Blunder, Gendron!

New blog on the kid: Refutation of Dr. Steven Nemes · I Heard the Cardinal Zen had Taken on Michael Lofton · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Michael Lofton on Marcel Lefebvre, Me on Both and on Pope Michael · Sola Scriptura is NOT My Position · Michael Lofton Responded to Cardinal Zen · Great Bishop of Geneva! Blunder, Gendron!

When I on a previous occasion tried to notify Mike Gendron on a reply to him, I somehow got myself subscribed to his newsletter. Today a paragraph just jumped out at me, there being so much wrong with it.

There is No Higher Authority than God and His Word

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16). In other words, Scripture is our supreme authority for knowing truth and correcting all that opposes it. Every word was breathed out by God, who cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18). Because of this, His inerrant Word must be the standard by which we discern truth from error (1 John 4:6). We also know that Scripture is sufficient to function as the sole infallible rule of faith, because it does not refer us to any other source for truth. Everything we must know, understand, and believe to be saved is found in Scripture (2 Tim. 3:14-16; 1 Cor. 15:1-4). Therefore, after considering any other source for truth, we must ask, "But what does the Scripture say?" (Gal. 4:30).

Let's pick it apart.

There is No Higher Authority than God and His Word

Correct so far. At least in what he says, if not in what he leaves a typical Protestant to imagine.

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16).

No quarrel with St. Paul.

In other words, Scripture is our supreme authority for knowing truth and correcting all that opposes it.

Or at least a very important part of the supreme authority.

Every word was breathed out by God, who cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18). Because of this, His inerrant Word must be the standard by which we discern truth from error (1 John 4:6).

Or at least a very important part of this standard.

We also know that Scripture is sufficient to function as the sole infallible rule of faith, because it does not refer us to any other source for truth.

No, this is a huge blunder.

It refers to both Magisterium and Tradition. Multiple times.

Everything we must know, understand, and believe to be saved is found in Scripture (2 Tim. 3:14-16; 1 Cor. 15:1-4). Therefore, after considering any other source for truth, we must ask, "But what does the Scripture say?" (Gal. 4:30).

II Tim. 3, I think 14—16 means what we consider 15—17, but I'll quote 14—17 for good measure.

14 But continue thou in those things which thou hast learned, and which have been committed to thee: knowing of whom thou hast learned them; 15 And because from thy infancy thou hast known the holy scriptures, which can instruct thee to salvation, by the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

16 All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, 17 That the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work.

The Old Testament Scriptures indeed instruct to salvation, but by the faith which is in Christ Jesus, i e by the Tradition of the New Testament. Notice in the verse we call 14, St. Paul does not remind St. Timothy about "in what book" but "from whom" he had learned.

I Cor 15, "according to scripture" is not a direct describer of the Gospel, but of the events in it, namely describes that they were prophecied in OT Scripture.

1 Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand; 2 By which also you are saved, if you hold fast after what manner I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. 3 For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received: how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures: 4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures:

If we want to include NT Scripture, it's not the Calvary and Resurrection accounts, it's Christ foretelling these events. The point being that the event matched the foretelling.

For Galatians 4, it can seem as if this quotemine were a straight appeal to Scripture on the exact same topic, taken in the literal sense. In fact, if we look at verse 30 in context, it is an appeal to typology, and "But what does the Scripture say?" simply means "you recall the story, right?" — a story for which St. Paul provides, in oral tradition to Galatians and in Epistle to them, the typological key:

21 Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, have you not read the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, and the other by a free woman. 23 But he who was of the bondwoman, was born according to the flesh: but he of the free woman, was by promise. 24 Which things are said by an allegory. For these are the two testaments. The one from mount Sina, engendering unto bondage; which is Agar: 25 For Sina is a mountain in Arabia, which hath affinity to that Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

26 But that Jerusalem, which is above, is free: which is our mother. 27 For it is written: Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not: break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband. 28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. 29 But as then he, that was born according to the flesh, persecuted him that was after the spirit; so also it is now. 30 But what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.

31 So then, brethren, we are not the children of the bondwoman, but of the free: by the freedom wherewith Christ has made us free.

Jews have exactly the same story about Isaac and Ishmael in Genesis, but they would deny the interpretative tradition of OT which comes with Christianity.

And while we are at it, it's not just the parts explicitly given such allegoric or typological interpretations in NT texts, it's all of the OT. Jesus gave the disciples of Emmaus a lesson in OT exegesis, Luke 24:

25 Then he said to them: O foolish, and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken.

26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into his glory? 27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the things that were concerning him. 28 And they drew nigh to the town, whither they were going: and he made as though he would go farther. 29 But they constrained him; saying: Stay with us, because it is towards evening, and the day is now far spent. And he went in with them.

So, Jesus spends hours walking with them and goes through all of the OT books in all parts. It says "in all the scriptures" and "Moses and all the prophets" ... here is one big source of truth mentioned in Scripture and more than just once, namely Jesus' oral teaching to His disciples — including a complete Christological typology, or in St. Paul's word "allegory" ... while in the NT texts we only see parts of it.

So, Jesus and Paul gave oral teaching. This, as to the content side is Tradition. But as to the authority side, it's Magisterium. Jesus is in the Vulgate several times over called Magister, and St. Paul in the quote given indirectly designates himself as the Magister of St. Timothy.

A charge he held from Jesus, through the twelve, through the disciples in Antioch (Acts 13). A charge Timothy held from him. A charge faithful bishops in communion with the true pope hold from such people.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St. Elisabeth of Portugal
8.VII.2024

130 Anathemas of Trent; the 5 First of Them

130 Anathemas of Trent; the 5 First of Them · 130 Anathemas, Session VI, Justification

Session V CONCERNING ORIGINAL SIN FIRST DECREE
Celebrated on the seventeenth day of the month of June, in the year 1546
http://www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch5.htm

Let's cite them in order as they stand:

1. If any one does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offence of prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse; let him be anathema.
2. If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:—whereas he contradicts the apostle who says; By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.
3. If any one asserts, that this sin of Adam,—which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propogation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own, —is taken away either by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, santification, and redemption; or if he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema: For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved. Whence that voice; Behold the lamb of God behold him who taketh away the sins of the world; and that other; As many as have been baptized, have put on Christ.
4. If any one denies, that infants, newly born from their mothers' wombs, even though they be sprung from baptized parents, are to be baptized; or says that they are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam, which has need of being expiated by the laver of regeneration for the obtaining life everlasting,—whence it follows as a consequence, that in them the form of baptism, for the remission of sins, is understood to be not true, but false, —let him be anathema. For that which the apostle has said, By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned, is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere hath always understood it. For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation. For, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
5. If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only rased, or not imputed; let him be anathema. For, in those who are born again, there is nothing that God hates; because, There is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism into death; who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man, and putting on the new who is created according to God, are made innocent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven. But this holy synod confesses and is sensible, that in the baptized there remains concupiscence, or an incentive (to sin); which, whereas it is left for our exercise, cannot injure those who consent not, but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; yea, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned. This concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin.

Few Fundie Protestants would deny this one:

1) If any one does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offence of prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse; let him be anathema.

However, there are some Modernist Catholics who do try to bend this into Adam didn't really exist as a person, mentioning his name is symbolism, not straightforward history and so on.

2) If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:—whereas he contradicts the apostle who says; By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.

I think people like Teilhard de Chardin, he personally may have had a clever way out of that, but pretty many who assert an evolutionary origin of man would say our sinful tendencies may be leftover luggage from our pretended evolutionary past.

Obviously, in the case the smartasses would like to say "well, we don't really say he only transfused death and pain to us, we say he didn't even transfuse that, since he had it from his ancestors" this won't wash, since Trentine Fathers appeal directly to Romans 5.

I'm not sure if "Jimmy Akin's position" [see below] (or one he has expressed previously at least) is immune from anathema. He mentions the possibility Adam was a representative of the rest of mankind. Were all of them immortal prior to Adam sinning? Where would pre-Adamite skeleta come from then? If they weren't, did they belong to the human race? If they weren't and they did belong to the human race, how was Adam's action transfusing death and pain to them, rather than simply confirming its already existance?

So, one first man, his sin transfuses both death and sin, and this is because he is the origin of everyone else. Eve from his side. All men other than himself and Eve some generation of children, grandchildren and so on (obviously, one can be different numbers of generation from a common ancestor at the same time: Lewis XVII of France and his sister Madame Royale descended from Henry IV of France through both of his martyred parents, but they were a different number of generations from him, Lewis XVI having ancestor 128 as Henry IV, while Marie-Antoinette had ancestor 40 as the same, making him both 256 and 80 to the never ruling siblings I mentioned, another common ancestor was Elisabeth Stuart, 45 to Marie Antoinette and 125 to Lewis XVI: so, one can be in different generations simultaneously froma common ancestor, including Adam). This means, everyone in the human race, except Adam who was the originator, and Mary and Jesus who were immune, got sin as well as death from his physical origin Adam.

3) If any one asserts, that this sin of Adam,—which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propogation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own, —is taken away either by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, santification, and redemption; or if he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema: For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved. Whence that voice; Behold the lamb of God behold him who taketh away the sins of the world; and that other; As many as have been baptized, have put on Christ.

Note, on the immunity of Mary from this sin, She was also saved from it, in a preventive manner, through the merits of Her Son.

Some Baptists may pretend infants don't get Adam's sin. They only get it later, when they imitate it. This is then wrong. It is shown wrong by the constant practise of the Church of baptising infants, when both parents are believers, even if there was a time when post-poning baptism, even to the deathbed, was pretty common in North Africa. The traditional Biblical reference for this is Psalm 50:7 (in KJ, it would be 51:5). Someone arguing against its meaning involving original sin says King David used hyperbole. How much Biblical doctrine can be ignored that way? I think it's safer to say, what the Church traditionally takes as hyperbole is that. He enumerated another attempt, namely reference to a personal sin involved in King David's conception. He was not born out of wedlock, and King David calls his mother "God's handmaid":

Psalm 85:16 O look upon me, and have mercy on me: give thy command to thy servant, and save the son of thy handmaid.

If we can therefore rule out personal sin, and also hypberole, it leaves, babies are born with sin since their mother's womb. Our Lord couldn't inherit any, since Mary didn't have any.

4) If any one denies, that infants, newly born from their mothers' wombs, even though they be sprung from baptized parents, are to be baptized; or says that they are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam, which has need of being expiated by the laver of regeneration for the obtaining life everlasting,—whence it follows as a consequence, that in them the form of baptism, for the remission of sins, is understood to be not true, but false, —let him be anathema. For that which the apostle has said, By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned, is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere hath always understood it. For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation. For, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Follows from previous discussion, which foresaw the objection here condemned.

5) If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only rased, or not imputed; let him be anathema. For, in those who are born again, there is nothing that God hates; because, There is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism into death; who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man, and putting on the new who is created according to God, are made innocent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven. But this holy synod confesses and is sensible, that in the baptized there remains concupiscence, or an incentive (to sin); which, whereas it is left for our exercise, cannot injure those who consent not, but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; yea, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned. This concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin.

If we are baptised for the remission of sins, and if God gives us a new heart, this follows from previous.
/Hans Georg Lundahl

I am sorry, I did not "read his paper" but heard him on a video, so I took the last view he presented, and he spent a bit more time on it than on others, as I recall the subjective feel, as that opinion being his own. It is possible I misjudged him on that one, he could simply not be intending to spell out his own view, here is a discussion of it, linking back to his video: Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: A Discussion on one of the subjects of Glossa Ordinaria "Mary is the New Eve" https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-discussion-on-one-of-subjects-of.html Can Catholics Believe Theistic Evolution? - Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World Jimmy Akin | 29 March 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBssnELtE94

130 - 5 = 125 to go.