Are these statements of belief ok with Catholicism?

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You are too young to remember, but ever hear Paul McCartney and Wings sing “Junior’s Farm”?
“I was talking to an Eskimo,
Said he was ready for a fall of snow,
When up popped a sea lion, ready to go…”
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Yeah.
 
  1. Any and all “Statements of Belief” are canards, European inventions that can and do change with the prevailing winds.
  2. You would have to provide a precise definition of each and every term, as the reformation redefined common Christian terms into Newspeak.
  3. Several of the “statements” are flat out heresy for true Christians. Ask any Orthodox Christian.
  4. Where did Jesus teach a “Statement of Beliefs”?
  5. Where did Jesus teach reliance on ANY written documents, bible or no?
  6. Where did Jesus teach “spiritual regeneration” without water baptism?
  7. If you are going to follow Christ, at least use His recipe (Luke 9:23) rather than the opinions of men in Europe.
 
  1. might be ok, but “tri-personal” sounds off. I don’t know why they are not saying Triune God - which is something Christians have said for 2000 years. So this would make me pause and make sure they are not falling into a heretical understanding of the Trinity.
  2. This is worded a little funny, but to looks ok.
  3. This is wrong. We are saved by Grace. We receive Grace through faith AND by cooperating with God. As the Bible says Faith without Works is dead. They are trying to argue a Sola Fide position, masking it by mentioning Grace.
  4. What is spiritual regeneration? If they mean Baptism by water, great. However, I don’t think that’s what they mean. Evangelicals that have a Baptist and/or Pentecostal like theology do not believe that God does something supernatural though Baptism. Catholics, Orthodox, and mainline Protestants all do.
  5. This is not ok because it was the Church who approved the Scriptures in the first place. The Bible cannot be the Supreme Authority of the Church when the Church determined & approved which writings were inspired by God. Also, the Bible itself says to hold onto the Traditions that have been based down to you - written or orally. The Bible also says that not all of Jesus’s teachings are in the Book - another reason for Sacred Tradition.
  6. Nice.
  7. This is a serious run-on sentence, which is hard to follow. This might be OK, but I really don’t understand what they are trying to say.
  8. Sounds ok.
God Bless
 
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observer333, it seems you made this post in good faith, so I’m sorry I jumped to a wrong conclusion about you.

We unfortunately have a lot of non-Catholic “Christian” users (whose profiles usually say “Christian” or some other signifier that they are Protestant) who make very naive posts on here for purposes of getting the forum riled up. I mistook you for one of those because it seemed very obvious to me that what you posted is nothing like the Creed that someone else posted. Especially since, as other people noted, it has blatant “Sola Fide” and “Sola Scriptura” statements in it at (3) and (5) which very definitely show it is not Catholic.

For my part, I will try to ask people to clarify in the future rather than jump to a conclusion.

I would suggest that for your part going forward, you post a little background about whatever quotation you are wanting us to evaluate, like what is the source of it, why are you asking us about it, etc. Something like “I received this statement from a potential employer that happens to be a Christian university, and I’m just wondering how much it agrees with the Catholic faith” is better than just posting it out of the blue.

God bless.
 
po18guy said:
If you are going to follow Christ, at least use His recipe ( Luke 9:23 ) rather than the opinions of men in Europe.
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Hey, the author being quoted in the OP is from the US…!!!

HaHa.

(btw, I hear st.Paul had Roman citizenship and st.Peter, being an immigrant, applied for citizenship upon arrival. Same for st.James who ended up in Spain, st.Benedict and all the others…Ohh and the popes have been European lately too…)
 
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Well, perhaps I should have been more speicific. I was speaking of rebellious souls in 1500s Germany and Switzerland.
 
observer333 said:
I believe that Jesus’ own teaching and his attitude toward the total truthfulness and supreme authority of the Bible, God’s inspired Word, make the Scriptures our final rule for faith and practice.
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#5 is unbelievable. The NT wasn’t even around at the time, for Jesus to point out as an authority. Instead Jesus, as recorded in NT gave that authority to His Church, and she went on to write the NT.
 
Crocus said:
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observer333:
I believe that Jesus’ own teaching and his attitude toward the total truthfulness and supreme authority of the Bible, God’s inspired Word, make the Scriptures our final rule for faith and practice.
Click to expand...
#5 is unbelievable. The NT wasn’t even around at the time, for Jesus to point out as an authority. Instead Jesus, as recorded in NT gave that authority to His Church, and she went on to write the NT.
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Indeed, our Lord made zero reference to any writing, inspired or not, for the perpetuation of the faith. He sent Apostles.

I may Google the list to see from what non/denomination it stems. Bible alone, but may not even be truly Christian.
 
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Thanks for your reply! As adgloriam posted above, it is indeed from (evangelical) Dr. William Lane Craig (https://www.reasonablefaith.org/), who many say is the greatest Christian apologist today (you can see his debate wins vs, the big-name atheists, Hitchens, Sam Harris, etc., at Reasonable Faith). It is from the guidelines for starting a new Reasonable Faith chapter. Dr. Craig defends the Christian essentials (or “mere Christianity” a la C.S. Lewis) from the attacks of atheists & selcularists. This would include Catholicism’s core beliefs (he has also been in a forum with Bishop Barron).

I beleive this is true ecumenism.

From the Reasonable Faith FAQ’s for staring a new chapter…

What if I’m Catholic (Orthodox, etc.)?
Anyone who is able to affirm Reasonable Faith’s theological distinctives may become a
chapter director.

This FAQ got me thinking if there were any Catholics here that would be interested in starting a new Reasonable Faith Chapter in their area?
 
I really appreciate this. The shortcoming with it and other attempts to put us all under one brotherly umbrella, though, are many of the nuanced things we’ve pointed out above. In order to come up with a statement of faith we can all agree on, we as Catholics actually have to deny significant portions of our faith — in other words, as much as I long for it to happen, I don’t have much faith (no pun intended) that we can have a “creed” every denomination is on board with 100%. Instead, I think we can do more “agree to disagree” like the many Protestant churches of my youth did when they would get together for camp meetings and revivals. There, it didn’t matter if you were Baptist or Pentecostal - those things were for your “home church” and actual home, but in the collective worship, you just prayed and praised together.
 
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