Salvation and Schrödinger's Cat

Great Bishop of Geneva! : 1) Makarios · 2) Once Saved, Always Saved - True for Church, Not True for All Christians Individually · 3) Protestants - Not - Getting Around Matthew 28 Last Three Verses: John Calvin's Attempt · 4) Barnes NOT getting around Matthew 28:20 ... · 5) Since St Francis of Sales had Real Objections to Calvinism ... 6) Contra Sproul 7) Barnes on Jewish Tradition 8) If Constantine had Founded the Catholic Church ... 9) Salvation and Schrödinger's Cat Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : 10) ... on Apostolic Succession, both as to Reasons and Answering an Objection or Two (quora)

When Schrödinger opens the box, he will know if the cat survived or died in a nitroglycerine explosion. Or whatever the lethal danger was. In our case it is called sin.

Schrödinger's cat: a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor detects radioactivity (i.e., a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, which kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality collapses into one possibility or the other.

Saying a Christian is at once sinner and justified as Luther did reminds of the Copenhagen interpretation of Schrödinger's cat.

It is obviously wrong about the cat. And Luther was obviously wrong about your soul.

However, what is true is that as long as the box is not opened, you don't know about the cat's survival.

And as long as you are not dead, you usually don't know whether you are going to Heaven or Hell if you die right now, not with complete certainty.

While one interpretation of 1 Timothy 1:15 is that St Paul is talking of his past life, he could also be treating his soul as the cat of Schrödinger : admitting it might be dead. And measuring the amount of deadness, if so.

I don't really know if St Paul is using historic present or describing a brief moment of mortal sin or else is taking the worst possibility into account.

But we do not need to take the Copenhagen school of what happens to Schrödinger's cat. And we do not need to take the Luther school about what St Paul meant. It is not without cause condemned in Trent or in Exsurge Domine or both.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris XI
Laetare Sunday
26.III.2017

If Constantine had Founded the Catholic Church ...

Great Bishop of Geneva! : 1) Makarios · 2) Once Saved, Always Saved - True for Church, Not True for All Christians Individually · 3) Protestants - Not - Getting Around Matthew 28 Last Three Verses: John Calvin's Attempt · 4) Barnes NOT getting around Matthew 28:20 ... · 5) Since St Francis of Sales had Real Objections to Calvinism ... 6) Contra Sproul 7) Barnes on Jewish Tradition 8) If Constantine had Founded the Catholic Church ... 9) Salvation and Schrödinger's Cat Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : 10) ... on Apostolic Succession, both as to Reasons and Answering an Objection or Two (quora)

Where did the Christian Church go?

Here is a scenario some believe in:

• Christ founded His Church;
  
  
• it was persecuted for 280 years to 313, when it was legalised;
  
  
• in 325, after a twelve years' pause, the heir of the Persecutors changed the Church by the Council of Nicaea;
  
  
• and the result of that change is the Catholic Church.

What happened to the Christian Church, if that is so, after 325?

There are some distinct possibilities:

• "It lived on beside the Catholic one, openly, only unlike it continued to be persecuted like those 280 years previous to the twelve years pause, and it lives on to this day."
  
  Right, where is it?
  
  
  • Arians who were immediately condemned at Nicaea are out for two reasons:
    
    
    • a) the last Arians ceased to exist when Visigoths became Catholics in Spain, and if any few stragglers lived on after that, they became Muslims and helped open the door to the Muslim invasion of Visigothic and so recently finally also Catholic Spain;
      
      
    • b) Arians had lived as persecutors of the Catholic (occasionally disestablished) Church twice:
      
      
      • i) between Constantine and Julian the Apostate;
        
        
      • ij) as Goth lords (sorry, can't resist the pun!) Visigoths in Southern France and in Spain (provoking the conquest by Clovis of Southern Gaul through persecution of Catholics there), occasionally Burgundians, Ostrogoths if not en masse at least were diffident of a Catholic intellectual, Theoderic the Great killed Manlius Boëthius on the suspicion of betraying his state of "religious tolerance". Vandals, but not sure if they were Arians, Idolaters or without any kind of Religious affiliation.
    
    
    
  • Ethiopian Church, which seems to be popular with some anti-Constantinians, since they keep the book of Henoch, are out for another reason with some historic instances:
    
    
    • they participated in Nicaea and condemned Arius;
      
      
    • they participated in Constantinople and condemned Macedonius;
      
      
    • they participated in Ephesus (or Ephesus I) and condemned Nestorius, insisting very clearly that the Blessed Virgin is indeed the Mother of God;
      
      
    • they were only themselves the condemned party as late as Chalcedon, which I just checked was held from October 8 to November 1, AD 451. They have some difference from Armenians, also refusing Chalcedon : Ethiopian and Egyptian Copts, a k a Jacobites, defend Eutyches, who was condemned at Chalcedon, while Armenians condemn him and say there is a position neither Eutychian nor Chalcedonian (and obviously not Nestorian either).
  
  
  
• "It lived on beside the Catholic one, but as a secret society."
  
  No. The Church of Christ cannot be a secret society. Not after Christ came.
  
  John 3: [16] For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. [17] For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him. [18] He that believeth in him is not judged. But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God. [19] And this is the judgment: because the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil. [20] For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved. [21] But he that doth truth, cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God.
  
  Note, the last verse excludes the Protestant reading of 3:16.
  
  Challoner says: He that doth truth: that is, he that acteth according to truth, which here signifies the Law of God. Thy law is truth. Psa. 118. 142.
  
  But all verses from 19 to 21 show that Christ cannot have meant His Church to exist in the shape of a secret society (after His arrival). See also prologue of St John, where precisely Incarnation is seen as posing the limit between when secret societies were licit (as "insider parts" of Jewish Church) and when it is no longer so.
  
  
• "It lived on in Waldensian and Irish margins."
  
  
  • Irish Christianity, like Ethiopian, very clearly is "Constantinian", if Catholic Church is so. St Patrick trained for his work as missionary bishop in a monastery in Gaul, under a Roman administration, or even two:
    
    
    • Marmoutier near Tours, founded in 372, by St Martin, 47 years after Nicaea, and
      
      
    • Lérins Abbey, founded in 410 and which had achieved greatness by 427, 102 years after Nicaea.
    
    
    So, St Patrick, Irish monks, and these were the famous Culdees, Catholic Monks, though not same rule as that of St Benedict, all go back to the Church which was legalised by Constantine and which assembled in Nicaea.
    
    
  • Even if you can somewhat doubtfully trace Waldensians back to Claude of Turin, you cannot trace Claude of Turin back to St Ambrose, as some have proposed, you can rather trace him to contemporary Iconoclasts : who were a sect of heretics having the fullest support of certain Byzantine Emperors, which is why Byzantine overlordship over the West decayed, being replaced by Pope crowning Charlemagne.
  
  
  
• "It lived in within the Catholic Church, and people who considered themselves as Catholic also truly belonged to it in an invisible way".
  
  
  • This is actually the solution of the Reformers, who were not so radical as certain later Protestants.
    
    Certain Protestants, such as Lutherans and Anglicans say that you must even adher to councils I to IV (Nicaea I, Constantinople I, Ephesus (I), Chalcedon) or even to Christological definitions a bit further on (Constantinople II and Constantinople III).
    
    I think the "six councils stand" is the more classical one, the "four councils stand" a reduction of it (popular among modernists who like to avoid Constantinople II and its condemnation of Origenism), while it also exists in an extended version among "High Church" : they also include Nicaea II, the Council which condemned Iconoclasm.
    
    I was basically High Church Lutheran before deciding to convert to the Catholic Church.
    
    
  • But this position also is problematic.
    
    
    • It makes the Church "invisible" both as to authority and as to what its teachings are, which contradicts Luke 10:16 (along with its parallel Ecclesiasticus 24:30), Luke 11:33 as well as Matthew 5:14 (note as per first words, the Sermon in St Matthew was spoken to the disciples, after they had withdrawn up into the mountain away from the crowd, it was only a bit later that He went down to the crowd and adressed them with the words in St Luke : the twelve apostles are therefore, with successors, the light of the world), 1 Timothy 3:15.
      
      
    • It poses the question of how to know when it became compulsory to leave the Catholic Church because it dogmatises "unbiblical positions" : how can we know that one could be Catholic and Christian in 1500 but not in 1600, because in between Catholicism had dogmatised "justification by works" (actually by faith and works, see James).
      
      
    • It makes even the personal adhesion to Christ's Church or to Christ doubtful : if St Bernhard belonged to the Church of Christ (as Luther thought) how is that notsmudged by his believing he belonged to the Catholic Church? If St Bernhard belonged to the Church of Christ by seeking salvation from Christ alone, without any obligation to adher to a Church, how is that not smudged by his believing that to adher to Christ involves adhering to His Church and getting salvation from Christ involves getting it by intermediary of the Sacraments of Christ's Church?
      
      Or, if nothing in St Bernhard's position can be shown to be opposed to the kind of non-Church adhesion to Christ (have you heard "Christianity, not Churchianity"?) which some say is required to be saved, why would today a Catholic NOT be saved by sharing the exact thoughts of St Bernhard on the matter?
      
      
    • Some have therefore admitted (quotation marks here for approximate quotes from memory, paraphrases) "the Catholic Church is the Mother Church, you could be saved as a Catholic before the Reformation, and can be saved as a Catholic even today", as Beza is claimed to have admitted to the patron of this blog, St Francis of Sales.
    
    
    Not unreasonably, St Francis of Sales replied "if so, why be Protestant, when we say it damns you, why not be Catholic, when you yourselves admit it doesn't damn you?"

Note, not just that that was obvious to me while I decided to convert, but by then I had long since left behind the idea of Constantine founding the Catholic Church as unhistorical. I was a history buff before I was a Catholic convert.

Also, I disliked the idea, as if being persecuted were the main duty of the Church through all centuries. As if being a state Church were some kind of unforgivable sin (the state Churches of Protestantism were sins as in being "one-state Churches" bound to monarch or city council rather than to Rome, not as in being established ones).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Monday after
III Lord's Day in Lent
which was also St Joseph
20.III.2017

On "Works of Supererogations"

I will not start with a direct proof text, here. I am going to a text which has been claimed to refute these, rather.

Luke 17:5 And the apostles said to the Lord; Increase our faith. [6] And the Lord said: If you had faith like to a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree, Be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea: and it would obey you. [7] But which of you having a servant ploughing, or feeding cattle, will say to him, when he is come from the field: Immediately go, sit down to meat: [8] And will not rather say to him: Make ready my supper, and gird thyself, and serve me, whilst I eat and drink, and afterwards thou shalt eat and drink? [9] Doth he thank that servant, for doing the things which he commanded him? [10] I think not. So you also, when you shall have done all these things that are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which we ought to do.

Comment by Challoner:

[10] Unprofitable servants: Because our service is of no profit to our master; and he justly claims it as our bounden duty. But though we are unprofitable to him, our serving him is not unprofitable to us; for he is pleased to give by his grace a value to our good works, which, in consequence of his promise, entitles them to an eternal reward.

Collected comments in Haydock: Ver. 5. Increase our faith. The disciples having heard our Saviour inculcating maxims hard to flesh and blood, such as avoiding scandal, and forgiving our enemies, humbly beg their faith may be increased, that they may be able to comply with these maxims; for they had heard Christ say, that every thing was possible to him that believed. (Theophylactus) --- Christ compares faith to a grain of mustard seed; because, though the grain be small, it is nevertheless stronger than most herbs. (St. Chrysostom)

Ver. 6. To this mulberry-tree. In St. Matthew, (xvii. 19.) we read, to this mountain. Christ might say both at different times. (Witham)

Ver. 7. The design and end of this parable is to shew that, rigorously speaking, we are useless servants with regard to God. This sovereign Master has a right to exact of us every kind of service, and to make us apply ourselves to any task he may think proper, without our having any reason to complain either of the difficulty, trouble, or length of our labours; we are entirely his, and he is master of our persons, time, and talents. We hold of him whatever we possess, and woe to us if we abuse his trust, by applying our talents to any use contrary to his designs. But though he be Lord and Master, he leaves our liberty entire. If he produces in us holy desires, if he works in us meritorious actions, gives us virtuous inclinations and supernatural gifts, he sets to our account the good use we make of them; and in crowning our merits, he crowns his own gifts. (St. Augustine, lib. ix. Confes. and Serm. 131.) (Calmet)

Ver. 10. Unprofitable servants. Because our service is of no profit to our Master; and he justly claims it as our bounden duty. But though we are unprofitable to him, our serving him is not unprofitable to us; for he is pleased to give, by his grace, a value to our good works, which, in consequence of his promise, entitles them to an eternal reward. (Challoner) --- The word useless, when joined to servant, generally means a servant from whom his master does not derive the service he has a right to expect; as in St. Matthew xxv. 30. Here the word is taken in a less odious sense. It means a servant who does not testify sufficient zeal and ardour in his master's service, who is not very eager to please him. With regard to God, we are always useless servants, because he wants not our services; and without his assistance, we can neither undertake nor finish any thing to please him. (Calmet)

Why did I come here?

Well, someone claimed that Anglicanism does believe Eucharist is a propitiatory sacrifice, I looked up 39 articles of religion and found, at least 39-articles Anglicanism does not do that (which is of course blatant heresy, condemned by Trent and by Tradition, by Hebrews "we have an altar" and by Malachi 1:11.

Now, while looking up the 39 articles, I also found this, which is clearly questionable exegesis, not to say eisegesis:

XIV. Of Works of Supererogation

Voluntary Works besides, over, and above, God's Commandments, which they call Works of Supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety: for by them men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required: whereas Christ saith plainly, When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We are unprofitable servants.

I would say that those who work miracles and tell mulberry trees to root themselves up and they do so are on the contrary really obedient to Christ who here said one "might" but does not command the apostles to do it.

Mustard Seed Faith is itself a supererogatory work over and above the faith in the articles of the Apostolic or Nicene Creed and their explanations in other dogma defined by the Church.

And Christ was recommending it, just after saying the "attitude formula" which Anglicans in Elisabeth's time claimed excluded supererogatory works.

The actual proof texts are there in any Catholic Catechism. Especially, selling all one has and giving it to the poor is mentioned twice over as such a thing. You can laud a man for doing it, you cannot blame me for not doing it. The rich man is told, not that he must do that to be saved, but that he must do that to be perfect. Ananias and Sapphira who pretended to comply with this supererogatory work were told it was such a thing, that they had been free to keep their possessions. In other words, Acts 2:44 is describing a supererogatory work:

Acts Of Apostles 2:44
And all they that believed, were together, and had all things common.

Did they have to, to be Christians? No, it is just that all who were were doing this supererogatory work.

The Acts Of The Apostles 5:[1] But a certain man named Ananias, with Saphira his wife, sold a piece of land, [2] And by fraud kept back part of the price of the land, his wife being privy thereunto: and bringing a certain part of it, laid it at the feet of the apostles. [3] But Peter said: Ananias, why hath Satan tempted thy heart, that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Ghost, and by fraud keep part of the price of the land? [4] Whilst it remained, did it not remain to thee? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thy heart? Thou hast not lied to men, but to God. [5] And Ananias hearing these words, fell down, and gave up the ghost. And there came great fear upon all that heard it.

I underline:

[4] Whilst it remained, did it not remain to thee? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power?

Having all things in common was a supererogatory work.

One which monks and friars and nuns and sisters were doing in England up to the Reformation.

And which Anglican and Royal Civil and Ecclesiastic Establishments ruthlessly sacked.

It is like sacking the first Church of Jerusalem. If this continued up to when Jerusalem Church fled to Pella, Henry VIII and Elisabeth and Edward VI between them (or rather his adult counsellors acting in his name, he died a boy) can be compared to Titus coming to sack Jerusalem.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Monday after St Joseph's Day
and Third Lord's Day in Lent
20.III.2017

Barnes on Jewish Tradition

Great Bishop of Geneva! : 1) Makarios · 2) Once Saved, Always Saved - True for Church, Not True for All Christians Individually · 3) Protestants - Not - Getting Around Matthew 28 Last Three Verses: John Calvin's Attempt · 4) Barnes NOT getting around Matthew 28:20 ... · 5) Since St Francis of Sales had Real Objections to Calvinism ... 6) Contra Sproul 7) Barnes on Jewish Tradition 8) If Constantine had Founded the Catholic Church ... 9) Salvation and Schrödinger's Cat Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : 10) ... on Apostolic Succession, both as to Reasons and Answering an Objection or Two (quora)

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible : 2 Timothy 3
http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/bnb/2-timothy-3.html

Verse 8

Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses - The names of these two men are not elsewhere mentioned in the Bible. They are supposed to have been two of the magicians who resisted Moses (Exodus 7:11, et al.), and who opposed their miracles to those of Moses and Aaron. It is not certain where the apostle obtained their names; but they are frequently mentioned by the Hebrew writers, and also by other writers; so that there can be no reasonable doubt that their names were correctly handed down by tradition. Nothing is more probable than that the names of the more distinguished magicians who attempted to imitate the miracles of Moses, would be preserved by tradition; and though they are not mentioned by Moses himself, and the Jews have told many ridiculous stories respecting them, yet this should not lead us to doubt the truth of the tradition respecting their names. A full collection of the Jewish statements in regard to them may be found in Wetstein, in loc.

They are also mentioned by Pliny, Nat. Hist. 30:7; and by Numenius, the philosopher, as quoted by Eusebius, 9:8, and Origen, against Celsus, p. 199. See Wetstein. By the rabbinical writers, they are sometimes mentioned as Egyptian magicians who opposed Moses in Egypt, and sometimes as the sons of Balaam. The more common account is, that they were the princes of the Egyptian magicians. One of the Jewish rabbins represents them as having been convinced by the miracles of Moses, and as having become converts to the Hebrew religion. There is no reason to doubt that these were in fact the leading men who opposed Moses in Egypt, by attempting to work counter-miracles. The point of the remark of the apostle here, is, that they resisted Moses by attempting to imitate his miracles, thus neutralizing the evidence that he was sent from God. In like manner, the persons here referred to, opposed the progress of the gospel by setting up a similar claim to that of the apostles; by pretending to have as much authority as they had; and by thus neutralizing the claims of the true religion, and leading off weak-minded persons from the truth. This is often the most dangerous kind of opposition that is made to religion.

...

Where did Barnes have it from that Jannes and Mambres (Barnes and the Bible of studylight have instead Jannes and Jambres) were precisely magicians of Pharao, and not other men who had resisted Moses on another occasion?

From tradition.

But the problem is he has this high regard for Jewish tradition of even rabbinical type, but not for Apostolic Tradition.

I wonder why?/HGL