Quote:
Originally posted by Thagrastay
Despite what SecretMethod70 might espouse, He is not the Catholic Church and does not speak for it. in fact, his remarks that God could be either a He a She or an IT pretty much disqualify him form any serious contention in the Catholic or Christian field of serious belief. I would suggest that SecretMethod70 go back and study more and ask some serious questions since there is obviously some doubt and shaky faith there. But I digress.
|
Reference to God in terms of He/She/It is only meant to convey the fact that He is none of those and none are accurate. My point being only to express the fact that even the fact that we refer to Him as "Him" is technically incorrect. Not to say that I think God is a female or anything like that.
And, so you don't think I'm pulling things out of my ass as apparently you do, Cathechism of the Catholic Church:
Quote:
42: God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God—"the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable"—with our human representations. Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God.
239: By calling God "Father," the LANGUAGE of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God's parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood,62 which emphasizes God's immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard no one is father as God is Father.
370: In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective "perfections" of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband.
|
Furthermore, regarding other faiths, lest you think that anything I'm saying is not in conjunction with Catholic teaching, Vatican II specifically states that while the Catholic faith contains the fullness of God's truth, other faiths do contain real truth. I can't find the specific part, however, I did come across this priest's response to a question that must have related to this in some way:
http://www.faithfirst.com/html/famil...messageID=2919
Quote:
|
The full reality of divine truth so far exceeds our human ability to grasp that what we arrive at in our human judgements is always partial, always a bit flawed, never fully grasped. That is why many different viewpoints can capture a piece of the truth. We Catholics do not believe that we have exclusive possession of the truth, as if no one else had any. Rather, while we hold to our beleif that revelation in the Scripture and Tradtion have given us a fullness of truth unrivaled by others - still we admit that others often do capture aspects of the truth that we may not have attended to adequately. The limitations of human language insure that no proposition is able to exhautively capture the truth. Thus, a religious figure such as Mohammed was surely capturing real truth in some of his teachings, even if we would disagree with many & various points he makes.
|
Lastly, while I never claimed to "speak for the Catholic Church," I find it particularly insulting that you would suggest that I don't know what the Catholic Church teaches considering I've gone to Catholic-run schools for all but 4 years of my life and am presently taking classes on Catholic theology at one of those Catholic-run institutions. I think the sources of my information are pretty trustworthy
Yes, some things I mention are part of relatively recent movements in Catholic theology as the church continues to change as it always has - as the living being it is - but they are in no way egregiously against Catholic teaching. Remember, Thomas Aquinas, who ultimately became one of the church fathers, was originally condemned 3 times by Catholicism for his views on Catholic theology. That's not to say that the few views I hold which aren't specifically part of Catholicism (almost none of which I've even mentioned here...to the point where I wonder if there's even a point in going on about this) are my own. I don't claim to be the source of any of my views and I don't claim to be some church expert. But my views do come from highly respected Catholic priests and writers, so it's rediculous again to say that I don't know what I'm talking about with respect to Catholic teaching. I think that if Thomas Merton - a Catholic monk whom I have begun to read and respect the writings of - was so far off with what he has said, he would not have been as highly respected as he was during the time of his life and there would not be a mild push for his Sainthood. Or, for that matter, I think that if Father Andrew Greeley's writings are so far off-base with Catholic teaching, he would no longer hold the title "father" as he does. So, please, don't accuse me of essentially not knowing what I'm talking about with respect to Catholicism. And I apologize in advance for my harsh tone but, frankly, I'm highly insulted.