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Tomster
Guest
Read and heed, Moon.
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T
Tomster
Guest
Read and heed, Moon,We already have elswhere and your position regarding OSAS has been refuted by Catholics and another Protestant.
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Tomster
Guest
As has been demonstrated to you over and over again your belief in OSAS is false. Even other Protestants have agreed that it is. The point being, from the Catholic perspective, is that there is absolutely no way Protestantism can decide anything, absolutely, because of its built in dogma of private judgment. Now, that being said, how, I ask you, can we believe anything you say regarding the current topic?Absolutely! Got that Thomster?
Are you aware that there are a great many Protestants who are very close to the Catholic position regarding our current topic who would strenuously disagree with your private interpretation? How would you preach to them Moon? Don’t other Protestants have the same right to private judgment as you? Who has the correct interpretation, Moon? Who, within worldwide Protestantism decides Moon?
These are questions you MUST answer Moon if we are to take you seriously.
M
moondweller
Guest
I asked for “proof,” not assertions.Read and heed, Moon.
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Tomster
Guest
Mike,No, I’m just stating my point of view and the Catholic point of view without insisting on the veracity of either.
That’s my point of view, too. Personally, it amazes me that a Catholic could be excommunicated over something so intrinsically irrelevant to salvation. But then again, Galileo was nearly excommunicated for teaching that the earth moves around the sun – hardly a matter of any relevance to salvation at all – because such a notion conflicted with the Church-endorsed worldview of that day. And even today, I’ve heard some Catholics argue that Galileo was not harassed by the Church on account of his teaching but only because he did not suppress his teaching at the Church’s behest – apparently, the Church was concerned that he was, without sufficient proof of his theories, unduly disturbing the minds of the faithful. I think the same principle applies here: the overwhelming majority of Catholics, clergy and laity alike, believed in Mary’s Assumption and begged the Pope to squash whatever dissent was left – not because Mary’s Assumption really matters one bit with regard to salvation, but because the dissenters were (in the minds of the “Assumptionist devotees”) unduly disturbing the minds of the faithful with their persistent obstinacy. The Pope obliged, and thus we have Munificentissimus Deus, which set forth the new requirement that Catholics must subscribe to belief in the Assumption of Mary in addition to whatever else has been required of all the Catholic faithful over the centuries.
–Mike
Your are missing the point. The Church has always believed in Mary’s Assumption as I indicated in my brief outline above. Another example might be helpful to you. Take a look at what the Council of Trent declared when it canonized the the books of Scriptures. This was a formal declaration of what the Church had always believed going back some 1,200 years.
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Tomster
Guest
I see you are picking and choosing again, Moon. That is a characteristic of heresy by the way.I asked for “proof,” not assertions.
Re-read my response. All of it from the very beginning. I ask you, how can "Guided by the Spirit of Truth . . . " be interpreted any other way?
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Tomster
Guest
Moon,That’s because according to the Scriptures ALL sins are “mortal” in the sight of an infinitely holy God: “For the wages of sins is death.” But it doesn’t stop there. It goes on to say: “…but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23; cf. 5:12-21).We believe as the Scriptures say: “In Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:14), and “…that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins” (Acts 10:43). As stated above we don’t see our salvation as a “reward,” but as the Scriptures say, “the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8-9). Nor would we ever, ever consider our eternal redemption/salvation as a “cheap” gift. It required the shedding of “precious blood,” more valuable than silver or gold; the sacrificial blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:18-19).Actually, we see and believe, according to God’s Word, that our sins (all of them) were imputed to Christ, once for all, on the cross, and buried with Him in His death; and now, as revealed in God’s Word (and God cannot lie), we are raised to new life with Him, being now “in Him,” in the resurrected Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). And as death has no more power over Him, so it is with us who are in Him (Jn. 11:25-26).
In Biblical Christianity sin and death are not the issues, but the reality of the forgiveness of all sins, total redemption through Christ’s shed blood, the joy of reconciliation to God, and the hope (not “hope so”) of the return of our Savior from heaven “who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Col. 3:21).
There’s nothing “cheap” about any of this. It’s the result of a GREAT price paid, once for all, in full. And all to His glory.
Wrong again, Moon,
This is a good example of a common failing among Fundamentalists such as yourself. You memorize your lessons well, but memorize selectively because you are only taught certain things. Although you read the entire Bible, with, naturally enough special emphasis on the New Testament, verses that do not mesh with what your pastors have told you are either skipped or just not perceived as being trouble spots. A case in point is that the Bible says “Not all sin is fatal,” (1 John 5:17).
D
Desertsailor
Guest
Of course there’s proof. Go to the Vatican Library and look it up.Proof?
Please show me where the bible says that everything the Apostles did and said is written in the bible.
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Tomster
Guest
Moon,That’s because according to the Scriptures ALL sins are “mortal” in the sight of an infinitely holy God: “For the wages of sins is death.” But it doesn’t stop there. It goes on to say: “…but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23; cf. 5:12-21).We believe as the Scriptures say: “In Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:14), and “…that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins” (Acts 10:43). As stated above we don’t see our salvation as a “reward,” but as the Scriptures say, “the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8-9). Nor would we ever, ever consider our eternal redemption/salvation as a “cheap” gift. It required the shedding of “precious blood,” more valuable than silver or gold; the sacrificial blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:18-19).Actually, we see and believe, according to God’s Word, that our sins (all of them) were imputed to Christ, once for all, on the cross, and buried with Him in His death; and now, as revealed in God’s Word (and God cannot lie), we are raised to new life with Him, being now “in Him,” in the resurrected Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). And as death has no more power over Him, so it is with us who are in Him (Jn. 11:25-26).
In Biblical Christianity sin and death are not the issues, but the reality of the forgiveness of all sins, total redemption through Christ’s shed blood, the joy of reconciliation to God, and the hope (not “hope so”) of the return of our Savior from heaven “who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Col. 3:21).
There’s nothing “cheap” about any of this. It’s the result of a GREAT price paid, once for all, in full. And all to His glory.
You have fallen hook line and sinker for the error of you spiritual fore-fathers, the Reformers, so-called.
The Reformers saw justification as a mere legal act by which God declares the sinner to be meriting heaven even though he remains in fact unjust and sinful. It is not a real eradication of sin, but a covering or nonimputation. It is not an inner renewal and a real sanctification, only an external application of Christ’s justice. The Catholic Church, not surprisingly, understands justification differently. It sees true eradication of sin and true sanctification and renewal. The soul becomes objectively pleasing to God and so merits heaven. It merits heaven because now it is actually good. Scriptures conceive of the forgiveness of sin as a real and complete removal of them. The words used are “blot out” (Ps. 50:3), “clears away” (Ps 102:12). “blotting out” (Is. 43:25), “takes away” (Jn 1:29). The few times the Bible mentions “covering” sins refer not to the forgiveness of sin sin by God, but to the forgiveness of one man’s sins by another. Since we cannot actually forgive one another’s sins (that is up to God), the best we can do is overlook them or “cover” them. Your notion that God “covers” our sins, but does not actually remove them, is an unfortunate misreading of the Bible that, again, found its origin in Martin Luther.
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Tomster
Guest
He can’t. In fact the Bible says the opposite. But when your pastor insists that you put a template over Scripture and believe only what he/she teaches you certainly are going to miss a lot. Which brings up still another question I have addressed to Moon on many occassions. It is a question that he has chosen not to reply to. It is simply this:Of course there’s proof. Go to the Vatican Library and look it up.
Please show me where the bible says that everything the Apostles did and said is written in the bible.
"What need have you, Moondweller, of a fallible preacher, when according to your own belief in private judgment, you can do just as well on your own when it come to interpreting Scripture?
You really need to address this.
D
Desertsailor
Guest
Protestants criticize the Church because we believe the Pope is infallible on matters of faith and morals, but each of them claims infallibility for himself. Funny, huh?He can’t. In fact the Bible says the opposite. But when your pastor insists that you put a template over Scripture and believe only what he/she teaches you certainly are going to miss a lot. Which brings up still another question I have addressed to Moon on many occassions. It is a question that he has chosen not to reply to. It is simply this:
"What need have you, Moondweller, of a fallible preacher, when according to your own belief in private judgment, you can do just as well on your own when it come to interpreting Scripture?
You really need to address this.
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Tomster
Guest
Back to the subject matter at hand.
True, no express scriptural proofs for the doctrine of the Assumption are available. And as a Catholic I say, “So what?”. The possibility of a bodily assumption before the Second Coming is not excluded by 1 Corinthians 15:23, and it is even suggested by Matthew 27:52-53: “and the graves were opened, and many bodies arose out of them, bodies of holy men gone to their rest: who, after arising again, left their graves and went into the holy city, where they were seen by many”.
True, no express scriptural proofs for the doctrine of the Assumption are available. And as a Catholic I say, “So what?”. The possibility of a bodily assumption before the Second Coming is not excluded by 1 Corinthians 15:23, and it is even suggested by Matthew 27:52-53: “and the graves were opened, and many bodies arose out of them, bodies of holy men gone to their rest: who, after arising again, left their graves and went into the holy city, where they were seen by many”.
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Tomster
Guest
They are popes unto themselves.Protestants criticize the Church because we believe the Pope is infallible on matters of faith and morals, but each of them claims infallibility for himself. Funny, huh?
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Tomster
Guest
In regards to the subject matter at hand, Fundamentalists ask, where is the proof from Scripture? Again, strictly there is none. It was the Catholic Church that was commissioned by Christ to teach all nations and to teach them infallibly. The mere fact that the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as something definitely true is a guarantee that it is true. Here, of course, we again get into a separate matter, the question of the false doctrine of sola scriptura. It is enough to say that there is no problem with an infallible Church officially defining doctrine that, although not in contradiction to Scripture, cannot be found on its face. After all, the Bible says nothing against the Assumption; silence is not the same as rejection, although, to be sure, silence is not the same as affirmation either. Silence is just - silence.Protestants criticize the Church because we believe the Pope is infallible on matters of faith and morals, but each of them claims infallibility for himself. Funny, huh?
(thanks K.K.)
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mpartyka
Guest
I misread your post and looked up the documents of the Council of Trent thinking that there was something about the Assumption in them. Turns out there wasn’t, but what is interesting is that the Council of Trent was noncommittal about the Immaculate Conception, only referring back to the “Constitutions of Pope Sixtus IV.” I couldn’t find these “Consititutions” online, but in the Wikipedia article on Pope Sixtus IV it says that he is the one who made the Feast of the Immaculate Conception a universal feast of the Church, but at the same time he didn’t make belief in the Immaculate Conception binding upon all the faithful. That didn’t happen for another 400 years, under Pope Pius IX. And according to Aquinas, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception wasn’t even celebrated at Rome two hundred years prior to Sixtus’ declaration, and he used that as evidence that the dogma was not to be believed. So what we have in the case of the Immaculate Conception, and I would guess the same is true in the case of the Assumption, is a belief that was not originally held by all the faithful, but which grew to be believed by more and more of the faithful until this majority was so large and so animated in their veneration of Mary that they begged and pleaded with the Pope to declare the dogma infallible, which he did. And it’s pretty obvious that Co-Redemptrix and Co-Mediatrix are next on the list – it’s only a matter of time before there’s enough groundswell among the laity to grant Mary these titles infallibly, too. And beyond that, who knows? I doubt we’ll ever see the day when Mary is elevated to the level of Goddess, but I’m sure that if the faithful can push her anywhere closer to that level, they will.The Church has always believed in Mary’s Assumption as I indicated in my brief outline above. Another example might be helpful to you. Take a look at what the Council of Trent declared when it canonized the the books of Scriptures. This was a formal declaration of what the Church had always believed going back some 1,200 years.
But here’s the point I think you’re missing. For over 1800 years, the Church chose not to teach that the Immaculate Conception was definitely true, and for over 1900 years, the Church chose not to teach that the Assumption was definitely true. These matters previously were open to Catholics to believe or disbelieve as they chose, but now they are not. WHY are they not, given that these beliefs, according to the papal encyclicals that defined them, had only grown more and more popular and well-believed over time, such that dissent over them was shrinking rather than growing? Let’s say that over time more and more people came to believe that Enoch and Elijah were assumed in a particular way, would the Church ever go so far as to define the manner of Enoch and Elijah’s assumptions infallibly? Probably not, because Enoch and Elijah’s assumptions have no significant bearing on the Church’s gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. But neither do Mary’s Conception or Assumption! So why did the Church make these articles of the faith which must be believed by all Catholics, when for 1800 years it simply didn’t matter what Catholics believed about these things concerning Mary?The mere fact that the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as something definitely true is a guarantee that it is true.
–Mike
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mpartyka
Guest
Which again raises the quesiton, “What does it matter whether somebody doubts this dogma, given that it is irrelevant to salvation, and nobody is going to get excommunicated over it?”Catholics don’t get excommunicated for this…Catholics have always believed in the Assumption of Mary, even the Apostles did. It only became necessary to declare it dogma when people started doubting it.
–Mike
P.S.: Do you have a good link explaining the Galileo controversy?
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moondweller
Guest
Because in time it went from a Christ centered faith to a mother/son religion. That’s why you are very astute by saying: “Co-Redemptrix and Co-Mediatrix are next on the list.” The Bible’s silence on Mary works to the benefit of those who desire to elevate her position in heaven to an ever closer juxtaposition with the Son . And, of course, who can argue against “infallibility”Probably not, because Enoch and Elijah’s assumptions have no significant bearing on the Church’s gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. But neither do Mary’s Conception or Assumption! So why did the Church make these articles of the faith which must be believed by all Catholics, when for 1800 years it simply didn’t matter what Catholics believed about these things concerning Mary?
–Mike
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mpartyka
Guest
Correct.The Reformers saw justification as a mere legal act by which God declares the sinner to be meriting heaven even though he remains in fact unjust and sinful. It is not a real eradication of sin, but a covering or nonimputation. It is not an inner renewal and a real sanctification, only an external application of Christ’s justice.
It should be noted, however, that these concepts of “true eradication of sin and true sanctification and renewal” do exist in Reformationist soteriology. They just don’t fall under the heading “justification.” Catholicism mixes justification, sanctification, and regeneration all together so that any which term includes the meaning of any or all of the other terms. But Reformers separate the terms strictly by meaning. Regeneration is the renewal of the soul that makes it actually good and objectively pleasing to God. Regeneration results in faith, which is rewarded with justification – the legal blotting out of one’s sin and application of Christ’s own righteousness to the sinner – which is in turn followed by sanctification – the inner cleansing action of the Spirit which conforms a person to the likeness of Christ. Reformers believe that through future sin a person loses sanctification at best, but not regeneration or justification, whereas Catholics believe a person can lose all three through mortal sin. (At least, I think that’s what the main differences are.)The Catholic Church, not surprisingly, understands justification differently. It sees true eradication of sin and true sanctification and renewal. The soul becomes objectively pleasing to God and so merits heaven. It merits heaven because now it is actually good.
–Mike
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mpartyka
Guest
Granted, such a statement of faith as, “The mere fact that the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as something definitely true is a guarantee that it is true,” is bound to leave a bad taste in the mouth of anyone who subscribes to sola scriptura, but do consider one thing: Change “Church” to “Bible” and “the Assumption” to any doctrine that the Bible does in fact contain, and you’ve got pretty much the same thing, don’t you?And, of course, who can argue against “infallibility”
–Mike
A
Axion
Guest
Except that 1001 varieties of protestants continually claim that all sorts of differing and contradictory doctrines that they’ve just dreamed up are “clearly” contained in the bible. The fact that x,000 denominations cannot agree on which of these doctrines are true, heretical or otherwise, shows the fallacy of that belief.Granted, such a statement of faith as, “The mere fact that the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as something definitely true is a guarantee that it is true,” is bound to leave a bad taste in the mouth of anyone who subscribes to sola scriptura, but do consider one thing: Change “Church” to “Bible” and “the Assumption” to any doctrine that the Bible does in fact contain, and you’ve got pretty much the same thing, don’t you?
–Mike
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