Jennifer over on Conversion Diary is musing about trust in God in the context of answers to prayer. Here are what she calls her initial thoughts:
I don’t have all the answers, but my initial thought is that appropriate trust in God hinges on having a proper understanding the following three things:
- Who God is
- What God wants
- What the meaning of life is
Who God is:
He’s not a wish-granting genie. He’s not a concierge. He’s not a living magic wand for us to wield to change the world according to our liking. He’s our heavenly Father, and he is perfect and all-knowing — in other words, his ideas are better than ours, and he knows what’s best for us more than we do. We can get way off track of we start to forget this.What God wants:
I’ve heard many amazing stories of divine providence at work in people’s lives, and one common thread is that people who experience a lot of this crazy miraculous stuff live their lives according to what God wants, not what they want. I wrote about this more here, but these people spend a lot of time asking: “Lord, what do you want me to pray for?”So, to use the example of the cake for the Bible study tea, I do believe that that was God at work, but I don’t believe that the cake appeared because the missionaries were in the mood for something sweet. Each day they spent hours in prayer seeking the Lord’s guidance. The idea to host the event didn’t come from their personal whims, but rather was an idea the Holy Spirit gave them in prayer — thus it’s no surprise that all the details just so happened to work out.
What the meaning of life is:
I think this is where it’s easiest for us Americans to go wrong, and where many “health and wealth gospel” proponent have gone wrong. Surrounded by incomparable wealth, luxury and access to medical care, it’s easy to start to think of our lives here on earth as our eternal destinations. The natural human inclination is to make the overarching goal of our lives to have the longest, healthiest, most comfortable life here on earth as possible. But that’s not how the saints have seen it, and it’s not how God sees it. Not that God wants us to suffer — suffering and death wasn’t even part of the world he originally planned for us — but, in a heaven-centered worldview, suffering is not the worst evil. Sin is.And that’s another thing I’ve noticed about people who seem to have radical but healthy trust in God: they accept this. They trust that God will pave the way for them to get themselves and others on a path to heaven, and know that sometimes it will involve sending cake for a tea party…and other times it might involve suffering, or even an early death. But when they compare that prospect to an eternity of ecstatic peace, it doesn’t seem like such a bad proposition.
Spiritual health is more important than financial or even physical health I guess.
What is the purpose of the economy?, asked JP. Maybe it is to promote true health, the health of individuals, families, and communities.
And I suppose one component of that is that every person has a piece of the world that they have a stake in, and that they can make productive. It’s easier to feel the presence of God in your own garden than in an office, by and large.
Maybe Catholic social and economic teaching would bear fruits in terms of evangelisation, if applied.
Have you read The Servile State? Great fun Belloc, and so cocky, “The Catholic Church is the hearth and home of mankind, outside is only darkness and night”. I agree with the first part of that, the scond part is less than ecumenical in spirit. 🙂
It seems to me, Badger, that you’ve hit the nail right on the head with the purpose of the economy.
What else could it be?
“outside is only darkness and night”.
I would agree with that, but my idea of outside is probably rather smaller than some.
The patristic fathers included good pagans and Jews in the Church.
God Bless
True, Chris. If you think by the Church Belloc meant the Church Universal, to which all of goodwill belong in some mysterious and semi-detatched way, outside is indeed only darkness and night – by definition, almost
I doubt if that’s what he meant, though. It would be a rather ridiculous comment in full, if what he was truly saying was that all that is good is good, and all that is not good is not good.
As I understand it, “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” is still Catholic dogma (Lateran IV), unpalatable as it may be to some.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra_Ecclesiam_nulla_salus
Belloc was a man of his time and Empire. Thankfully, we’ve moved on from that.
As for trusting in God, surely we ought to trust more in God than in the weapons at hand for us to kill people ? If not, then haven’t our weapons become our idols ?
God Bless
“Not that God wants us to suffer — suffering and death wasn’t even part of the world he originally planned for us.”
Poor old God.
Murphy’s law even applies in Heaven, it seems.
Oh, well. Back to the celestial drawing board.
We haven’t reached the end of this story board, yet, Toad.
Chris, I’m with you on this, certainly the visible Church doesn’t define The Church entire. Belloc sadly did mean the visible Church. As you say we have moved on, but he was a solid defender of the integrity of Catholicism against a massive wave of secularism. — Good on him.
JP, I’ve been thinking since your last “economics” post. It seems to me that we really do pursue economiic growth and a larger GDP these days without much reference to what those goals (insufficient in themselves) help us achieve. There are people in this country who couldn’t attend Sunday mass. even if they wanted to, without penalties.
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One thing that constantly gets Toad’s goat (mixed bestial metaphor there) is the Castholic assumption that they are, and always have been, catholic, that is universal. Even before America and Australasia were discovered.
And even now there are enormous numbers of people who haven’t the faintest clue who Jesus was.
Two out of every three people on this planet are not Christians.
There are more Muslims than Catholics in the world.
Catholics are a minority. Vociferous, to be sure.
There’s a lot of ‘darkness and night’ out there, for sure.
Or maybe the ‘darkness and night’ is on the inside?
“We haven’t reached the end of this story board, yet, Toad.”
Still time for a re-design, maybe without earthquakes, then Joyful? That’d be nice!
Let me put it another way, then, Toad. If Catholicism happens to be true, which I believe it is, all people of good will have the opportunity at some point (before or after they die) to make the choice to be part of the Body of Christ, aka the Church. And it is there that the Church universal exists – in that space beyond time where God is. But it intersects with time in this imperfect Church that you and I can see. There, at the intersection, are all the saved, those still living in the world as we know it, and those living in the world to come, under the rule of the King of Kings and before the face of the Living God.
We go so far as to claim that the Catholic Church once consisted of 120 people in a single room in Jerusalem. Which might appear to make us mad, but I think not. The whole point of Christianity is that God isn’t some Platonic or Hegelian “absolute” but the kind of being who would get involved with the mess of human history. — We are a sacramental Church, particular times and places have particular significance, one can be an atheist or a Quaker but Catholics assert that the universal Church has a seed in history. It’s univeral from the start, but it flowers in eternity.
(Toad will be unsatisfied) 🙂
“And even now there are enormous numbers of people who haven’t the faintest clue who Jesus was.”
Toad Paul dealt with this issue twenty years after the crucifixion. Christians have been dumb, and took a long while to catch up with his obvious point, but a man shall be judged according to his conscience
I would rather be Galahad than Lancelot
I’ve always had a particular fondness for
Sir Gareth, who served one year as a kitchen lad for the sake of the promise he made his mother.
I think the Catholic view of hell isn’t what many people think it is. But many people reject the faith because they find the idea of hell obscene. I speak from experience here; when I left the Church, the immoral nature of hell (as I understood it) was a significant factor.
The best summary I’ve seen was by N.T. Wright. “Hell is not a place to which you are sent, but a state to which a person may choose to conform”. And even though we use the term “rejecting God”, that doesn’t include the sincere atheist; it means the rejection of what God vaues, of goodness itself.
Catholics taught hell badly for a long time, the stopped teaching it at all. Both are harmful I think.
JP, (awkward cough) would you mind adding a few skipped letters as sense requires? I typed fast 🙂
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“If Catholicism happens to be true….”
Opines Joyful. Well, it very well might be, for all Toad knows. And a whole lot of other things, many of which may be in direct oppositon to it, may be true as well.
Pragmatism, we calls it.
(Interesting chat on CP&S re euthanasia.)
Euthanasia is of course such a bad thing that it causes angels to bellow in despair. Hence the increased danger of tsunami on the east coast of Britain should the practice continue in western Europe.
It’s “still murder” apparently I learn from the comments. Which makes a close family member who died in despair a murderer I suppose. This will take what is known as “discernment” to process.
I disagree with the definition of pragmatism, Toad. Pragmatism is saying: I will live my life as if there is a God, because it makes me a better and happier person, and I believe it contributes to society being a better place.”
Not a bad notion, at that.
Just realised it’s April first. Happy Feast of St Crossan of the Low christology.
Toad may wish to pop over to London, CP&S informs us that a thorn from the crown of thorns will be on display at the British museum. Badger is all for orthodox belief, but wonders if recent posts about split mountains and thorns etc might amount to an attempt to turn belief into a competitive sport. “Any old Catholic can believe in the resurrection, but it takes a true traditionalist to believe that a geological feature was formed by a crying angel”.
But putting it more seriously, do some people believe more (non-essential) things than they would otherwise, in reaction to the pervading secularism? If so, I can understand why, but it makes me curious.
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Toad has just, before reading Mr Badger, posted a thought on CP&S, wondering if the exhib will also be featuring the Head of John the Baptist as a boy.
But he loves and cherishes the wonderful silliness of it all. It’s what make Catholics so ‘special.’
No doubt somenoe somewhere is even now praying to the toenail of Saint Crossan, being as it’s April 1st.
Toad doubts if he will bother going to look at the thorn, as he has seen a thorn before.
(And It wasn’t a definition of pragmatism, Joyful, it was an example.)
Badger reasserts his belief, however mad it may seem to Toad. Badger also thinks some devotions should be regarded with droll amusement. — Surely the whole thing should be, says Toad. Badger disagrees. Dubious devotions are a tricky thing for us Catholics, of course this thorn is not from the first century, we KNOW that, but we don’t want to cause a cruel scandal to those who may not realise that fact.
Well, perhaps Chris will suggest on behalf of CS Lewis that a mythical first century thorn is more real than a merely factual one, but I’m only teasing.
I’m starting to do a little bit of reading to rise rather belatedly to Toad’s challenge about earthquakes or indeed the problem of evil in general. I’ve been dipping into ‘The Existence of God’ by Richard Swinburne, which surveys the arguments topic by topic. It’s good to read a cool appraisal which invigorates the half-baked waffle in my own head.
I won’t try to summarise the arguments now other than to say I think it fairly addresses (and indeed sympathises with) several of the points Toad regularly makes – as I think we all do.
“Well, perhaps Chris will suggest on behalf of CS Lewis that a mythical first century thorn is more real than a merely factual one”
Well put, 🙂
“The half-baked waffle in my own head”
My head is a microwave oven, it seems.
I really believe that “A grief observed” is one of the best Christian works on pain and loss.
A few random thoughts on private revelations, starting with an observation from my life:
Recently, we had a meeting in the parish hall to discuss organising more efficiently the impromptu and uncoordinated (but sincere) caring activities of the parish to ensure no-one who needs help misses out.
At one point my husband and I had to tag team to deflect a well-meant effort to impose the Divine Mercy devotion on the sick. We thought that “shut at home” people and their visitors should be free to decide what sort of prayer they prayed together, and even whether there was prayer at all.
Our colleague protested that this prayer was given to St Faustina by Our Lord himself.
As I understand it, no one is required to believe a private revelation – and any vision or miracle or dream since the death of the last apostle is a private revelation.
“Throughout the ages, there have been so-called ‘private’ revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium [collective sense of the faithful] knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church. Christian faith cannot accept ‘revelations’ that claim to surpass or correct the revelation of which Christ is the fulfillment, as is the case in certain non-Christian religions and also in certain recent sects which base themselves on such ‘revelations’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 67).
If we agree that the Bible – the record of public revelation – is the inspired Word of God, as received and communicated through the interpretative filter of one or more human beings influenced by their own culture and personal history, how much more must this apply to private revelation?
I believe in the Divine Mercy visions, and I pray the Divine Mercy chaplet, but I’m also convinced that St Faustina – certainly no less than – the apostles and leaders of the early Church interpreted what she saw and heard through her own experiences and understandings.
JP has inspired me to browse at my copy of Julian of Norwich.
Margery Kempe was more fun though, couldn’t get through a single Mass without an attack of uncontrollable sobbing.
“Private revelation serves as a help to this divine and Catholic faith but does not itself demand this faith: “In this regard, Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, the future Pope Benedict XIV, says in his classic treatise, which later became normative for beatifications and canonizations: ‘An assent of Catholic faith is not due to revelations approved in this way; it is not even possible. These revelations seek rather an assent of human faith in keeping with the requirements of prudence, which puts them before us as probable and credible to piety.’ The Flemish theologian E. Dhanis, an eminent scholar in this field, states succinctly that ecclesiastical approval of a private revelation has three elements: the message contains nothing contrary to faith or morals; it is lawful to make it public; and the faithful are authorized to accept it with prudence” (ibid., cf. E. Dhanis, La Civiltà Cattolica 104 [1953], II, 392–406).
Because they do not require divine and Catholic faith, private revelations do not impose an obligation of belief of the sort that public revelation does. To disbelieve knowingly and deliberately anything God has revealed in such a way that it requires divine and Catholic faith is to commit mortal sin. However, since God has not issued private revelations with this degree of certainty, the burden is not imposed. Thus, “such a message can be a genuine help in understanding the Gospel and living it better at a particular moment in time; therefore it should not be disregarded. It is a help which is offered, but which one is not obliged to use” (ibid.).
“The criterion for the truth and value of a private revelation is therefore its orientation to Christ himself. When it leads us away from him, when it becomes independent of him or even presents itself as another and better plan of salvation more important than the Gospel, then it certainly does not come from the Holy Spirit, who guides us more deeply into the Gospel and not away from it” (ibid.).
In a section called “The Anthropological Structure of Private Revelations,” Ratzinger notes that “theological anthropology distinguishes three forms of perception or ‘vision’: vision with the senses, and hence exterior bodily perception, interior perception, and spiritual vision (visio sensibilis – imaginativa – intellectualis). It is clear that in the visions of Lourdes, Fatima, and other places it is not a question of normal exterior perception of the senses. . . . The same can be very easily shown with regard to other visions, especially since not everybody present saw them, but only the ‘visionaries.’”
The visions of private revelations also involve to a significant degree the perceptive capacity of the visionary. “[T]he subject shares in an essential way in the formation of the image of what appears. He can arrive at the image only within the bounds of his capacities and possibilities. Such visions therefore are never simple ‘photographs’ of the other world, but are influenced by the potentialities and limitations of the perceiving subject.
“This can be demonstrated in all the great visions of the saints. . . . The images described by them are by no means a simple expression of their fantasy, but the result of a real perception of a higher and interior origin. But neither should they be thought of as if for a moment the veil of the other world were drawn back, with heaven appearing in its pure essence, as one day we hope to see it in our definitive union with God. Rather the images are, in a manner of speaking, a synthesis of the impulse coming from on high and the capacity to receive this impulse in the visionaries. . . . For this reason, the figurative language of the visions is symbolic.”” James Akin, This Rock
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“In a section called “The Anthropological Structure of Private Revelations,” Ratzinger notes that “theological anthropology distinguishes three forms of perception or ‘vision’: vision with the senses, and hence exterior bodily perception, interior perception, and spiritual vision (visio sensibilis – imaginativa – intellectualis). “
Well, this is good news, to Toad, at least. He has been fretting over this for some thousands of years until now.
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“. . For this reason, the figurative language of the visions is symbolic.”” James Akin, This Rock.”
So, sometimes the ‘vision’ is ‘symbolic’ and sometimes it is not.
Or maybe, contrairywise.
Well that makes sense. Sort of.
“Pragmatism is saying: I will live my life as if there is a God, because it makes me a better and happier person, and I believe it contributes to society being a better place.”
Declares Joyful.
Of course, it says no such thing. In brutal terms, it says “If anything works for you, get on with it, because we have no clue what’s right ot wrong, really.”
One might agree, or disagree, but there it is.
But, as a matter of fact, Toad does lead his life these days “as if” he were under scrutiny from some malevolent deity.
As if anyone else gave a damn.
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But Toad is comforted by the fact that he posesses a sacred testicle from the Blessed Martin Murphy, who lost it in a rather sordid dispute over the provenance of a Thorn from the Sacred Head of Jesus, in a Dublin street brawl in 1917.
Offers on Ebay will be soberly considered.
I’m sure at least two others are on e-bay already? 😉
It can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that ordinary people hearing voices and seeing ‘visions’ are locked up in an asylum, whereas theists are said to have seen or heard god.
KA
“…ordinary people hearing voices and seeing ‘visions’ are locked up in an asylum, whereas theists are said to have seen or heard god.”
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KA has got a point there. Toad, as an ex-hack, remembers a story of a woman in the USA, who locked her two tiny children in a car and then ran it into a lake, killing them both.
God, she said, told her to do it.
Well, He’s done such things before, and who’s to call her a liar? Not Toad, for sure.
According to her, she was just obeying God’s wishes. Like in the Bible
Inrteresting and difficult, if one believes in God. Quite simple, if one doesn’t.
(Toad is geeting tired of being nice and reasonable to believers. He is getting to know how Dawkins and Hitchins feel. Best for him to stop, probably.)
KA, theists are ordinary people – the majority, remember? – and are just as likely to be locked up for dangerous behaviour as anyone else. Or are you suggesting theists have some sort of get out of jail free card? Sounds a little paranoid to me.
And you still haven’t quite explained to me from that materialist perspective of yours how 70,000 people can have a vision simultaneously.
Toad, I look forward to you being nasty and unreasonable. As it’s Lent, you’ll be offering all us Catholics a wonderful opportunity to turn the other cheek and be gushingly nice to you. You cuddly amphibian you.
But just following your own ‘interesting and difficult’ logic, I do think it is a scandal that the remaining Beatles still haven’t been locked up for inspiring the murderous behaviour of Charles Manson and his cronies. After all, they claimed the Beatles told them to do it, so it must be true.
Actually, there is no indication that 70,000 people can have a vision simultaneously. If you read the testimonies of ‘eye witnesses’ at Fatima they are wildly divergent and include devout believers who saw nothing. Likewise, the photographic evidence shows people looking in a variety of directions and some even looking quite bored!
There was no one single vision that 70,000 people saw at the same time. No one even knows if there really were 70,000 people there. That figure is an estimate and we all know how things grow in the telling! Avelino de Almeida, writing for the Portuguese newspaper O Século, estimated that the crowd size ranged from “thirty to forty thousand” whereas Dr. Joseph Garrett, Professor of Natural Sciences at Coimbra University, estimated that the crowd was one hundred thousand. Apparently the difference has been split to achieve the ‘official’ number. Whether it corresponds to reality is irrelevant.
“Inrteresting and difficult, if one believes in God. Quite simple, if one doesn’t.”
Actually the rather sad story of the woman and her car poses no conundrum whatsoever for believers. It fails every test the Church has for validity.
“(Toad is getting tired of being nice and reasonable to believers. He is getting to know how Dawkins and Hitchins feel. Best for him to stop, probably.)”
I’m starting to understand how C.S Lewis felt. The “knock down arguments” against Christianity which once seemed so compelling now make me yawn, groan, or smile depending on my mood.
I’m amused by the contrast drawn by KA between “ordinary” people and theists. It does highlight the rather blinkered nature of the fashionable atheism. 🙂
Sadly, many creative people have been locked up in asylums in the last 100 years simply for not meeting society’s expectations in one way or another. Janet Frame is a rather famous example. I don’t see that as something to celebrate.
As for visions, you can’t have been paying attention, KA. In the Catholic Church, the immediate assumption, when someone says that they’ve heard voices or seen visions, is that they’re either mad or bad. Or both. Read the stories of what any of the Catholic visionaries have been through in sharing their visions with anyone else.
But those whose visions stand the process of discernment are likely, eventually, to be believed – perhaps (like St Joan of Arc) after their death, but eventually. So we have one more option than atheists: mad, bad, or inspired.
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Toad would have locked up the Beatlrs in 1960.
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(..and The Beatles.)
But then Toad is rather dim, as we can see. It has taken him 24 hours to twig that the post on CP&S about the thorn from the sacred head of Jesus was an April Fool’s joke.
That oughter learn him! (Probably won’t though.)
For a couple of minutes I was gob-smacked by the fig-leaf story 🙂
God knows Zenit couldn’t fool me about JP II though
JP et al, this audio recording of a lecture by N.T. Wright on the relationship between “The Cross and the Kingdom” called “Putting the Gospels Back Together: How We’ve All Misread Our Central Story” might be of interest. It’s not apologetics, it takes for granted basic Christian presuppostions. – Interesting material.
http://www.bsocs.com/page3.htm
Yes, it is. Thanks!
Seeker,
I won’t post underneath your response, as it might get lost. I don’t think you can undermine Fatima by nitpicking.
The difference between 30,000 and 100,000 people is much less than an order of magnitude. 30k is by any measure a substantial number of witnesses to a supposedly miraculous event. What material difference does the exact number make?
Of course there are divergent testimonies, as there always are to historical events where no coercion is involved. Even the visonaries themselves didn’t see the sun move – Lucia says she saw a vison of the Holy Family.
That not all witnesses saw the same phenomenon does not invalidate the fact that large numbers of people over a wide area did reporting seeing substantially the same thing without the nature of the miracle being broadcast in advance. Perhaps you’d care to put some probability of that occuring by chance? If one visionary sees something, that surprises no-one – we can easily attribute that to mental aberation if we wish. But thousands? Simultaneously? Suppose only one tenth of the crowd saw the sun dance. Would that be normal? How often does that happen? But then you never quite get around to saying what you think actually did happen.
In fact, I think the witness statements of those who saw nothing ought to be just as helpful as those who did, because they could help to identify to what extent the vision had a physical basis – as Jaki suggests. Did they notice the rain stopping? Did they see the sun break through the clouds? Did it appear as bright as normal, or ‘silvery’ as reported by those who saw it move?
I have bought, but not yet studied, three books by a bunch of Portuguese sort of academics who claim to have done a systematic analysis of all the witness statements, including the locations of where different phenomena were observed. Needless to say they claim the Church has suppressed unhelpful testimonies (although the authorities handed them over to our authors happily enough), and I’ve had a little correspondence with an American chap who speaks Portuguese and who challenges some of the translations these authors offer. Their slightly unfortunate conclusion, by the way, is that it was UFOs wot dun it. Mind you, the final volume is a collection of essays by other people suggesting all sorts of other ideas including, strangely, something to do with erthquakes. But I haven’t read them yet so I mustn’t pre-judge.
In any case, with the anniversary of Fatima coming up, I understand that the authorities are inviting suggestions of appropriate projects, and I have written to them suggesting they make every scrap of witness statement and evidence available via a web archive, with the originals, translations into the major languages, and commentaries.