www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Imagination in prayer

None of the Eastern aesthetic would exist without imagination. Icons and hymns depict scenes and stories that are extra-Biblical and fanciful. The Dormition story of the apostles traveling to find Mary is certainly not historical, and is pure imagination that came about 300+ years after the gospels were written.

Friend, none of this really addresses the points I made, particularly that the Catholic tradition is less black and white than you have made it out to be. Though I would also ask you to be more respectful to our tradition, and not analyse it through calling it 'extra-Biblical' (are we sola scriptura?), 'fanciful 'or 'pure imagination'. Our 'aesthetic' sticks to a traditional method of mathematical proportion, and follows strict lines in depicting the invisible.

The western tradition also emphasises a distinction that is not drawn here (which I tried to draw out in the previous comment). St. Thomas himself notes a difference between imagination as our sense-experience (or 'phantasia', a term going back to St. Augustine) that can often be manipulated and wrongly-ordered, and rightly-ordered imaginatio, where phantasia must be subservient to the intellect (that which lets us know truth, and grasp an understanding of things).
If you disagree with the truthfulness of our traditions, please at least express this politely, and engaging with what I wrote.

turaŭski

Christ is in our midst!!

LionHippo44,

Your profile identifies you as "Catholic" and I wonder if you understand what that means. Eastern Catholic, Western (Latin) Catholic, we're all Catholic, in the Catholic Communion. Eastern Catholics were instructed by Vatican 2 to recover their authentic traditions, which include prayer. They were instructed to study our brethren who are Orthodox, from which they came into the Catholic Communion.

There is no need for the polemics that you have shared about our Eastern Catholic members or our Orthodox members. Again, I ask that you go to Town Hall and read the thread "Who We Are." A change in your attitude is much needed. Otherwise, we might need to put you in full moderation, meaning that everything you post would need to be preapproved before it saw the light of day.

Bob
Moderator

I am canonically Byzantine so I know what we believe in. I'm just at peace with the fact that most of it is symbolic and legendary, and not historical.

Many in this forum have a modern OrthoBro mentality which is neither Eastern nor traditional.

My attitude is wonderful and holy. Nothing I've written on here would lead one to think otherwise.