Do Protestants have "Faith"?

[fbl9]

My brother, check out keepthefaith.org. There’s an excellent talk by Dr. William Marra about this subject that is illuminating. It is called What Is The Real “Mystery of Faith”? Follow the link and download it–it costs a dollar.

As for the first part of your reply, I urge you to attend a Tridentine Mass. You’ll feel that everything is right, everything makes sense, every detail is simply natural–and Catholic. If you go, though, go no less than five times before you make up your mind about it.

i would love to attend TLM but alas it is not celebrated any where near me. by near i mean with in 100 miles or so.

 

[c659smith]

That he did nothing but evil is not part of the Deposit of Faith, let alone a dogma - so it is not a heresy. ## This is a great over-simplification.## Christ does so - indeed, He died for His enemies: & that goes far beyond defending them; or rather, us.​

It is perfectly possible to respect Luther as a theologian while regarding him as mistaken in certain respects - as can be said of any theologian. God’s grace is not confined to the CC - if it were, no-one could ever become Catholic. And as His grace is not confined to the CC, it cannot be ruled out that He may have given Protestants - ex-Catholic or not - grace & insight & wisdom from which we could learn.

But if He has - isn’t that something for which to be grateful ? Every grace God gives to our Protestant brethren, of every kind, blesses & strengthens & sanctifies not only them, but all other Christians - including us. Every wound & scandal & sin that weakens & corrupts & obscures their life & witness, does the same to ours; just as every injury to us, is an injury to them. Therefore, all the faith & hope & love that God pours into their hearts strengthens all Christians on earth.

here is something to swallow on Martin Luther,

Luther and antisemitism

The original title page of On the Jews and their Lies, written by Martin Luther in 1543.
Judensau on the Wittenberg church. The imagery of Jews in contact with pigs or representing the devil was common in German.
Depiction of the Wittenberg Judensau.Historian Robert Michael writes that Luther was concerned with the Jewish question all his life, despite devoting only a small proportion of his work to it.[89] As a Christian pastor and theologian Luther was concerned that people have faith in Jesus as the messiah for salvation. In rejecting that view of Jesus, the Jews became the “quintessential other,”[90] a model of the opposition to the Christian view of God. In an early work, That Jesus Christ was born a Jew, Luther advocated kindness toward the Jews, but only with the aim of converting them to Christianity: what was called Judenmission.[91] When his efforts at conversion failed, he became increasingly bitter toward them.[92] His main works on the Jews were his 60,000-word treatise Von den Juden und Ihren Lügen (On the Jews and Their Lies), and Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi (On the Holy Name and the Lineage of Christ) — reprinted five times within his lifetime — both written in 1543, three years before his death.[93] He argued that the Jews were no longer the chosen people, but were “the devil’s people.” They were “base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth.”[94] The synagogue was a “defiled bride, yes, an incorrigible whore and an evil slut …”[95] and Jews were full of the “devil’s feces … which they wallow in like swine.”[96] He advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews’ property and money, smashing up their homes, and ensuring that these “poisonous envenomed worms” be forced into labor or expelled “for all time.”[97] He also seemed to sanction their murder,[98] writing “We are at fault in not slaying them.”[99]

Luther successfully campaigned against the Jews in Saxony, Brandenburg, and Silesia. Josel of Rosheim (1480-1554), who tried to help the Jews of Saxony, wrote in his memoir that their situation was “due to that priest whose name was Martin Luther — may his body and soul be bound up in hell!! — who wrote and issued many heretical books in which he said that whoever would help the Jews was doomed to perdition.”[100] Michael writes that Josel asked the city of Strasbourg to forbid the sale of Luther’s anti-Jewish works; they refused initially, but relented when a Lutheran pastor in Hochfelden argued in a sermon that his parishioners should murder Jews.[101] Luther’s influence persisted after his death. Throughout the 1580s, riots saw the expulsion of Jews from several German Lutheran states.[101][102]

According to Michael, Luther’s work acquired the status of Scripture within Germany, and he became the most widely read author of his generation, in part because of the coarse and passionate nature of the writing.[101] The prevailing view[103] among historians is that his anti-Jewish rhetoric contributed significantly to the development of antisemitism in Germany,[104] and in the 1930s and 1940s provided an ideal foundation for the National Socialist’s attacks on Jews.[105] Reinhold Lewin writes that “whoever wrote against the Jews for whatever reason believed he had the right to justify himself by triumphantly referring to Luther.” According to Michael, just about every anti-Jewish book printed in the Third Reich contained references to and quotations from Luther. Heinrich Himmler wrote admiringly of his writings and sermons on the Jews in 1940.[106] The city of Nuremberg presented a first edition of On the Jews and their Lies to Julius Streicher, editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer, on his birthday in 1937; the newspaper described it as the most radically anti-Semitic tract ever published.[107] It was publicly exhibited in a glass case at the Nuremberg rallies and quoted in a 54-page explanation of the Aryan Law by Dr. E.H. Schulz and Dr. R. Frercks.[92] On December 17, 1941, seven Lutheran regional church confederations issued a statement agreeing with the policy of forcing Jews to wear the yellow badge, “since after his bitter experience Luther had already suggested preventive measures against the Jews and their expulsion from German territory.”

At the heart of the debate about Luther’s influence is whether it is anachronistic to view his work as a precursor of the racial antisemitism of the National Socialists. Some scholars see Luther’s influence as limited, and the Nazis’ use of his work as opportunistic. Martin Brecht argues that there is a world of difference between Luther’s belief in salvation, which depended on a faith in Jesus as the messiah — a belief Luther criticized the Jews for rejecting — and the Nazis’ ideology of racial antisemitism.[108] Johannes Wallmann argues that Luther’s writings against the Jews were largely ignored in the 18th and 19th centuries, and that there is no continuity between Luther’s thought and Nazi ideology.[109] Uwe Siemon-Netto agrees, arguing that it was because the Nazis were already anti-Semites that they revived Luther’s work.[110][111] Hans J. Hillerbrand agrees that to focus on Luther is to adopt an essentially ahistorical perspective of Nazi antisemitism that ignores other contributory factors in German history.[112][113] Other scholars argue that, even if his views were merely anti-Judaic, their violence lent a new element to the standard Christian suspicion of Judaism. Ronald Berger writes that Luther is credited with “Germanizing the Christian critique of Judaism and establishing anti-Semitism as a key element of German culture and national identity.”[114] Paul Rose argues that he caused a “hysterical and demonizing mentality” about Jews to enter German thought and discourse, a mentality that might otherwise have been absent.[115]

 

[mmsiciliana]

Gottle of Geer,

Martin Luther was not only a notorius heretic who destroyed western Christianity for centuries, but was one of the biggest
Anti-Christs in history. He served his master the father of lies, in which he is with him in eternity.

This is the kind of “dialogue” that is so typical of rabid right-wing traditionalist protestant “Catholics” who are more Catholic than the Pope. Never has a pope declared that anyone was in hell–not even Judas, but “Saint Rafael” has no problem telling us who’s there.

And don’t you just love the way they keep referring to the “Holy Ghost”–what??? I thought Jesus was the only Person of the Blessed Trinity who died…and he didn’t come back as a ghost.

ghost (gst)
n.

1. The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats.
2. The center of spiritual life; the soul.
3. A demon or spirit.
4. A returning or haunting memory or image.

 

[mmsiciliana]

That is a question of prudence. I don’t say that we must all speak in a hard way in every circumstance to everybody. I certainly don’t, but that is only because it is not my natural temperament. What I am affirming is that it is *quintessentially *Christian to imitate Christ and the Saints, even in their harshness. And the Holy Ghost and Mary can speak wisdom to us, letting us know the appropriate time for the exercise of each virtue.

Jesus might disagree with you…

Mat 5:21-22 "You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’
But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.

Course it’s not the Douay Rheims version, so you probably don’t have to pay any attention to it…

 

[saint_rafael]

mmscilliana,

The Church does not have the power to claim who’s in hell, but most individuals use their common sense. Can any Catholic really believe the monsters and evil men of history are not in hell? It is probably the same Catholics who do not believe in hell. More people go to hell than are saved. More Catholics end up in hell that are saved. The saved are few indeed. look up the writings of the saints and the various seers who have seen hell. It is extremely scary to meditate on how many are lost.

Left me enlighten your ignorance. Holy Ghost is the same as Holy Spirit. I use the two terms interchangeable. Holy Ghost was the taditional usage until it fell out of use because of the modern use of english.

The passage you qouted does not apply to the situation of heresy and heretics. Jeus told us to have nothing to do who refuse the truth. Shake the dust of our sandals.

 

[saint_rafael]

singinbeauty,
You are delusional if you think Martin Luther is in heaven. This man hated the Church and Jesus with a passion. He refused to recant his errors and had the most perverted insane theology that came from hell.

Gottle of Geer,
The idea that there is grace outside the Catholic Church is heresy. there is grace only in the trinitarian baptism for non-Catholics, but they lose it after sin. God only grants grace through the sacraments. God will try to push a person in the direction of the Catholic Church, but he gives no grace in false religions. Sanctifying grace after baptism is found only in the Catholic Church. This is a dogma of the faith. denail of it is anathema.

 

[c659smith]

singinbeauty,
You are delusional if you think Martin Luther is in heaven. This man hated the Church and Jesus with a passion. He refused to recant his errors and had the most perverted insane theology that came from hell.

Gottle of Geer,
The idea that there is grace outside the Catholic Church is heresy. there is grace only in the trinitarian baptism for non-Catholics, but they lose it after sin. God only grants grace through the sacraments. God will try to push a person in the direction of the Catholic Church, but he gives no grace in false religions. Sanctifying grace after baptism is found only in the Catholic Church. This is a dogma of the faith. denail of it is anathema.

Martin Luther knew of the Real Presence( transubstansiation) and continued to preach the same but knew he did not have the authority once excommunicated

Martin Luther still adored ther Blessed Mother the same as the Church before and after the reformation.

Martin Luther had a challenge with authority the same as some of us have seen in the work place today.

There are times when we disagree very strongly with the boss. This may even cause us to quit but to use slander and voice ones opinion nationally well and to keep up the rhetoric sooner or later you will get burned.

You cannot change things from the outside looking in but from being on the inside. He abandoned his flock.

Martin Luther literally knew he screwed up.

Understand this was a man as a monk that would be in the confessional for 6 or more hours and would not believe his sins were forgiven.

His only hope I believe without judging is that he did have a mental challenge that was an underling cause for his transgressions.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

singinbeauty,
You are delusional if you think Martin Luther is in heaven. This man hated the Church and Jesus with a passion. He refused to recant his errors and had the most perverted insane theology that came from hell.

Gottle of Geer,
The idea that there is grace outside the Catholic Church is heresy.

Pope Innocent XIII taught otherwise.​

That apart, how could any non-Catholic become Catholic if God did not give them grace to do so ? The position you’re defending is self-contradictory.

there is grace only in the trinitarian baptism for non-Catholics, but they lose it after sin.

If so, you’ve given up your denial of grace outside the CC. And if they can receive grace once, they can do so again, repeatedly.​

God only grants grace through the sacraments.

If so, then daily prayer is meaningless. So are acts of faith, & hope, & love, & contrition. This makes an utter wreck of our life in the Holy Spirit outside the sacraments, & denies the value of sacramentals. It’s a ruinous idea ​

God will try to push a person in the direction of the Catholic Church, but he gives no grace in false religions.

Then conversion is impossible​

Sanctifying grace after baptism is found only in the Catholic Church. This is a dogma of the faith. denail of it is anathema.

 

[charlesh]

Rabid right-wing traditionalist protestant "Catholics"
Good golly, so much emotion! How can one understand this? Let’s parse it, shall we?

“Rabid” : a meaningless term used to impute ill-will on the part of another. A “knee-jerk” term designed to appeal to the emotions and stop all rational thought. Usually a defensive term applied by one who is more well-versed with emotional content than rational thought.

“Right-wing” : religiously speaking, an irrelevant term borrowed from politics, incoherent as applied to Catholic thought, which recognizes neither “right” nor “left”, but only truth and falsehood.

“traditionalist” : a positive term which recognizes that the perennial truths of our Catholic faith are handed down from generation to generation by oral and written word and are changeless and applicable to all human epochs. Virtually synonymous with “Catholic.”

“protestant” : a grasping-at-straws term often used in an impossible attempt to equate those who hold fast to traditional truths with those who attempt to change them.

“‘Catholics’” : in itself the most glorious term applicable to a human being. In quotes, a back-handed insinuation that one is not really what one claims to be. When used in this way, it usually lacks any concrete assertions to back up the insinuation, although, with a small effort, such assertions could, in fact, be made explicit.

 

[charlesh]

Jesus might disagree with you…

Mat 5:21-22 "You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’
But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.

To answer you, Jesus would certainly not disagree. He called the Pharisees snakes, hypocrites, sons of hell. He rebuked them and said that their father was the devil. He scourged them in the temple with a whip. Jesus was meek and humble of heart, but he saved his most terrible wrath for those who would pervert Holy Religion and lead his little ones towards hell. The saints do the same, and they are worthy of our imitation.

 

[mmsiciliana]

Originally Posted by mmsiciliana
Jesus might disagree with you…

Mat 5:21-22 "You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’
But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.

To answer you, Jesus would certainly not disagree. He called the Pharisees snakes, hypocrites, sons of hell. He rebuked them and said that their father was the devil. He scourged them in the temple with a whip. Jesus was meek and humble of heart, but he saved his most terrible wrath for those who would pervert Holy Religion and lead his little ones towards hell. The saints do the same, and they are worthy of our imitation.

To answer you, let me paraphrase Senator Lloyd Benson’s quote during his debate with Dan Quayle:
**I know Jesus, Jesus is a friend of mine, and you, Charlesh, are no Jesus.” **
Jesus walked on water, do you? Jesus cured the sick, do you? Jesus raised the dead, do you? Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes and fed thousands, do you? Jesus had power over the elements, do you? Jesus transformed bread and wine into himself, can you do that? Jesus is God, are you? I thought not. Then why do you think you can ignore the plain words of Jesus in the Scriptures when he tells you that if you call another person names you are committing a sin? “St.” Rafael says he can say others are damned to hell because Jesus said [Mark 6:11] “Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.” In other words, present the Gospel, and if it is rejected, move on. Jesus doesn’t tell them to curse those who reject the Gospel. Did Paul curse those who rejected the Gospel? No, he moved on and preached it to someone else. If the great St. Paul didn’t do it, why do you think you can do it with impunity?

This may sound harsh, but the truth hurts–talking with you is like talking to a fundamentalist Baptist. You pick and choose the verses you will “listen” to and ignore the rest. That makes you a protestant–you’re protesting against certain beliefs of the Church. You claim you believe everything revealed by God through the Church, yet you pick and choose just like left-wing liberal protestant cafeteria “Catholics” do.

 

[mmsiciliana]

Originally Posted by mmsiciliana
According to the official Catechism of the Catholic Church, put out by the Vatican…, Faith is defined as:
Both a gift of God and a human act by which the believer gives personal adherence to God who invites his response, and freely assents to the whole truth that God has revealed. It is this revelation of God which the Church proposes for our belief, and which we profess in the Creed, celebrate in the sacraments, live by right conduct that fulfills the twofold commandment of charity (as specified in the ten commandments), and respond to in our prayer of faith. Faith is both a theological virtue given by God as grace, and an obligation which flows from the first commandment of God.

Do Protestants have Faith? Yes.

Not according to the definition you *just *provided. [Scratching my head on that one.]

The whole truth that God has revealed to a specific person varies from one person to another. Before you accuse me of relativism, let me give you an example of what I’m trying to say. You come across a man who has been in a severe car accident and is dying alongside the road. He tells you that before he dies, he wants to be baptized. You ask him if he rejects Satan and if he believes in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and if he believes that God loved us so much that he became one of us in Christ Jesus to save us. He says, “Yes,” so you baptize him. He obviously has not had the entire Catholic faith revealed to him. Does that mean he doesn’t have faith?

 

[c659smith]

Originally Posted by mmsiciliana
According to the official Catechism of the Catholic Church, put out by the Vatican…, Faith is defined as:
Both a gift of God and a human act by which the believer gives personal adherence to God who invites his response, and freely assents to the whole truth that God has revealed. It is this revelation of God which the Church proposes for our belief, and which we profess in the Creed, celebrate in the sacraments, live by right conduct that fulfills the twofold commandment of charity (as specified in the ten commandments), and respond to in our prayer of faith. Faith is both a theological virtue given by God as grace, and an obligation which flows from the first commandment of God.

Do Protestants have Faith? Yes.

The whole truth that God has revealed to a specific person varies from one person to another. Before you accuse me of relativism, let me give you an example of what I’m trying to say. You come across a man who has been in a severe car accident and is dying alongside the road. He tells you that before he dies, he wants to be baptized. You ask him if he rejects Satan and if he believes in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and if he believes that God loved us so much that he became one of us in Christ Jesus to save us. He says, “Yes,” so you baptize him. He obviously has not had the entire Catholic faith revealed to him. Does that mean he doesn’t have faith?

That my friend is one of the luckiest men in the world that he would have the chance when human death comes knocking on the door.

Now lets say that he does not die and through medical science is able to make a full recovery and then does not accept the fullness of faith even though he now knows through this revelation,but 3 years later dies in his sleep and does not act upon this grace.

 

[justasking4]

Gottle of Geer,
It is unbelievable that any Catholic would say that Martin Luther did some good. That is blatant heresy. Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation that helped to tear Christ’s Church to pieces, where you now have 30,000 false denominations.

The Catholic Church excommunicated him as one of the biggest heretics of all time and he died that way so he’s damned. How can anyone defend an enemy of God?

The cause of the protestant reformation rests on the shoulders of the catholic church for its abuses. Do you think the way the catholic church treated some of the reformers was the will of Christ? Was the murder of Huss with the support of the church an expression of the love of Christ?

 

[Lampo]

Do you think the way the catholic church treated …

Was it the Catholic Church or individual sinners within the Church?

 

[saint_rafael]

c659smith,

You are dead wrong about Luther. He was a man who lost his faith. He knew what he was doing. The modern drivel about trying to make him sympathetic because he didn’t want to split from the Church is nonsense. He had real philosophical errors. His doctrines were heresies and he knew this.

Sola fide, a hersesy he knew was against scripture because he had to add the word alone in Romans.

He dropped seven books from the Bible. It takes pure diabolical will to intentionally mess with the word of God.
Completeley rejected the dogma of the Papacy. He was not sorry.
rejected the notion of a clerical priesthood. He even marrried after leaving the Church. He was not sorry.

He dropped five sacraments and only believed in two. Ony an evil mind would drop sacraments instituted by Jesus.
He hated the Catholic Latin Mass, because he did not believe it was a true sacrafice. that is heretical.

Martin Luther wanted to start a revelution, and he wanted to destroy the Church. His mind was one with Satan. Catholics need to wake up and stop making excuses for an enemy of your faith. People are going to have to choose between Lurther, Satan, and Jesus and his Church.

 

[saint_rafael]

justasking 4,

The abuses of the Catholic Church were about their behavior and not their doctrine. Saints like Catherine of Sienna has always taken the Church to task and the saints led reforms.

The Protestant Reformation was not a reformation, but a Protestant Revolution. They attacked doctrine, which is heresy that would lead to their damnation.

Huss deserved to be burned at the stake. He served Satan. He did not believe in the real presence, and his errors would have led others to hell. Burning on the stake was the death penalty and the death penalty is just.

Heresy is worse than murder. In murder you just kill a person’s body. With heresy, you kill a person’s soul and lead them to hell.
Huss was in danger of destroying the Church before Luther, so the Church had the authority from God to put that wicked man to death, before he dragged thousands to hell with him.

 

[saint_rafael]

mmisiciliana,

You have no clue what you are talking about. You are confused with liberalism, modern thought, modern philosophy and modern drivel. You are like a Protestant who is taking the words of Jesus and the Bible out of context. Jesus was not talking about heretics in that verse.

You do not even know your own faith and Church. Saints and Popes guided by the holy spirit throught the centuries have all responded the same with enemies of God, such as heretics, and that is to condemn them with the truth. They use objective words that fit those enemies of truth.

It is not cursing. A heretic is a heretic, an enemy of God is an enemy of God, there is no curse in telling people what they are.
All the saints knew the difference, and their treatment of heretics was seen as charitable.

 

[saint_rafael]

Gottle of Geer,

When I said that there was no grace outside the Church, I gave the exception of baptism, which is a Catholic sacrament. I made it clear that there was only one exception to the rule and that is baptism, when the trinitarian formula is used by others.

I did not say that grace is not available to Catholics outside the sacraments. Grace is certainly available to Cathoics through sacramentals, prayer. The seven sacraments are the only visible forms of grace. Only the Catholic sacraments can be said to convey grace with one hundred percent certainty. The only visible forms.

Conversion is possible to non-Catholics. God leads other in a direction. Points them in the right way through prongings and suggestions. Humans use reason to find truth. It is through their use of the intellect that non-Catholics see the truth. Most importantly, it takes other people to guide them there. that is why we need evangelization for Catholic conversion. Catholics with the sanctfying grace of God to tell people about the Church.

 

[wisdomseeker]

The cause of the protestant reformation rests on the shoulders of the catholic church for its abuses. Do you think the way the catholic church treated some of the reformers was the will of Christ? Was the murder of Huss with the support of the church an expression of the love of Christ?

you like to point out the sins of the catholics, why dont read the true history? how about here in america when catholics came to this country how they were opressed and forced to become protestants. how about in england where many died for being catholics? how about millions of catholics who died because of their faith?