Thomas G. Guarino begins his article “The God of Philosophy and of the Bible: Theological Reflections on Regensburg” by suggesting that there is several attempts to interpret what Pope Benedict XVI addressed at University of Regensburg. Yet, no one of these attempts have focused in one of the major points of his speech. For the Pope, true Christianity uses reason, which proceeds by faith. The Church does not adopt wholesale any philosophical system; it critically appropriate and purifies philosophy by revelation. It is because, for him, faith and reason are always conjoined. However, Benedict insists that the Church did well by rejecting “myth and custom [of the ancient thinkers] for the truth of being. [because by doing so], the Church undertook the abiding task of insisting on the uniqueness of her own claims.” In this…
In 1974 Dulles published Models of the Church to address questions concerning ecclesiology-the study of the church. Many people believe that they know the meaning of the church, which is a place to become closer to God. However, there is more than what meets the eye when it comes to the Church, since it is a very complex organization. Dulles' book identifies and describes the different functions the Church possesses which Jesus Christ founded and continues to oversee today. He categorizes the models into five aspects: Church as institution, Church as mystical communion, Church as sacrament, Church as herald, Church as servant, and lastly his new model Church as community. In this paper, I am going to discuss the similarities as well as the differences between Church as Institution and Church as mystical communion. The both models discuss the people who make up the church-this can be noted as a contrast between them as it will further be discussed in my paper- and they both have similar yet different forms of organizational skills that I will go into further detail as I discuss each model in depth. In order for you to understand what these models stand for I will begin my paper explaining in detail what each model stands for as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Lastly, I will discuss why Church as Mystical Communion is more persuasive model for the 21st century. According to Dulles, Church as Institution “defines the Church primarily in terms of its visible structures, especially the rights and powers of its officers” (Dulles, 34). The function of the church is hierarchical, which means that the rich and powerful have the most control over the church. There are two meaning of the word “institution” which is institution vs. institutionalism, which is very critical to understand when discussing this model. Institution as just mentioned is about the hierarchy the way it is organized, institutionalism is…
The word “Catholic” is derived from the Greek adjective katholikos, which means “universal” and also derives from the adverb form kath’ holou meaning “on the whole”. Catholicism offers all humanity the “lens” of Jesus’ life. It also gives us faith and lets us believe in our beliefs, whether they are spiritual, emotional, or physical. The faith we get from Catholicism is the “ultimate concern” we have in life. It is the confident assurance concerning what we hope for and conviction about things we cannot see. In my opinion, the faith we have in something is the belief we have in it times the hope we have for it to come true.…
The main point of Gauidium et Spes is stressed right from its introduction. “the joys and hopes and sorrows…”. This is where a lot of debates come from. Gaudium et Spes exshoorts that the Church has the transformative mission of Christofying the world, not so mkuch of mmodernizing the Church. According to Fr Robert, GAudium et Spes is about Christofying the world, and this does not mean that the Church has to become “hand and head with culture”. The Church is not called upon to yield to the cultural beliefs. The role of the Church is too read the signs of the times, both good and bad, and to interpret them in the light of the gospel. “It is accordingly in the light of Christ who is the image of the invisible God that the council…”…
We can find secondary ideas in the text. The first one, in the lines 11-12 “Go ye and teach all nations” According to Paul III Pope, all the human being, without exception, are capable of receiving the doctrines of the faith because the sublime God endowed him with capacity to attainto the inaccesible and invisible Supreme Good.…
Throughout the General Prologue, the Catholic Church is displayed as a very hypocritical organization and that is the reason that people and members of the church are starting to lose faith. It’s also an explanation as to why the world was becoming more and more corrupted and why people were not happy in their daily lives. They struggled from day to day to be happy and survive. The Black Plague swept through and took many lives and it angered each of the people. They never thought once that it could have been because of the corruption and hypocrisy within the church. The book of James in the Bible has a great statement about hypocrisy and greatly defines how the hypocrisy was affecting the rest of the people. It states “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that --- and shudder.” (Bible, James 2: 14-19)…
Catholics believed in salvation through good works. Thomas Kempis, a Catholic, defines the importance of good works in his book The Imitation of Christ (Doc 1). He states that faith alone does not make a person holy, but their “virtuous life” makes them “dear to…
In the end, the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church are still two essential groups of Christian church. Their faith for Christ Jesus is the “root” and a principal. Even with its differences, I believe they are able to unify one day to share their different beliefs of one another. It is now a new world of faith with all the changes in society. It is time to understand that the Christian faith be practiced in different ways as…
The Bull Unam Sanctam states that the Catholic Church has the power to give one salvation and remission of sin. In Boniface VIII’s Unam Sanctam, Boniface says, ¨We are compelled, our faith urging us, to believe and to hold-and we do firmly believe and simply confess-that there is only one catholic and apostolic church, outside of which there is neither salvation nor remission of sins...¨ Surely, this caused the Church to have a hold on the people of Europe because they couldn’t leave the Church since if they did they would surely end up in Hell because one cannot enter Heaven without salvation and being removed of their sins.…
The Roman Catholic Church has a great history that is tied into the life of some of the greatest prophets, preachers, speakers and evangelist. The church was set aside from other churches and religions due to its emphases on meditating salvations according to Walter A. Elwell in his book Evangelical Dictionary of Theology; The most distinctive characteristics of Roman Catholicism has always been its theology of the church…
After reviewing the context there was a difference of opinion as to the precise connotation of the italicized word. The Protestant professor of theology, at Giessen, is ready to interpret the earlier appearance of the phrase in the sense of Mia Mone, the “one and only” Church [Das apostolicshe Symbolum (1900), II, 922] (www.spaceandmotion.com).…
The Episcopal Church of the 1970s seemed to reflect America’s role as a world power through focusing on both foreign affairs and changes within America. In the January, February, and March issues of The Episcopalian, a journal serving the Episcopal Church, there are a collection of news and opinion articles that reveal the prevailing anxiety regarding the United State’s global influence. Since the Church seeked new knowledge, they were aware of the limits Christian influence had both in America and throughout the world. The Episcopalian was published in the context of global unrest, as the United States was at the height of fighting the Vietnam War and there were demonstrations occurring throughout Europe and China in the 1960s. The Church’s understanding of the fragility of American Christian culture simultaneously led to new debates and initiatives to keep the Church relevant to the changing times.…
Nostra Aetate continues to say that the “catholic church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions”(Nostra Aetate). Which means that now that it is our time in the modernist age it should not matter what one is devoted to as long as one does good. And through this tolerance all religions should come together, and put the past in the past.…
Before the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church was regarded as having a relatively negative view towards other religions in the world. This idea came from a teaching by Saint Cyprian of Carthage in the third century and was widely followed since then until the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. He used the Latin phrase, “Extra ecclesiam nulla salus,” which translates to, “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” He wrote this in a letter that was sent during a time of question about whether or not it was just to baptize those seeking baptism in the Catholic Church who had been formerly baptized by heretics. In his letter, Cyprian said that he “believed that those who were baptized outside the communion of the Church had no true baptism” (Sanidopoulos). As time went on, people began to take offense to this idea. The Catholic Church preached…
Ethnocentrism is the act of seeing one’s ethnic tribe better compared to those of the others. This stereotype has with time crept into the religious foundation irrepressibly. Currently, the church is experiencing a wave of ethnocentrism which if not curbed will see a religious waiver. Overall researches locally and internationally prove that ethnocentrism is an ant to the timber-pillar supporting the church; with time it will eat into it and cause a major downfall.…