Discussing Mary

[justasking4]

Other sources? Why the Church to teach us the truth. This world changes. Doesn’t it require something dynamic and living that can handle these changing needs while adhering to the One Truth of Christ?

Good questions. I think we may want to get back on topic lest its closed down…

 

[justasking4]

What version of the NT did Paul take with him on his missionary journeys?

It was still be preached-taught orally and written down.

 

[davidv]

It was still be preached-taught orally and written down.

So, what changed, and when, so that there was to be nothing taught and passed on orally?

 

[NotWorthy]

It does not say this specifically.

Am I hearing YOU correctly?!?!? You of all people should not be using this as an answer to my question regarding the Scriptures having a monopoly of the truth.

However the source of the good news is spelled out in the NT.

Well, of course, the only source of the Good News is Christ, and His Channel to spread this Good News to His Church and all His Children is the Holy Spirit. But the Church is the visible source of His Truth.

How would you define the good news? What exactly is it?

I’m sorry, but our posts only have a 5000 character limit.

In a nutshell, Jesus came to this earth and died so that I may live. He did this out of pure Love for me, although I am Notworthy of this love and there’s nothing I could do to deserve it.

 

[NotWorthy]

  			Originally Posted by **NotWorthy** 					[forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_cad/viewpost.gif](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=2712858#post2712858) 				
  		*Other sources? Why the Church to teach us the truth. This world changes. Doesn't it require something dynamic and living that can handle these changing needs while adhering to the One Truth of Christ?*

Good questions. I think we may want to get back on topic lest its closed down…

But this is the answer to every one of your questions. You don’t trust the Church authority which we so lovingly adhere to (or we SHOULD be lovingly adhering to if we believe Christ’s words - I’m haven’t always be 100% adherent. But He forgives, thank goodness!).

 

[Mannyfit75]

justasking4:

Have you looked at this verse and the context carefully? Here is the verse and notice that it does not say that the church is the truth but rather to be the support of it.
15 but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.

The Douay Rheims Bible reads 1 Tim 3:15 as:

**15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. **

The RSV-CE Bible has it written as:

"…if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behalf in the household of God, which is the Church of the Living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

The King James Bible has it:

But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

the NIV Bible has it:

15if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

The American Standard Bible has it:

15 but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

The pillar and support of truth is find neither in the translation. I look it up in Bible gateway.

 

[justasking4]

NotWorthy;2712969]

But this is the answer to every one of your questions.
Get serious.

You don’t trust the Church authority which we so lovingly adhere to (or we SHOULD be lovingly adhering to if we believe Christ’s words - I’m haven’t always be 100% adherent. But He forgives, thank goodness!).

You should never trust your church 100%. Just look at its history.

 

[justasking4]

The Douay Rheims Bible reads 1 Tim 3:15 as:

**15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. **

The RSV-CE Bible has it written as:

The King James Bible has it:

the NIV Bible has it:

The American Standard Bible has it:

The pillar and support of truth is find neither in the translation. I look it up in Bible gateway.

All these versions support the view that the church is not the truth but a support of it.

 

[justasking4]

So, what changed, and when, so that there was to be nothing taught and passed on orally?

We can assume rightly so that the apostles also taught orally. What we do have is what they did write i.e. scripture and that is all. We have no records of anything they taught orally outside of the NT itself.

 

[justasking4]

NotWorthy;2712958]Am I hearing YOU correctly?!?!? You of all people should not be using this as an answer to my question regarding the Scriptures having a monopoly of the truth.

Maybe i didn’t understand your question. What are you asking?

Well, of course, the only source of the Good News is Christ, and His Channel to spread this Good News to His Church and all His Children is the Holy Spirit. But the Church is the visible source of His Truth.

How do you arrive at your conclusion that “the Church is the visible source of His Truth”?

I’m sorry, but our posts only have a 5000 character limit.

In a nutshell, Jesus came to this earth and died so that I may live. He did this out of pure Love for me, although I am Notworthy of this love and there’s nothing I could do to deserve it.

 

[guanophore]

The only evidence we have is what was written down. That’s all we have to go on. This is a significant blow to marian claims. They are not found in scripture nor even in historical docs of the period. All that leaves us is with speculations. Speculations are not proofs.

Your rejection of the sacred oral tradition as a source of Divine Revelation is not surprising, given that you have fallen prey to the Sola Scriptura doctrine. It leaves one with an impoverished conception of the faith, and a lopsided one. The Scriptures were never meant to be separated from the Sacred Oral Traditions from which they were distilled.

So much speculation here. Scripture is quite clear that in Christ we are blessed beyond imagination. See Epheisans for example. There is not one verse in scripture that these blessings come to us through Mary. Not one.

Well, JESUS came to us through Mary, and since He is the source of all blessings…

Gal 4:3-4
4 But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman,

This is why she is called the mediatrix of grace, because God came through her.

You are the one who is making the positive assertion that she was assumed not me. I have shown that its not in scripture which is all we really know of her. When we look at history for evidence we don’t find it but we do find speculations centuries later after the supposed assumption.

You proceed from a false premise, that all we really know is in scripture.

Since scripture is all that we really know about Mary, where does it say this? Where does it say Jesus provides blessings through her?

12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. John 14:12

Now that its established that there is no scriptural support for the claims that the catholic church makes in regards to Mary, we can turn our attention to their origins outside the NT. Lets look at when they began and by whom. Don’t you think this would be a good avenue to pursue?

As recipients of the Apostolic Teachings, we cannot agree with you that there is no scriptural support for the Marian Doctrines. What some here have done is agree that you cannot see them, because you are looking at them through a pair of lenses that you put on in the beginning that are called “it’s not there” glasses. All we have done is acknowledge that we recognize these glasses.

This is not about sola scriptura but what do the the scriptures say. Is there one verse that says Mary is a queen, without sin, queen of heaven etc?

Jesus is a King, is He not? She is the Queen Mother. Mary was told by the angel “the Lord is with thee”. How did this happen? How did it happen that the Lord was “with” her BEFORE the conception of Jesus? How did she become “full of grace”, prior to the overshadowing or indwelling (when Jesus poured out the spirit)?

 

[Mannyfit75]

All these versions support the view that the church is not the truth but a support of it.

Exactly, it does support the truth. I’m just saying the word support in 1 Tim 3:15 is not founded in there. You either found foundation or bulwark of truth.

The Church upons the truth because Jesus is the Truth. Jesus also promise His Church that the Holy Spirit, the Counselor will lead them to all truths. So what the Church professes to believe is Truth.

She was the one who approved the 27 NT text are good for use in Liturgy of Divine worship at Mass and so forth. But that itself is another discussion.

 

[guanophore]

in the catechism of the catholic church,

2677 Holy Mary, Mother of God: With Elizabeth we marvel, “And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Because she gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother; we can entrust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself: “Let it be to me according to your word.” By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her: “Thy will be done.”
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death: By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the “Mother of Mercy,” the All-Holy One. We give ourselves over to her now, in the Today of our lives. And our trust broadens further, already at the present moment, to surrender “the hour of our death” wholly to her care. May she be there as she was at her son’s death on the cross. May she welcome us as our mother at the hour of our passing to lead us to her son, Jesus, in paradise.

Compare this with Revelations 15:4 which says:
“Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy; For ALL THE NATIONS WILL COME AND WORSHIP BEFORE YOU, FOR YOUR RIGHTEOUS ACTS HAVE BEEN REVEALED.”

Only God is all Holy and not Mary or any created being.

You are right that there is an aspect of HOliness possessed by the Divine and cannot be shared by created beings. However, you misunderstand the use of the word Holy as it applies to people. We find an example here:

21 Then you shall take part of the blood that is on the altar, and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it upon Aaron and his garments, and upon his sons and his sons’ garments with him; and he and his garments shall be holy, and his sons and his sons’ garments with him. Ex 29:21

Aaron, his sons, and his garments are all to be holy. In the same way that vessels are consecrated, and set apart for sacred things. Mary was consecrated, and set apart to bear the Son of God. She is a holy vessel.

The anti sola scriptura argument is being used to refute the scriptures.

This is not correct, justasking. The anti- sola arguement is being used to refute your inaccurate proclamation that “the scriptures are all we can know.”

Do you believe that the scriptures are inspired-inerrant?

Yes. Just as much as the Sacred Oral Traditions from which they sprang, and from which they are not intended to be separated.

(Mary is without sin, and is Queen of Heaven) … the scriptures never make such an argument.

The scriptures would have no need to make such an “arguement”. Every one of Jesus’ disciples understood their family history, and knew the relationship of the King’s mother to the people.

Look it up in a greek lexicon of the NT. It says nothing about being without sin for her entire life.

We did look it up, and we told you what it meant to be “full of grace” and to be at “enmity” with the devil. We just see it differently.

I have looked at many catholic interpretations that are used to support marian doctrines and it doesn’t work when you take the context into consideration.

I think the problem you are having is that you have taken the entire Bible out of it’s context. It is a Catholic book, and it was written, preserved, and translated by Catholics. Catholics are best equipped to say what it means. If you remove the scriptures from the Catholic origins from which they sprang, you will by definition, be out of context.

What makes you think you are interpreting correctly? Has your church interpreted these verses?

Yes, as we have said, you can find these interpretations in the catechism. I know you have, because you have posted some of them here. Just because you don’t agree with them, does not mean the Church has not interpreted them. For example; full of grace = without sin. Enmity with devil = no participation if works of the devil.

Starting a thread right now would not be a good thing on my part. I think already i have made plenty of enemies out here. The mocking comments is enough to stomach for now.

I am sorry if people here have failed in charity. Mother Church calls us to love our enemies, and sometimes we fall short.

 

[justasking4]

guanophore;2713201]Your rejection of the sacred oral tradition as a source of Divine Revelation is not surprising, given that you have fallen prey to the Sola Scriptura doctrine. It leaves one with an impoverished conception of the faith, and a lopsided one. The Scriptures were never meant to be separated from the Sacred Oral Traditions from which they were distilled.

Where is this “Sacred Oral Traditions” that we can study? Do you have a list or something like that so i know exactly what this is?

Well, JESUS came to us through Mary, and since He is the source of all blessings…

Does a person need Mary to be blessed? Do i need Mary to inherit grace?

Gal 4:3-4
4 But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman,

This is why she is called the mediatrix of grace, because God came through her.

This passage has nothing to do with our having spiritual blessings in Christ.

You proceed from a false premise, that all we really know is in scripture.

All that we know of Mary is only in the scriptures. Speculations of men does not count as knowledge.

12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. John 14:12

As recipients of the Apostolic Teachings, we cannot agree with you that there is no scriptural support for the Marian Doctrines. What some here have done is agree that you cannot see them, because you are looking at them through a pair of lenses that you put on in the beginning that are called “it’s not there” glasses. All we have done is acknowledge that we recognize these glasses.

Do you realize that many catholic scholars also acknowledge that there is no scriptural basis for the assumption? Do you also realize also that no church father and Christian writers did not interpret the words of Christ in John 19:26-27 as Mary being the mother of the church?
In fact for most of church history the church did believe Mary was queen of heaven either. Were they blind to?

Jesus is a King, is He not? She is the Queen Mother. Mary was told by the angel “the Lord is with thee”. How did this happen? How did it happen that the Lord was “with” her BEFORE the conception of Jesus? How did she become “full of grace”, prior to the overshadowing or indwelling (when Jesus poured out the spirit)?

I don’t see any problem with Mary being given the grace to bring the Christ into the world and later with coming of the HS.

 

[NotWorthy]

Get serious.

JA4, No matter what my tone tends to be, you know that I am very serious when I say “The Church”. You think I’m joking? Get serious!

You should never trust your church 100%. Just look at its history.

Ah, but I trust the teachings of the Church 100%. I know that there are sinners that are a part of the Church that will always convince you that this can’t be the Church that Jesus intended.

But the teachings of the Church… the reasons that founded those teachings… the symbolism imbedded in those teachings… I love them and trust them!

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I find it interesting that you will trust your Bible 100%–even though no two Protestants will agree on every Biblical passage 100%. . .considering its history. I mean, there are NO original documents. . . only copies. There are all SORTS of other contemporary documents (the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermes) which were also used to preach the gospel for the first 300 years of Christianity. Once we actually GOT a written Bible, how about all those YEARS when hardly ANYBODY could READ it? How do you KNOW that this Bible, the one you hold in your hands, is 100% trustworthy? No circular reasoning that “it tells me so”. . .how can you be SURE that there have not been ERRORS made?

 

[NotWorthy]

Maybe i didn’t understand your question. What are you asking?

You claimed that Scriptures have a monopoly of Truth (meaning nothing else can be held as “the truth”). I asked where does Scripture say that it holds a monopoly on the truth. You said that it doesn’t say it explicitly.

You’ve been given this answer (“Scriptures don’t say it explicitly, but implicitly”) a ga-gillion times, and haven’t accepted this answer a single time.

It is extremely funny to be given this answer by you!!!

How do you arrive at your conclusion that “the Church is the visible source of His Truth”?

*“He who hears you, hears me. He who rejects you, rejects me”. “And I will send the Advocate to you, and He will guide you in all truth”.
*

 

[guanophore]

We can assume rightly so that the apostles also taught orally. What we do have is what they did write i.e. scripture and that is all. We have no records of anything they taught orally outside of the NT itself.

But we DO justasking. We have their teachings, preserved by way of Sacred Oral Tradition. And by those teachings (the living record). This is a way of life that has been passed on through the Apostolic succession:

2 Cor 3:2-3
You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by all men; 3 and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

What does SS have to do with Mary?

In this case, everything. Your truncated doctrine of the Divine Revelation prevents you from apprehending the part of it that it no explicitly stated in scripture.

Were not talking about my beliefs but about the catholic church’ teaching on Mary.

Actually, I think it was both. We were also talking about your beliefs that what the Church teaches is false because you, personally, cannot see it in scripture.

Would happen to know when this “Mary as the Queen of Heaven” did begin?

When it was recognized that Jesus was the King that was descended from the line of David. The people began to recognize His kingship after the miracle of the loaves and fish:

John 6:15

15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

And then, when He rode into Jerusalem, though they did not put that all together until some time later:

John 12:14-16
14 And Jesus found a young *** and sat upon it; as it is written,

15 “Fear not, daughter of Zion;
behold, your king is coming,
sitting on an ***'s colt!”

16 His disciples did not understand this at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that this had been written of him and had been done to him."

Likewise, it took the disciples some time to understand the implications of the position of HIs mother in the Kingdom, the meaning of the image in Revelation of the woman who gives birth to the King, and then even later, the dormition of the theotokos.

This is false for the mere fact scripture doesn’t teach it and you have no way to know if those who have died can hear your prayers.

Catholics believe that the Bible does tell us to pray for one another, justasking. We also believe the Bible tells us about a Communion of Saints, a great cloud of witnesses by whom we are surrounded, and that those witnesses can pray for us before the throne of God. Furthermore, we have not rejected the Apostolic Succession, whereby we DO know who can hear our prayers!

What we see above is an example of the “development of doctrine”. THe disciples’ understanding of the doctrine developed over time. At first, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the colt, they did not connect this with the prophesy, but later, when they reflected upon it, they remembered that this was a messianic verse,a nd that it was fulfilled by Jesus. This is an example of what happened with the Marian doctrines. After reflecting on the Revelation of Jesus, things become more clear over time.

You can claim this but it can’t be supported. For one thing the catholic church has according to one estimate only infallibly interpreted 8 verses. If that is true, there are literally hundreds catholics cannot be sure what they mean since these have never been interpreted.

The Bible was not meant to be parsed in that manner. This is an evangelical innovation that is contrary to sound doctrine. The scriptures are to be interpreted as “whole”, not peicemeal by the part. yes, by looking at all the parts specifically, we can deepen our understanding of doctrine, but the doctrine is taught in a whole and entire manner, with the scriptures supporting it. You can see this when you study the catechism.

My question is: how do you know you have interpreted a scripture correctly if your church has never interpreted that scripture?

the church teaches the Doctrine of Jesus Christ. When our understanding is in agreement with that doctrine, we know we have it right!

 

[guanophore]

All these versions support the view that the church is not the truth but a support of it.

Right! The Church is the pillar and foundation of the Truth. Jesus, the Head of the church, is full of Truth. The Church is built upon the Teachings of Jesus, the Apostles being the foundation. To those Apostles, Jesus revealed everything.

Mk 4:34 “He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.”

From that “everything”, some things were written down, and we have the NT. But the NT does NOT replace the Church as the pillar and foundation of the truth. It is a reflection of that Truth, and is testified to by that Church.

Where is this “Sacred Oral Traditions” that we can study? Do you have a list or something like that so i know exactly what this is? /

The answer is the same as it was the last five times you asked.You can find a great summary in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is free online.

To the extent that God chose to work through her to bring His Divine Son into the world, I will say “yes”. God could have chosen to do it another way, but He did not . He brought forth His Son through Mary, and by her “yes” to the Father, you can now inherit grace. Can you still be blessed and inherit if you don’t recognize that? I think so. Can you still inherit grace without recognizing or blessing Her as the source? Yes, I think so.

All that we know of Mary is only in the scriptures. Speculations of men does not count as knowledge.

Well, speak for yourself. You do not accept other sources of information as authoritative, so you are not able to know more of her. It is your loss.

I don’t see any problem with Mary being given the grace to bring the Christ into the world and later with coming of the HS.

Well, then this answers your question above about needing Mary and inheriting grace. I am glad you don’t have a problem.

[/QUOTE]

 

[guanophore]

We can assume rightly so that the apostles also taught orally. What we do have is what they did write i.e. scripture and that is all. We have no records of anything they taught orally outside of the NT itself.

Fundamentalists may not, I acknowledge that. However, the Catholics and Orthodox have preserved the Oral Traditions in many places outside scripture. You were broken off from your family tree, and you don’t have the photo album.