/lit/ - Literature

>>13427971
I always ask people the same question on here about the bible and I never get an answer, the question is why does Jesus attack the fig tree and the money lenders in the temple? Why does he break his nonviolent, turn the other cheek, code of behavior?

>>13427971
If you read the earliest Church Fathers and the Bible carefully you would know that later Church Fathers endorsed several innovations as doctrine, claiming that stuff had an ancient pedigree, despite earlier Church Fathers not believing the same and even some of those Church Fathers pointing out how non-traditional and completely new/speculative/even heretical those views were in their time. Yes you should actually do some reading some time, agreed, because you sound like all the Catholic drones who don't think as critically about tradition or scripture as they claim to do.

>>13427979
I can almost guarantee that whoever responds to this will disappoint you. Augustine was the best at drumming up satisfactory answers on this point, Aquinas second, but the real truth is:
No one knows. Really, it's not a doctrinal truth unless you're just a mealy-mouth or a dogmatist. No sect has a good answer. The intersection between transcendent faith and immanent politicking is, and I cannot overstate this, thin. Christ himself had a (presumably) good answer, but he was like any sage and has keenly hid it.

>>13427979
This somewhat applies

>>13428018
>The intersection between transcendent faith and immanent politicking is, and I cannot overstate this, thin.
This question almost physically torments me. There is a russian folk tale about a city that was being attacked by invaders, and instead of setting up defenses the citizens just prayed, and it was swallowed by waters that formed a lake, where it is now said to reside beneath the surface. It was this story that made me interested in Christianity in the first place, this absolute refusal to do evil even to save yourself, it seems somehow an almost mystical transcendental morality. I don't know why I obsess over this particular question but it feels like it is near the heart of what God or religion are. This cleansing of every impulse to do harm within you, leaving even your own life aside. It seems like the only way to save your soul in a world that is run by ruthless power struggles. It also seems to be to telling us that the individual people we are, our localized conscious existences, are not our real identity, but a passing, ephemeral thing, and we are connected to a much greater, maybe universal something, through this experience of mercy and love. However sometimes I think this is all a way to cope with the harshness of how reality actually is. It is just a subjective experience after all, a feeling of mystic wonder over the question, and the story of the people who didn't fight the invaders.

I don't know much about Christianity so I don't know what people have said about this issue. What do Augustine and Aquinas say specifically?

>>13428068
This is great

>>13428068
The anon on that image has a point, but does he really expect anything from people like the ones he is criticizing? They boil down everything to a few sentences, including Jesus' stances and Christianity in general. Most of them read a few short summaries or watch videos on youtube and think they know a lot, acting condescendingly.

>>13428068
>>13428287
I'm pretty sure those posts are copied from some blog or website.
>Read the comments under my previous post...
>That post prompted an especially noteworthy email...

>>13427993
>innovations

This is also covered by the Church's great writers. Read John Henry Newman on the development of doctrine. Newman's going to be a saint soon, by the way, so his work should receive particular attention.

>>13427979
>fig tree
Metaphor for Israel
>money lenders
How was this action contradictory?

>>13428183
Oh good god, I won't try to paraphrase. The most reductive (as brutal as hacking off a chunk of flesh and cooking it with a Bic lighter) way of putting it is that Augustine grappled with the legalisation of violence and murder, achieving a sort of stalemate with the problem, and then many years later Aquinas contested him on VERY specific grounds (reopening, for catties, protties, and Russians alike).

>>13428334
do you have any book recommendations on early church and it development?

>>13428390
Do you know which texts I should be looking at or is it more a matter of just going through their work in its entirety?

>>13428421
Hmm? Just engage with them as you would any thinker, dive in. City of God and the Summa are introductory enough (if you've engaged with scripture, early church/council theology, and as Greek Philosophy).

>>13427971
Sure.
That's why you go to a reputable seminary who teaches you biblical languages. This is the ultimate holypill.

Amen and God bless everyone in this thread!