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From: firth@sei.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Questions regarding the Episcopelian Church
Message-ID: <Jun.4.22.56.30.1990.15157@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 5 Jun 90 02:56:51 GMT
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In article <May.24.01.00.16.1990.21330@athos.rutgers.edu> jhpb@garage.att.com writes:

>The word "pagan" in this context smacks more of a sneer than anything
>else.  One simply cannot take such a position seriously.  Are we going
>to discard the Pythagorean theorem because a Pagan discovered it?

Joe, please go back to what I wrote, which was this:

]  The Anglican church holds to the Real Presence.  It does
]  not use the term "transubstantiation" because it does not
]  believe the Christian faith should be explained in terms of
]  pagan philosophy.

I certainly don't sneer ar pagan Antiquity, and believe Pythagoras
to be one of the greatest men who ever lived.  But geometry is not
theology, and paganism is not revealed religion.

Since you mention the famous Theorem, consider the following
scenario:

  A learned Doctor of the Anglican Church writes a treatise on
  the Holy Trinity.  In that treatise, he compares the three
  Persons of the Trinity to the three sides of a right triangle,
  and explains the relationships between them in terms of the
  Theorem of Pythagoras.

  This goes down so well, that a Synod is called, at which the
  Pythagorean explanation of the Trinity is raised to the status
  of dogma, declared "the one true doctrine from now until the
  end of time", and required of all Anglicans as necessary for
  salvation.

  Finally, the Archbishop of Canterbury decrees that all schools
  of theology must teach only Pythagorean Trinitarianism, its
  tenets must be incorporated in the Catechism, and no other
  explanation of the Trinity is ever to be discussed, propounded,
  or countenanced.

No, it couldn't happen - but this is pretty close to the way in
which Aristotle's doctrine of substance and accidence came to
be incorporated in Roman dogma.  Do you see now why some of us
think it repugnant to reason and damaging to faith?