Plan B Forum

Pope Francis also said this:

The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can. He must. Not can: must! Because he has this commandment within him. Instead, this ‘closing off’ that imagines that those outside, everyone, cannot do good is a wall that leads to war and also to what some people throughout history have conceived of: killing in the name of God. That we can kill in the name of God. And that, simply, is blasphemy. To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.

I wonder how Francis feels about all those burnings at the stake ....

The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord

That is a very popular and simplistic theological statement that is, as a bald and unexplained statement, contradicted by the Bible and by Catholic doctrine. It is also popular among Protestants where doctrine likewise contradicts it.

Adam and Eve were created in the image and likeness of God, which of course does not mean an anthropological likeness but a moral and transcendent one (Gen 1:27). But mankind sinned and fell from grace, bringing all of creation into toil and trouble. Pope Francis has not (and cannot) abandon the doctrine of original sin that declares this fallen state of mankind, sinful and separated from God. Therefore, humankind is not “the image of the Lord” because the Lord is not separated from God and is not and never was sinful. Mankind must have some other image and likeness.

Sure enough, there it is in Genesis 5:3, a summary of human descent. God created mankind in His image but Adam created Seth in “his own image, his own likeness”. That image and likeness of an imperfect, sinful creature, separated from God, is what all humans share.

Christians are not “the image of the Lord” and are far from perfect. They are in the process of being conformed to His likeness (Rom 8:29), a process that will not be complete until after earthly death (Heb 12:23).

Despite a faulty premise, Pope Francis has arrived at two correct conclusions:

1. that any man or woman, Christian or not, is capable of doing good things
2. that killing in the name of religion is an evil wrong


Meade

MajGenl.Meade wrote:

The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord

That is a very popular and simplistic theological statement that is, as a bald and unexplained statement, contradicted by the Bible and by Catholic doctrine. It is also popular among Protestants where doctrine likewise contradicts it.

....Therefore, humankind is not “the image of the Lord” because the Lord is not separated from God and is not and never was sinful. Mankind must have some other image and likeness....

...Sure enough, there it is in Genesis 5:3, a summary of human descent. God created mankind in His image but Adam created Seth in “his own image, his own likeness”....

As a young child going to Catholic school I interpreted God creating mankind in his own image as him creating us to look like him. Nothing more deep than that.

So I always imagined a holy looking man (who looks a lot like Jesus does in the movies) up in the clouds sitting with his legs crossed and looking down at us to see how we behave.

I grew up Protestant and had the same vision, Joe.

How is "[t]he Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord" "contradicted ... by Catholic doctrine"?

Imagine the look on St. Pete's pious countenance when I show up to grab my eternal ducat. Take that all you deists and theists.

http://www.catholic.org/hf/faith/story.php?id=51077


"... Ev'rybody's talking about Ministers,
Sinisters, Banisters and canisters
Bishops and Fishops and Rabbis and Pop eyes,
And bye bye, bye byes..."

Peace.

"... Ev'rybody's talking about Ministers,
Sinisters, Banisters and canisters
Bishops and Fishops and Rabbis and Pop eyes,
And bye bye, bye byes..."

And look what happened to that poor sod.

Like who would ever take a shot at a holy, pious, and sacred, pope in Vatican Square? A pope is God's right-hand man on earth, and beyond, for Christ's sake. I guess sanctimonious prayer and a smoking thurible makes one bulletproof. Plus, I understand their miters and subtanees are made of a tightly woven fabric of Kevlar and antilegomena.

God works in strange and wondrous ways, I suppose.

Andrew D wrote:How is "[t]he Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord" "contradicted ... by Catholic doctrine"?

"We are" is present tense. "Us" means all of mankind according to the Pope's statement.

Christian doctrine, including the Roman variation, says that all men (we, us, past, present and future) are tainted by original sin. All are separated from God by that sin.

Therefore, we are not and cannot be in "the image of the Lord" - who was Himseslf without sin and definitely not separated from God*. Which is why God in the Bible tells us that we are descendants of Adam, created in his likeness (the likeness of sinful man).

Hence the Pope contradicts his own doctrine - or he doesn't believe in it and is out to destroy the Roman church, which will perhaps give you a third thread title?

*now if you want to go all anthropomorphic and say that because Jesus had a nose, two arms, two legs etc. then we are in his "image", the Pope's statement is (a) correct by that definition and (b) even more sophomoric, since no Christian faith (other than deluded people) holds that God is an old man with a beard etc. Which as someone pointed out earlier is exactly what small children understand by "image and likeness" until they become mature.

So that's what I meant and I hope to have clarified
Meade

Andrew D wrote:Pope Francis also said this:

"... To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.

I wonder how Francis feels about all those burnings at the stake ....

To say that you can't kill in the name of god is to lie about 2,000 years of Christian history.

yrs,
rubato

MajGenl.Meade wrote:... Hence the Pope contradicts his own doctrine - or he doesn't believe in it and is out to destroy the Roman church, which will perhaps give you a third thread title?... So that's what I meant and I hope to have clarified...
Meade

Yada, yada, yada...

You sure can go on, and on, and on, about all these "custom fit" religious constructs (as you ALWAYS do) but for me the reality is this: The one true God's emissary on earth said it, I believe it, that settles it. And in the end, if we are wrong, we will both be pointing out seating arrangements to all the lost souls who also find themselves in Hell.

I am an Atheist, you are a True Believer... fine, but you are not going anywhere that I'm not when we off this mortal coil. Into the dirt, or maybe into the ether with butterfly wings -- it just doesn't matter. "The Big Eternal Kahuna" will have it no other way.

If the dogma don't fit... you must acquit.

If the dogma don't fit... you must acquit.

So speaketh the man with his magic glove.

Meade--you are acting as if all Christian religions have the same understanding as you of original sin--the inherited stain or "in Adam's fall, we sinned all". Such is not the case--many see original sin as the introduction of sin--the separation from god by doing something he said not to do--to humanity. Are we stained with the stain that Adam and Eve took upon themselves--the classicists would say yes, but many disagree. As for the RC church, I guess they did believe that at one point in their belief that unbaptized infants (who could not sin themselves) still could not enter heaven as they bore the stain of that original sin (something wiped away by the rite of baptism); the more modern understanding is that the church does not know what happens to those infants' souls, but that they trust them to the grace of god. This indicates, IMHO, a backing away from the stain of Adam interpretation. To many Christians, we are born into a world with the ability to choose between right and wrong--and "original sin" is the genesis of that ability to choose. Thus we are still created in the "image of god", but like the picture of Dorain Grey, we acquire our own images as a result of our actions.

they once went to limbo but Limbo was abolished

Good points, Big RR. I rather think that the Bible (God's Word) has the understanding of original sin. We, which includes me, can either believe it or not. "Original sin" I agree is certainly the introduction of sin - the separation from God by choosing to do the one, single, solitary thing He forbade.

If I understand your point, you compare my belief that we inherit sin (interiorly to coin a word) from Adam to your belief that sin is a kind of atmosphere (exteriorly so to speak) which we all inhabit? I don't mean that in any mocking way. We seem to agree on the cause but not the mechanism - or perhaps the location of the mechanism.

We may disagree in our understanding of HOW it comes to be, but there should be no Christian (of any kind) who believes that any human, by an act of free will, can choose to go through life without sinning and therefore without being separated from God. We all agree (and I think even non-believers do so) that no purely human being is "perfect".

Therefore, regardless of the mechanism, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. In that sense, we are none of us in the image and likeness of God. I should say it is a potential rather than an actual. That is why, I believe, the Bible tells us that Adam created Seth "in his own image and likeness" - that is, not in the image of God but in the image of Adam. By extension, any child of Adam and Eve would be in "their" image - i.e. sinful and separated. It is by being reborn - born from above - whichever translation is preferred - that the human spirit actuates the potential and becomes once again (and is increasingly conformed to) the spiritual image and likeness of our Lord. This is why I disagree with the Pope's assertion that all are in the image of our Lord - unless he includes sin in that image which is contradicted by all varieties of Christian.

As to infants, I also trust in God's grace and mercy to always do what is right. Our understanding of heaven is almost nothing. Myself, I doubt that "infants" exist there or in the alternative place either. Otherwise one has an absurd impression of eternity littered with helpless babes. It seems reasonable rather to suppose that a child's essence, the eternal thing, is not different to that of an adult. That being so, even original sin would not be an impediment to God's dealing with the invidual (formerly infant) "soul" on the basis of His omniscience - given the time, would that soul have followed Jesus or the other? Thoroughly non-biblical of me, aint it?

Meade

RayThom wrote: You sure can go on, and on, and on, as you always do

You too Ray - you too. How about adding something of substance and value one day instead of blathering nonsense?

I've tried it - doesn't always work so well though

Meade

All things written can be taken objectively or subjectively... literally or figuratively. The reader supplies the meaning. (The bible comes to mind.) I fall somewhere in between these parameters. I have a "common man" approach to all things that my 'pen' puts down. I have a contrarians indifference to the rules of our language thereby making an impact in only a paragraph, or two, rather than the pages you need to impose yourself.

Some in here are addicted to their own "voice" and feel the more they have to say the more valid their point. (Meade, you would have loved my father, and he back it all up with the buckle end of the belt. He was right every time.) I write merely to express myself and my feelings -- simply and concisely. "...constant distraction of the enemy provides opportunity...probing and testing...enemy under strain, and wear him down... Sun Tzu, "THE ART OF WAR (500 B.C.) I am not a warrior, Meade, you win.


Curses, foiled again!