S
Friends, The errors of Augustine of Hippo. (From Hans Kung's book, q.v.):
"Augustine felt that Pelagianism touched on the weak spot of his experience, indeed struck at the heart of his faith. After all, through the wearisome years before his conversion he had experienced in his tie to a woman who bore him a son how weak his will was, how strong was fleshly desire (concupiscentia carnis) culminating in sexual pleasure, and how human beings thus need the grace of God from beginning to end for their conversion. In his intimate poetic Confessions he described the grace which must be given to sinful man wholly and utterly by God. Here Augustine referred in a new way the the Pauline message of justification, which had lost all topicality as a result of the disappearance of Jewish Christianity and the Greek concentration on the divinization of human beings. Indeed, he put the theme of grace at the center of Western theology.
"But the battle against the Pelagians had epoch-making consequences. For in the zeal of battle Augustine sharpened and narrowed down his theology of sin and grace. He now attempted to explain the sin, "in whom [instead of after whose example] all human beings sin." That is a downright mistranslation of Romans 5:12. In this way Augustine historicized, psychologized, indeed sexulized Adam's primal sin. For him, in complete contrast to Paul, it became original sin, which was determined sexually. For according to Augustine this original sin was transmitted to every new human being through the sexual act and the fleshly, that is, self-centered desire (concupiscence) connected with it. Therefore, according to this theology every infant has already fallen victim to eternal death -- unless it has been baptized.
"The consequence is that Augustine, who more than any author of antiquity had a brilliant capacity for analytical self-reflection, bequeathed to the whole Catholic Church of the West the doctrine of original sin, which was unknown in the East, and at the same time a fatal vilification of sexuality, the sexual libido. Sexual pleasure for its own sake (and not for the procreation of children) was sinful and to be suppressed -- to the present day this remains the baneful teaching of the Roman pope.
"At the same time Augustine also took over another pernicious myth, from the dualistic sect of the Manichees. This sect, to which he belonged for a while in his youth, was hostile to the body and held that only a relatively small number of human beings were predestined for bliss (to make good the gap which had come into being through the fall of the angels). The others were a "mass of perdition." This cruel doctrine of a double predestination (the predestination of some to bliss and others to damnation) was at the opposite pole to Origen's teaching about a universal reconciliation to be hoped for at the end. In Western Christianity it would similarly have an insidious effect and disseminate an infinite amount of anxiety about salvation and fear of demons -- down to the Reformers Luther and Calvin, who would consistently think this teaching through to the end." (The Catholic Church: A Short History; pp. 48-49.).
Friends,
We should reject Augustine of Hippo's anti-sexual message. For those who can receive the gift of marriage, sexuality is a gift, not a burden. For those who receive gift to be celibate, that is a gift, not a burden, either. All should live in peace and the grace of God, whether married or unmarried. All can receive the grace of forgiveness of sexual sins. Christ is merciful. In Erie PA Scott R. Harrington
Regarding the Filioque heresy, which is a great error, too, Augustine not only had a distorted and pessimistic view of human sexuality, he also denied that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, in opposition to John 15:26. While he did not teach it as dogma in his book "De Trinitate", it became a dogma in the West, and it was even declared by Thomas Aquinas in his polemic anti-Orthodox book "Contra Errores Graecorum", to be "necessary for salvation". The Orthodox Church, in truth of Christ, however, considers the doctrine of Filioque to be anathema, and does not come from Christ. In Erie PA Scott R. Harrington:
"THE TRINITY REINTERPRETED
"For many years Augustine worked indefatigably on a great work of his old age, without being prompted to it by a heresy but rather out of an inner need for clarification: he was concerned to present a deeper, more convincing reinterpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity. His interpretation would come to command such a following in the Latin West that people would hardly be aware of any other. But to the present day it is resolutely rejected by the Greeks. Why?
"The Greek church fathers always began from the one God and Father, who for them, as for the New Testament, was "the God" (ho theos). They defined the relationship of God the Father to the Son and the Spirit in the light of this one God and Father. It is as if we have a star which gives light to a second star ("light of light, God of God") and finally to a third. But to our human eye, all three stars appear one after the other only as one star.
"Augustine differed completely: instead of beginning from one God and Father he began from the one nature of God, or divine substance, which ws common to Father, Son, and Spirit. For the Latin theologians the principle of unity was not the Father but the one divine nature, or substance. To develop the illustration given earlier: three stars do not shine one after the other but side by side in a triangle at the same level; there the first and the second stars together give light to the third.
"To explain more precisely, Augustine used psychological categories in a new way; he saw a similarity between the threefold God and the three-dimensional human spirit between the Father and the memory, between the Son and the intelligence, and between the Spirit and the will. In the light of this analogy the Trinity could be interpreted as follows.
"The Son is "begotten" from the Father "according to the intellect." The Father knows and begets in the Son his own word and image. But the Spirit "proceeds" from the Father (as the lover) and the Son (as the beloved) "according to the will." The Spirit is the love between Father and Son become person: it has proceeded from both the Father and the Son. (It was the Latin term denoting this proceeding also from the Son, Filioque, which proved to be the great stumbling block for the Greeks. Their view was that the Spirit proceeded only from the Father.)
"Thus Augustine had made an intellectual construction of the Trinity with philosophical and psychological categories in an extremely subtle way as a self-unfolding of God. Here the "and the Son" seemed so essential thatin the West from the sixth/seventh century it was gradually inserted into the creed. Time and again it was required by the German emperors after Charlemagne, and in 1014 it was definitively inserted by Rome into the ancient creed. But even today the East still regards this Filioque as a falsification of the old ecumenical creed and as clear heresy. However, similarly, to the present day those Catholic and Protestant dogmatic theologicans of the West who attempt to make what is claimed to be the central dogma of Christianity credible to their contemporaries with every possible modernization and new argument (usually in vain) hardly seem to be aware that they are interpreting the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit not so much in the light of the New Testament as in the light of Augustine."
(pages 49-51: Hans Kung. The Catholic Church: A Short History. Translated by John Bowden. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.).
The Filioque implies that God the Father is the one who unites with God the Son to produce another Son, God the Holy Spirit, and thus the Holy Spirit is the Divine Grandson of God the Father Who is really God the Grandfather. This is the erotic misinterpretation of God's relationship of the three Persons of the Trinity in Augustine of Hippo's psychologized (psycho-sexual) matrix. Clear heresy. God is a Spirit. Jesus was a celibate monk. Take care. In Erie PA Scott R. Harrington
"Augustine felt that Pelagianism touched on the weak spot of his experience, indeed struck at the heart of his faith. After all, through the wearisome years before his conversion he had experienced in his tie to a woman who bore him a son how weak his will was, how strong was fleshly desire (concupiscentia carnis) culminating in sexual pleasure, and how human beings thus need the grace of God from beginning to end for their conversion. In his intimate poetic Confessions he described the grace which must be given to sinful man wholly and utterly by God. Here Augustine referred in a new way the the Pauline message of justification, which had lost all topicality as a result of the disappearance of Jewish Christianity and the Greek concentration on the divinization of human beings. Indeed, he put the theme of grace at the center of Western theology.
"But the battle against the Pelagians had epoch-making consequences. For in the zeal of battle Augustine sharpened and narrowed down his theology of sin and grace. He now attempted to explain the sin, "in whom [instead of after whose example] all human beings sin." That is a downright mistranslation of Romans 5:12. In this way Augustine historicized, psychologized, indeed sexulized Adam's primal sin. For him, in complete contrast to Paul, it became original sin, which was determined sexually. For according to Augustine this original sin was transmitted to every new human being through the sexual act and the fleshly, that is, self-centered desire (concupiscence) connected with it. Therefore, according to this theology every infant has already fallen victim to eternal death -- unless it has been baptized.
"The consequence is that Augustine, who more than any author of antiquity had a brilliant capacity for analytical self-reflection, bequeathed to the whole Catholic Church of the West the doctrine of original sin, which was unknown in the East, and at the same time a fatal vilification of sexuality, the sexual libido. Sexual pleasure for its own sake (and not for the procreation of children) was sinful and to be suppressed -- to the present day this remains the baneful teaching of the Roman pope.
"At the same time Augustine also took over another pernicious myth, from the dualistic sect of the Manichees. This sect, to which he belonged for a while in his youth, was hostile to the body and held that only a relatively small number of human beings were predestined for bliss (to make good the gap which had come into being through the fall of the angels). The others were a "mass of perdition." This cruel doctrine of a double predestination (the predestination of some to bliss and others to damnation) was at the opposite pole to Origen's teaching about a universal reconciliation to be hoped for at the end. In Western Christianity it would similarly have an insidious effect and disseminate an infinite amount of anxiety about salvation and fear of demons -- down to the Reformers Luther and Calvin, who would consistently think this teaching through to the end." (The Catholic Church: A Short History; pp. 48-49.).
Friends,
We should reject Augustine of Hippo's anti-sexual message. For those who can receive the gift of marriage, sexuality is a gift, not a burden. For those who receive gift to be celibate, that is a gift, not a burden, either. All should live in peace and the grace of God, whether married or unmarried. All can receive the grace of forgiveness of sexual sins. Christ is merciful. In Erie PA Scott R. Harrington
Regarding the Filioque heresy, which is a great error, too, Augustine not only had a distorted and pessimistic view of human sexuality, he also denied that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, in opposition to John 15:26. While he did not teach it as dogma in his book "De Trinitate", it became a dogma in the West, and it was even declared by Thomas Aquinas in his polemic anti-Orthodox book "Contra Errores Graecorum", to be "necessary for salvation". The Orthodox Church, in truth of Christ, however, considers the doctrine of Filioque to be anathema, and does not come from Christ. In Erie PA Scott R. Harrington:
"THE TRINITY REINTERPRETED
"For many years Augustine worked indefatigably on a great work of his old age, without being prompted to it by a heresy but rather out of an inner need for clarification: he was concerned to present a deeper, more convincing reinterpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity. His interpretation would come to command such a following in the Latin West that people would hardly be aware of any other. But to the present day it is resolutely rejected by the Greeks. Why?
"The Greek church fathers always began from the one God and Father, who for them, as for the New Testament, was "the God" (ho theos). They defined the relationship of God the Father to the Son and the Spirit in the light of this one God and Father. It is as if we have a star which gives light to a second star ("light of light, God of God") and finally to a third. But to our human eye, all three stars appear one after the other only as one star.
"Augustine differed completely: instead of beginning from one God and Father he began from the one nature of God, or divine substance, which ws common to Father, Son, and Spirit. For the Latin theologians the principle of unity was not the Father but the one divine nature, or substance. To develop the illustration given earlier: three stars do not shine one after the other but side by side in a triangle at the same level; there the first and the second stars together give light to the third.
"To explain more precisely, Augustine used psychological categories in a new way; he saw a similarity between the threefold God and the three-dimensional human spirit between the Father and the memory, between the Son and the intelligence, and between the Spirit and the will. In the light of this analogy the Trinity could be interpreted as follows.
"The Son is "begotten" from the Father "according to the intellect." The Father knows and begets in the Son his own word and image. But the Spirit "proceeds" from the Father (as the lover) and the Son (as the beloved) "according to the will." The Spirit is the love between Father and Son become person: it has proceeded from both the Father and the Son. (It was the Latin term denoting this proceeding also from the Son, Filioque, which proved to be the great stumbling block for the Greeks. Their view was that the Spirit proceeded only from the Father.)
"Thus Augustine had made an intellectual construction of the Trinity with philosophical and psychological categories in an extremely subtle way as a self-unfolding of God. Here the "and the Son" seemed so essential thatin the West from the sixth/seventh century it was gradually inserted into the creed. Time and again it was required by the German emperors after Charlemagne, and in 1014 it was definitively inserted by Rome into the ancient creed. But even today the East still regards this Filioque as a falsification of the old ecumenical creed and as clear heresy. However, similarly, to the present day those Catholic and Protestant dogmatic theologicans of the West who attempt to make what is claimed to be the central dogma of Christianity credible to their contemporaries with every possible modernization and new argument (usually in vain) hardly seem to be aware that they are interpreting the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit not so much in the light of the New Testament as in the light of Augustine."
(pages 49-51: Hans Kung. The Catholic Church: A Short History. Translated by John Bowden. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.).
The Filioque implies that God the Father is the one who unites with God the Son to produce another Son, God the Holy Spirit, and thus the Holy Spirit is the Divine Grandson of God the Father Who is really God the Grandfather. This is the erotic misinterpretation of God's relationship of the three Persons of the Trinity in Augustine of Hippo's psychologized (psycho-sexual) matrix. Clear heresy. God is a Spirit. Jesus was a celibate monk. Take care. In Erie PA Scott R. Harrington
