You can, naturally, cite the current situation as evidence of a flip-flop. But this change of strategy, adopted at Vatican II and involving, among other things, the revocation of secular-arm rights and duties from existing states, abandonment of serious attempts to legally establish Catholicism (to disasterous effect, in my opinion), was explicitly just that, in light of what the people behind it had considered to be a peculiar historical situation. It is also, needless to say, recent, and done in the context of existing and public accessible teaching.

In sum, the Church has never, either as "formal" magisterium or as a practical moral imperative, as far as I know, taught that "the pope can appoint emperors" is a binding statement under natural or revealed law, rather,  it was believed due to other reasons. As to feet kissing carried out by princes, well, I don't know, perhaps they should. I don't see anything wrong per se with the idea of kissing pontifical feet as a secular ruler: it seems to me to be a fitting if antiquated way of showing reverence to Christ, Whom the faithful - as rulers should in last analysis be - expect to be seen in their pastors.

Last edited by GeorgiusThomas (11/28/2017 6:01 am)

"I have no idea what this means, but it sounds like special pleading for Catholicism."

What this means is that I'm not really interested in this debate unless you can somehow justify your selection of points relevant for this discussion. For example, you seem to basically dismiss tradtional Catholic (and also Eastern Orthodox, to some degree) distinctions between magisterial and non-magisterial pronouncements as unimportant, without any argument or even a hint at one. I suppose what at least prima facie seems to be an imputation of 'spinning the history" of the Church, particularly in the last few centuries, is also something that, I think, will fail to inspire the interest of pretty much anybody not in substantial agreement with you and/or possessed of an extraordinary interest in your (unargued) opinions.
What -would be- interesting is, among other things, to see the important point in history (after which ecclesial writers stop being considered relevant witnesses) identified, and, for that matter, the detailed reasoning that would allow one to impute any theological (as distinct from historical) authority to the collection of writings known as the Christian Bible, particularly in connection with the above-mentioned item of interest, especially the property this collection of books apparently has in your understanding, namely, the one ordaining the necessity for any contender for Christian authenticity to be able to positively reconstruct all the aspects of its doctrine and practice from it that you consider to be important (this also being a delightful riddle). In other words, it would be positively grand to see the standard, that I supposedly fail to apply, properly defined and defended.

What makes the above-mentioned points especially interesting is my distinct impression of bearing witness to an entire brood of principia being begged. But I will try to carry on presuming good faith, and in this spirit  ask precisely why you think that citing a document of unclear purpose and import can serve as a kind of a silver bullet that renders all of the point made above utterly refuted or at least shown unworthy of being addressed. Perhaps you do have the powers of mind-reading (applied to dead people at that!) that I alluded to in the first fragment quoted by you above, but I really cannot see how the items contained in "Dictatus Papae" (the meaning and importance of each not specified in something that is basically a memo) again, even contrasted with previous and subsequent Papal usages, indicate a departure from the former and a wrong corrected in the latter. I suggest, among other things, looking up the full title of the Patriarch of Alexandria (accumulated over the centuries, naturally, but having its inception in the ancient Church). This suggestion is also, hopefully, made more intelligible below.

But then, perhaps you're right, and magisterial teaching and historical discussion of related matters are completely irrelevant, that is, when one has the unique ability of reading the very depths of the hearts of men through mere anecdotes. 

I suspect that the same wonderful perspicacity would explain the treatment of recurring sin and human frailty of some of its members as clear evidence of inauthenticity of the historical Church. Perhaps some sort of Donatism is true after all. Sadly, however, those with just the tools of common mortals, like myself, cannot catch even a glimpse of this pristinely authentic Christianity of seigneur socially embodied in history, as the evidence suggests that the same enemies plagued all of the pretenders for the Christian title throughout their earthly sojourn.

Last edited by GeorgiusThomas (11/28/2017 8:59 am)

And, should anyone want to accuse me of apologising for popes, as Catholics are apparently so prone to do, at least in this matter, I'd like to make it clear that I do believe in a fairly robust version of -indirect- papal power over secular powers and few events in the sublunar world would bring as much joy to me, all things being equal, as the errection of a planet-wide Catholic empire somewhat akin to the HRE that would solemnly subordinate itself to this indirect power and establish Catholicism as its state religion. I do not, to my great sadness, know how anything mentioned above can realistically come about and entertain no such hope, but this is the ideal, and few Catholics or Orthodox, (Anglicans et al.?) should find this ideal to be odd or scandalous.

Nor do I think that faith and religion are virtues that cannot be sinned against with detriment to the common good, so I, in the (at least relatively) good company of most cultures in the world, believe that they these transgressions can be real crimes, and hence intrinsically they admit the possibility of punishment, including capital punishment. According to some (perhaps not quite in line with their own tradition?), this thought excludes the possibility of being "a civilised Christian". Ah well.

Last edited by GeorgiusThomas (11/28/2017 9:45 am)

"The delightful riddle here is how Catholics are willing to take as their starting point that they don't know what the Bible is and what it says, while at the same time laying claim to both true and universal Christianity. This never worked and will not work now either. If you start with that you don't know what the Bible is, then this discussion has ended. Otherwise, read Hart's review and the Bible verses there."

By now I strongly suspect that distinguishing things is not an operation you indulge in frequently, but I beseech you to try it. But here's what I've meant: I can -know- 'what' the Bible is in many different ways, some more immediate than others. I can know the Bible as a group of documents, some of which presented as primarily accounts of historical events. I can know what the word "Bible" means within the context of archaeology, textual history, patristic studies etc. But without the Church, the existence of which as a sacerdotally hierarchical society vested with true doctrinal and moral authority by God and claiming to be the true Israel I affirm due to my conviction of evidentiary value of at least some books of the Bible, I do not know what the Bible is in the sense of a divinely inspired and infallible set of books with proportional theological authority. This concerns both the set, with the list of books legitimated in some other way nowhere to be found, and individual books.

Of course, should you deign to alleviate my ignorance, you can contribute to the enlightenment of all the poor members of the Catholic sect worldwide by pointing out the manifest signs of biblicalness in the latter sense in, say, the Epistle to Philemon (or any other book, really). 

Yes, it's a crime against thought. But you have not shown how I am begging the question. From my point of view, it's actually you doing it, insofar as you assume the following

- Catholics are Christians
- Christians must obey the Pope rather than the scriptures
- Capital Punishment, insofar as in accordance with natural law, is a Christian thing
_ _ _
You seem (perhaps it's just me) to be under the impression that fitting your personal nominal defition of a Christian is a rational concern for anybody, and I think it's evidently false, at least as it regards people not already that devoted to you. What I think -is- a rational concern happens to be fitting the real definition of a Christian that can be discovered upon historical investigation of the revelation claim and believed on that basis.

The question I suspect of being begged here, of course, is the opposition between the Magisterium and the Scriptures, the petitionary nature of which I've already touched upon. I eagerly await seeing your preferred procedure of going about the real concern specified above without presupposing Sola (Primo?) Scriptura and/or some other arbitrary and irrational standard. 
- - -
Hart's review challenges these points. Feser is not actually arguing for these points, but he certainly takes them for granted, more or less silently.
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I'll concede this as probable if you qualify your statement with "indirectly" and perhaps "unwittingly". His review seems to presuppose the truth of the first proposion against which you assert I'm begging the question.
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The idea is not to exclude natural law, but to determine the place of natural law in the order of things. Naturally, everybody is under natural law, Christians and gentiles alike. But Christians are also under Christian command and they are supposed to put aside their old worldly selves, so natural law is a thing to overcome, not a thing to follow. Is this not so? It's not a matter of if it's practical or feasible or easy to do it. If one questions or denies what is prescribed for Christians, one marks oneself as un-Christian, as simple as that.
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I wonder, why on Earth would anybody identify natural law with "our wordly selves". The supposed objective of totally overcoming natural law is in any case, so it appears to me, not only not contained in the NT, but, if granted, is totally destructive of any binding force any commandments are commonly attributed. You probably don't want to have "do good, avoid evil' overcome in any real sense. But without further elaboration setting limits to this overcoming at least appears arbitrary.
Given your refreshingly (seemingly) rigorist understanding of Christ's prescriptions (and an implicit conflation of commandments and counsels, but more about this later, perhaps), I'm tempted to ask about the number of mutilations you've inflicted on yourself. But that would be inappropriate. Hopefully your bodily intergrity is as full as this worldly human nature of ours suggests as optimal for a man of your age.
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So on the actual main point you are not really differing at all with me. See my first post in this thread.
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We might differ on the actual main point, but that's relatively unimportant, although some agreement would be nice, too. I wanted to show (not quite clearly, apologies for that) that your understanding of Orthodoxy (which is the denomination to which Dr. Hart swears allegiance) is not quite right, and that therefore one has to state that there is (at least potentially) a real coherence problem here. Presumably Dr. Hart is putting forward a view he holds to be the Orthodox one. It appears that you consider his view to be Christian, but, as argued, I don't think you can do that with the Orthodox, and you appear to refer to them as Christians. 
Apologies for any misunderstandings due to deficiencies on my part.

Last edited by GeorgiusThomas (11/28/2017 3:07 pm)