New Light Theory, Mormons, Neo-Catholics - a Debate on a Tangent Off a Video on Mormons

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: New Light Theory, Mormons, Neo-Catholics - a Debate on a Tangent Off a Video on Mormons · New blog on the kid: Must We Agree With St. Augustine on How to Keep Prestige Among Non-Christians?

Here is the video:

When the Mormon Church CHANGED DOCTRINE w/ Stephen Johnson
Pints With Aquinas, 1.VIII.2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn6Yxac0Ygs

Here is the debate, starting with my tangent off the video:

Hans Georg Lundahl

0:45 You mean like how Neo-Catholics are OK with a collective instead of Adam committing the first sin, because "John Paul II" or his Congregation for the Faith greenlighted that in the 80's?

Alonso B

They did not green light that at all. Original sin is Church doctrine.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@alonso19989 Jimmy Akin (and his priests) and Sébastien Antoni (who's supposed to be an Assumptionist priest) are both in good standing with the Neo-Catholic establishment, the former refuses to condemn and the latter (last time I checked) holds that Adam was not an individual person.

@alonso19989 It can be added, even your priest who endorses an individual Adam without hesitation would arguably admit as a possibility or even preferred option that the earth is far older than 7222 years (Anno Mundi at birth of Christ being 5199).

If you think that through, along with palaeontology and anthropology accepting modern datings, this will logically preclude an individual Adam.

Alonso B

@hglundahl Catholicism has traditionally never supported a precise dating of the Earth. St. Augustine strongly advises against it.
An individual Adam is doctrine, so priests mustn't argue otherwise.

By the way, you can't be both Catholic and reject the Church. If you don't have the seat of Peter there, you're the one apostasizing. Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclessia

Hans Georg Lundahl

@alonso19989 "Catholicism has traditionally never supported a precise dating of the Earth."

You mean that traditionally there is some leeway between Roman Martyrology and the Vulgate? Fine with me.

"St. Augustine strongly advises against it."

Would like a reference. The overquoted "it sometimes happens that ... which the non-Christians know from experience and reason ..." is absolutely NOT such a strong advise against it.

"An individual Adam is doctrine, so priests mustn't argue otherwise."

Nevertheless they do. And with overstepping any possible version of Biblical chronology, some guys you follow are encouraging it. Heavily, by implication, if not actual direct words.

"By the way, you can't be both Catholic and reject the Church"

I did not get the impression that the late Pope Michael accused me of rejecting the Church.

Tradissimus Crae

@hglundahl Augustine addressed it in “On the literal meaning of Genesis”
Same document where he says you reflect on all Christians. Your ignorance will be cast back on the entire church.

Alonso B

@tradissimuscrae2996 I was referring to that one, thanks brother.

Alonso B

@hglundahl For your post, just read the quoted work. It's short, and it concerns a very important topic.
Bad priests exist. Tragic, but it doesn't argue for anything (not even what's doctrine), just like your (heretical) views can't be used to argue anything.
Anyway I'd have appreciated you to specify what you are. Who's that Pope Michael anyway?

@hglundahl What is neo-Catholic?
Anyway I only really care about what the Church teaches, not individual priests. Priests are not divine, but the Church is.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@alonso19989 Neo-Catholic = the guys who adher to Vatican II as a council and papacies of "John XXIII" through "Francis" and who accordingly make changes to their theology.

Not saying every Novus Ordo layman or even priest is necessarily a Neo-Catholic, but they are prominent. More so in Paris than at your place, I presume.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@tradissimuscrae2996 Ah, thank you.

St. Augustine in that passage was referring to Christian flat earthers who believe all heavenly bodies except Sun and Moon are glued to a solid vault of stars - while Pagans could speak about observing how Mars and Venus (recognisable by redness and brightness) visibly change places in the zodiac.

Nothing in that passage says one should carefully avoid setting dates in Biblical chronology. Nor to the best of my knowledge any other passage in it.

That single passage is quoted from a much longer work, whether it's "liber imperfectus" or "libri XII" ... I'm not sure which one it is.

If you read the rest, which you may lack opportunity for (both of them lacking on the New Advent site of Patristic books), or if you read City of God (which is o the New Advent site), you will find that St. Augustine was a Young Earth Creationist.

I had on converting at c. 20 been as misinformed as you, and at c. 30, I read City of God and was undeceived on this matter.

Old Earthism, whether as Progressive Creationism or as Theistic Evolution, simply has no Patristic leg to stand on.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@alonso19989 "just read the quoted work. It's short,"

No. A quotemined passage is short. The work is long.

Did your priest give you the impression the passage he quoted was all of the work?

@alonso19989 "Who's that Pope Michael anyway?"

My bad, convoked an emergency election which convened in 1990, got elected, got consecrated as bishop in 2011, died Aug. 2 last year. A "conclave" is assembled in Vienna to elect his successor, this time with clergy present.

Alonso B

@hglundahl If either Apostolic succession is broken, or demonic doctrines got into the Church, then Hell prevailed.
This would make Jesus' promise a lie. This should be terrifying to you.

Now, I also have a dislike of the Novus Ordo as it is. But the Vatican II didn't make that.
It's rather long, but the gist is that the Council requested that traditional Church languages be respected (like Aramaic and Latin) and to return to a 1st century style liturgy. This is because Eastern Catholics were adding Latin where they used to use Ancient Greek and Aramaic, which are much more traditional languages. That's all.
This meant that Holy Scripture would be read much more in Church, that the laymen would praise God with psalms along with the priests, some more vernacular in the important bits, and things like that. Ad orientem and the removal of Latin was not the intention of the Council, and in fact it adviced AGAINST it, though it didn't forbid it.

My hope is that this is nothing but a transition period where we aren't sure how much to change or how much to revert, or how much to keep.
If I go to Novus Ordo, I make sure to pick one that's reverent and traditional. The unexpected benefit of Novus Ordo being half-baked and rushed is that it has few guidelines and restrictions, and thus priests can make something very close to Traditional Latin mass, yet still Novus Ordo adhering. Those I like best. I rather like singing praises, psalms and such to Heaven all throughout mass.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@alonso19989 I appreciate you making a difference between Vatican II and "Konzilsungeist" as Ratzinger would have termed it, been there myself.

As to your first proposal, given that Pope Michael actually did get ordination and consecreation on the Gaudete weekend of 2011, (civil, not CY) and that there are four clerks involved in the papal election in Vienna, and that Pope Michael recognised four episcopal lines, we are very far from holding Apostolic Succession as extinct.

And we also hold the Church that is free from demonic doctrines is the community involving Pope Michael and his soon to be elected successor.

Nevertheless, there is a difference between a demonic doctrine in and of itself being proclaimed, and a demonic doctrine being implied by what is preferred.

You are aware that for c. 50 years or so, opposing monotheletism was more or less a private venture? That's how long it was between Pope Honorius promoting it by refusing to condemn it (sth which I consider Pius XII in Humani Generis surpassed by refusing to condemn evolutionary origins for Adam) and Pope St. Leo II confirming that Honorius had favoured monotheletism, not by proclaiming it, but by refusing to condemn it. However, the antipopes around Vatican II are in this case, since the late Wojtyla, more like the patriarch Sergius, who positively promoted monotheletism as being true, the primary target of the opposition from St. Sophronius.

These are the works of St. Augustine that are online for free on New Advent site:

Augustine of Hippo [SAINT] [DOCTOR]
- Confessions - Letters - City of God - Christian Doctrine - On the Holy Trinity - The Enchiridion - On the Catechising of the Uninstructed - On Faith and the Creed - Concerning Faith of Things Not Seen - On the Profit of Believing - On the Creed: A Sermon to Catechumens - On Continence - On the Good of Marriage - On Holy Virginity - On the Good of Widowhood - On Lying - To Consentius: Against Lying - On the Work of Monks - On Patience - On Care to be Had For the Dead - On the Morals of the Catholic Church - On the Morals of the Manichaeans - On Two Souls, Against the Manichaeans - Acts or Disputation Against Fortunatus the Manichaean - Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental - Reply to Faustus the Manichaean - Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichaeans - On Baptism, Against the Donatists - Answer to Letters of Petilian, Bishop of Cirta		- Merits and Remission of Sin, and Infant Baptism - On the Spirit and the Letter - On Nature and Grace - On Man's Perfection in Righteousness - On the Proceedings of Pelagius - On the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin - On Marriage and Concupiscence - On the Soul and its Origin - Against Two Letters of the Pelagians - On Grace and Free Will - On Rebuke and Grace - The Predestination of the Saints/Gift of Perseverance - Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount - The Harmony of the Gospels - Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament - Tractates on the Gospel of John - Homilies on the First Epistle of John - Soliloquies - The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms