CONCERNING OBJECTIONS TO CHURCH'S TEACHING ON RECEPTION OF HOLY COMMUNION BY DIVORCED AND REMARRIED

On what basis have you decided that God has no language?

Your post indicates you are a Roman Catholic and would therefore believe in the God man Jesus Christ 2nd person of the Holy Trinity.
Since Jesus is a complete man then He has a tongue , a voice and a language.
Therefore God indeed does have a language.

God speaks to the world solely through the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church .
These teachings are taught via several different languages.

Your contention therefore that God has no language does not stand up.

 

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

 

Before the Incarnation the second person of the Holy Trinity did not have human form.
Therefore on what basis is it even possible to talk about a Word or language.?
Words and language are human.
I have never quite even remotely fathomed the theology that has emerged from this gospel quote.
The idea that pre the Incarnation the 2 nd person of the Trinity was a " Word" seems deeply inadequate to me.

 

Jesus is the Word made flesh. Not "a" word but "The" Word. What form the Word took prior to the incarnation is something we will learn in the next life.

 

The Word?
The Word of what?
The entire notion of words is completely human.

Since before the Incarnation God was not human how can God make words?
I have no doubt but that God can indeed make words but the notion that God makes The Word as you describe it into flesh seems to me very anthropological.

I fully accept the mystery of the Incarnation it's just that I find the notion of verbum erat caro rather limiting and humanistic.

I have met people who have belted me with what they call " the word of God"
Somehow I must bow down and adore " The Word" .

I find all that slightly unnatural and unreal.

 

The Word implies action or manifestation of the mind or will of God. The second person of the trinity is continually begotten of the first. I do not think we are meant to understand it completely. It is very humbling.

 

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Dear Anthony,

The Divinity of the 2nd Person of the Trinity, as you know, is unchanging. He took on flesh by the union of His Spirit and the Blessed Virgin Mary, but His divinity remained unchanged. To know God;s language, we must ask who He is. Before Jesus became incarnate, the best description of who God IS was in the name that He gave to Moses, "I AM". St. Thomas Aquinas recognized "AM" as the 1st person singular of the verb "to be" and and theorized that God was telling us that His nature is "to BE". Thomas took that further and incorporated the Capadocian Fathers notion of "Relatio" within the Trinity, to theorize that "By Nature, God is to be related".

How is God then, to be related Anthony? In the relatio of the Trinity, the love between the Father and the Son, is the Holy Spirit and the entire purpose of humanities creation was for us to be a part of the love within the Trinity itself. After the fall, this is acomplished in our being part of the mystical body of Christ (His Church). This Love of God the Father, brought into action by His Son, and sanctified by His Spirit, was present always and in Creation this is evident from Genesis 1 (the first story of Creation) which serves as a forward to all of salvation history until the end of time. Let us look at the "language of God" to learn that it is actually the language of LOVE.

When He was about to Create, His Spirit moved over the waters . In Gen. 1, whenever God created something by His Word, he proclaimed it "Good". What can be Good, except what comes from the Father? When He created Adam and Eve, He proclaimed them "Very Good". An epiclesus of His Spirit then came upon them as He Blessed their union and told them to multiply. This is the only gift given to mankind that was not diminished by the fall or destroyed by the flood. Why? (We are still talking language of the Word here). It was not diminished because it forshadowed the Sacrament of Christ and His Church. Just as in Creation, when we walk into Church, we dip our hand into the Holy Water (like the Spirit of God over the Waters), to recall our Baptism into Christ's death. We then come to listen as the Word of God (Liturgy of the Word) leads us to an epiclesus of God's Spirit into the Host which will become God's Word for us. Then the Consecration completes the language of Love that joins us all throughout all time in the one meal offered up at the Last Supper. We are told to "receive of who you are, become who you receive".

Remember that this Language of love, is not so much words as it is groanings of the Spirit. The Word of God is all that is Good. The fullest expression that we can comprehend, came through the Incarnation of Christ and the living of His Life here on earth. It was He who chose to obey His Father's will to give "us" the example of how we might do it too (through union with Him). He did not deem equality with God as something to be grasped. He struggled from the time He was born to the time He died on the Cross. The language of the Father is Jesus. The language of Jesus, is His Life. He punctuated His life with the Paschal Mystery. The Paschal Mystery is punctuated by our Mass, our Mass is punctuated by the marriage of the Lamb to His Bride in the Eucharist. That is why the Eucharist is the 'Source and Summit". It holds all from Genesis 1 to the end of Revelation. The language of this Love is contained in Jesus' life story. His life was recorded in Words in the Gospels and the Books of the New Testament. The Words are living Words because they are HIS LIFE, not just words about His life.

When we hear the Word in Sacred Scripture, our ears hear the sound, but our heart receives the Love from the inside, down deep, past the division between soul and spirit. To hear this Word, we must lay our very selves down, and join Jesus on the Cross, so that in the freedom of the Cross, our Father's will is made known to us and we offer it all back to Him at the same time. We have the tools we need in our toolbox that Christ Himself gave us, to speak the language of Love to the Father. Works, Fasting, Prayer, Laughing, Crying, Playing, Eating....All of it. Join it to the Word and we become His Word to others in a language that only Love can understand.

Peace My Brother,
Ed
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Anthony, I think you are falling into the trap of being continually argumentative.
I find generally it is better to simply make a case and let go. Silence generally being the best response, otherwise you end up like a dog continually chasing your own tail.

I know. Been there done that. Too many times.


2 Timothy 2:23-24
23 Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.

 

Good advice Padraig. I too learned this after some years. Silence is often the best response. I actually had a fine priest tell me this when I was on retreat and went to confession.

 

Sadl

Sadly our English language is deficient in translating St John's gospel use of the Greek word Logos. "Word" is a very pale rendering of the magnificence of Logos.

 

That the Word became flesh is not my description. If you want to take issue with it, you'll have to wait until you see St. John in Heaven:
Chapter 1, verse 14: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PX9.HTM
http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=50&ch=1&l=14-#x

If you would put human limits on God, I suppose you might interpret "the Word" to be merely language.

Why do you insist on conflating "the word of God" with "The Word" who is God, son of the Father and second person of the Trinity? That some people used the word of God to belt you, doesn't make it any less divinely inspired.

Are you picking hairs for the sake of an argument. I don't understand how any Catholic would deny that Jesus is the Word who became flesh.

 

I have not denied anything my friend .
What I'm trying to understand is the use of the term "Word" or .?" Logos" in relation to the Deity at a time when the Deity was not incarnated.
The 3 persons of the Holy Trinity existed for all eternity and then the 2nd no person took flesh.
I can not see this 2 nd person as some type of word because that is a purely human analysis.

I fully believe in the Incarnation but to reduce it to something like a human word appears and has always appeared to me perhaps belittling.

The word of God?

It is problematic because it is imputing something entirely human ie Word/Idea to a deity.

Please do not misunderstand . I am not denying anything merely trying to tease out the Trinitarian perichoresis.
Word may indeed be the answer but I suspect there is a lot more to it.

 

It seems that the meaning of the Word (Logos) was debated in the early Church.

You might find helpful the following summary from the New Advent Catholic Encyclopaedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09328a.htm

Analogy between the divine word and human speech
After the Council of Nicaea, all danger of Subordinationism being removed, it was possible to seek in the analogy of human speech some light on the mystery of the Divine generation; the Greek Fathersespecially refer to this analogy, in order to explain how this generation is purely spiritual and entails neither diminution nor change: Dionysius of Alexandria (Athan., "De Sent. Dion.", 23, in P.G., XXV, 513); Athanasius ("De decret. Nic. syn.", 11, in P.G., XXV, 444); Basil ("In illud: In principio erat Verbum", 3, in P.G., XXXI, 476-77); Gregory of Nazianzus ("Or.", xxx,20, in P.G., XXXVI, 128-29) Cyril of Alexandria (" Thes." iv, in P.G., LXXV, 56; cf. 76, 80; xvi, ibid., 300; xvi, ibid., 313; "De Trinit.", dial. ii, in P.G., LXXV, 768 69), John Damasc. ("De Fide Orthod.", I, vi, in P.G., XCIV, 804).

St. Augustine studied more closely this analogy between the Divine Word and human speech (see especially On the Holy Trinity IX.7.12 sq. and XV.10.17 sq.), and drew from it teachings long accepted in Catholic theology. He compares the Word of God, not to the word spoken by the lips, but to the interior speech of the soul, whereby we may in some measure grasp the Divine mystery; engendered by the mind it remains therein, is equal thereto, is the source of its operations. This doctrine was later developed and enriched by St. Thomas, especially in "Contra Gent.", IV, xi-xiv, opusc. "De natura verbi intellectus"; "Quaest. disput. de verit." iv, "De potent.", ii-viii, 1, "Summa Theol.", I-I, xxvii, 2; xxxiv. St. Thomas sets forth in a very clear way the identity of meaning, already noted by St. Augustine (On the Holy Trinity VII.2.3), between the terms Son and Word: "eo Filius quo Verbum, et eo Verbum quo Filius" ("Summa Theol.", I-I, xxvii, 2, "Contra Gent.", IV, xi). The teaching of St. Thomas has been highly approved by the Church especially in the condemnation of the Synod of Pistoia by Pius VI(Denzinger, "Enchiridion", 1460). (See JESUS CHRIST; TRINITY.)​

I must admit that I'm way out of my depth discussing this. I'm satisfied that since our human intellect couldn't possibly reach a full understanding of the omnipotent God other that what has been revealed to us, therefore, we won't fully understand the Logos this side of Heaven.

 

Have you prayed and fasted about this? I have found that prayer and fasting are often necessary to reach a better understanding of the Gospel.

 

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Anthony, there is both simplicity and scandal in our faith.

The simple part is by no means easy to understand. God the Father uttered one Word and everything good is contained in that eternally begotten Son, who is a co-equal person in the Trinity. The Love between the Fahter and the Son is the Holy Spirit, who is the co-equal 3rd person in the Trinity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are unchanging and eternally present. We were created "good" and were to have our place within the love of the Trinity. The scandal part comes in because of what humanity did when we fell.

The Eternal Word (2nd Person of the Trinity), chose to take on flesh as part of His creation (gasps in heaven and wonderment in hell), so that by Him joining our humanity, we might join Him in His divinity, and once more be in union with the Fahter in the love of the Spirit. The scandal of the Cross is even worse that the Eternal Word becoming flesh because He took on all our sins and allowed us to both crucify Him and (for many) join Him on the cross by uniting our lives to His.

We did not chose for the Eternal Unchanging Word to take on flesh and punctuate His entire life on earth by the way He suffered, died, rose, and ascended back to the Father (with us who move in faith towards the cross on our daily journey).

It is indeed scandalous for the Logos of God to take on flesh and speak like we do!!! And yet, it is He who chose to do that (and much, much more) in order to save His creation. But Why???

Never underestimate what God does in His creation. I mentioned in my earlier post that when God created Adam and Eve, He said they were "very good". Do you know what that means? It means He put His Spirit into them. They (and therefore we) were created little less than God themselves and He felt that they (and we all) were so valuable that He would sent His own Logos into the flesh so that the flesh could again be a part of His Logos and Himself with the Holy Spirit.

Words are much underestimated in this life Anthony, and we should chose each one with great care. We are allowed by God to help create the next moment of existence on this earth. Will it be closer to the kingdom of Heaven, or further away though our words and actions? Actions are how we are to become the "Word" to others, So let's just talk human words, and their power, for a minute.

You know how Sacraments are an outward expression of an inward grace that God is giving us, well, how does a Priest, in personna Christe, administer these Sacraments? Words and Deeds.

If there is one "word" that will get us close to the Logos of God, it is Love. God is Love. We can't understand exactly what that all entails, but that does not mean we can't understand enough to give back to Him what He gave us first, Love. God comes to humanity through human experiences because that's how He wants us to understand Him, not because we are simple creatures who don't know any better.

From the beginning, there has been a dance of Love between the Creator and Humanity. Yes, many times we have been unfaithful in our part, but that does not stop Him from wanting to draw us closer to Him. God initiates some invitation to us, we have the opportunity to respond, our response determines how God will proceed so that His Divine Will is accomplished. This "Word" of His is coming to us in every moment of creation. Think of Moses and the burning bush. God initiated and invitation by allowing Moses to see the burning bush. Moses could have said, that's cool, but I have sheep to get home. Or (as we know) His response was to check out the bush. I don't have to belabor the rest because you get the point.

Back to the word "Love". Eros, Filios, Agape, all love. Does that diminish the word at all? If you are getting married and you saw your future wife walking down the isle towards you, how did you feel? How did you feel when you embraced each other for the first time? How did you feel when your first child was born or when you saw your sick parent slip into their eternal rest. The word Love is the outward expression, but the heart is where the Word of God takes on flesh within us to be born in every moment of every day that we allow Him to do so. This in no way diminishes Him (who is Love), my friend. This action of His, that He chooses to do, raises us up to be more like the Son or Daughter that He created us to be. He is always and everywhere inviting, all we have to do is respond in the ways that He did while He was on this earth. God comes to us through nature because He wants to. He would not have had to die on the cross if this creation of His was not, in His eyes, worth saving.

Do not worry about the Logos of God being expressed in simple human words. Rather, be thankful that our Father cared enough about us, that He allows His Word to be born into our hearts upon hearing them.

Peace,
Ed
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Beautiful Ed. Utterly beautiful.

 

Thank you for those references.
The problem remains though of making human comparisons with a three personed Deity that is infinite in nature.
Personally I think that the
Incarnation itself contains certain key messages and insights that are metaphysical and help us to try understand these mysterious realities of God.

 

Thank you for that Ed.
You put a lot of thought and effort into that fine post.
It put me to thinking .
One : since there is no gender in God why should the first person be called Father or He?
Again these are human images.
Also since God is not a human being how is it possible for God to utter words?
Two : did the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity suffer any reduction on becoming man.?
The Catholic Church teaches that in the Hypostatic Union God remains fully God and that I accept completly.
It is still very mysterious.
Christ is fully man and fully God.
However the continued references to the 1st person of the Trinity as God the Father as He are somewhat problematical.
I suppose these are the best we can do as humans but a lot of the language surrounding the Holy Trinity is humanistic and hierarchical in nature and in my view can actually be unhelpful.

 

Some articles of faith are mysteries
We will never understand them fully and if we go to Heaven we will spend eternity contemplating the Beatific Vision
We do know that God created us in His image and likeness
He created us male and female and He created families when He told us to be fruitful and multiply
Some things we accept on Faith

 

St Paul said
"Now we see through a glass darkly but then
Face to face"