Tuesday 30 December 2014

Shoehorning the Roman Doctrines into Scripture: More arguments to address

Here is the article that was promised responding to QuinQue Viae once again. The first few points have been covered here: http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/clearing-air-once-again-2.html

Now onto the doctrinal arguments.
"The first claim is a peculiar one and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Bobo has an unfounded assertion that Catholics have to believe Mary is both omnipresent or omniscient. Why does he come to this bizarre conclusion? Because Mary can hear multiple prayers at the same time from different parts of the world. Bobo then makes the argument that only God can have these attributes so Catholics applying them to Mary is a form of idolatry. The argument has a few fundamental problems with it. For one, a being that is able to hear multiple prayers and be at different places at the same time does not make said being either omnipresent or omniscient. Far from it. If I were somehow able to be present in Spain and America at the same time, does that make me omnipresent? No, it would make me a being that had the ability of bilocation."

There is no human entity in scripture that possesses the ability of bilocation. If Mary could hear multiple prayers at once, then she has to be omnipresent to begin with, not simply have bilocation.

For those who are unaware, Bilocation is defined here:

"I. The question whether the same finite being (especially a body) can be at once in two (bilocation) or more (replication, multilocation) totally different places grew out of the Catholic doctrine on the Eucharist. According to this Christ is truly, really, and substantially present in every consecrated Host wheresoever located. In the endeavour to connect this fact of faith with the other conceptions of the Catholic mind theologians make the following distinctions:"
and

"II. That bilocation (multilocation) is physically impossible, that is, contrary to all the conditions of matter at present known to us, is the practically unanimous teaching of Catholic philosophers in accordance with universalexperience and natural science. As to the absolute or metaphysical impossibility, that is, whether bilocation involves an intrinsic contradiction, so that by no exertion even of Omnipotence could the same body be at once in wholly different places — to this question the foregoing distinctions are pertinent."

Read here for more information: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02568a.htm

"Now what if I were a 100 places at once? Or a million places at once? I'm still infinitely distant from being omnipresent. Rather, the term one would use is multipresent. Meaning, many places at once. There is nothing unbiblical, theologically absurd, or philosophically illogical about God granting an exalted being the ability to be at more places than one at the same time. In fact this is exactly what I would expect from an entity that dwells beyond the three-dimensional understanding of things. Ironically enough, in common Protestant theology (and I would also argue this is in the biblical worldview) Satan has the ability to be multipresent and multiscient. He is described by St. Peter as a roaring lion, threatening every believer at all times. He is given the title of "God of this world" and seen to be the ultimate tempter among christians. In the dialogue with Christ, Satan is able to present all the nations of the Earth to Jesus seemingly at the same time. So Satan has the ability to be multipresent and multiscient yet Saints who are exalted by God in Christian theology actually lack this ability? The view Bobo presents makes absolutely no sense and is debunked by basic logic. Saying a being (in this case Mary) can be in my house and on some island off the coast of Asia isn't showing the attribute of omnipresence but rather multipresence."

Satan and his demons are a threat to all Christians, Satan is not the only threat. Satan cannot be in more than one place at one and even granting multipresence as an argument for Mary and the saints being prayed to, nothing from scripture has been offered and Satan being the God of this world in 2 Corinthians 4:4 refers to Satan simply having dominion and power over the whole world, that's it, it isn't suggesting he has multipresence.

"Likewise, Mary being "multiscient" (to know many things) does not infer that she is omniscient like God. For example, I have no problem with Mary being able to be consciously aware of one's sins and subconsciously aware of many more things. Does this mean she knows the inner workings and chemical mixture found in the depths of an ocean in Europas, one of the many Moons of Jupiter? Of course not! The problem with Bobo and these other low-brow anti-catholic apologists is that they do not even attempt to properly express the Catholic understanding of these dogmas, rather they just work off of their own inner [mis]representation of Scripture & Tradition alike, and then proceed from there. Suffice to say it's a rather annoying habit of theirs and it's almost impossible to have an honest dialogue with men like this. ""

Can you show me biblically speaking where Mary has this attribute granted to her, NO, Quin cannot show you such thinking. Mary is in heaven with the believers in Jesus, she is not going to be aware of what is transpiring on the earth since she is in heaven with Lord. Even if she possessed multipresence, she wouldn't hear the prayers of men since to this world, she is dead and cannot communicate with us.

"The next point of his is to bring up Saintly Intercession as some hideous unbiblical doctrine that has no precedence in Judaism or Jewish literature. A peculiar statement by somehow that is some self-professed "missionary" to the Jews. What an embarrassment this is to Christianity! We have someone who is basing their ministry off of preaching to Jews that doesn't even know Saintly Intercession is a Rabbinic belief and found in many orthodox circles. How can a joker like this even be taken seriously in these Jewish-Christian dialogues of his? Like I said, he is not a good representative of the faith and based upon my private judgement I would say the guy clearly has deep-seated theological issues that he has not quite worked out yet. But now onto the topic of saintly intercession."

The issue of saintly intercession was something I wasn't aware of until I looked into it and here's why,
1. No idea it existed until I looked.
2. It wasn't relevant to the responses to Rabbinic Judaism that I was doing.

Why bother raising a point to someone when it is NOT relevant to the topic itself? If you look at my papers on Judaism, not once does the issue of Saintly intercession ever arise, it wasn't important at the time and still isn't important to speak about with respect to proving Jesus to be the Messiah and YHWH God.

"Bobo's point is that Saints interceding and men praying to Saints would have warranted a death penalty among old testament Jews. The problem is that the modern day Jews, who still read the scripture in Hebrew and preserve a tradition that stems from the early Christian period, actually do practice saintly intercession and saintly veneration. From Chabad: 
"Rabbi Chaim Joseph David Azulai died at the ripe old age of 83, in Leghorn, Italy. His memory continued to live in the hearts of his people. Many Jews used to make pilgrimages to his grave or send letters to be deposited there, praying that the saintly Rabbi be an intercessor for them in the Heavenly Court."

This is the view of many modern Orthodox Jews, ones who read the texts in the original Hebrew and do not see prayers to saints and intercession before God as being a fundamental violation of monotheism. Nor do they make the bizarre connection that heretic Bobo makes and associate saintly intercession with "necromancy." Necromancy in the Jewish world view means to contact the dead for wisdom or to use in witchcraft, usually it is associated with Mediums. It doesn't have anything to do with the dead being "exalted" to the status of a saint and being able to pray on behalf of your soul to Yahweh himself. The latter is not a controversial idea at all, and goes back to pre-christian canonical, Deutero-canonical, and Apocryphal Jewish literature. "

If you pray to a saint and ask for their intercession, it is necromancy. No matter how you want to try and get around it, communication with the dead for ANY reason is necromancy and no the transfiguration is not a counter example: http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mary-greatest-woman-who-ever-lived.html

There is nothing wrong with those being exalted to sainthood, that's not disputable, but that is no justification to pray to them or seek intercession. The Rabbinic Jews have no biblical basis for it. I wouldn't mind seeing the OT justification for it. To be honest, so far not a lot has been said.*

There is more to say but that shall be saved for another time.

Answering Judaism.

Addendum: To the Rabbinic Jews reading this, if you have any points, let me know if you think the understanding presented by the Roman Catholics are the same as yours or not.

*25th or March 2015. I have recently come across a video by Rabbi Tovia Singer on why Jews go to the grave of their forefathers or great saintly men. This video by him should clarify some misunderstandings on the issue:
Rabbi Tovia Singer discusses the Jewish tradition of praying at a gravesite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUEuj0p6eUI

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