Council of Chalcedon (A.D.451)

[Hands On]

I thought I would share this pertaining to just how far can one bend God's word to accommodate current ubiquitous trends for example homosexuality  into the Christian muile .It seems to me that this is nothing "new" .The folks way back also dealt with these same issues.Allen Verhhey  in his book "The Great Reversal,Ethics and The New Testament p 170" tells us how they dealt with these issues back then already. "The conjunction of the divine and human has always been difficult to be precise about-whether the conjunction is relevant to the church's confession about Jesus of Nazareth or the sacraments or the Bible.In the case of Jesus of Nazareth,for example,the church finally contented itself at the Council of Chalcedon (A.D.451) by constructing four dikes against heresy.

Chalcedon did not make a positive statement but a series of limiting ones about this conjunction of the devine and human.The conjunction is made asynchytos atreptos.adiaretos,and achoristos :that is,the conjunction that the Bible is both the Word of God and human words must not confuse the two natures,transmute the one into the other,divide them into separate categories.or contrast them according to area or function.

Chalcedon's dikes may be erected today against the floodwaters of both liberalism and fundamentalism.The error of fundamentalism has typically been to identify and confuse the human words with the Word of God;the error of liberalism has typically been to divide the two and to contrast the human words with the divine Word.A Chalcedonian perspective will appreciate fundamentalism's concern for faithfulness to Scripture and liberalism's concern for creative attention to contemporary issues,but it will disown both fundamentalism's identification of the human words of Scripture with the Word of God and liberalism's contrast of the human words of Scripture to the Word of God...

The authorization,candidly stated,would be this:if a rule or command or any moral teaching is found in Scripture,then an identical rule or command or a moral teaching is normative for the church today.(There is usually some condition or rebuttal-such as,unless the rule or command or teaching is intended to be only a temporary obligation rather than a perpetual obligation.)In this view,the tasks for Christian ethics are to harmonize and systematize the biblical rules  commands and moral teachings and to apply them to cases as a contemporary code.

Liberalism's contrast of the human words of Scripture with the divine Word has sometimes backed the 'liberation' of Christian ethics from the human words of Scripture.Where there remains a concern for biblical authority,the authorization ,candidly stated,is this:if a rule or command or moral teaching found in Scripture is the Word of God rather than merely human words,then it is normative for the church (or for everyone)."

[Xavier]

Please read the Council of Chalcedon and the Tome of Pope St. Leo sent to the Council: it was all about declaring the Hypostatic Union and the Two Natures of Christ, in His One Person, as God-Man.

The Council's Acts: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3811.htm "For, as we must often be saying, he is one and the same, truly Son of God, and truly Son of Man. God, inasmuch as in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Man, inasmuch as the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. God, inasmuch as all things were made by him, and without him nothing was made. Man, inasmuch as he was made of a woman, made under the law. The nativity of the flesh is a manifestation of human nature; the Virgin's child-bearing is an indication of Divine power. The infancy of the Babe is exhibited by the humiliation of swaddling clothes: the greatness of the Highest is declared by the voices of angels. He whom Herod impiously designs to slay is like humanity in its beginnings; but he whom the Magi rejoice to adore on their knees is Lord of all. Now when he came to the baptism of John his forerunner, lest the fact that the Godhead was covered with a veil of flesh should be concealed, the voice of the Father spoke in thunder from heaven, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased

See also: http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/a35.htm "Thereafter, Pope Leo succeeded in getting both Emperors to call the Council of Chalcedon in 451. At this Council, attended by about 600 bishops (almost all of the Eastern Church), Pope Leo's Tome against Monophysitism and for the orthodox teaching of the two natures of Christ was embraced with the pronouncement: "This is the faith of the fathers! This is the faith of the Apostles! So we all believe! thus the orthodox believe! Anathema to him who does not thus believe! Peter has spoken thus through Leo! . . . This is the true faith!'" (Acts of the Council, session 2 [A.D. 451])." Just like in Acts 15, the early Church called Councils to settle doctrinal disputes. And the Pope held a prominent role there.

[Hands On]

Thank-you for the response regarding other topics addressed at the Council ,but Scriptures were also dealt with as I understand the following"

 

Canon 1

We have judged it right that the canons of the Holy Fathers made in every synod even until now, should remain in force.

Before the holding of the Council of Chalcedon, in the Greek Church, the canons of several synods, which were held previously, were gathered into one collection and provided with continuous numbers, and such a collection of canons, as we have seen, lay before the Synod of Chalcedon. As, however, most of the synods whose canons were received into the collection, e.g. those of Neocæsarea, Ancyra, Gangra, Antioch, were certainly not Ecumenical Councils, and were even to some extent of doubtful authority, such as the Antiochene Synod of 341, the confirmation of the Ecumenical Synod was now given to them, in order to raise them to the position of universally and unconditionally valid ecclesiastical rules. It is admirably remarked by the Emperor Justinian, in his 131st Novel, cap. j.; We honour the doctrinal decrees of the first four Councils as we do Holy Scripture, but the canons given or approved by them as we do the laws.

It seems quite impossible to determine just what councils are included in this list, the Council in Trullo has entirely removed this ambiguity in its second canon"