It's also interesting to point out that the medieval Orthodox canonists Zonaras and Balsamon say that the canons of St. Cyprian's council were rejected by the Church
An explanation of ex opere operato versus Lutheran sacramentology would be very interesting. I find sometimes that I can catch myself speaking of the sacraments as maybe in “ex opere operato” ways, by emphasising the objective extra nos work of God by divine promise in the physical elements (hearing the word, water, bread and wine), that God always works where and when He promised regardless of how we feel about it. However, if I understand the distinction correctly, these means of the Spirits are all efficacious unto forgiveness and eternal life by faith; by faith we appropriate the benefits. Does this sound right to you?
Yeah that is right, the benefits are only received by faith, one does not receive any benefits apart from faith as if it were by the work done by itself (ex opere operato) Now naturally the benefits are received by faith as the passive trusting instrument, which is not to be understood as if we need some especially strong feeling in ourselves for the efficacy.
The grace is objectively rather than subjectively bestowed, that is the difference between the Lutheran and Reformed articulations of sacramental grace (due to a difference in the extent of the Atonement)... and in that sense, that _earlier_ sense, Lutherans can affirm 'ex opere operato'.. nevertheless due to how the Roman tradition came to define the term, particularly in relation to the sacrament of baptism, the Lutherans ultimately rejected the operato language due to it divorcing faith or any internal/intrinsic quality from the sacramental result in the one participating: baptism removes original sin merely the work having been accomplished (baptism), faith, hope, charity are thus all irrelevant.
@@vngelicath1580 it’s a subtle but important distinction. Perhaps avoiding “ex opere operato” places the emphasis on faith being the passive work that please God. Otherwise, if it is the “work” itself independent of faith, than we begin to actually trust more our “part” in the sacramental life, whereas otherwise by faith we can therefore trust in the objective divine work knowing that to be forgiven and receive rests solely upon faith. Perhaps the great problem with ex opere operato was that it actually caused man to doubt the objectivity of God’s grace since it man naturally sought for some affirmation that the “work” was “worked” sufficiently to merit forgiveness. But it is only sufficient when it is worked in faith! So not by the work itself, but by faith.
To say sacraments convey sacramental sanctifying graces “ex opere operato” - as taught by St Augustine against the Donatist heresy and “per excellence” formulated by St Thomas Aquinas later - does NOT mean they work like magic potions irrespective of the receiver in any means. That’s evident for all non-Protestants, I guess. That’s not what is taught in Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian of the East apostolic churches in their sacramental theology(ies), which can (and do) formulate pretty similar ideas with fairly different words indeed. Every Christian group apart from non-sacramental Protestantism(s) adhere to the same theoretical explanation for the sacramental vitality in the spiritual life of the Church: they are visible signs that operatively convey invisible graces. But the more sacramental Protestant traditions - like Anglicanism and Lutheranism - still miss it from a Catholic perspective, and push hard for a Catholic caricature so as to fit the counter-Catholic (or anti-Romanist, as their ideological setup made it be) narrative into “sola fide”, which is surely the cornerstone of the Protestant movement. Yet to say “ex opere operato” can only mean, very straightforwardly, that grace is NOT dependent upon the personal quality or the state of the minister or the personal state of the receiver, while it is solely and entirely dependent on God’s gratuitous work. It is not our work but God’s work through the Mystical Body of Christ - and because of that (precisely), sacraments convey graces regardless both of the receiver or the minister. If I interiorly doubt during an adult public baptism or if I come in the state of mortal sin to the Most Holy Eucharist (let us ignore the consequences of it for what is in discussion here), the sacraments can and do transmit God’s graces by Jesus Christ’s own institution through the Church. If they are fruitful is another chapter in the discussion. Those cannot invalidate sacraments or make them emptied of graces because they are related to the sacraments “in re ipsa”, that means by the very reality of the sacraments. If not by that, than the denial of God’s will or disbelief would be more powerful than God’s will, which is - for a deeper level of thinking - an unsustainable theological position. That can only mean that, if this comprehension was true, then sin, but not grace, abounded all the more in relation to the other, contradicting the way we unavoidably formulate the theology of grace (v. Romans 5, 20). But Protestantism revolutionized sacramentalogy so as to make it fit into the all new “sola fide” dogmatics. And THAT is the Protestant intolerable background position according to the Catholic Church, even if you advocate for a more sacramental presentation of the Christian faith in some versions of the broad Protestant umbrella. So denying the sacrificial nature of the Holy Mass (/Divine Liturgy) is just a mutually implicated consequence of first and foremost dismantling the sacrament of Holy Orders and the ordained priesthood - therefore defying the Church’s apostolic authority - when that very theological revolution took place. If there isn’t a sacrifice, there isn’t a ministerial priesthood; if there isn’t a ministerial priesthood, then there isn’t a sacrifice. To say Lutherans believe the mass is a sacrifice, but only a sacrifice of community’s praise is the same as denying that the Holy Mass is the one sacrifice on the cross made present in a sacramental/unbloody manner, never a different formulation of it (simply because it has used the same word “sacrifice”). My point is that not only modern day Calvinist commit some basic mistake here, at least from a Catholic perspective, instead it was Luther and the first Protestant Fathers who did it first about the Mass - as the natural “locus” and universal ecclesial rite of the Eucharist. The Church doesn’t pretend to deny that the Mass is indeed a sacrifice of praise: more educated Catholics would even say that we unite ourselves to Christ through the sacrifice of praise precisely because the sacrifice of the Holy Mass is effectively both latreutic (by which we give God the Father what is due, through the Son, in the Spirit) and propitiatory. The way to understand the operation of the sacraments is so core that all the letters of St Augustine to the Donatists have exactly this kind of message and theological assertiveness. All again this representation of “ex opere operato” as a thing that it is not, or somewhat apart from, seems like an instrumental return to the ideological shortcut to anti-Catholicism: to play the cards as if Catholic sacramental theology was formulated in the Council of Trent as an innovation that it is not, but not that the real innovations were those of the Protestant Fathers. The principle of “ex opere operato” affirms that while a proper/right disposition (openness) is necessary to exercise the efficacious grace in the sacraments (that means, to make it fruitful to the receiver), it isn’t nor it can be the cause of the sufficient grace it conveys because no sin or bad disposition whatsoever, even the most ignominious of them, could supersede/nullify God’s grace that flows from the Body of Christ in the instrumental sacred humanity of Christ. God offers in the sacraments His gift, freely bestowed out of God’s own love. A person's disposition cannot merit supernatural grace or divine life, which remains a gift of God - a gratuitous action therefore. Since Protestants tried with some sort of obstinacy to imply a kind of Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism on Catholics (also Orthodoxs and anyone not Protestant), so it necessarily flows from it that the sacraments would be represented as something “we do” and not as something that God does to us through the ecclesial body means, the very prolonging of the mystery of Incarnation - the Mystical Body of Christ - that means God’s action in the “oikonomia” (in space and historical time).
SORRY ABOUT THE BAD MIC QUALITY ON MY SIDE
I accidentally used the microphone on my webcam rather than my normal mic. Sorry about the inconvenience.
Was great to be on! Thanks again. I will produce a sheet for the areas we needed sources for and send it to you asap.
Great video, I'm honoured that my meme-chart made it in.
Greetings from Cyprus.
It's also interesting to point out that the medieval Orthodox canonists Zonaras and Balsamon say that the canons of St. Cyprian's council were rejected by the Church
Great discussion. It took me two weeks to play it all, this video is so long. But I knew there would be quality points
An explanation of ex opere operato versus Lutheran sacramentology would be very interesting. I find sometimes that I can catch myself speaking of the sacraments as maybe in “ex opere operato” ways, by emphasising the objective extra nos work of God by divine promise in the physical elements (hearing the word, water, bread and wine), that God always works where and when He promised regardless of how we feel about it. However, if I understand the distinction correctly, these means of the Spirits are all efficacious unto forgiveness and eternal life by faith; by faith we appropriate the benefits.
Does this sound right to you?
Yeah that is right, the benefits are only received by faith, one does not receive any benefits apart from faith as if it were by the work done by itself (ex opere operato)
Now naturally the benefits are received by faith as the passive trusting instrument, which is not to be understood as if we need some especially strong feeling in ourselves for the efficacy.
The grace is objectively rather than subjectively bestowed, that is the difference between the Lutheran and Reformed articulations of sacramental grace (due to a difference in the extent of the Atonement)... and in that sense, that _earlier_ sense, Lutherans can affirm 'ex opere operato'.. nevertheless due to how the Roman tradition came to define the term, particularly in relation to the sacrament of baptism, the Lutherans ultimately rejected the operato language due to it divorcing faith or any internal/intrinsic quality from the sacramental result in the one participating: baptism removes original sin merely the work having been accomplished (baptism), faith, hope, charity are thus all irrelevant.
@@vngelicath1580 it’s a subtle but important distinction. Perhaps avoiding “ex opere operato” places the emphasis on faith being the passive work that please God. Otherwise, if it is the “work” itself independent of faith, than we begin to actually trust more our “part” in the sacramental life, whereas otherwise by faith we can therefore trust in the objective divine work knowing that to be forgiven and receive rests solely upon faith. Perhaps the great problem with ex opere operato was that it actually caused man to doubt the objectivity of God’s grace since it man naturally sought for some affirmation that the “work” was “worked” sufficiently to merit forgiveness. But it is only sufficient when it is worked in faith! So not by the work itself, but by faith.
To say sacraments convey sacramental sanctifying graces “ex opere operato” - as taught by St Augustine against the Donatist heresy and “per excellence” formulated by St Thomas Aquinas later - does NOT mean they work like magic potions irrespective of the receiver in any means. That’s evident for all non-Protestants, I guess. That’s not what is taught in Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian of the East apostolic churches in their sacramental theology(ies), which can (and do) formulate pretty similar ideas with fairly different words indeed. Every Christian group apart from non-sacramental Protestantism(s) adhere to the same theoretical explanation for the sacramental vitality in the spiritual life of the Church: they are visible signs that operatively convey invisible graces. But the more sacramental Protestant traditions - like Anglicanism and Lutheranism - still miss it from a Catholic perspective, and push hard for a Catholic caricature so as to fit the counter-Catholic (or anti-Romanist, as their ideological setup made it be) narrative into “sola fide”, which is surely the cornerstone of the Protestant movement. Yet to say “ex opere operato” can only mean, very straightforwardly, that grace is NOT dependent upon the personal quality or the state of the minister or the personal state of the receiver, while it is solely and entirely dependent on God’s gratuitous work. It is not our work but God’s work through the Mystical Body of Christ - and because of that (precisely), sacraments convey graces regardless both of the receiver or the minister.
If I interiorly doubt during an adult public baptism or if I come in the state of mortal sin to the Most Holy Eucharist (let us ignore the consequences of it for what is in discussion here), the sacraments can and do transmit God’s graces by Jesus Christ’s own institution through the Church. If they are fruitful is another chapter in the discussion. Those cannot invalidate sacraments or make them emptied of graces because they are related to the sacraments “in re ipsa”, that means by the very reality of the sacraments. If not by that, than the denial of God’s will or disbelief would be more powerful than God’s will, which is - for a deeper level of thinking - an unsustainable theological position. That can only mean that, if this comprehension was true, then sin, but not grace, abounded all the more in relation to the other, contradicting the way we unavoidably formulate the theology of grace (v. Romans 5, 20). But Protestantism revolutionized sacramentalogy so as to make it fit into the all new “sola fide” dogmatics. And THAT is the Protestant intolerable background position according to the Catholic Church, even if you advocate for a more sacramental presentation of the Christian faith in some versions of the broad Protestant umbrella. So denying the sacrificial nature of the Holy Mass (/Divine Liturgy) is just a mutually implicated consequence of first and foremost dismantling the sacrament of Holy Orders and the ordained priesthood - therefore defying the Church’s apostolic authority - when that very theological revolution took place. If there isn’t a sacrifice, there isn’t a ministerial priesthood; if there isn’t a ministerial priesthood, then there isn’t a sacrifice.
To say Lutherans believe the mass is a sacrifice, but only a sacrifice of community’s praise is the same as denying that the Holy Mass is the one sacrifice on the cross made present in a sacramental/unbloody manner, never a different formulation of it (simply because it has used the same word “sacrifice”). My point is that not only modern day Calvinist commit some basic mistake here, at least from a Catholic perspective, instead it was Luther and the first Protestant Fathers who did it first about the Mass - as the natural “locus” and universal ecclesial rite of the Eucharist. The Church doesn’t pretend to deny that the Mass is indeed a sacrifice of praise: more educated Catholics would even say that we unite ourselves to Christ through the sacrifice of praise precisely because the sacrifice of the Holy Mass is effectively both latreutic (by which we give God the Father what is due, through the Son, in the Spirit) and propitiatory.
The way to understand the operation of the sacraments is so core that all the letters of St Augustine to the Donatists have exactly this kind of message and theological assertiveness. All again this representation of “ex opere operato” as a thing that it is not, or somewhat apart from, seems like an instrumental return to the ideological shortcut to anti-Catholicism: to play the cards as if Catholic sacramental theology was formulated in the Council of Trent as an innovation that it is not, but not that the real innovations were those of the Protestant Fathers.
The principle of “ex opere operato” affirms that while a proper/right disposition (openness) is necessary to exercise the efficacious grace in the sacraments (that means, to make it fruitful to the receiver), it isn’t nor it can be the cause of the sufficient grace it conveys because no sin or bad disposition whatsoever, even the most ignominious of them, could supersede/nullify God’s grace that flows from the Body of Christ in the instrumental sacred humanity of Christ. God offers in the sacraments His gift, freely bestowed out of God’s own love. A person's disposition cannot merit supernatural grace or divine life, which remains a gift of God - a gratuitous action therefore. Since Protestants tried with some sort of obstinacy to imply a kind of Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism on Catholics (also Orthodoxs and anyone not Protestant), so it necessarily flows from it that the sacraments would be represented as something “we do” and not as something that God does to us through the ecclesial body means, the very prolonging of the mystery of Incarnation - the Mystical Body of Christ - that means God’s action in the “oikonomia” (in space and historical time).