed signals that cause too much passiveism, but, i guess it's better to defer that way.

anyways, just trying ot make sense of it, from somehting other than that transactional legal technicality stuff.

Edited August 11, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

i guess i could make the tie in.
i alwyas said that suffering as per why God allows it was a way to endure something for God etc, the way of love.
that suffering, then, could be Jesus expressing it to the meximum extent possible, sheer punishment for a sheer innocent person.

i always said the legal atonement theory, had better tie ins, because it explained why we had suffering - we're bad kids in a depraved world and are getting punishment.
but, since i made the above connection, perhaps somehting like christus victor explains suffering too.
i shouldn't give legal atonement so much credit.

i mean, i guess punishing us with suffering, is somehting that could be done in a christus victor model... but it sure seems more like it'd fit int hte punishment concepts of legal atonement better, for sure.

instead of suffering for justice, and jesus' death for justice.
it's suffering for love, and jesus' death, for love.
not that the former doesn't include love, it just doesn't lend itself to it as easily.

Edited August 12, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c