The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Some meat for the dogs . . .

That the Roman Church does not root out the dissidents, rebels, and heretics which openly and loudly infest her is further witness against her. But all in all, the Roman Church is inclined to seek unity in ritual practice and government to the detriment of unity in faith and doctrine. This is part of why the Roman Church is more eager to pursue ecumenicism than are the Eastern Orthodox.


Of course, neither the issue of papal authority nor the controversy regarding the filioque are matters readily dismissed. The papacy goes straight to the heart of what constitutes the church and how the church is to be governed, and the filioque has profound implications on the understanding of the nature of the Trinity. But what about the differences in the theory of the atonement between the Roman and Eastern Orthodox Churches? This issue is highlighted in the very article that began this thread: whether Christ's death was a ransom to appease God's wrath against man (the Western view, which is attacked as making God hateful and unloving) or whether Christ's death was a ransom to purchase sinners from Satan (which is the common Eastern view). Or how about basic anthropological differences, i.e., that the West believes that the guilt of original sin extends to all the descendants of Adam, whereas the East rejects that view? Are these matters so unimportant?


The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches are not in communion, so your union with Rome means either that you are going against the authority of the Eastern Orthodox church or else that you are not a member of her. While the Roman Church sees the Eastern Orthodox as a kind of sister to Rome, the Eastern Orthodox insists that she is the fullness of the Church. The Autocephalous Orthodox Church in North America (OCA) declaims any unity with Rome.


There is a major administrative difference between the churches of the "Catholic Faith" as you've defined it, and it centers on the Bishop of Rome, which only those churches in communion with him accept his unique authority as vicar of Christ. The entire body of Eastern Orthodoxy rejects the Roman pontiff's supreme authority. And I have already pointed out a few doctrinal and theological differences. That both the Roman and Eastern churches belong in principle to the sacerdotal type (as do the Anglo-Catholics) does not annul their differences. I could rightly mention that the Protestant churches are generally in agreement as to the centrality of the Scripture over and above tradition, the number of the sacraments, the rejection of a single visible head of the church, the penal substitution theory of the atonement, and the importance of faith-based justification, but their differences still remain.


Fair enough, but note the words of Paul: "For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you" (I Cor. 11:19). We await the coming day when the church shall truly be one, and we work to bring it about through the preaching of the gospel and adherence to the faith once delivered and handed down to us through the Scripture; but if we cannot be united in the truth, we must be divided by it. Truth is non-negotiable.