Ferumbras

Beginning with the publication of the Tahafut al Falasafiyah by Abu Hamid Ibn Al Ghazali in 1095 AD, the decline of Islamic civilization has been steady. The result is the contemporary manifestation of salafist takfir-making sectarianism which defines a martyr as a human suicide explosive. We revisit the defense of Christendom with a new eye to this resurgent war - the Jihad as global Muslim outreach.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Dehellenization, the Church and the face of Jihad to come

The Question:
Romans 1:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel,
for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Why the Greek? Why did the Apostle in an address to Romans make this reference to Greeks?
Why did he not write specifically, 'to the Jew first and then the Roman'? Or more broadly 'to the Jew first then the Gentile'?

These questions I wil allow to sit, the issue is that "Greek" as well as "Jew" are fundaments of what is now Catholic. The assertion that Christianisty is a phenomenon of jewish origin is only a partial truth.

Thus the reformed evangelical emphasis on sola scriptura does not stand because sola scriptura cannot of itself explain the nuanced meanings of the New Testament, originally written in Greek, without discernment of the Greek foundations of its textaul basis. The words do not stand in the text isolated from the cultural nuances of their meaning - thus the first chapter of the Gospel of John is only partially understood if read in the translated text, be it Vulgate or German or English without recourse to the Greek and the textures of meaning which surround Logos in the context of that chapter.

The understanding of the hypostatic union of the Logos with the man Jesus is not feasible outside of the Greek context. The emphatic necessity of liguistic and conceptual clarity with regard to the hypostatic union of the human and divine natures of Christ is thrust upon us by the Jihadists who would declare Catholicism polytheism and catholics as mushrikun - those who join partners with Allah. Of course we do not join partners with Allah, but then how is this explained, how are Muslims to be evangelized if we ourselves do not understand the Hypostatis which is a fundamental of the Catholic faith? Quicumque vult salvus esse...

In the face of the growing threats from secularism and Jihadism, the simplistic proof texting of the Evangelical is inadequate to the challenge. Sola scriptura fails to meet the chalenge.

Imperfect understandings of the hypostatic union of the Divine and human in Christ gave rise to monophysitism and nestorianism and the initial schism of the Church at the time of Ephesus and Chalcedon.

It was the rejection of the Ephesene definitions which gave rise to the Quranic misrepresentations of Christianity and the 1400 years of conflict which arose from sectarian confusion regarding the nature of Christ and of His Mother as Theotokos.

Dehellenization as decried by the Pope in his Regensberg address is more than an academic issue, it threatens the very understanding of the nature of our Redeemer as has been understood since the foundation of the Church. Indeed it threatens our understanding of daily reality. And this latter is alluded to in the final sentences of this address. More later.

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