Is Human Dignity Infinite? Thoughts on Dignitas Infinita
Вставка
- Опубліковано 8 кві 2024
- Our website: www.justandsinner.org
This is some thoughts I had on the recent document from the Vatican titled Dignitas Infinita which used the phrase "infinite human dignity."
Two great videos in five hours? I don’t know how you do it but thank you for the steady stream of knowledge pastor. The world is a better place for your efforts
Before I forget, thank you for modeling restraint and thoughtfulness on a media platform that offers you no reward for doing so.
Thanks for the clarification from a Lutheran (biblical) perspective! I appreciate your thoughtfulness on this contemporary issue brought forth by the Roman Church.
You're correct, transend would have been a more appropriate word.
I would LOVE to hear an episode on Duns Scotus. He's someone I've gotten very into recently.
Byzantine Scotist moment
@@anyanyanyanyanyany3551 he’s based
The man the myth the legend
Yeah
You love Larping as a Reformed Scotist
Ugh another Calvinist 😒
I find the Roman Catholic Church is very good at using ambiguous terminology like "dignity" which has a variable definition depending on its context, historical and cultural use. On a side note, I say this lovingly as a brother in Christ, you're the only person I've heard pronounce "that" as "theyat" :P
Read paragraph 7 of the introduction, it provides you with definitions of the four kinds of dignity the document talks about.
Why do Lutherans insist on attaching the word "Roman" to "Catholic Church"? We have both Eastern and Western components. We have always been, and always will be, "Catholic"
@@tafazziReadChannelDescription
They don't read it themselves. They prefer though spending hours in listening to all the *ambiguous* interpretations... lol
Because of the fact that anyone who exists and is willed, created, and loved by God, imprinted by an indelible mark of His image and likeness; if that’s not infinite dignity I don’t know what is. Also, the fact that God dwells in every human person by immensity is infinite dignity.
For some reason Protestants really don’t like talking about that part. God willed us, created us in his likeness, breathed into us and yet that isn’t infinite dignity to them. 😢
This Protestant agrees. This is nothing new, it’s taken for granted in the ancient mystic and monastic traditions. But we Protestants like to define everything into the abstract and argue over words which really isn’t all that helpful and leads to nowhere. In a material culture everything is about the externals, defining words to fit our own insecurities and calculations. To be fair, moderate Lutherans and Anglicans are much more open to this as they have carried on in the monastic and mystic traditions. Without a living spirituality these things will always be abstract words to argue over.
So as is typical we Lutherans are a bit pedantic, we love our definitions. This whole video was only on the verbiage of the title from a theocratic definitional standpoint. These debates are unfortunately not uncommon in the body of Christ.
Take for example the Lutheran definition of “Faith,” is not the same as the Roman definition.
The gist of this discussion was not the infinite nature of the soul, the infinite nature of Gods mercy (which endures forever) but a discussion about the true nature of God’s infinity.
Look at Genesis 1:1 (or John 1:1) “in the beginning God was…” that “was” is past tense meaning that Gods infinity actually goes beyond the alpha and omega because before alpha God already was. He predated time itself.
We as the created while we can say we will be with God forever it is in one direction while God alone is the only true infinite as the mathematical graph has arrows on both ends.
God said in Genesis 1, “let us make man in our image” therefore we do not predate Genesis 1 and therefore are not truly infinite, neither are the angels themselves despite their immortality. Only God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit are fully infinite.
Dr. Cooper didn’t get into the actual content of the document, Lutheranism agrees with the points made, although we do sort of accept IVF but only if the sperm and egg are both from the husband and wife and that is still debatable. I personally still disagree with it but the Bible offers little guidance on this matter.
Dr. Cooper
Your videos are very helpful.
Hello there. Hope you are doing well. I do apologise for the lack of communication but I have been very busy however I really enjoy this broadcast and much more through providing god bless ❤❤❤✝️✝️
Hahaha
😅
😅
😅
😅
😅
Thank you Dr. Cooper for beginning a conversation on this document and the important topics raised in it.
I would like to see you use the document as reason to discuss both the issue and the meta-issues. One option would be for you go through it step by step. Another would be to discuss it with another theologian, for example a Thomist to bring out what is at stake.
Personally, I see a continuation of a personalist view of man in Roman Catholic thought in 20th Century (Maritain, John Paul II, Dietrich von Hildebrandt). But the details matter.
One meta issue is the relationship between natural law morality and human rights thinking.
Another meta issue is possible Kantian influences, through Karl Rahner? And the question of a transcendentalism that is not the same as classical transcendence. (See Christopher Insole and Daniel J. Mahoney)
Thirdly there are important ethical issues to which the document takes a stand. These are significant issues in an era in which many have lost their Christian roots.
Fourthly, there are socio-political issues that the document takes a ethical stance on. To me, the fundamental issue here is the principle of sola scriptura (with regard to moral issues) and the question of how it relates to the positions in the document.
Fifthly, there is the historical question of possible continuity and change in Vatican positions on concrete questions.
I think the idea of people other than God himself having infinite dignity could lead to some issues within the church and the world at large, namely due to the fact that kind of entitlement, or better said, right given, would lead people to think they deserve to be treated the way they think they deserve to be treated. Not that we shouldn't treat with respect those who are human beings made in God's image, but that it might make a person feel deserving of more honor than is or should actually be given. But the type of honor we receive from God because of Christ's righteousness is far different than if we were to base it off of a human way of thinking we need dignity the way God receives it. Hope that makes sense. Praise God for your work, pastor. Keep fighting the good fight and running the race with perseverance. God's blessings to you all
I agree with what you say. However, I see another danger. If this ultimately gets refuted, then there's the danger that there will be an attempt to rob us of the dignity that we do properly have.
I think there is a historical precedent for my fear. After the end of the Second World War, the Nuremberg Trials were held, showing that human governments do not have the right to do whatever they want. Furthermore, those under the jurisdiction of such governments cannot use "I was only following orders" as an excuse. Having established that, just a few decades later, the governments that made this point began robbing the unborn of their human dignity, using the excuse that a woman has the right to control her own body. What's not said is that when a woman consents to the marital act (regardless of her marital status), she takes on the duty of caring for any child that may be conceived as a result. I rarely encounter even conservatives who will agree with my argument.
This is a rather strange use of the word infinity that is unclear and confusing. I am a mathematician. There are mathematical ways of understanding infinity where some are greater than others. For example, there are more real numbers between 0 and 1 than there are counting number from 0 and onwards. I think there's plenty of theological merit in talking about infinities in this manner, but that's not what this document is doing. There's no finesse and I don't understand what they even mean by infinite dignity. I can understand a concept such as nonfinite dignity, wherein it cannot be used up by finite disgression. I can absolutely understand transcendent or universal dignity. But, I'm not sure what infinite dignity is getting at.
I think its just a rhetorical infinity. You can't possibly give a reason for rightly doing something which would besmirch the image of God in that person, sort of thing. Its weird that the dignity is grounded in the person and not the image of God though.
Well akshually 🤓 if you say from 0 onwards you mean all ordinals, which includes the uncountable ones which are equal or greater than aleph one (assuming CH).
@@navienslavement Actually, I said counting numbers. Get rekt nerd. Lol. God bless.
Physics enthusiast engineer here at the intersection of math and the practical world:
Look at Genesis 1 and John 1 grammatically and graph it.
Typically on a graph we put Time (t) along the x axis with t=0 at the origin and the event measured along the Y.
“In the beginning ”, (t=0) “God creatED…” WAIT, WHAT! God already was in order to create in past tense.
Let’s try John 1 “In the beginning”, (ok t=0) “WAS…” so at t=0 God is already past tense!
This means that in any graph of God over time we are required to have arrows on both ends of any line. God is not just the alpha and omega, he predates the alpha!
That is the infinite nature of God and where it differs from man. Our souls as created still has a dot on the left end with Adam starting on day 6 whereas God uniquely must have an arrow pointing left at the origin.
Therefore when we say “infinite” God is before mathematics in order to create the mathematical systems that he uses everywhere else while human dignity can only be expressed as at earliest beginning on day 6 and therefore not infinite in the same ways.
Much like a photograph it is made in the image of something that already by necessity must exist at the time of its creation. My various designs and drawings may pre-exist the finished product but even they do not pre-exist me. So even if I designed and built something that would be infinite it can only exist (even conceptually) after me making the creation not truly infinite as it has a starting point.
Put another way God is like the statement X=Y
while human dignity is limited to absolute values.
A ray! Dang it I was totally spacing on the word.
God is a line we are at most a ray.
I shouldn’t math and eat lunch at the same time or I start talking about the function of a sandwich with a lower limit of buttermilk bread while chewing graph paper.
The Francis papacy being sloppy with language and lacing theology with liberal bromides? Say it ain’t so!
Next thing you know they will be worshiping Amazonian fertility statues......oh wait they already did
0:59 I guess it depends on what infinite dignity means?
It is like saying saying human dignity is airborne. It is a descriptor that simply doesn't apply.
I can see the issue. But would the alternative be that human worth or dignity is finite? Or that human dignity isn't ontologically nested in man, but rather in God and then transfers to men? With the former, you're left with the possibility of being able to mathematically calculate the value of human life, and with the latter, you're left with human dignity being infinite by proxy of God, which leads to the same issue you're calling out.
I don’t really see any issue with the language of infinity here. Since sets were mentioned, we can recognize that certain sets are of a different cardinality or have otherwise different features to them. Much of that language will be confusing because it’s difficult to see how, e.g. the set of natural numbers and rational numbers are in fact of the same cardinality (size) even though they include different items (but not different kinds of items). In a similar way, I think we can also say that humanity participates in God’s infinity by having a dignity (rather than a ‘price’ as Kant drew the distinction in the Groundwork). Thus, we are not absolutely infinite, but our value is greater to any other created thing precisely because our value is infinite, which we have only because it is bestowed on us by an infinite Creator (of an even greater order than what we have). I would think your account of original sin does not make sense unless you presuppose something like infinite dignity (which is intimately toed to our free will). After all, what offense could God take if we weren’t already in some position or capacity to offend Him through our freely chosen actions? That we are incapable of making restitution doesn’t show that we aren’t infinite in value do much that it shows the original dignity is violated by original sin.
'Infinite dignity' seems like so much an abstraction that it lacks material meaning.
The Spirit's revelation in scripture, on the other hand, is that we are all personally loved by God and that has tangible effects in people's lives (John 1:9; 3:16; 16:8; Galatians 5:22-23). People may choose to accept that love and its effects, or to reject it.
This world of injustice is the result of much rejection.
This was raised in RCIA in the context of the death penalty and the Roman church changing it's position...
You a Roman Catholic now? 😂😂
When I heard the name of this Vatican document I winced at the rhetorical excess. People can't write elegant words anymore. Reminds me of the Finnish standup comic Osmo making fun of an emaiil he recieved from a hotel chain that they were "excited" that he joined their discount rewards program.
It may not be super helpful language but, for the purposes of communicating the gravity of human dignity I don't know if it's highly objectionable either. Within the context of Anselmian atonement theology it would be objectionable, but as you noted, that'll not the context here. Id agree that transcendent is a better term but infinite, as understood in context, is also serviceable.
Literally Hegels distinction between the bad infinite and the true infinite
I believe the concept of "infinite human dignity" might inadvertently elevate humanism and diminish the significance of the Cross. Could this notion be reframed to focus on the inherent value of human nature, while still acknowledging our ultimate dependence on God? Without God's redemptive plan and the event of the Gospel, can we truly claim infinite value? It's important to consider that any discussion of eternal existence, value, or dignity is ultimately inseparable from God's divine will and actions. Is that essentially the point you are making there? Also, it’s interesting that Jewish beliefs would agree with you, to my understanding. There’s arguably an assertion when translating forms of “hell” that Jews do not believe in an infinite existence outside of this reality and death. And so this is why there is such a focus of land and its redemption via God and Zionism. Essentially again, the Gospel is the only message that parts from this. Jesus gives eternal value to the redemption of humanity. And again, unlike the supposed Vatican claims to “infinite dignity” this is not possible for Jew nor Christian outside of the events of Christ.
So should we remove the book of Job? As job was not even Jewish and was able to be righteous 1000s of years before the incarnation. Does job diminish the cross in any way ?
@@tookie36the point of the story of job further emphasizes the need for Jesus Christ. Job is righteous and in the entirety of the Book of Job he believes he deserves God to justify why bad things are happening to him. He questions the Will of God. At the height of the Book he even demands God to justify Himself before him. The Book ends with God giving Job a long list of questions to show exactly how finite Job is in his lack of understanding, perspective, and understanding of God’s lesson of mortality. Job has to learn the lesson of self-justification and the temptation of self righteousness thereby. Only Jesus can justify us before God. God does not have to explain His Will and reasons to us, no matter how righteous we are or think we are. Because God’s infinite Wisdom is just that, infinite.
@@tookie36 thanks also for your thoughts and questions to me!
@@howardthomas1171 it seems like the message of Job is that all people have direct access to god and that all people can be righteous by having faith in god. The journey isn’t easy and we must have humility to accept the grace of god. Job repented and was made whole by god directly.
If we are to have true free will we must be able to be justified through faith and grace at all times before and after Jesus. So humanity could have repented at any time and the tragedy of course is we did not and do not and Jesus comes and we crucify him and he dies for our salvation. But all people throughout all time have the option to repent and live in gods grace. Which is one of the important messages of job and the OT
The internet obsession with the parsing the exact meaning of the specific word “infinite” is misplaced. The specific word “infinite” is *obviously* not doing any important work in the text. The document is merely saying that there is a kind of dignity (“ontological”) that humans receive from God that can neither be decreased nor eliminated by virtue of being created, redeemed, and loved by God. Because this kind of dignity is not in this sense finite, it is *technically correct* to say that it is infinite. While it is technically correct, I do think that it is an unnecessarily use of this term that can-and evidently already does-create easily avoidable confusion.
I love Ed Feser!
Q: Is human dignity infinite?
A: Of course not lol
I look at it as you can’t put a price on a human life. A person cannot be sold.
Justification For our sins as per we are ,I AM..he said that not Preuss or Eaton..Lang"..yonder" no fear brother we have the confessions 10- 1
I don’t think you are being too nitpicky. Pope Francis is always a bit borderline when it comes to orthodoxy. I am uncomfortable with the language of rights, anyway, unless they are specifically tied to our responsibilities.
The modern obsession with human rights kind of eliminates our need for God. I agree, "I am uncomfortable with the language of rights.. unless they are specifically tied to our responsibilities" - why should we thank God for our daily bread if we have a right to bread?
I wonder how the idea of having infinite dignity meshes with the idea of eternal torment. It would seem to me your system couldn't have both, and yet Rome's does. How can a creature with infinite dignity be tormented and degraded in such a way?
Take two..🖖
Either or ,any Church or "alienship",declaring a new creature a new vocal perspective..all of a sudden..then get yea to the river,because that little bowl will get pretty muddy ...just me again .
Wow. Really interesting. I just downloaded the doc, in the process of reading it. But I am not certain this changes anything about Christ or any salvific act. Christ had two natures. Hope I am not wrong about this, but the more orthodox view of Christ's human nature has been that it is identical to any other person's human nature. It is the God nature that makes the difference, in fact pretty much all the difference.
This document seems to be a declaration of a recognition of dignity in each person in a way that cannot be changed. If that is the case, what does it change? Christ's dignity was not the essential thing sacrificed on the cross. Both his God nature and his human nature were crucified, and so human dignity is a part of just one side of things. Beyond that, this appears to be broadly consistent with the Catholic stance on human life as I have understood it for a long time. They are anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, and so now, perhaps they are shoring this position up because of *gestures everywhere*.
After scanning the rest of the document, at least at first glance nothing changes regarding gender, but there is a restatement of dignity regarding sexual orientation. Perhaps this extends beyond this point, but this only appears to be affirming the treatment of other people as human beings (with inherent infinite dignity, mind you) regardless of the circumstances. But everything else is fundamentally unchanged. Having put this out, however, perhaps now the church is looking to take stronger stances on political and military conflicts? I'm not sure.
This is not a safe comparison, but it kind of reminds me of the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evidence, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
“Infinite dignity” sounds like Immanuel Kant.
The lady doth protest too much.
With respect to God's honour, we might also speak of His holiness having to be satisfied. It seems that Modernist papalism is edging towards a pantheist exaltation of man, equating him with God. Some have detected that tendency already in the writings of "Pope" John Paul II.
God creates creation. Called it “good” (and we know only hod is good) he creates humans in his image and likeness. He breathes into humans to give them life… it’s not equating with god. It’s holding the proper reverence for gods creation and proper theology
ReNewed creature ,,then you think we would have a long line at the river beacause the bowl is be muddy..tell the wash lady not to be down river. Mary..oh Mary I accept that..
I'd argue that your closing separation of human dignity from the beatific vision is problematic. See Macintyre's talk on human dignity: our dignity is derived from our final end which is to know and love God. That is the absolute foundation of our dignity. Talking of ontological human dignity/our being made 'in the image of God' apart from that final end makes no sense.
Also, what is so often ignored in this discussion is the potency-act distinction that derives from this. Every time we come to know and love God more, our dignity is actually deepened. Every time we harm our knowledge and love of God (in our thoughts, words, actions, inactions) our dignity is actually harmed - or even lost, as Macintyre would say. However, it is never entirely lost, because it always at least remains in potency. The absolute uniqueness of Christ is that this dignity was perfectly actualised on earth in his human and divine natures - for us creatures our final end as humans can only be fully actualised in heaven when we are perfectly united with the body of Christ.
(You could say that the document obscures this by seeking to dialogue directly with secular human dignity discourse and law, but that is another matter...)
A Jesuit priest wrote the U.N. universal Declaration on Human Rights.
The Henri de Lubac Communio school, (which influenced Ratzinger, von Balthazar, etc.) gave rise to what is called "Catholic Humanism" as a competitor school to secular humanism; this is not unrelated to the U.N. statement.
What is our natural state? God has infinite love and dignity for us as his creation. I don’t think he would have given us free will if he didn’t. And he certainly wouldn’t have sent his only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins if it wasn’t his desire for us to always be with him. Since our sinful nature doesn’t allow us to always treat one another with dignity, any ability to actually do so comes from God. We can’t do it alone. Rome has never changed their teaching regarding the true nature of mankind.
I think the Vatican is looking at this in relation to Christ having assumed humanity and thereby transforming humanity to become infinite *in Christ* while retaining the Creator/creature distinction.
I think what number 2 is saying,due to what Christ did on the cross,we "share" the "infinity" of Christ,so it's like theosis
14:50 job was righteous pre Jesus. As were many others.
He was relatively righteous compared to others, much like the rich ruler who came to christ in Matthew 19. Yet God exposed both for being imperfect and sinners
Sin causes our suffering, and Jobs pride in arguing against God exposes his error. The young ruler in Matthew thought he was righteous by the law, yet christ saw through him and everyone was in awe, wondering who could be saved?
The ruler asked what "good things" he could do to be saved. He left sad and bitter. Christ is righteous, we aren't.
@@bradenglass4753 the ending of job shows job repenting and then given grace directly by god. There is always the possibility of living a righteous life. That’s what makes sin sin
@@tookie36 his faith and repentance brought him grace, not his works, he merited nothing, though at the start of the narrative, he supposed his good life had been merited by his own "righteousness". Sin is transgression of the law, and failure to keep one point makes us guilty of all
Therefore Job only found grace via true repentance and faith. God is righteous, and only humility in knowing that he is our boasting and righteousness can save us. It's why in Jeremiah, God is called "The lord our righteousness"
@@bradenglass4753 yea faith in god. Pre Jesus. Just as many saints in all religions have faith in god
No, God has infinite dignity
And God became man.
Does the image of God have infinite dignity, or limited dignity?
When a man is in possession of the Logos, has he not tapped into something of infinite worth?
And when the Logos became man, did this not raise the dignity of man? And if so, was it only by a finite degree or an infinite degree?
Consider this: When God decided to become a creature, he became a man. Does this raise man's dignity in a measurable way? Or immeasurably?
God becoming a man doesn't really change anything as the reason He made man in His image was with the idea that He'd incarnate as a human when the time for the Messiah comes.
@@dakolev God becoming man changed everything.
You know CP, you do raise some valid points here. I think your argument has ground if you narrow your position to the regenerate as they do don Christ in their baptism, they wear him and become sons and heirs of God and princes of Heaven, but in our natural sinful state of being enemies to God, I think we cannot say we have infinite dignity. I think that if we frame infinite dignity of the man as the dignity of Christ who dwells in him, I could interpret that as an orthodox teaching even if it’s not the best or simplest way to frame it.
@@RealityConcurrence One of the issues present here is the transliteration of dignitas into the English "dignity."
Dignitas mean "worthiness" in latin. From an orthodox perspective, if the Father was willing to sacrifice the infinite incarnate logos for humanity, even as we were yet sinners, then the worth of humanity is infinite.
To say less would be to denigrate the Logos.
Cooper's argument may change if he looked the word up in a latin dictionary.
@@Catholic-Perennialist See, I don’t think that line of logic follows. What that suggests is that the Father is a cool-calculus that is compelled to save humanity simply because they have worth, rather than out of infinite mercy to send his son to die and pay the infinite price for our sin.
I’m interested how your position plays out in atonement because my position is we offended God, and thus deserve an eternal punishment. We have no value to God intrinsically because we are creation and He the creator, but in His mercy He died to pay the full infinite payment of our transgression. This means that we forego a belief in an infinite worth of humanity, which I think is infeasible as we are mortals and creation rather than creator, in favor of an acknowledgment of the infinite mercy of God to pay from his own blood the infinite price. I see it as His infinite mercy was the compelling force that God used, laying aside his worthiness to ransom our worthless, heavy, dirty souls.
Concerning the Vatican declaration Dignitas Infinita's "Every human person possesses an infinite dignity ...",
- I refer to:
A. 1 John 3:2 (KJV): "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is."
- and -
B. St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria (296 - 373 AD): "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." [De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B.]
Response:
Although not explicitly stated, maybe the Vatican document's "infinite dignity" of the human person refers to the hopeful journey towards our eternal destiny through Jesus Christ of beholding the infinite God in the Beatific Vision. The Eastern Orthodox refer to this process as Theosis, Catholics and Lutherans as Sanctification, and Anglicans, perhaps, as Tea & Crumpets.
And if the King James Bible was good enough for John the Beloved Disciple, then that's good enough for me.
Imagine speaking of an immutable, impassible divine essence as being "offended" whatsoever, much less "infinitely."
I was thinking this same thing! It seems as though Anselm’s picture of God isn’t one of infinitude but of need. That’s been my wrestling point anytime someone presents his satisfaction theory.
@@NickExposed There's something deeply incoherent about the doctrine of God as held by all orthodox sects of Christianity.
An immutable, impassable divine _person_ is a contradiction in terms.
They will try to solve this by dividing person from essence and assigning all anthropomorphism to the hypostases, but this destroys divine simplicity.
Good luck getting Cooper, or anyone else, to discuss this openly. It's supposed to be a secret.
Have you seen the older divine simplicity interview with Nathen Greeley? I think this is openly discussed in that. Greeley’s treatment is more in line Scotus due to this issue.
@@jigmag6647 I've never seen anyone defend simplicity without disproving the Trinity, and I've never seen anyone defend the Trinity without ending simplicity.
These are things that have to be discussed in isolation or else the mask starts to slip and the laity begin asking questions.
Wow, two comments on the same video?
There is nothing contradictory about the orthodox view of God.
If Roman church bad who care to watch video.