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Dear Phil:

Objective or material heresy is substantive, as if having an actual existence or reality, as distinguished from a mental concept, idea, or belief or from something thought or felt to exist, which formal heresy is.

Where the concurrent conditons subsist, a formal heretic is exculpable; while an objective or material heretic can be burned at the stakes as they did in the Middle Ages!

Formal heresy is all in the mind!?

AmdG

OK. I think I've got this now.

"Objective or material heresy is SUBSTANTIVE, as if having an actual existence or reality, as distinguished from a mental concept, idea, or belief or from something thought or felt to exist, which formal heresy is."

So, we treat substantive heresy "as if" it had an actual existence; but formal heresy, it is just an idea or belief.
Well, that's clear.

(I wonder who lies awake at night dreamin' up this stuff? Must be unemployed lawyers who majored in Invisible Indistinguishable Distinctions. And I sure as heck hope that whoever's on duty at the Pearly Gates understands all this stuff really well, otherwise some nasty "Substantive-Heretics" might get in and trash the place.)
Christ is (substantively) Risen!
Indeed, He is (formally) Risen!!

Dear Amado and Catholicos,

How many angels can fit on the head of a pin did you say?

I'll be happy with a substantively round number . . .

Namastay! Magandang Gabi!

Alex

Dear Dr. John:

I think I should give up! I am not really up to speed in theology, or in moral theology for that matter, like you, Alex, and Phil are.

Although I spent some time trying to "know the ropes" on Jesuit casuistry, I ended up imbibing only simple Latin phrases such as "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!" which I adopted as my signature, in abbreviated form, in this Forum.

But eventually I did learn to pray both the "Hail Mary" and "Our Father" in Latin.

AmdG

Dear Amado,

Yes, I have my own views about the Jesuits too!

But we always attended the Shrine to the Jesuit North American Martyrs in Midland.

My parents could not have children and my mother was especially devoted to the Jesuit Martyrs.

I was finally conceived and born, on the feastday of the Martyrs in the Jesuit Order.

Isn't that wonderful!

But I don't know anything about theology.

I ran away not from the seminary, but from the very mailbox that I was supposed to deposit my application to the seminary into!

God bless,

Alex

Dear Amado,

You think I'm up to speed in theology? Substantively not! Gee whiz...

[ 04-23-2002: Message edited by: Mor Ephrem ]

OK. Let me put on my erstwhile-Jesuit hat.

Religion consists of the collection of beliefs of an individual. One would hope that the majority of the beliefs would correspond to the key tenets of Christianity, i.e., the Creeds. But, there are other elements (including the angel-craziness that has overtaken the US) that are sort of deutero-canonical, that is they are based upon Christian beliefs, but go well beyond the basic propositions of Christian faith.

The same thing has happened in the history of the Christian Church. Over the generations, there have been deutero-canonical movements that have had a huge influence upon how ordinary Christians have viewed their faith. One such example in the Western Church has been the Mariology community that has taken basic key elements of the role of the Mother-of-God and has developed them ad infinitum to such an extent as to put Mary on a par with Christ, i.e., the "Co-Redemptrix". This occurs as a result of the deutero-canonical developments. The same occurs in the East when "tradition" has been blown out of proportion to include language, ritual movements, vesture, etc., without which, supposedly, the Church is no longer the "CHURCH!!!".

Falling into such a "deutero-canonical" mindset is an easy thing to do. The developmental aspects seem to be in complete conformity with the "received revelation". In reality, the developed aspects represent a perversion away from the core beliefs, and seduce people away from the absolute core: Jesus Christ and His Gospel.

Thus, my absolute jaw-drop at the distinctions about heresy. (Yeah, I've heard them before; they didn't make much sense then either.) As with other 'theological' embellishments, there is the danger to substitute the embellishment for the core reality. And this leads not only to people making artificial divisions, but also to the mental mindset that there are "classes" of people to be saved. Catholics want to bring Orthodox to "salvation" (as interpreted by Augustine and Aquinas and others); Orthodox want to bring Catholics "home" to the contemporary paradigm of what constitutes Orthodoxy. And all Christians want to convert the poor heathen bastards to "the true faith".

What if we just want to follow Christ's basic command to love God and to love one's neighbor WITHOUT being forced to make unreasonable choices? Is there no room for these 'fundamentalists' within the Church?

Christ is Risen!

For once or twice I agree with Dr. John!!

anastasios