St. Thomas brought me into the Catholic church from almost converting to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Read him directly, he will be my confirmation saint ❤️
Fr Seraphim Rose explains how Thomas Aquinas in part lead to rationalism and atheism in Western Society in his lectures titled “Orthodox Survival Course.”
@@amaledward2147 The Latin Church birthed the Protestant movement. Some of its bad theology and rationalism (from scholastics like Aquinas) were passed along through the reformers. The bad theology and rationalism baked into the cake of Western Christianity (Roman Catholic AND Protestant) is a stumbling block for many people.
@@ericlammerman2777 Sorry, but that's just not true. First, by dicrediting rationalism, you discredit both orthodox and catholic theology. Theology, as the study of God (to the certain extent our finite minds can comprehend even a tiny glimpse of the divine majesty) is the study of Reason. Recall that the Protestants have ursurped the word "Word" to refer to God the Son in order to support the heretical sola scriptura, however in the original Greek text, God the Son is called "Logos" by Saint John, which of course means word, but also, means reason, rationality. Protestant Theology might seem much rational to you, but it's actually not, it's entirely legalistic, even the mystery of the Cross is seen as a legal transaction making no sense (see also the irrational doctrines of Calvinism) and God the Father is seen as a paranoid monster devoid of reason doing whatever He wants for no reason at all. Also, you have to recall that the Fathers of our Church have always been intelligent intellectuals, masters of secular philsophy and science. Saint Palamas was an intellectual being in no way inferior to Barlaam and his supposed rationalism. You might like mysticism more but it's not fair to project your own inclinations to the whole Church and creating false dichotomies.
Thank you for your insights Father. After recently reading the Didache, didn’t the Apostles teach within it the acceptance of both triple full immersion and triple sprinkling?
I would challenge the notion that Aquinas is overly rational. In the beginning of the Summa he says "Now, because we cannot know what God is, but rather what He is not, we have no means for considering how God is, but rather how He is not." ST.1.Q3, joining the fathers in the practice of apophatic theology. Certainly the Aristotelian terminology which he uses to articulate the perennial truths of the faith was new but he did that because that was the language in vogue in his day and as Pope Benedict said (I'm paraphrasing here because I can't find the quote) "the job of the theologian is to articulate the perennial truths of the faith so that the people of his time can begin to grasp them."
I know this is quite unrelated but today i asked my spiritual father (i'm a catechumen) if a person that's outside of the Church, me, basically, can receive the mystery of Confession and he said that it was possible. Is this correct? Thank you for the content and God bless!
Before a person is received into the Orthodox Church they can meet with an Orthodox priest or spiritual father, confess their sins and seek advice on how to repent and struggle against sin. However, Confession as a Mystery involves the priest then placing his stole over the person and praying for their forgiveness, and this part can only be done after a person has been received into the Church.
Of course. Absolute divine simplicity of Aquinas is diametrically opposed to the Orthodox doctrine of essence / energies that the great St Gregory was good enough to elucidate for everyone who lacked understanding.
@@azamatbagatov6685The Triads; Apodictic Treatises on the Procession of the Holy Spirit; Dialogue Between an Orthodox and a Barlaamite. Orthodox Ethos has the apodictic treatises for sale at Uncut Mountain Press.
Aquinas and the scholastics' approach to theology is fundamentally wrong. It is not that we cannot make logical deducations and draw valid inferences. It is that we must use sylogisms and such to expound and defends clear, patristic ideas--not make new ones. The faith was delivered once and for all to the saints. (Jude 1:4) We don't develop new doctrines with philosophy. The idea that there really were scholastics who "answered" the question "how many angels can stand on the head of the pin," something clearly the Church has never taken any interest in, speaks of the vapid and bankrupt nature of the scholastic approach as compared to the syllogisms of St Gregory Palamas and others who devised valid logical argumentation in defense of concrete, patrisitic antecedents.
Sure, I am everything and more. Demonstrate that what was written is incorrect or concede that what is there, as stated, is factual. Even a broken clock is right twice the day. Surely you have more substance behing your position than a simple ad hom, right?@@iteadthomam
Well, since he openly preached heresy, commemorated a heretical anathematised line of bishop "the pope"..........he's a heretic, nothing more, nothing less. Christ have mercy upon him.
Aquinas is that guy or scholastic philosopher who by rediscovering Aristotle open the gates and windows to rationalism. It is good in someway but not for mysticism or faith at all. Because later reformers will pick up that ratio and it will lead people to abandoning God. And death to philosophy at all. In nowadays. It is sad. And it is apostasy... And of course he is out of patriotic vision and stance of Holy Fathers. Just a man mixing faith with philosophy. "If he have chance to return back now and see to what his work go....maybe he will reject and burn them"... I can say this also about reformers, especially M. Luther. To see what its done to Church at all and ruin...
Of course his theology was wack. But I think I think he was simply a product of his environment, Saint mark of Ephesus loved him and as well as st gennadius. They of course rejected his theology but as a person they really appreciated him.
@@heartmind4267 “I do not think that any one of his followers has honored Thomas Aquinas more than I. Nor does anyone who becomes his follower need any other muse […] If only most excellent Thomas you had not been born in the West, then you would not have been obliged to justify the errors of that Church, concerning for instance the procession of the Spirit and the distinction between the divine essence and the divine energy or operation. Then you would have been as infallible in theological matters as you are in this treatise on ethics.” Saint Gennadius Scholarius
@@pah9730 I don’t know but it doesn’t really matter cause aquinas was dead 200 years before Florence, so the council would have no effect on how one would feel about him
@@johngraves11 St Augustine introduced the notion of Predestination in the Church - and he would also support the Filioque had he been asked to, but he is still a saint of the Orthodox Church and a hero of Christianity. Nobody is going to call him "heretic" or hyper-rationalist. What you will hear is that the Church doesn't support his "personal" theological views, which were expressed quite early, when theology was not quite ripe, nobody is infallable - even the saints - so Augustine passes the exams... :)
My understanding of St. Thomas Acqinas, an Dominican 13th century priest is he emerged as a systematic theologian who compiled the largest summary of Christian teaching in a book called the Summa. This happened after the Muslims had conquered Constanople and renamed it Istanbul, after the Muslims had conquered 2/3rd of Spain and 1/3rd of France, and wanted to take what is Italy. Islam had conquered the middle east and reduced the Christians to a small percentage of the population. A common practice that the Muslims did upon conquest of Christian societies was to burn their libraries and churches, making it difficult to preserve the Christian religion. Acqunas goal was to preserve the Christian teachings, mostly taught by the Eastern Orthodox. He focused on Aristotle Ethics reguarding the virtues and vices, preserved by Christian monastics, yes Orthodox monasticism. He challenged the thought of Islam and pagans, not a East vs West, but used the method of scholasticm to preserve Christian thought, ethics, and spirituality in known world conquered by Islam or pagans who never knew Christ. He was brilliant. Unfortunately the Black Death killed 80% of the priests in the Dominican Order forcing them to cease much of their work, not to mention 50% of the European population. Another reason for Acquinas to want to preserve Christian teachings. He is known for advancing "systematic theology aka scholasticm." His methods allowed for teaching and preaching against heresies and offering the sacrament of confessions to the repentent for healing the soul. His writings can be found on the website Advent along with all the writings of the early Church Fathers, translated from the Greek to Latin and now English. If anything the Eastern churches should respect Acqinas who preseved the libraries of Christianity and teaching of the Church. Fathers. I dont think there is quarrel over the content of these libraries but how to share them. Unfortunately for the Western Catholic church the libraries were maintained in monasteries in ancient languages of Greek or Latin that the majority of illiterate Catholics could not access. We live in a blessed time as these great books have been translated to a literate laity who at last can now read the grea works of the great saints never before made available to the common person in the 2000 history of Christianity. What a treasure!!!
We have no need for his compilation when we have the original sources. It is best for the Orthodox to stick to Orthodox sources only. Only then do we not have weariness of heresy. Aquinas is not a Saint.
The rich collections of byzantine art, Greek writings (including the organon of Aristotle) had arrived to the west as a product of Catholic pillaging (of course, this includes rape and murder) of the eastern orthodox cathedrals during their "holy war" carried out via what we now know as the "Crusades" (1050-1300). It's interesting to note that the eastern orthodox were under an Ottoman [Muslim] Empire for hundreds of years; under this empire they [The Eastern Orthodox] were given [by the Muslims] a comparatively felicitious freedom of open religious practice and preservation of tradition (within Christian communities) that far exceeded in virtue (as far as the east is from the west) the barbarous treatment (infliction of torture and other heinous acts) to which the Eastern Orthodox were subjugated at the hands of the Catholic Empires so-called "Crusaders". The dark ages for the west were a time of growth and furnishing for the east (there was no decline in learning or cultural prosperity). However, the successful pillaging of the crusades in conjunction with a certain stimulus inherent in the cultural pressures of polemics, had made the west an optimal breeding ground for the labors of worldy spirits to multiple worldy enterprises (Hence, The liberal empire of Papl protestantism and its reformed offspring that later engendered its varigated multiplicity of ever-multiplying strains.) The value of Thomas Aquinas' academic work was summed up best by his very own words of appraisal “Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears as so much straw.” You see, Aquinas had a mystical experience in Christ wherein he had received revelation ("secrets revealed") which provided sufficient light with which to conclude the ultimate worth of his academic toil. Not un-typical of the Western spirit, many have ignored the authors final statements on this matter. The temptation with which the rational mind is enticed upon perusing such relics of thought is too great an obstacle to overcome unaided by The Holy Spirit. Many have ignored Aquinas and went on to toil after a Summa Theologica of their own --one species of it or another; some more secular than others, all equally strawlike; Aquinas' conclusion holds for all works that are based upon his; They are "all so much straw".
@christianspraying1688 Most unfortunately my friend, the more fanatic and illiterate a man is, the more rude he becomes. The last four decades, St. Gregory Palamas has became very popular among the Orthodox cycles - not always for the best of reasons. Most of them haven't read a single line from Aquinas and, as for St. Gregory, the only thing they know is that "he made the distinction between God's essence and God's energies, contrary to Aquinas". For certain kinds of personalities, that is enough in order to start their own contra-crusade in the Internet! Please be lenient. Thank you.
For God to be love, He has to be a trinity: the lover (the father), the loved (the Son) and the love between them (the Holy Ghost)...who proceeds FROM the Father and the Son. Makes PERFECT trinitarian sense.
It might make rational sense to human thinking but it makes nonsense of Godhead and the revelation received. Christ declared it in no uncertain terms and the Church codified it in the Creed: the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father-the Source and Principle of unity. The ‘west’ in their vain speculations overturned this antinomy of the absolutely identical and absolutely different-nature and person-where the identity of Persons are more or less swallowed up by the one Essence; the principle of unity no longer being the Father but the common nature, with the Persons being “the inner relationship of the essence which it diversifies.” This is some other God of human imagination.
It doesn't, no. The Father is the Source, the Son is Only-begotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeds. Everything else the Holy Trinity shares. If any two Persons share a faculty that the other Person does not it imbalances the Holy Trinity, subordinating the other Person. Your idea is just weird.
as long as people refer as "we" - go away, there is no "we", its you finish, you are not other people, you are not your mother, not your priest, not your church, you are you, unique and not shizophrenic.
As members, united in the one body of Christ, WE, partake of the One Holy Communion. Repent and join us or simply leave us be. “16The cup of blessing which WE bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?† The bread which WE break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? bookmarked17 For WE, though many, are one bread and one body; for WE all partake of that one bread.” ~ 1 Corinthians 10:16-17
@@makingsmokesince76 paul doesnt talks about organized religion which doesnt exist at this time(not even now with over 10000 christian groups). Same as "the word" understood as bible by billions of people doesnt exist, its a non christian concept- logos
@@makingsmokesince76 also its an teaching, not a guy answering a question, if you get a question you answer with "I" not with "we", at least if you are not shizophrenic
Just say he was a heretic! That's exactly what we Orthodox all know and all Saints would say the same! Don't try yo avoid the obvious and simple answer. Period.
@@colefriel3171An exception is not the rule, and even if he had some affinity for the man, he still knew Aquinas was heretical in expounding and defending the ‘errors of the Latins.’
@@sihtnaelkk2187 it works by not being autistic. By looking to Thomas as a friend, and saying, “thank you for being there when I needed you” You can be the judge on his salvation- I won’t even dare get into that.
@@sihtnaelkk2187this has happened more than once surprisingly. A Soviet Siberian abortion doctor had a dream where Aquinas showed him all of the children he helped kill. It drew him to repentance and he became Orthodox.
@@sihtnaelkk2187 Aquinas adheres to the RC dogmas due to his birth and naturally, especially during his time without internet access or a wide array of information and communication with other traditions, his beliefs were more subject to his inheritance and obviously God is good and compassionate so takes these things into account. I don‘t mean to say this in a certain way, but God in his Love would fully understand and it would follow IF Aquinas is in heaven, would intercede for the Orthodox Church. We know where the Church is, not where it isn‘t…
