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eternalmystery
Number of posts : 730 Age : 36 Location : Franklinton, Louisiana, USA Registration date : 2008-11-03 Points : 6167
| Subject: Re: Catholicism Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:06 pm | |
| - olias wrote:
- eternalmystery wrote:
No. We do not score points with God. We cannot. God does E V E R Y T H I N G. Our justification, our sanctification, our regeneration, etc., is all done solely by God. Any good works that we may do, only demonstrate to the outside world (note, the outside world) that we have been born again. It does not demonstrate to God that we are born again, because since He is doing all the work, I'm pretty sure He's already aware that we are saved.
You misunderstand me. I mean, do you believe that WE believe that? Oh sorry, I went back and re-read your post and found the "we". LOLZ Working at soup kitchens, helping people, etc.? No. Doing penance and other good works prescribed by the Church? Yes. Rome is clear in their teaching that we must cooperate with God in a joint effort and achieve salvation. |
| | | eternalmystery
Number of posts : 730 Age : 36 Location : Franklinton, Louisiana, USA Registration date : 2008-11-03 Points : 6167
| Subject: Re: Catholicism Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:07 pm | |
| - LastFirstborn wrote:
- eternalmystery wrote:
- olias wrote:
- BOXXYBABEEBROOTAL wrote:
- Mark wrote:
- Calvinism makes Christianity meaningless. What's the point of the Gospel if God is just going to pick and choose who gets saved?
Well that isnt flaming at all..... Christ died for all of mankind. Not a select predistined few. What Mark said is not mockery. It is a bluntly put, but truthful observation. Christ DID die for all. But, not all will be saved. Well, that's about as clear as a glass of Coke mixed with a loving spoonful of crude oil. Elaborate? You think we can begin a new thread about Calvinism? I don't wanna derail this one. |
| | | The Last Firstborn
Number of posts : 2576 Age : 31 Registration date : 2009-04-07 Points : 8734
| Subject: Re: Catholicism Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:10 pm | |
| - eternalmystery wrote:
- LastFirstborn wrote:
- eternalmystery wrote:
- olias wrote:
- BOXXYBABEEBROOTAL wrote:
- Mark wrote:
- Calvinism makes Christianity meaningless. What's the point of the Gospel if God is just going to pick and choose who gets saved?
Well that isnt flaming at all..... Christ died for all of mankind. Not a select predistined few. What Mark said is not mockery. It is a bluntly put, but truthful observation. Christ DID die for all. But, not all will be saved. Well, that's about as clear as a glass of Coke mixed with a loving spoonful of crude oil. Elaborate? You think we can begin a new thread about Calvinism? I don't wanna derail this one. Yeah, we already have one Catholicism thread and a handful of active black metal threads, what's one more controversial thread? |
| | | olias
Number of posts : 2399 Age : 33 Location : USA Registration date : 2009-07-10 Points : 8102
| Subject: Re: Catholicism Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:47 pm | |
| Works doesn't mean wearing scapulars and saying hail marys. It means bearing the fruits of love of Christ. |
| | | eternalmystery
Number of posts : 730 Age : 36 Location : Franklinton, Louisiana, USA Registration date : 2008-11-03 Points : 6167
| Subject: Re: Catholicism Wed Feb 24, 2010 12:19 am | |
| - olias wrote:
- Works doesn't mean wearing scapulars and saying hail marys. It means bearing the fruits of love of Christ.
I wouldn't disagree with this at all. But is this what Trent is saying though? |
| | | olias
Number of posts : 2399 Age : 33 Location : USA Registration date : 2009-07-10 Points : 8102
| Subject: Re: Catholicism Wed Feb 24, 2010 12:48 pm | |
| Trent? As in Council of Trent? |
| | | TheBeastSlayer
Number of posts : 2165 Age : 32 Location : Kingdom of God,State Of Delusion, USA Registration date : 2009-03-26 Points : 8081
| Subject: Re: Catholicism Wed Feb 24, 2010 1:23 pm | |
| - olias wrote:
- Trent? As in Council of Trent?
Yeah. |
| | | Vigilance Saints Arise
Number of posts : 328 Age : 61 Registration date : 2009-08-03 Points : 5744
| Subject: Re: Catholicism Wed Feb 24, 2010 5:43 pm | |
| I learn something true every day.
Christians of all Denominations are true Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Ecumenicalism
Jim is a Baptist Mike is a Methodist Bill is a Penticostal Rick is a Lutheren Al is a Full Gospel Tim is a Tele Evangeist Dan is a Non Denominatial Joe is a Evangelical and Peter is Catholic Christian
But when one says "I am a Protestant." This person protests the Catholic Church. And has Religious arguments against the Church:
The Pope Infant baptism Confession Priests and Nuns Holy Mass Christ's True presence in Holy Communion Confermation No sex before Marriage No divorce No birth control Last rights No abortion Capitol punishment Faith healing The communion of Saints Purgatory War and peace Euthanasia Church art What Bible and books to read Interpretation of the written Word and History Tradition
Ewtn.com The Eternal Word Televison Network
Last edited by Vigilance Saints Arise on Fri Apr 09, 2010 1:00 pm; edited 2 times in total |
| | | graybeardheadbanger
Number of posts : 167 Age : 57 Registration date : 2009-07-26 Points : 5532
| Subject: Re: Catholicism Wed Feb 24, 2010 6:42 pm | |
| I obviously haven't been around for awhile--work and all.
I am comfortable in saying that I think a catholic can certainly defend his or her faith on Scriptural and rational grounds. I myself came to Catholciism after such a journey, as have many others who knew the Bible extremely well. There are LOADS of former Protestant ministers, theology prfoessors, etc. who have entered into full communion with the catholic church (as well as the Orthodox). They are aware of pretty much all of the objections raised here, and then some.
I'll take just a couple of things here. First, it is simply incorrect to say that the catholicc hurch has taught, as its once-and-for-all official position, anything which has later been proven "false." The Galileo affair is much misunderstood, for example. In fact, some top scientific thinkers are catholic, including the fact that one of the earliest proponents of the the Big Bang was a priest--and the late Fr. Stanley Jaki was a widely respected physicist and philosopher of science. One thing that complicates this for people is that church procedure can be very technical and detailed, and people often have an oversimplified understanding of how it proceeds--for example, Galileo's position was never condemned per se. Basically, he was asked to hold off on presenting his position as fact until it could be further investigated by the Church. He was "silenced" only as a temporary matter. One may not agree with this, BUT it is by no means correct to say that the C hurch officially taught something which later was proven wrong.
In any case, I'll explain what my own personal difficulty with Sola Scriptura is. First, it is conceptually problematic, very much so. To begin with, sola Scriptura if taken seriously must mean that the truth of all theological matters can be determined by Scripture alone. But the question of which books constitute the Bible--one of the most important theologicval matters if one is sola Scriptura--is not given in Scripture! And, even if it was, one would ahve a logival circularity problem--a book claiming that it is scripture only is authoritative in making this declaraiton, but it can be known as authoritative only if it can already be known to be scripture. But this just creates a logical circle--it is Scripture because i.t claims it is, and its claims should be beleived because it is Scripture. However, the scripture doesn't give us the books of the Bible to begin with, so true sola Scri[ptura is already debunked. Note, one cannot simply try to defend the choice of books in the canon on some other basis--it must be by Scripture alone, if one is tryuly Sola Scriptura. And once again, this fails,b because 1) the Bible provides no complete canon, and 2) even if it did, above circularity problem ensues.
There are other problems with sola Scriptura--I'm just naming the most obvious ones.
BTW, Catholic teaching does hold that all dogma must have at least "implicit" support in Scripture. Granted, many will scoff at the notion of "implicit," and what seems "implicit" may be a mattert of what one is inclined to see in light of being taught to interpret Scriptrues particular ways, etc.--still, it does at least take Scripture to be a necessary component in forming dogma--even if it needs to be given interpretation through the Church, etc.
The sola fide thing has come up before. To me, it is abundantly clear that some verses seem sdola fide, others seem to incorporate works. Those who read the works sounding verses through the faith only lens are simply giving a privileged status to the faith-only sounding verses, though one could just as easily do things te other way around. For example, in Romans 11, Paul speaks of being "nearer our salvation than when we first beleived," suggesting that the moment of faith is NOT synonymous with salvation. Now, there are obvious ways one can try to get around this, but the point is, one finds these "getting around": approaches only convincing if one has already accepted a certain understanding of sola fide. Sim,ilar to Paul's reference to "working out" salvation. And one can find various places throughout the NT which suggest that one can lose salvation by falling into sin. It also appears on the surface that James is making the opposuite case of Romans--and luther's discomfort with James clearly points this out.
besides this, unless one is willing to bite the bullet and be a strcit calvinist, it seems to me that "faith" is a work in some sense. If we must be willing to have faith (0r freely choose not to resist the gift of faith, or whatever) ,it is something WE are doing. There is no way around this, unless one holds that God absolutely predestines some to have the faith and others not to have it, apart from any free will they bring to the matter. I find such a position problematic, both Scripturally and conceptually--for one thing, it seems to me that part of beign in the image of God would involve the possibility of authentic freedom. If freedom is essential to being God, then our being in His image must be as well.
At the same time, Catholcisim completely agrees that one cannot "earn" faith in the sense of doing soemthing that "obligates" God to save us. We are always at God's mercy. Catholics and Protestants alike agree that we are saved by GRACE. The question has to do with how this grace can lead to works which transform us toward salvation.
This leads to a deeper point. Works are "necessary" for Catholics because they do not hold to a "forensic" view of salvation. That is, we are not saved by being "counted" as righteous--we are seen as saved by being made actually righteous. God doesn't pretend to see us as we are not. True, we find verses that speak of bieng saved for the sake of Christ--but here's the thing--catholics hold that God doesn't just regard Christ's sacrifice as paying a penalty" we accrued. Rather, His death and resurrection actually provide us with the grace to be transformed genuinely into righteousness. We cannot do it without Him--in fact, this makes is sacrifice out to be MORE efficacious, because it says that ti has the power to actually transform us, not just "count in our favor." God has said we are to be holy as He is holy--not just be "regarded as holy." But this is only possible through Christ. Such an understanding completely nullifies common caricatures of what Catholics consider regarding "works.' It all about availing ourselves to the grace C hrist has provided for us to be transformed into genuine Christlikeness.
I'll touch on other subjects as the points arise.
Peace, graybeardheadbanger |
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