Do Protestants have "Faith"?

[guanophore]

847 of the Catechism is talking about the doctrine of invisible ignorace. A while back I said that the invisible ignorance doctrine is an exception to the No salvation outside RC doctrine. Invisible ignorace applies to the truly ignorant who nver heard of Jesus and the Church and lived according to the natural law.

It certainly does not apply to Protestants who are not ignorant of the Church. Many have heard about Catholicism and it’s claim to salvation. It certainly does not apply to people who have actually read the Catechism and those who hang around Catholic forums as senior members.

I dunno…some of them seem pretty invincibly ignorant to me!

And exactly how does “the gates of hell will not prevail” equate to infallibility?

When one begins to teach error, one passes through the gates of hell, and down onto the road to perdition.

paarsurrey,

There is only one true religion that God has revealed and that is Roman Catholicism.

Islam is an over-simplified natural religion that is utterly falese.
Muhammad was another man used by the devil to spread error. He made up a religion, in which he “borrrowed” alot from Judiasm and Christianity. His relatives were Nestorians and this heretical faith influenced him.

This represents a bigoted and narrow minded attitude for several reasons. First of all, there are many Catholics who are not Roman, and you are insulting all of us when you make comments like this. Secondly, Muslims are sons if Ishmael, and also inherited promises from God, and worship the God of Abraham. When you say otherwise, you are slandering.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

What about all the other documents and statements that are in the catholic church?

**That would take a book to discuss; or rather, whole libraries: it has already **​

**Whether conveniently or not, theology does not really lend itself to being reduced to snappy slogans. This causes problems: people can seem to be evasive or to be making needless difficulties by not giving pat answers This applies to (most ?) ****Protestant theology, as well as to Orthodox theology: Calvinists have well-considered reasons for believing as they do, as do the Orthodox. Not all Protestantisms are given to writing systematic theology, AFAIK. **

As the CCC is the principal source for Catholic teaching expressed in an organised & interconnected fashion, I hope you won’t mind not being given a detailed reply There are a lot of “statements”, & what is applicable to one is not necessarily true of all. FWIW, the CCC is, as its title implies, a catechism; not a guide to the study of theology. This is sometimes forgotten.

Can a person be saved who rejects Christ i.e. that He is God and died for sins?

This is two issues rather than one:​

• **1. God saves whom He Wills, as He Wills - no human being, no creature at all, has any business telling Him what to do. **
• **2. As for the teaching of the CC on the point: it teaches that non-Christians, atheists included, can be saved. This creates difficulties for some older ideas of the “conditions” of salvation; that does not make the teaching false. **
  **A Biblical example: the Aaronite priesthood is called “eternal”; yet Jesus abolished it. There is real continuity in truth even so. The abolition of the old was a result of the coming of the better Priesthood of Christ; for Christians to have kept the old, would have been unfaithfulness to the newer, & truly eternal, Priesthood. A Jew reading the Torah would have seen in this a rejection of the Torah; if he attended only to the letter of the text, he would had every right to do so. Yet the author of the Letter to the Hebrews would not have agreed with him. **

**Development of doctrine can be like that. To keep to the letter of the text is not enough - whether of the Bible, or of the formulae which encapsulate Catholic teaching. This similarity between doctrinal development since the Bible, & the unfolding of God’s revelation within the Bible, should not be too surprising, if the God Who is responsible both for the Aaronic priesthood & for that of Christ is at work in the Church: the way God has worked in the Biblical period, provides us with analogies for making sense of later developments. **

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I disagree here strongly. The only times that Baptism is not absolutly necessary is when the person wants to be baptised but is murdered/killed before they get the chance to be baptised,

Thanks for the support ​

OR they never get that chance to make the choice in the first place because they are murdered/killed in infancy. For example when a person is on Death Row and decides they are christian, this person many not get the chance to make the choice because they only realise they are christian and love god but it’s only at the very end as they are being strapped in… just like what happened to the criminal hanging with Jesus at the crucifixion, who realised what he had done wrong.

In all other times Baptism is Nessecery, absolutely nessecery. You can’t go around saying “I’m christian” and choose not be Baptised for an extended period of time because that is not a Christian belief.

**Please show me where I did say that. **​

 

[wisdomseeker]

Quote:
Originally Posted by saint rafael
847 of the Catechism is talking about the doctrine of invisible ignorace. A while back I said that the invisible ignorance doctrine is an exception to the No salvation outside RC doctrine. Invisible ignorace applies to the truly ignorant who nver heard of Jesus and the Church and lived according to the natural law.

It certainly does not apply to Protestants who are not ignorant of the Church. Many have heard about Catholicism and it’s claim to salvation. It certainly does not apply to people who have actually read the Catechism and those who hang around Catholic forums as senior members.

now it all make sense to me.

 

[wisdomseeker]

Quote:
Originally Posted by saint rafael
847 of the Catechism is talking about the doctrine of invisible ignorace. A while back I said that the invisible ignorance doctrine is an exception to the No salvation outside RC doctrine. Invisible ignorace applies to the truly ignorant who nver heard of Jesus and the Church and lived according to the natural law.

It certainly does not apply to Protestants who are not ignorant of the Church. Many have heard about Catholicism and it’s claim to salvation. It certainly does not apply to people who have actually read the Catechism and those who hang around Catholic forums as senior members.

now it all make sense to me. invisible or invencible ignorance?

 

[saint_rafael]

It is a good thing my spelling error has been noticed.

The doctrine is INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE.

It was late and I did not notice the misspelling. It is not invisible but invicible.

 

[c659smith]

Here we go… ​

• 1. How is that an argument against Protestantism ?
• 1. It’s not difficult to think of comparable flaws among Catholics.
• 1. If behaving contrary to the creed of a Church were a fatal objection to that Church, Catholicism would be unChurched long ago.
• 1. Condemning a Church by taking its worst features as typical of it is unfair
• Why is it so important for us to tear down our fellow Christians ? There is something badly wrong in a religion that exalts itself by diminishing others.

Regrettable as that is, it need not make them less Christian. Baptism is not absolutely necessary, for the grace of it can be effective without the sacramental act that confers the grace. ## He is not something we “have”, like a piece of property, but the Lord of the Church to Whom we are subject.​

God is Sovereign Lord of all His gifts; He gives them as He wills. Any talk that suggests that God is **obliged **to use only the means of grace which He has sovereignly & graciously chosen to create & to use, denies His freedom to be gracious to those not in His Church by using other means. For the Church is God’s - it is not ours. His Church is to serve Him - not to dictate to Him. ## They are sacraments - sacramentals are different. Although matrimony is a sacrament among us, it is not one among Protestants.

Surely no more than we are.## How does that - even if true; in fact, it’s highly debatable - stop them being Christians ? God is not subject to the means of grace He appoints: to some extent, we are.​

Try telling that to an Anglican.​

?

Reading a few selections of a handful of Fathers to quote against other Christians is not reading the Fathers; it’s “proof-texting”. This does not imply understanding their thought. There can be unity in Christ where Rome is unknown. We’ve been over this.## Which makes our comments irrelevant ## Churches which boast of their health are always humbled: if God is merciful to the CC, that is no reason for us to glorify it or boast of it; we should give thanks to Him, not boast.

If Protestants are in trouble, we should pray that God may strengthen what is weak in them & heal what is sick. But our endless empty boasting shows only how Christless we are . Christian is as Christian does, surely ?

Baptism is needed for salvation. Without Baptism there is no salvation.
The Lord himself affirms that baptism is necessary for salvation [John 3:5]. . . . Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament [Mark 16:16]" (CCC 1257).

Yet Christians have also always realized that the necessity of water baptism is a normative rather than an absolute necessity. There are exceptions to water baptism: It is possible to be saved through “baptism of blood,” martyrdom for Christ, or through “baptism of desire”, that is, an explicit or even implicit desire for baptism.

the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Those who die for the faith, those who are catechumens, and all those who, without knowing of the Church but acting under the inspiration of grace, seek God sincerely and strive to fulfill his will, are saved even if they have not been baptized” (CCC 1281; the salvation of unbaptized infants is also possible under this system; cf. CCC 1260–1, 1283).

Protestants know of the need for Baptism so to deny Baptism is to deny salvation only through the above such as martydom because of faith such as a protestant missionary murdered for preaching or a person not knowing of the necessity would have possible salvaion without baptism

The Creed and unchurching the church–what are you talking about as if you do not follow the creed of the church then you are not a practicing Catholic. Is that understood?

No one is tearing anyone down for you are saying the Apostles in their letters to the different areas showing where correction is needed is wrong. It is called leadership and evangelizing. What Jesus sent the Apostles and Deciplles out to do. Again there is no salvation without the Catholic Church and I would want the best for my fellow man.
“The Church is the sacrament of salvation for all humankind, and her activity is not limited only to those who accept her message” (RM 20).
“Christ won the Church for himself at the price of his own blood and made the Church his co-worker in the salvation of the world. . . . He carries out his mission through her” (RM 9).
In an address to the plenary assembly of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (January 28, 2000), John Paul stated, “The Lord Jesus . . . established his Church as a saving reality: as his body, through which he himself accomplishes salvation in history.” He then quoted Vatican II’s teaching that the Church is necessary for salvation.
the Church has long made it clear that if a person rejects the Church with full knowledge and consent, he puts his soul in danger:
They cannot be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or remain in it (cf. LG 14).
The Catholic Church is “the single and exclusive channel by which the truth and grace of Christ enter our world of space and time” (Karl Adam, The Spirit of Catholicism, 179). Those who do not know the Church, even those who fight against it, can receive these gifts if they honestly seek God and his truth. But, Adam says, “though it be not the Catholic Church itself that hands them the bread of truth and grace, yet it is Catholic bread that they eat.” And when they eat of it, “without knowing it or willing it” they are “incorporated in the supernatural substance of the Church.”

Extra ecclesiam, nulla salus.