A thought from a baptist friend

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Shaolen

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My friend who is a Baptist posted this today

"Please know that I believe in Grace and the amazing mercy of Gods sacrifice of His son Jesus, but as I look at the last 100 years of church history I see a neutering rather a willful ignorance of one of Gods greatest characteristics. Yes, God is Love, yes, He’s the creator and giver of both mercy and grace but what do we need any of those without the understanding of Gods Justice. How often does scripture say that God is a, “Just God”? Without Gods Justice we have no right or wrong no conviction no love and no mercy. As a church we need to acknowledge all of Gods characteristics and practice them according to both scripture and the other great gift he gave us (the Holy Spirit). Only under the direction of both of these entities (scripture and the Holy Spirit) should we enact in anything.

Just a thought"

What would be a Catholic response to this?
 
Shaolen said:
My friend who is a Baptist posted this today

"Please know that I believe in Grace and the amazing mercy of Gods sacrifice of His son Jesus, but as I look at the last 100 years of church history I see a neutering rather a willful ignorance of one of Gods greatest characteristics. Yes, God is Love, yes, He’s the creator and giver of both mercy and grace but what do we need any of those without the understanding of Gods Justice. How often does scripture say that God is a, “Just God”? Without Gods Justice we have no right or wrong no conviction no love and no mercy. As a church we need to acknowledge all of Gods characteristics and practice them according to both scripture and the other great gift he gave us (the Holy Spirit). Only under the direction of both of these entities (scripture and the Holy Spirit) should we enact in anything.

Just a thought"

What would be a Catholic response to this?
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That doesn’t really say much. What do they mean by “justice”?
 
Ask this friend to clarify this thought a bit more. I find it lacking.
 
Why would we need to have a response? I see nothing that would contradict the 2,000 years of teachings of the Catholic Church. 🤷

Shaolen,
You really should invest in at least a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which, if you take the time to read and study it carefully would help you find clear statements that say things like…
V. THE LAST JUDGMENT ** **
1038 The resurrection of all the dead, "of both the just and the unjust,"623 will precede the Last Judgment. This will be "the hour when all who are in the tombs will hear [the Son of man’s] voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment."624 Then Christ will come "in his glory, and all the angels with him. . . . Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. . . . And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."625

1039 In the presence of Christ, who is Truth itself, the truth of each man’s relationship with God will be laid bare.626 The Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do during his earthly life:

All that the wicked do is recorded, and they do not know. When “our God comes, he does not keep silence.”. . . he will turn towards those at his left hand: . . . "I placed my poor little ones on earth for you. I as their head was seated in heaven at the right hand of my Father - but on earth my members were suffering, my members on earth were in need. If you gave anything to my members, what you gave would reach their Head. Would that you had known that my little ones were in need when I placed them on earth for you and appointed them your stewards to bring your good works into my treasury. But you have placed nothing in their hands; therefore you have found nothing in my presence."627
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1040 The Last Judgment will come when Christ returns in glory. Only the Father knows the day and the hour; only he determines the moment of its coming. Then through his Son Jesus Christ he will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which his
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Providence led everything towards its final end. The Last Judgment will reveal that God’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God’s love is stronger than death.628

1041 The message of the Last Judgment calls men to conversion while God is still giving them "the acceptable time, . . . the day of salvation."629 It inspires a holy fear of God and commits them to the justice of the Kingdom of God. It proclaims the “blessed hope” of the Lord’s return, when he will come "to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at in all who have believed."630
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I asked him to elaborate and heres what he said

" I mean that God created all that we can conceive and then probably more. He as the owner makes the rules. He is fair and impartial to those rules. Those rules show that we as humans make some terrible choices. Based on God being just and in accordance to his law if we break that law we can be rightfully condemned. Basically because we neglected to follow the rules we are indebted. God has the ability to decide that. That is just.

I do believe that along with this definition there is another and it is the fact that God hates the ill treatment of others.

And lastly that he is fair and impartial. Uncorruptible."
 
Okay…that sounds a great deal like he’s using The Way of the Master system to try to evangelize you. You can see what’s going on if you Watch on-the-street witnessing.

God’s justice is summed up in the following verse in Romans 3:23 ***all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.

I fail to see where we really need a response because Catholic teaching is clear that we all need Christ because we’re sinners. 🤷
 
Church_Militant said:
Okay…that sounds a great deal like he’s using The Way of the Master system to try to evangelize you. You can see what’s going on if you Watch on-the-street witnessing.

God’s justice is summed up in the following verse in Romans 3:23 ***all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.

I fail to see where we really need a response because Catholic teaching is clear that we all need Christ because we’re sinners. 🤷
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I see the connection
 
Shaolen said:
I asked him to elaborate and heres what he said

" I mean that God created all that we can conceive and then probably more. He as the owner makes the rules. He is fair and impartial to those rules. Those rules show that we as humans make some terrible choices. Based on God being just and in accordance to his law if we break that law we can be rightfully condemned. Basically because we neglected to follow the rules we are indebted. God has the ability to decide that. That is just.

I do believe that along with this definition there is another and it is the fact that God hates the ill treatment of others.

And lastly that he is fair and impartial. Uncorruptible."
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I agree with the baptist.
 
Shaolen said:
My friend who is a Baptist posted this today

"Please know that I believe in Grace and the amazing mercy of Gods sacrifice of His son Jesus, but as I look at the last 100 years of church history I see a neutering rather a willful ignorance of one of Gods greatest characteristics. Yes, God is Love, yes, He’s the creator and giver of both mercy and grace but what do we need any of those without the understanding of Gods Justice. How often does scripture say that God is a, “Just God”? Without Gods Justice we have no right or wrong no conviction no love and no mercy. As a church we need to acknowledge all of Gods characteristics and practice them according to both scripture and the other great gift he gave us (the Holy Spirit). Only under the direction of both of these entities (scripture and the Holy Spirit) should we enact in anything.

Just a thought"

What would be a Catholic response to this?
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My response to this is that while we can acknowledge all of God’s characteristics, we cannot practice all of them. In particular we cannot practice “God’s Justice” for we cannot know all that God knows about a given person or situation. We can and should strive to be just…but this will only be a shadow of what God’s justice truly is.

Jesus gave us our “marching orders” when He gave us the command to Love (Agape).
Love is the defining essence of God (at least that we are able to understand).
Love is what Jesus tells us we must be perfect in.
Love is the core and root of all the prophets and the law.
Love must underpin everything else - including faith and hope.

So - if we are to acknowledge and practice all of God’s characteristics (to the best of our meager abilities) then we must get the characteristic of Agape right first. Everything else flows from that.

Peace
James
 
TimothyH said:
The correct response is “Amen” followed by, “What’s for lunch?”

-Tim-
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Agreed. This solitary focus on God’s love without any attention to God’s justice has been a problem in the Christian world for a few decades now. Even in the Church you see those who talk only about love, and never about sin and repentance (or even correction of those who publicly and obstinately sin).

To the OP, invite him to join you at Mass sometime.
 
“Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion.

Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite.

Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space. In the truth, charity reflects the personal yet public dimension of faith in the God of the Bible, who is both Agápe and Lógos: Charity and Truth, Love and Word.”

~Pope Benedict XVI Encyclical Caritas in Veritate
 
Shaolen said:
… As a church we need to acknowledge all of Gods characteristics and practice them according to both scripture and the other great gift he gave us (the Holy Spirit). Only under the direction of both of these entities (scripture and the Holy Spirit) should we enact in anything.

Just a thought"

What would be a Catholic response to this?
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As a Catholic, I would agree. And I would note that Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to the leaders of His Church to ensure that what His Church taught was the truth.

We also receive the Holy Spirit to help us understand the Scriptural truths as defined/ interpreted/proclaimed by the Church Magisterium.
(Jesus speaking to **the apostles **at the Last Supper, just prior to His passion and death. This was not a public discourse to the crowds.)
John 16:13-14 “But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. … he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”

I would start with that and then wait to hear & ponder/understand the Baptist’s response. Seems best to me to go one step at a time. If papal infallibility comes in, then I’d go in to Matt. 16:17-19 (the binding & loosing, and most importantly the “keys”.)
 
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