Tag Archives: christology

Seven Heresies For Seven Errors

As many are already aware, in December Rev. Roger Haight, S.J. was notified by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that his book Jesus: Symbol of God contained errors contrary to the faith. The notification contained seven propositions concerning which Fr. Haight’s book was judged to be in error. These errors, however, were not original with Haight, nor should the Vatican’s reaction be surprising. All are in contradiction with Ecumenical Councils and other infallible teachings of the Church. Below are found the systems to which these propositions belong, and the infallible teaching which refutes them. Citations are given by the Denzinger Enchiridion Symbolorum as edited by Rev. Karl Rahner, S.J. Full discussion of these matters, and quotes with complete citations to the individual documents can be found here.

  1. Theological Method: Modernism. Proposition condemned at I Vatican in 1870 (DR 1811, 1813)
  2. Pre-existence of the Word: Arianism. Proposition condemned at I Nicea in 325 (DR 54)
  3. Divinity of Jesus: Nestorianism. Proposition condemned at Ephesus in 431 (DR 111a, 114)
  4. The Holy Trinity: Sabellianism. Proposition condemned at I Constantinople in 381 (DR 85); explicitly condemned at Florence in 1442 (DR 705)
  5. The salvific death of Christ: Pelagianism (and others). Proposition condemned officially at the Synod of Orange in 529 (DR 194; not an ecumenical council, but usually considered infallible) and at IV Lateran in 1215 (DR 429)
  6. The unity and unicity of the saving mediation of Jesus Christ and His Church: Religious Pluralism. Proposition condemned at IV Lateran in 1215 (DR 430)
  7. The resurrection of Christ: Rationalism. Proposition condemned at I Nicea in 325 (DR 54)

The Gospel in 30 Seconds

[There's been some confusion about point #7. See Matthew 20:1-16 to understand the sense in which I meant "earn". – Funky]

Adrian Warnock posted his version of the gospel in 10 points. While I understand his desire to boil it down for "on the go" evangelism, I don't entirely agree his formulation. Here's mine, for what it's worth.

  1. God created man to love Him.
  2. God knows what is best for us and gives us commandments to follow
  3. Sin has the eternal consequence of wounding man's relationship with God and separating man from eternity with God.
  4. Sin has the temporal consequence of wounding man's relationships with his neighbors and in the form of broken and/or disordered relationships
  5. Sin damages man's capacity to love himself, his neighbors, and God
  6. Jesus Christ's salvific act healed man's relationship with God and restored man's privilege to enter heaven
  7. We must be baptized by water and the Spirit and accept Christ to earn that eternal privilege
  8. We must make amends for our sins to repair temporal damage.
  9. If we knowingly commit grave sin, we endanger our salvation.
  10. We must confess our mortal sins to God and make penance

Next Catholic Carnival

I have a suggestion for the next Catholic Carnival theme. Jollyblogger (the nice Protestant fellow who first inspired in the me the strong desire for a carnival for Catholics) is calling for submissions for the second Carnival of the Reformation. I think we should focus CathCarn #9 on that topic and submit our entire carnival as an entry to theirs. They might not accept it, but if they did, it might generate good dialogue.

If you agree, email Jay and let him know. If you want to host it, even better.

Update: This never happened, but I still think it might be a good idea to try sometime.

Conversations on the Catechism: “I Believe in Jesus Christ, the Only Son of God”

Happy Thanksgiving! 🙂

It’s time again to discuss another section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. My previous attempts at this have met with deafening silence, but I think I have more Protestant readers now, so maybe I’ll get more comments this time.

What we’ve covered so far:

"I Believe" – "We Believe" (CCC 26-184)
"I Believe in God the Father" (CCC 198-421)

Now, let’s take a look at "I Believe in Jesus Christ, the Only Son of God" (CCC 422-682). I invite all my Christian readers, Protestants in particular, to tell me what they find interesting, challenging, or contrary to their beliefs about the Church’s interpretation of this part, or previously mentioned parts of the Apostles’ Creed.