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Book Study The Great Heresies By Hilaire Belloc Chapter 2 The Scheme of This Book
The Great Heresies
by Hilaire Belloc
Chapter 2: The Scheme of This Book
* View
Heresies as attacks on the Catholic Church (except for the Moslem and modern
attacks)
* their
failure and causes of their failure
* the
present struggle and the survival of the Church in the culture which she
created and which is abandoning her. The
reason for the view of attack of the Church is because it is the institution
proclaiming itself today the sole authoritative and divinely appointed teacher
of essential morals and essential doctrine.
He makes a distinction between two arguments:
1.
The historicity of the church and its claims,
namely the claim of the authority to declare what are the morals that should be
followed
2.
the validity of
those claims
Whether the claim be true or
false has nothing whatever to do with its historical origin and
continuity. (p10) This organism that
makes this claim and has done for 2000 years is The Church.
Against this claim
(authority) are 5 main attacks. He
chooses 5 because they exemplify the framework of all of the attacks. They are discussed in historical order in
which they occurred.
1.
The Arian,
2. The Mohammedan, 3. The Albigensian,
4. The Protestant, 5. “The Modern”
1.
The Arian
proposed a change of fundamental doctrine.
Had this change prevailed, the whole nature of the religion would have
been transformed. It would also have
failed.
· This heresy lasted through the 4th century
and into the 5th century.
· It proposed to attack the authority of the church by
attacking the Divinity of Jesus
· More serious to the attack is its underlying motive
was a rationalizing of the mystery upon which the Church bases herself; they
mystery of the Incarnation.
· Arianism was in fact an attack on the difficulties
attached to mysteries as a whole thought though the way to attack all mysteries
is to attack the first and fundamental mystery.
· It was an attack against the supernatural. By removing the supernatural one withdraws
from religion all that by which religion lives.
2.
The Mohammedan (began in the 7th
century from Mecca and Medina) attack was different in that it was
geographically outside the area of Christendom.
It was a “foreign enemy” It was not a new religion attacking the old, it
was a Heresy but from the circumstances of its birth it was a heresy alien
rather than intimate. It threatened the
Church by invasion rather than from within.
3.
The Albingensian (12th and 13th centuries in Southern France) attack
was but the chief of a great number of all which drew their source from the
Manichean conception of a duality in the Universe;
· The conception that good and evil are ever struggling
as equals and,
· That the Omnipotent (unlimited) Power is neither
single nor beneficent (charitable)
· Matter is evil
· All pleasure, especially of the body, is evil
· This was an attack upon morals more than on doctrine
· It was like a cancer from within the Church, producing
a life of its own that was antagonistic to the life of the Church
4.
The Protestant (The Reformation Period was from 1517-1648) attack differed from the rest
especially in characteristic,
· It did not promulgate new doctrine or a new authority
· It made no attempt to create a new church
· It had as its own principle the denial of unity
· It had as its goal to change that which a “Church” in
the old sense of the word-that is, as an infallible, united, teaching body, a
Person speaking with Divine authority—should be denied
· It was not arguing doctrine (at least in the
beginning)
· It was a denial of the authority of the Church to
claim and advance doctrine with a unique authority
· Two protestants may affirm contradictory doctrines
from each other but remain “Protestant” because they are communicating in the
fundamental conception that the Church is not a visible, definable and a united
personality, that there is no central infallible authority, and that therefore
each is free to choose his own set of doctrines.
· So, the Protestant protests two things; the denial of
unity (One Church) and the denial of that one Church’s claim of authority
5.
The Modern
(emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) might
have been called “alogos” for those who belittled or denied, the divinity of
Christ even as they called themselves Christian. People used to feel about this type of
rationalism the same way we feel about a color-blind man, that they have
something missing in their ability to apprehend (understand). Positivism is another descriptive word
because the modern movement relies on things that can be proved by experiment
· That only is true which can be appreciated by the
senses and subjected to experiment.
· That what can be believed is what can be measured and
tested by repeated (trial.
· Religious affirmations are thought to be illusions
· God itself and all that follows on it is man-made and
a figment of the imagination
To concentrate our attention on
each in turn teaches us
· The character of our religion
· The strange truth that men cannot escape sympathy with
it or hatred of it
· This study of 5 sums up all the directions from which
assault can be delivered against the Faith
· It is the nature of the Church to provoke the anger
and attack of the world
Belloc differentiates between
the heresies and the schisms. Schisms
are an attack on the life of the Church as are the heresies; the greatest
schism of all, the Greek or Orthodox, which has produced the Greek or Orthodox
communion is manifestly a disruption of our strength. But, he still separates
them and decides to discuss the heresies.
Book Study: The Great Heresies by Hilaire Belloc, Chapter 1
Each summer, our Bible study group meets and we choose a particular study. We have studies such books as St. Benedict's Rule, St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa, Dante's Inferno, St. Augustine's Trinity, and G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, and epic poem Lepanto. Last summer, we decided to forego studying a book and visited the Holy Doors around our archdiocese.
A member of our group suggested Hilaire Belloc. While not as well known today as G.K. Chesterton, in his lifetime he was extremely well known and a Catholic Historian. If you are interested in knowing more about his life, Joseph Pearce wrote a biography of Belloc entitled, Old Thunder.
The following are notes from the first chapter of Belloc's book, THE GREAT HERESIES.
Chapter 1 organized to outline the main points of each chapter.
A member of our group suggested Hilaire Belloc. While not as well known today as G.K. Chesterton, in his lifetime he was extremely well known and a Catholic Historian. If you are interested in knowing more about his life, Joseph Pearce wrote a biography of Belloc entitled, Old Thunder.
The following are notes from the first chapter of Belloc's book, THE GREAT HERESIES.
Chapter 1 organized to outline the main points of each chapter.
The Great Heresies
by Hilaire Belloc
her·e·sy
ˈherəsē/ this is the popular definition today but is too limited
in regards to how Belloc uses the term.
We briefly discussed the definition, including the boundaries, of the
term as used in this book.
noun
1.
belief or opinion
contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine.
"Huss
was burned for heresy"
synonyms:
|
dissension, dissent, nonconformity, heterodoxy, unorthodoxy, apostasy, blasphemy, freethinking; More
|
o opinion
profoundly at odds with what is generally accepted.
"cutting capital
gains taxes is heresy"
Chapter 1. Heresy
This is the popular definition today but is too limited in regards to how Belloc uses the term. We briefly discussed the definition, including the boundaries, of the term as used in this book.
her·e·sy ˈherÉ™sÄ“/ noun
1. belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine.
"Huss was burned for heresy"
synonyms:
|
dissension, dissent, nonconformity, heterodoxy, unorthodoxy, apostasy, blasphemy, freethinking; More
|
o opinion profoundly at odds with what is generally accepted.
"cutting capital gains taxes is heresy"
Why is understanding heresy
important?
* It is
important in the understanding of both the individual and society
* Heresy in
Christian doctrine is of special interest for anyone who would understand
Europe and
the story of Europe, the history of Europe
What is a heresy?
·
Heresy is the dislocation of some complete and
self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential
part therein (p. 2) (a truth taken to extreme, a truth with an essential
element missing)
·
Heresy means, then, the warping of a system by
“exception” by “picking out” one part of the structure and implies that the
scheme is marred by taking away one part of it, denying part of it, and either
leaving the void unfilled or filling it with some new affirmation (p. 2)
·
The word is derived from the Greek verb Haireo,
which first meant “I grasp” or “I seize,” and then came to mean “I take
away.” (footnote p. 2)
Based on a video on
YouTube: “The Great Heresies Part 1
Teaser” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlBoTr4txG8&t=9s
3 components of heresiology (study of heresies).
1.
Somehow
related to something larger than themselves.
They are part of a system they have adapted and taken a part of. Heresies don’t have to be Christian but they
react to Christianity. Every heresy is
an offshoot of the faith (whether distorts or adapts to it)
2.
Why do we argue about them? Is it just theology? Belloc says it is really sociology. Heresies shape and change society in a
powerful way. He wrote many books about
how Europe and Western civilization was shaped by Christian theology. It is not just about getting “the last word”
regarding theology. So “all of our
problems are theological problems.”
Belloc, “they will produce a way of living and a social character that
is at issue with irritating and perhaps kill the way of living that is produced
by orthodoxy and authentic Christianity.
3.
Written in the 1930s. Belloc says, Societies cannot function
without a Creed (set of beliefs). Individual
people can live without a creed but societies cannot.
Belloc’s first chapter is meant
to explain
* the modern
eras attitude about heresy and why it is wrong
* why it is important for us to
understand what heresy is and how theology impacts the culture
* The
self-evident fact that Western culture was formed by the religion
Christianity. It is important to
understand movements in history and culture and how the heresies have shaped
the culture and how Christianity, if responsible for the culture, in order to
preserve the culture, must preserve Christianity and not follow some heresy.
He gives excellent examples of a
few modern heresies (p. 7)
· Communism
is the heresy against “dominion”
a Christian belief. Communism proposes
that it is evil for the individual or family should have dominion over any
property but property should be owned by all.
Communism would say that owning goods is immoral. This is a rejection of the dominion over the
earth of the individual. It is a heresy
because it is a taking away of the moral scheme of which we have lived of a
particular part, the denial of that part, and the attempt to replace it.
CCC response
ARTICLE 7
THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT
THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT
You shall not steal.186
2401 The seventh commandment forbids unjustly taking or keeping
the goods of one's neighbor and wronging him in any way with respect to his
goods. It commands justice and charity in the care of earthly goods and the
fruits of men's labor. For the sake of the common good, it requires respect for
the universal destination of goods and respect for the right to private
property. Christian life strives to order this world's goods to God and to
fraternal charity.
2402 In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources
to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by
labor, and enjoy their fruits.187 The goods of creation are
destined for the whole human race. However, the earth is divided up among men
to assure the security of their lives, endangered by poverty and threatened by
violence. The appropriation of property is legitimate for guaranteeing the
freedom and dignity of persons and for helping each of them to meet his basic
needs and the needs of those in his charge. It should allow for a natural
solidarity to develop between men.
2403 The right to private property, acquired or
received in a just way, does not do away with the original gift of the earth to
the whole of mankind. The universal destination of goods remains
primordial, even if the promotion of the common good requires respect for the
right to private property and its exercise.
2404 "In his use of things man should regard the external
goods he legitimately owns not merely as exclusive to himself but common to
others also, in the sense that they can benefit others as well as himself."188 The
ownership of any property makes its holder a steward of Providence, with the
task of making it fruitful and communicating its benefits to others, first of
all his family.
· Heresy
of Divorce no one calls the mass of
modern practice and affirmation upon divorce a heresy, but a heresy it clearly
is because its determining characteristic is the denial of the Christian
doctrine of marriage and the substitution therefore of another doctrine, to
wit, that marriage is but a contract, and a terminable contract.
CCC
1613 On the threshold of his public life Jesus performs his first
sign - at his mother's request - during a wedding feast.105 The
Church attaches great importance to Jesus' presence at the wedding at Cana. She
sees in it the confirmation of the goodness of marriage and the proclamation
that thenceforth marriage will be an efficacious sign of Christ's presence.
·
1614 In his preaching Jesus unequivocally taught the original meaning
of the union of man and woman as the Creator willed it from the beginning
permission given by Moses to divorce one's wife was a concession to the
hardness of hearts.106 The matrimonial union of man and woman
is indissoluble: God himself has determined it "what therefore God has
joined together, let no man put asunder."107
·
1615 This unequivocal insistence on the indissolubility of the
marriage bond may have left some perplexed and could seem to be a demand
impossible to realize. However, Jesus has not placed on spouses a burden
impossible to bear, or too heavy - heavier than the Law of Moses.108 By
coming to restore the original order of creation disturbed by sin, he himself
gives the strength and grace to live marriage in the new dimension of the Reign
of God. It is by following Christ, renouncing themselves, and taking up their
crosses that spouses will be able to "receive" the original meaning
of marriage and live it with the help of Christ.109 This grace
of Christian marriage is a fruit of Christ's cross, the source of all Christian
life.
·
1616 This is what the Apostle Paul makes clear when he says:
"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up
for her, that he might sanctify her," adding at once: "'For this
reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and
the two shall become one. This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to
Christ and the Church."110
·
Heresy
of the “modern attack” this is a heresy that has become
generalized and takes various forms. This
is a change by “exception” to affirm that nothing can be known upon divine
things that all is mere opinion and that therefore things made certain by the
evidence of the senses and by experiment should be our only guides in arranging
human affairs. Many who believe this may
retain Christian morals, but because they deny certitude from Authority, which
doctrine is a part of Christian epistemology, they are heretical. It is not heresy to say that reality can be
reached by experiment, by sensual perception and by deduction. It is heresy to say that reality can be
attained from no other source.
Modernism
is the most dangerous of all heresies because it destroys any basis for belief
in a supernatural world, whereas previous heresies had restricted themselves to
denying one or more teachings of the Catholic faith. (Pius X)
A Catholic Refutation of the Modernist Principles
For more than a century the Church has firmly
and consistently fought against the erroneous philosophical principles of Modernism
which now pervades the theological thought of the post conciliar Church to
a greater extent.
There can be no doubt that religious
indifferentism is the spirit which now pervades the ecumenical movement of the
post-conciliar Church which was long ago condemned by Pope Pius XI in
Encyclical Mortalium Animos and by the Syllabus of Errors (Dz 2918).
Cardinal Newman writing against the Liberals of
his day put it well say" What is the worlds religion now? . . . it
includes no true fear of God, no fervent zeal for His honour, no deep
hatred of sin, no horror at the sight of sinners, no indignation and
compassion at the blasphemies of heretics, no jealous adherence to
doctrinal truth . . . and therefore is neither hot nor cold but lukewarm
(Newman Against the Liberals, pp. 110)
http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/modernism/modnsm.htm
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