How is one regenerated?

[Carlan]

**Just as with circumcision **in the Old Covenant, the faith of the parents/guardians guides the child in the direction of the Lord until they come to an age of reason. In the Jewish culture, the age of manhood was set at around 13 years old.

Regeneration (rebirth) is one thing. It is the initial grace of salvation. What happens after requires cooperation from the person. Either you were not guided well in your faith, which led to its demise - or you stopped cooperating it from a very young age.

The bottom line is that you can blame the Church and everybody else - or you can look in the mirror and face the facts.

Elvisman, it is the same old story out of this type of fallen away Catholic, they do not take responsibility for ignoring their spiritual life growing up and when they finally come to grips with the miserable lives they make for themselves they still refuse to take responsibility, they then blame it all on Christ’s true Church his Body, his Bride . The day will surely come when they are finally able to wake up to themselves. The Church prays for them.
And I am not going to apologize for the straight talk.
Peace, Carlan

 

[ALLGIRLS]

What Rocket Man is also failing to consider, in just looking to his own, subjective experience to completely denounce regeneration through infant baptism (because it apparently didn’t happen to him, so far as he can perceive) are the 1000s if not millions of Godly Catholic people who were also baptized as infants and lived their lives totally for Christ (sometimes even dying for Him), the complete opposite of his experience. They would say, and their lives would attest to, that their baptisms did wash away Original Sin and infuse Grace into their souls. This is what happens when you look to subjective, personal experience and interpretation to formulate doctrine. You end up with as many doctrines as there are people “experiencing” them.

In Christ,

Ellen

 

[Rocket_Man]

Elvisman, it is the same old story out of this type of fallen away Catholic,

Carlan, evidently everything I’ve written has fallen on deaf ears. You can’t fall away from something you never had.

 

[elvisman]

Carlan, evidently everything I’ve written has fallen on deaf ears. You can’t fall away from something you never had.

Please re-read post #20 and address those points.

 

[elvisman]

Carlan, evidently everything I’ve written has fallen on deaf ears. You can’t fall away from something you never had.

And you can’t have something that you keep pushing away . . . **

 

[Rocket_Man]

Like I said – maybe you had no guidance from your parents/guardians. It sounds to me like they just didn’t care about your being raised with God. If they DID - sinning is NOT all that you would have known or desired. It sounds like they had little to no faith to guide you in the ways of the Lord. I’m not trying to besmirch your parents, but this is the picture YOU are painting. If sinning was all you desired, it sounds like they failed at their responsibilities.]

My daughter is anything but perfect, but she knows the Lord because of the guidance of my wife and I - and the difference between right and wrong. She tries to do God’s will (Matt. 7:21) but stumbles sometimes as we all do.

Infant baptism is regenerative. The child must be guided by the parents until he or she can decide for themselves if they want to continue to cooperate with God’s grace - in the same way Jewish parents guide THEIR children. Our children are not omitted from God’s promises as Acts 2:38-39 tells us.

Parents and Civil Law and God’s Moral law are restainers from evil. Yet within themselves they do not create the desire for anyone to to follow them other than through consequences of suffering and rewards for disobeying and obedience. A parent no matter how well their intent cannot deliver the light of Christ into a childs heart with the awareness to follow Christ, not because of sufferings and rewards, but through the gift of faith, hope, and love that God alone provides to the individual in real regeneration.

You still want to lay blame on the seed (me) and or the keeper of the garden (my parents) because there is no other answer for you while holding fast to the teachings on infant regeneration. And in a way I feel like Job arguing with his counselers when they were trying to p(name removed by moderator)oint his reason for suffering. But I tell you time and time again that the seed was not spiritually watered as an infant, the Holy Spirit was not present testifying of the risen Christ, their was no desire to do His will, nor any knowledge that He was true. Religion for me was a system of exercises, as a child brushes his teeth not because they desire but because they were instucted to do the exercises.

 

[Rocket_Man]

My daughter is anything but perfect, but she knows the Lord because of the guidance of my wife and I - and the difference between right and wrong. She tries to do God’s will (Matt. 7:21) but stumbles sometimes as we all do.

Infant baptism is regenerative. The child must be guided by the parents until he or she can decide for themselves if they want to continue to cooperate with God’s grace - in the same way Jewish parents guide THEIR children. Our children are not omitted from God’s promises as Acts 2:38-39 tells us.

Parents and Civil Law and God’s Moral law are restainers from evil. Yet within themselves they do not create the desire for anyone to follow them other than through consequences of suffering and rewards for disobeying and obedience. A parent no matter how well their intent cannot deliver the light of Christ into a childs heart with the awareness to follow Christ, not because of sufferings and rewards, but through the gift of faith, hope, and love that God alone provides to the individual in real regeneration.

You still want to lay blame on the seed (me) and or the keeper of the garden (my parents) because there is no other answer for you while holding fast to the teachings on infant regeneration. And in a way I feel like Job arguing with his counselers when they were trying to p(name removed by moderator)oint his reason for suffering. But I tell you time and time again that the seed was not spiritually watered as an infant, the Holy Spirit was not present testifying of the risen Christ, their was no desire to do His will, nor any knowledge that He was true. Religion for me was a system of exercises, as a child brushes his teeth not because they desire but because they were instructed to do the act.

 

[Rocket_Man]

What Rocket Man is also failing to consider, in just looking to his own, subjective experience to completely denounce regeneration through infant baptism (because it apparently didn’t happen to him, so far as he can perceive) are the 1000s if not millions of Godly Catholic people who were also baptized as infants and lived their lives totally for Christ (sometimes even dying for Him), the complete opposite of his experience. They would say, and their lives would attest to, that their baptisms did wash away Original Sin and infuse Grace into their souls. This is what happens when you look to subjective, personal experience and interpretation to formulate doctrine. You end up with as many doctrines as there are people “experiencing” them.

In Christ,

Ellen

Likewise many and many more Catholics having been baptized as infants and do not know the risen Christ.Whether their hearts are hardened such as Israel I’m not to say but they certainly have not been regenerated.

 

[elvisman]

Parents and Civil Law and God’s Moral law are restainers from evil. Yet within themselves they do not create the desire for anyone to follow them other than through consequences of suffering and rewards for disobeying and obedience. A parent no matter how well their intent cannot deliver the light of Christ into a childs heart with the awareness to follow Christ, not because of sufferings and rewards, but through the gift of faith, hope, and love that God alone provides to the individual in real regeneration.

You still want to lay blame on the seed (me) and or the keeper of the garden (my parents) because there is no other answer for you while holding fast to the teachings on infant regeneration. And in a way I feel like Job arguing with his counselers when they were trying to p(name removed by moderator)oint his reason for suffering. But I tell you time and time again that the seed was not spiritually watered as an infant, the Holy Spirit was not present testifying of the risen Christ, their was no desire to do His will, nor any knowledge that He was true. Religion for me was a system of exercises, as a child brushes his teeth not because they desire but because they were instructed to do the act.

**That doesn’t hold water.

How did the Isrealites do it for all those millenia? How did/could God expect that from them? He gave them the means through his grace to pass it onto their children.
He gives our children the same benefit of loving parents to guide them through - just as he did the Israelites.

How does a person hear the Gospel? How are they baptized? God gives them the means through the Church (Matt. 28:18-20).

People like you think that the word of God falls from the sky and is magically implanted into the minds and hearts of new believers. these things are passed on to new believers - just as they are passed onto our children.

Mark 10:13-16
**And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. **
**When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ****Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.” **

People like you who try to deprive children be denying them membership in the Family of God - the Body of Christ - are as guilty as the disciples who rebuked the children for which Jesus became angry.
I wouldn’t want to approach him at my judgement with THAT on my soul . . .

 

[SunnaB16]

I had no need of the second rain because ***I was still lying ***dead because the first was non existent. Had I needed the second, then supposedly being one of His adopted children, God in His mercy and grace would had provided it.

Dead or dormant. How do you know? Feelings?

Even Moses asked those below to make a choice and then threw the tablets…

ive already commented on that one: cowardice, loss of faith etc. To be sure of the Truth, take heed of the current successor of Saint Peter. Peter is the only one (along with his successors) for whom our Lord prayed that his faith wouldnt fail.

Don`t forget: Judas was one of the Twelve.

I’m trying not to judge but truthful doctrine leads to truthful living and actions. I don’t see that from 90% of the Catholics I know.

Those 90% are the Laodiceans: they know almost nothing, and they wish to stay knowing almost nothing…
You`ll probably find a higher percentage in most Protestant denominations. Tragic, but a sign of the corrupt and decadent West.

If the Spirit indeed lives in you when your adopted into God’s family in the act of the CC baptism, then the Spirit would testify of Christ Jesus, and draw you to the instruction of the Father, which is His Word. When the Ethiopian needed a teacher, God called Philip to instruct. The problem here is the Spirit was not present in my childhood, there was no calling and therefore no instruction was required.

Youre going by feelings. How do you know the Spirit wasnt present? “It takes two to tango.” Some of the blame was yours, maybe? No inclination to learn? And no matter how abominable your religious “education” was, dont try to tell me that you didnt have some idea of right and wrong until you came across some tract.

I knew “Total certainty” when changes were evident in my life that spoke of forgiveness without a priest.

Feelings…can be dangerous.
How do you know that the foundation for those changes wasnt laid down at your Baptism. In spite of Publishers statement, Baptism (using water) is orthodox teaching and Biblical
You can sling off at priests as much as you like, but that doesnt alter the Truth of our Lords words.

I’m giving you the opportunity, right? I have studied the CC doctrine as far as I’m able to understand on the CC encyclopedia etc. But, many times I find even there that the doctrines speak from two mouths.

In an early post, (# 5) you said that “The Spirit has yet to draw me or ever lead me to pick up a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.” So… Which “spirit” is it? Maybe your own, not wanting to face the possibility that your concept oof the Church is wrong, and that the Church is correct.
And how about an example or two of the speaking “from two mouths”? The Church is not two faced. H Kung and R McBrien (just as examples) are not faithful Catholics, and their writings are poison.

Tell that to your own flock…Because they have been horrible taught as well and are under the pretense that they are buying Masses for the dead. Where are your teachers? The lack of teaching is resident because although you say one is true they desire and practice the other.

Pope Benedict and the bishops who are in union with him are our teachers.

Sincerely, I have torn apart those anti-Catholic tracts and found many lies. But that alone doesn’t authenticate the CC. The church needs to stand true on it’s own.

It seems that some of the anti-Catholicism in those tracts rubbed off. How many other anti-Catholic lies have you (maybe unknowingly) picked up.
The Church has been standing true on Its own for the past 1,980 years, and will still be doing that on Doomsday…and forever. Its teachings on Faith and Morals have expanded and deepened, but no later teaching (on F & M) has ever contradicted an earlier one, nor can that ever happen.

A perfect example of constancy:
Until the 1930s, ALL major Protestant denominations condemned contraception. Anglicanism collapsed, and the other dominoes followed. The Catholic Church is the only one which held firm, and will do so until the end.
The house built on rock will not fall.

There`s a heresy which has come to be known as “Americanism”. Among other things, its promoting of individualism goes too far…

www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p22.htm -

Read Pope Leo XIII`s encyclical “Testem Benevolantiae Nostrae” as well. Link to EWTN library at the bottom of the page.

The whole thing opens your eyes to the attutudes of dissident “Catholics”, including ones in influentual positions…and others, including YOURSELF.

We Catholics are being tested. It might be God`s way of separating the geep from the shoats.

Looking for scapegoats is unhealthy.
Axe-grinding is dangerous as well: you could end up slicing yourself.

 

[IHeartAquinas]

I’m trying not to judge but truthful doctrine leads to truthful living and actions. I don’t see that from 90% of the Catholics I know.

RocketMan, you keep jumping on this point and I would like to point out a simple fact:

Faith is faith. You either have it or you don’t, but you cannot say that the Catholic Church is wrong because of the actions of men. Men are fallible. God’s Church is not. Christ said so when he said the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I would also like to see all Catholics be good Catholics, but I would also like to see Baptists not spreading hate, or evangelicals not pitying me because I’m a “poor, poor Catholic,” or Methodists stop ignoring the natural law laid out by God in saying that homosexual acts are not sinful, etc. etc. The list goes on.

And to say that Mormons live in a more Christian way than Catholics is bogus. Look at the countless examples of rape, suicide, assault, etc. that is present in many Mormon homes. And Mormons are encouraged to absolutely submit. To fail to submit means you lose your community, your family, and everything you’ve known growing up.

The Church does not say “Submit.” Rather, the Church tells you to “Choose.” To choose outside the Church is to choose wrongly, but we will not cast you aside. We will continue to embrace you and welcome you, knowing that you can yet choose correctly.

I could go on and on with counter examples to your charge against Catholics not living their faith. Look at the United States of America in general. I’d say less than 20% of the people who claim a church affiliation actually live their faith here. So, again, you cannot judge the validity of the Church because of the actions of men.

 

[autdrew]

I have known a great many Christians who do not follow Christ in their behavior. When I was a baptist, my pastor was charged with embezzlement. There have been a great many people who have felt regenerated after saying their sinners prayer, yet fell right back into sin. That high feeling didnt last & they had to actually DO something & didnt know what to do. They thought that things would just somehow fall into place. I have known people who believed that they are saved & it really doesnt matter what they do because they are saved.I have known many people who kick God out of their lives until they cant handle the mess they made & try to pray, or rather, demand He do what they want him to. If he doesnt, they get angry & denounce him.
I have known Catholics who are cultural Catholics. Their parents were & they received the sacraments but they didnt practice or go to Mass but 2 times a year. Their whole education amounted to time forced to attend to get their box checked & you didnt see them again. I have known Catholics who take no responsibility for educating themselves about their faith at all. They may or may not go to Mass. I have heard some actually say stuff like I can do that, I’ll just go to confession, as a joke.
(btw, going to drinking establishments is not sinful, only Protestants (some) have the idea that all drink is bad, Jesus drank wine & used it for the Last Supper. DRUNKENNESS is the sin)
We have had Presidents who proclaimed to be a follower of Christ while cheating on their wives & lying to the public (Catholic & non). We have people in society that like to put on their Christianity when it is convenient,& shed it when it is convenient.
We have also had Presidents who were good, honest men.
I have known some wonderful, solid Christians, who lived what they believed. They teach their children the same. They love the Lord. But I did not find my home with them. I said my sinner’s prayer, I was baptized as a kid. I lead a sinful, shameful life. I felt judged & looked down upon. I ran away from church & from Christ for years. I pushed away the great gift he wanted to give me. I had problems with promiscuity, drugs & drinking. I hated myself.
I felt drawn to Jesus, but I wanted to know which church to find him in. He grabbed a hold of me through my love of history. I was surprised to discover that Catholic/Orthodox were His church! So I investigated intellectually.
I have known some wonderful, solid, faithful Catholic Christians, who love the Lord & teach their children the same. I found my home there at the age of 32. I found acceptance & regeneration there. For the 1st time in my life, I felt forgiven. My 1st confession was hard but hearing those words, your sins are forgiven, I felt the weight of the world lift from my shoulders. When I go to Mass on Sunday, I receive that Eucharist with grateful thanks. When I was confirmed, I was given a gift that people find hard to believe. I was painfully shy & couldnt speak in front of crowds. Afterwards, I found that I could be a lector. I can stand at the podium & proclaim God’s word clearly & strongly, in a voice that bears no resemblance to my normal voice.

So basically, what I am trying to point out is this, your experience of dryness & renewal from Catholic to Protestant, is your experience. As you can see, mine is the exact opposite. Someone else has something else. Why does that then lead you to the idea that the church is somehow wrong about a doctrine because it was not that way for you? Can we not agree that God is wonderful & mysterious & his ways are not our ways? There are some people who just dont care to know Him because they are attached to the world, their are those who are ignorant of him, there are those who are stubborn & obstinate (guilty) & have to lose everything before they give up their will to His. God gave us His Son who gave us His Church who gave us His Scriptures & His Traditions. He also promised us that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I will take that assurance over any personal interpretation made by fallible men any day

 

[Rocket_Man]

RocketMan, you keep jumping on this point and I would like to point out a simple fact:

Faith is faith. You either have it or you don’t, but you cannot say that the Catholic Church is wrong because of the actions of men. Men are fallible. God’s Church is not. Christ said so when he said the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I would also like to see all Catholics be good Catholics, but I would also like to see Baptists not spreading hate, or evangelicals not pitying me because I’m a “poor, poor Catholic,” or Methodists stop ignoring the natural law laid out by God in saying that homosexual acts are not sinful, etc. etc. The list goes on.

And to say that Mormons live in a more Christian way than Catholics is bogus. Look at the countless examples of rape, suicide, assault, etc. that is present in many Mormon homes. And Mormons are encouraged to absolutely submit. To fail to submit means you lose your community, your family, and everything you’ve known growing up.

The Church does not say “Submit.” Rather, the Church tells you to “Choose.” To choose outside the Church is to choose wrongly, but we will not cast you aside. We will continue to embrace you and welcome you, knowing that you can yet choose correctly.

I could go on and on with counter examples to your charge against Catholics not living their faith. Look at the United States of America in general. I’d say less than 20% of the people who claim a church affiliation actually live their faith here. So, again, you cannot judge the validity of the Church because of the actions of men.

In some respects I agree with you and it is a mistake to look at the debauchery below Mount Horeb to determine if Moses had communed with God and held his covenant. But none of the other entities you mention continually claim to be the one true Church (except the Mormon cult) and because the CC claims to be the keeper of a new and better covenant than the former, wouldn’t you expect a higher standard than the rest? The old covenant never claimed regeneration in the heart with the act of circumcision. The CC claims regeneration of the heart in the sacrament of infant baptism and the CC whom the church and it’s members claim to be His body are a mockery of this new and better covenant through the lifestyles they live and show to the world.

 

[Rocket_Man]

**That *doesn’t ***hold water.

How did the Isrealites do it for all those millenia? How did/could God expect that from them? He gave them the means through his grace to pass it onto their children.
He gives our children the same benefit of loving parents to guide them through - just as he did the Israelites.

How does a person hear the Gospel? How are they baptized? God gives them the means through the Church (Matt. 28:18-20).

People like you think that the word of God falls from the sky and is magically implanted into the minds and hearts of new believers. these things are passed on to new believers - just as they are passed onto our children.

Mark 10:13-16
And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them.
When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.”

People like you who try to deprive children be denying them membership in the Family of God - the Body of Christ - are as guilty as the disciples who rebuked the children for which Jesus became angry.
I wouldn’t want to approach him at my judgement with THAT on my soul . . .

Teaching your children is righteous and good, but it is not a guarantee that the light of Christ will prevail in their souls. You have many things to say about Israel but you should also note that most of Israel missed the target. Those that didn’t were elected by Him and only through His unearned favor were able to know Him so that His promise made to Abraham would be fulfilled.

 

[Rocket_Man]

So basically, what I am trying to point out is this, your experience of dryness & renewal from Catholic to Protestant, is your experience. As you can see, mine is the exact opposite. Someone else has something else. Why does that then lead you to the idea that the church is somehow wrong about a doctrine because it was not that way for you? Can we not agree that God is wonderful & mysterious & his ways are not our ways? There are some people who just dont care to know Him because they are attached to the world, their are those who are ignorant of him, there are those who are stubborn & obstinate (guilty) & have to lose everything before they give up their will to His. God gave us His Son who gave us His Church who gave us His Scriptures & His Traditions. He also promised us that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I will take that assurance over any personal interpretation made by fallible men any day

I hear you but the Church makes no consideration in it’s doctrine for my experience. I know that I did not know God as a child or at anytime before I was twenty nine. I have heard these same comments time again from other Catholics who were brought up in the church. Which brings into question the regeneration that is inherit in infant baptism. For me to come back to the CC, I would have to disregard and throw away all that I loved in what I thought was the rebirth when I was twenty nine and exchange it for a lie.

 

[DCNBILL]

Elvisman, I was sinning because sinning is all that I knew or desired. Those are the facts! This is contrary to regeneration the cc water baptism supposedly invokes and the argument I suggest. I am not blaming my sin on anyone but myself. It is an doctrinal argument based on real events in my life. I am fully responsible for my past sins and repented of them. But not until I understood in my heart that the one I was kneeling and repenting to was true and had the power to absolve sin. This I learned outside the CC and through the reading of God’s Word when I was twenty nine. I did not seek God or desire it or fall away from anything as a child cause I couldn’t fall from something I didn’t know.

It would seem to me that this statement pretty much sums it up. Go allows us free will so that we may choose to love Him freely or not. No matter how many graces that God bestows on one, if the one does not cooperate with those graces one will be spiritually dead.

I thank God that you have become alive in Christ and have started to cooperate with His Grace! Just remember to keep cooperating, if you do God will guide you.

You are in my prayers.

 

[elvisman]

Teaching your children is righteous and good, but it is not a guarantee that the light of Christ will prevail in their souls. You have many things to say about Israel but you should also note that most of Israel missed the target. Those that didn’t were elected by Him and only through His unearned favor were able to know Him so that His promise made to Abraham would be fulfilled.

**And the point you just made proves the Catholic position:
**There is NO guarantee of salvation. It is a lifelong process whereby only those who endure to the end make it (Matt. 10:22, 24:13). We are regenerated at Baptism (1 Pet. 3:21). **

---

By God’s grace, we are given the MEANS of faithfully enduring to the end and being saved - but it is NOT forced upon us. We are free to accept it or to reject it (Romans 11:22
Hebrews 10:26-27, 2 Peter 2:20-22, 1 Cor. 9:27, Matthew 7:19-23, Luke 13:6-9, John 15:1-6, Romans 11:20-22, 1 Timothy 4:1, Hebrews 3:6, 1 John 2:24, Revelation 3:5**).**

 

[Rocket_Man]

It would seem to me that this statement pretty much sums it up. Go allows us free will so that we may choose to love Him freely or not. No matter how many graces that God bestows on one, if the one does not cooperate with those graces one will be spiritually dead. I thank God that you have become alive in Christ and have started to cooperate with His Grace! Just remember to keep cooperating, if you do God will guide you.You are in my prayers.

Some would say that God also gives all men the desire to live eternally and without the desire no one would ever choose life. So even the desire to live forevermore is God breathed into the creature. Just don’t give yourself too much credit for making the right choice for the other choice is denying the very existence of life itself. I’m not sure how free your choice really is but I challenge you to try to choose the other, to deny life offered through His Son.

 

[elvisman]

Some would say that God also gives all men the desire to live eternally and without the desire no one would ever choose life. So even the desire to live forevermore is God breathed into the creature. Just don’t give yourself too much credit for making the right choice for the other choice is denying the very existence of life itself. I’m not sure how free your choice really is but I challenge you to try to choose the other, to deny life offered through His Son.

Paul tells us in 1 Tim. 2:4 that God wills the salvation of ALL. It is up to US if we want to be saved.

**Everybody has the opportunity to accept or reject his grace. God doesn’t create ANYBODY for eternal damnation or Paul is a liar - actually the Holy Spirit is a liar if that is the case. **

 

[Rocket_Man]

Paul tells us in 1 Tim. 2:4 that God wills the salvation of ALL. It is up to US if we want to be saved.

Everybody has the opportunity to accept or reject his grace. God doesn’t create ANYBODY for eternal damnation or Paul is a liar - actually the Holy Spirit is a liar if that is the case.

Just because God wills that all men be saved it does not mean all men have the ability. There’s a comedian who tells a story of being thrown out of a bar because of his vulgar language and drunkenness. The police show up and pick him up out of the gutter and announce “You have the right to remain silent” to where the drunk replies, “Ya I have the right but I don’t have the ability.”

Some would say that all mankind by there own deeds are all in the same fiery furnace of the master glass maker. The glass maker places his rod into the molten glass and pulls some from the furnace and spins and molds them according to his own sovereign will. Other glass he doesn’t mold because it is His sovereign choice not ours. This does not make God a tyrant or unjust to those whom are remaining in the furnace as they rightfully remain in the fiery furnace as they deserved.