Can you guys help me out here?

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masterjedi747

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I’ve been having a great discussion about morality and the Church over at another forum, and I was hoping some of you guys could help me out here, with what my best response should be.

You can read the post I’m currently trying to respond to here.
And you can read a more complete version of the thread/discussion here.

Any (serious) help would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post my response to this by later tonight. Thanks in advance!!! 🙂 --MasterJedi747
 
Wow, there’s so much there. Can you give us a specific question you are having touble with or a statement you would like help with refuting? There’s just so much dialogue to sort through…
 
Ask her where we got the Bible. It didn’t just drop out of Heaven, as some people seem to believe. Some group with authority was needed to decide what went in and what didn’t. That group was, incidentally, the Catholic Church. The official compilation of books that is known today as the Bible was settled at the Council of Carthage in 397 A.D. This was long after the deaths of all the Apostles. She must agree that the Church was led by the Holy Spirit in at least this one instance, since she accepts the Bible as the unerring Word of God. It makes perfect sense that the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, is able to interpret the very book that She, guided by the Holy Spirit, compiled.

As to her definition of “Church”, that is indeed the Mystical Body of Christ which she described. The problem is that not all members are willing to submit to the proper God-given authority. You, however, were referring to the institution founded by Christ, the “city on a hill.” It was two different definitions of the same word that caused that confusion.

Concerning the “doctrine”, there is a difference between dogma, doctrine, and discipline. What she is referring to is probably a discipline, or changeable teaching, along with such things as celibate priests and not eating meat on Fridays. It might not even have been an official teaching of the Church at all!

Hope this helped!
 
Does the US Constitution give authority to the US Government or vice versa? Did the US Constitution come from supreme power or the insperation within men from a supreme power? Is the math book greater then the mathematician that wrote it? Can a math book be added to?

The young lady at that web site needs some serious errors in her logic (ill-logic) pointed out. The Catholic Church gave us the Bible and is THE AUTHORITY and only earthly authority that can declare the Bible inspired and correct. God did not command us to write a Bible nor did He write it for us. He never declared it inspired or gave us a cannon. The Catholic Church, His body and authority on earth, did.

Go back to basics with this lady. Ask her for her proof and where it came from. Get the origional proof too, not just “it’s true because my pastor says so” etc… Make her search for the truth in her proof. She will find she has no leg to stand on without the Catholic Church - which is not ALL Christians! Just because I want to be Sweedish does not make me Sweedish. I must either be born in that nation or pass their criteria for membership.

She has typical protestant theology and logic. She just needs to accept the truth and quit decieving herself with all the missinformation and lies she seems to believe.
 
Thanks for the responses, guys…I think it helped. 🙂
But I’ve hit one more tough argument, and I’m really lost this time. Help!!! :eek:
Madeleine_W (GateWorld Forum):
Doctrine in the middle ages and up to the c18 held that the unborn baby became a proper human being during the fifth month when the soul entered the baby. Doctrine for the past 150 years has held that a baby’s soul is there from the moment of conception. If Doctrine is not Totally Constant, then all sorts of awkward paradoxes appear.
If the church’s Doctrine cannot be wrong, where does that leave us when Church Doctrine changes? If Church Doctrine once said that babies weren’t people with souls until the middle of a pregnancy, but now says that they have a soul from conception then since they can’t both be true it can’t be the case that The Church is always correct in matters of faith and doctrine. If it can be wrong once then it isn’t infallible.
Click to expand...
Where do I start? Where is the fundamental source of the error here?
I know it’s certainly in there somewhere…but I can’t find it right now. 😦
 
I think it was something like 44 days that Aquinas said was when conception occured. The thing is, Aquinas is not the sole teacher of the faith. From the beginning, the Church has taught that abortion is evil and that it is murder. The fact that we have the science to prove that it is a human life is good, it has helped to show that life begins at the very beginning. Aquinas did not have this scientific proof.

Aquinas’s idea was never official teaching of the Church, although many may have believed it.

I would agree that the Church includes all Christians, but there is an imperfect union between them. The Catholic Church is the fullness of truth, and consequently it is the summit of Christianity. We should all desire to profess the truth in its entirity. The bible is not good enough as a source of authority. It leads everyone to believe a different idea of what it says. There is only one correct truth, and we need a teaching authority like the Church to help us to understand it.

Further, the bible is not what Christ left on the earth, He left the Church. The Church pre-existed the bible by a few hundred years, but the Church still went on. The authority was there from the beginning to teach. The Church was not sola scriptura. When you think about it, the Church had to teach tradition. For the first 15 to 20 years after the ressurection, there were no writings that could be used to teach. The writings that were written were written to correct errors that were spreading and to teach the story of Jesus. They were written from the teachers of the faith and they were expounding the teachings of the Church with the inspiratation of God. It is not like God just shouted down to Paul, “This is what My Church teaches”. No, it does not expound all the teachings because that is not the intent.
 
The thing about the bible that makes it need an interpreter is that it is written by some of the most holy and spiritual people to walk the earth. They wrote in a way that is above many peoples heads. If we have a teaching authority that is spiritual itself, then we have someone that can teach us the meanings of some of these passages that we can not understand. Having people like Augustine and Chrysostom and Athanasius to help us understand it is very helpfull.

The large group of Church fathers is great because they are all very spiritual men who have taught the gospels in there own words, but it is all the same teachings. Reading these writings helps us to see the teachings from different peoples minds, and consequently can help us to understand it more and to put it into perspective.

Further, the Church puts things in a simpler way of writing than does the bible. It says, this is what we teach, this is what we do not teach.
 
The issue of conception, babies’ souls—that is an issue where morality and science come together.
Because previous understanding of the science of the matter was poor - that led to poor understanding of the moral implications.

The more we learned about the truth of conception - the better the Church was able to conform her teaching to the truth of our souls at conception.

The Church has never declared infalliblity in the area of science.
 
The problem with her arguement is that it is based on the erroneous idea that it was ever a matter of Church doctrine when the soul enters the new life. That is not the case at all. She is right that it was once believed to be at a much later date but that was a matter of science not Church teaching.

The Church teaching has always been very consistent that all human life is sacred and it has always been immoral to end the life of an innocent human being. As science advanced we were able to prove beyone a doubt that life begins at conception, that is a scientific fact, not a Church teaching. The Church teaching is that you cannot kill an innocent human life; therefore taking into account modern science we can conclude that once conception takes place (new life) we must protect this new human life.

I hope this helps! 🙂
 
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