How many pages from the Bible do you use or need to use to support your beliefs?

[Jon_Hus]

I take it this means you can not tell us what councils were called to deal with mass confusion about Church Doctrines?

By definition, all of the councils were (and in the future will be) called to address mass confusion about RCC doctrine.

When I was a kid, we always ate fish on Friday. Then, suddenly it was ok to eat meat. We, and almost every family we knew were confused, was it ok to eat meat or not? Then came a decree, it was OK, and we never looked back.

 

[Jon_Hus]

I take it this means you can not tell us what councils were called to deal with mass confusion about Church Doctrines?

Would it be too much for you to refresh my soul and answer some of my questions?

 

[estesbob]

By definition, all of the councils were (and in the future will be) called to address mass confusion about RCC doctrine.

Really? First Ive heard of it. I dont recall that being mentioned when I was in the seminary.

When I was a kid, we always ate fish on Friday. Then, suddenly it was ok to eat meat. We, and almost every family we knew were confused, was it ok to eat meat or not? Then came a decree, it was OK, and we never looked back.

I appears you slept though the class where they explained the difference between “doctrines” and “disciplines”. It is a uniform truth that Ex-Catholics never understood the Faith in the first palce.

 

[Jon_Hus]

Really? First Ive heard of it. I dont recall that being mentioned when I was in the seminary.
.

I would recommend that you ask for a tuition refund.

 

[Nicea325]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicea325
And there lies your error by practicing an either/or dichotomy,which is very common among non-Catholics. Scripture and Tradition go hand-in-hand,not the position that one is less inferior to the other…

I disagree.

Makes no iota of difference,because history says otherwise. Scripture was at one point taught and preached orally better known as Apostolic Traditions.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicea325
Wrong! Scripture is not explicit on everything.Provide the chapter(s) and verse(s) where the Bible provides the canon of scripture? Which books were considered inspired?.

Neither the OT or NT provide an index but yet Paul refers to the OT as scripture and its power. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.and Peter refers to Pauls writings as scripture.

You like countless of others have taken the above verses out-of-context and has been refuted a million times over and I am not wasting more time on a dead horse issue.

BTW: Look at the first word: ALL. It does not say: ONLY!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicea325
Wrong! The early church did not have a one volume book called the Bible for nearly 400 years.Evidently you do not know the development of doctrines. The Bible is merely implicit about the Trinity,not explicit.You are following the same path of the Arians who denied Christ divinity. And why? Because they only used certain passages in scripture to support their view and isolated it. Plus they also could not find anything explicit to support Christ divinity. How did the church respond? By using the entire context of the Bible and by following the Apostolic Traditions that Jesus is God. And why? Because at the time there was no NT in a completed form until at least 110 A.D. .

Yet these inspired works strengthened the early churches. I have demonstrated to JW’s through scripture OT/NT the Trinity the Holy Spirit and the Divinity of Jesus. You really don’t want me to have to prove to you that jesus is God from the scriptures.

No need to be taught or told something taught long before any fundamentalist church evn existed. The complexity of the Trinity is NOT mentioned explicitly in scripture,whether you care to admit it or not.The CHURCH gave us the complex nature of the doctrine,not scripture. Do yourself a favor and do some research.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicea325
So you are claiming the Bible gave us the complexity and nature of the three distinct persons of the Trinity?.

Yes.

Wrong!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicea325
It is not a question of what God willed,but a question HOW he did it? He used men to write down what He inspired,thus the doctrines of the Incarnation,Trinity,etc were all formulated and made official by bishops,because Jesus promised to guide His Church.

The heart of the king is in the hands of the LORD. They had no choice but to do the will of God.

Exactly! The will of God to use men to give us all orthodox doctrines.

 

[minkymurph]

By definition, all of the councils were (and in the future will be) called to address mass confusion about RCC doctrine.

This is not my understanding of Church councils.

Councils were called because of differences of opinion; such as the nature of Christ, Mary the Holy Spirit. I suppose you could argue there was confusion concerning what constituted Christianity due to division of belief. A series of Councils were called to resolve these differences of opinion and create unity of belief. That’s it put simply.

The Council of Trent was called to meet the challanges of the Reformation.

Vatican 1 was called to meet the challanges of fideism and I think rationalism, but I stand to be corrected.

Vatican 2 was ultimately a continuation of Vat 1 which was interrupted due to war. By then, times had changed and they had differnent problems to address; such as the process of catechesis.

You could argue that councils should have addressed mass confusion, but it’s not why they were called and mass confusion was not a topic of discussion, as far as I know. There are those who would argue that Vatican 2 has more confusion. They may have a point. However, we humans really need to get away from expecting God, the Church or the Bible to spell everything out for us in black and white. :ehh:

An examination of the Gospels demonstrates that Jesus was actually quite cyrptic. Reason being, maybe he wanted us to think for ourselves.

 

[estesbob]

This is not my understanding of Church councils.

Councils were called because of differences of opinion; such as the nature of Christ, Mary the Holy Spirit. I suppose you could argue there was confusion concerning what constituted Christianity due to division of belief. A series of Councils were called to resolve these differences of opinion and create unity of belief. That’s it put simply.

The Council of Trent was called to meet the challanges of the Reformation.

Vatican 1 was called to meet the challanges of fideism and I think rationalism, but I stand to be corrected.

Vatican 2 was ultimately a continuation of Vat 1 which was interrupted due to war. By then, times had changed and they had differnent problems to address; such as the process of catechesis.

You could argue that councils should have addressed mass confusion, but it’s not why they were called and mass confusion was not a topic of discussion, as far as I know. There are those who would argue that Vatican 2 has more confusion. They may have a point. However, we humans really need to get away from expecting God, the Church or the Bible to spell everything out for us in black and white. :ehh:

An examination of the Gospels demonstrates that Jesus was actually quite cyrptic. Reason being, maybe he wanted us to think for ourselves.

Absolutly no Doctrine was changed at any council. They were in no way shape or form called to address mass confusin. Our seperated brethern , OTH, form a new denomination everytime there is a dispute on Doctrine-all claiming to use the same Bible and all claiming to led by the Spririt. How can one describe 30,000 different denominations all claiming to be teachig the truth other than mass confusion

The Church DOES spell everything out-there is nothing cryptic whatsoever with the Teachings of the Catholic Church. Scripture is cryptic only to those looking to rejetct the teachings of the Church

 

[Jon_Hus]

Absolutly no Doctrine was changed at any council. They were in no way shape or form called to address mass confusin. Our seperated brethern , OTH, form a new denomination everytime there is a dispute on Doctrine-all claiming to use the same Bible and all claiming to led by the Spririt. How can one describe 30,000 different denominations all claiming to be teachig the truth other than mass confusion

The Church DOES spell everything out-there is nothing cryptic whatsoever with the Teachings of the Catholic Church. Scripture is cryptic only to those looking to rejetct the teachings of the Church

It may or may not be true that I don’t know as much about RCC theology as you do but the above statement reveals that you don’t know the state of affairs within evangelical/conservative/findamental protestantism either. Our definitions of mass confusion are not the same. And you are still not addressing the questions I have asked, it’s OK though, I understand that you have to. Your belief systems requires that there be no mass confusion within the ranks so you change the definition as it applies to your system to safeguard your faith. Freedom of religion allows for this my friend.

 

[estesbob]

It may or may not be true that I don’t know as much about RCC theology as you do but the above statement reveals that you don’t know the state of affairs within evangelical/conservative/findamental protestantism either. Our definitions of mass confusion are not the same. And you are still not addressing the questions I have asked, it’s OK though, I understand that you have to. Your belief systems requires that there be no mass confusion within the ranks so you change the definition as it applies to your system to safeguard your faith. Freedom of religion allows for this my friend.

When you have thousands of different denominations teacing multiple and often contradictory doctrines on such primary issues like how one is saved confusion is the best way to descibe it. I am gald you admit you dont know much about RC Theology -could have saved us a lot of time if you had just said so in the first place.

 

[Jon_Hus]

When you have thousands of different denominations teacing multiple and often contradictory doctrines on such primary issues like how one is saved confusion is the best way to descibe it. I am gald you admit you dont know much about RC Theology -could have saved us a lot of time if you had just said so in the first place.

Have you asked for that tuition refund yet?

 

[Jon_Hus]

When you have thousands of different denominations teacing multiple and often contradictory doctrines on such primary issues like how one is saved confusion is the best way to descibe it. I am gald you admit you dont know much about RC Theology -could have saved us a lot of time if you had just said so in the first place.

We could call this “academic malpractice”.

 

[JonNC]

When you have thousands of different denominations teacing multiple and often contradictory doctrines on such primary issues like how one is saved confusion is the best way to descibe it. I am gald you admit you dont know much about RC Theology -could have saved us a lot of time if you had just said so in the first place.

The errors of Calvinism, anabaptism, etc. do not confuse me in the least.

Jon

 

[estesbob]

The errors of Calvinism, anabaptism, etc. do not confuse me in the least.

Jon

I guess since they are making it up asthey go along they dont think they are confused

 

[minkymurph]

Absolutly no Doctrine was changed at any council. They were in no way shape or form called to address mass confusin. Our seperated brethern , OTH, form a new denomination everytime there is a dispute on Doctrine-all claiming to use the same Bible and all claiming to led by the Spririt. How can one describe 30,000 different denominations all claiming to be teachig the truth other than mass confusion

The Church DOES spell everything out-there is nothing cryptic whatsoever with the Teachings of the Catholic Church. Scripture is cryptic only to those looking to rejetct the teachings of the Church

To clarify, nothing in my post suggests the Church changed doctrine. It was not my intention to suggest this, or that councils were called to address mass confusion. My statement in relation to mass confusion referred to the fact that there were so many contrasting and opposing beliefs concerning the person of Christ it could be argued that people did not know which beliefs were true, divinely revealed by the Apostles and passed on. Councils were called to answer controversies that arose such as the Arian controversy and the Nestorian controversy.

The Church has not spelt out teachings on things that have not been revealed. For example; unbaptised children. We do not know what happens to individual unbaptised children for a certainty and this is why the Church does not spell it out. Neither do we know what happens to every individual who commits suicide. Neither do we know what happened to individual non-jews who died before the death of Christ, or who died after the death of Christ and had not heard the Gospel. Aside from that, even the Catholic Church did not know everything. The Church spells some things out. These are divinely revealed truths. However, even the Catholic Church does not claim it can interpret Genesis to Revelation infallibly and the Catholic Church teaches divine truths in scripture are nuanced, which is why we need guidance in interpreting scripture.

I don’t think I said the teachings of the Catholic Church are cryptic. If it appears I inferred this, this was not my intention. I said Jesus was a bit cryptic. By this I meant the parables. Jesus intentionally did not spell things out. On more than one occasion he asked his followers if they were getting the sense of it and his followers on occasion didn’t. Jesus did not spell out to his disciples when he met them on the road to Emmaus he was the risen Christ. He enabled them to work it out for themselves. I also go back to my statement regarding the Trinity. Jesus did not spell out he was the Incarnate God to his Apostles.

 

[minkymurph]

Further to my post on councils,

The first council, Nicea, was, simply put, held to establish once and for all who Jesus was.

The reason being, Christians had divided into squabbling sects who disagreed on who Christ was. I read up on various sects on New Advent and I think I stopped at 14. They all believed different things about the nature of Christ. Some believed he was divine and not human at all. Some believed he was a man who God was with for a time and left him at the point of death, some believed he was divine and human. The Council of Nicea stated infallibly he was divine and human and all other beliefs concerning the nature of Christ were heresies.

Did the first council get it right? I believe they did.

Had the first council changed anything? No. The belief that Christ was both divine and human had always been believed. The council refuted the teaching of Arias and other beliefs that had developed concerning the nature of Christ.

Haven’t got the room or the time to go into all the other council’s here.

 

[MaryTeresa2]

Greetings, I see the discussion rages on. Many things to comment on here but just noticed it being brought up about Jesus spelling things out. I agree also that He didn’t just walk up with a list and say, this… that… and the other are how it’s gonna be. He did not pronounce Himself as God or pronounce the Mystery of the Trinity in plain news-stand format. To grasp these Mysteries it takes much study of the OT and how it is fulfilled in the NT… what verses connect the OT passages to the NT passages…the forshadowing prior to the fulfillment. But there are places where Jesus does say who He is in pretty clear form…Pointing to the question of Him revealing himself as the Incarnate God… IMHO, What Jesus says in Matt 16: 13-20 for example, pretty well says who He is. Vs.15: "And you, " he said to them. “who do you say that I am?” 16: “You are the Messiah,” Simon Peter answered, “the Son of the living God!” 17: Jesus replied, "Blest are you, Simon son of John! No mere man has revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
Later in Matt 28:18-20 Jesus came forward and addressed them in these words: “Full authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth; go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in the name ‘of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you. And know that I am with you always, until the end of the world!” Seems to point clearly to the persons of the Holy Trinity. Again, IMHO.
Yet more reason to need our Holy Mother Church to help us in learning all that was written and passed down by tradition from the ones originally empowered by Jesus and the Holy Spirit. What a great blessing and source of strength to have the Church that Jesus founded all those years ago. She has never wavered in Her teachings. As someone pointed to, including myself in previous posts… big difference in what is dogma and what are diciplines in the Church’s teaching. Many do not grasp the difference and error in presuming this means the Church waffles or is confused. (I converted from the confusion of the thousands of churches and the many who claimed to know the way…each a little different according to his belief…I never heard the same thing twice… that was 36 yrs ago. Now I know what I believe and why and where to go if I need answers… )
Is the Body of Christ divided?? Peace be with you all.
Sister Mary Teresa, OSSM

 

[guanophore]

Could you kindly explain to this simple creature what the purpose of having the 20 some church councils over the last 2000 years if not to remedy mass confusion?

Most of them were to address very specific heresies. This is in stark contrast to the rampant heresies spawned by Sola Scriptura, many of which the Church has already defeated!

 Could you shed some light on why we shouldn't consider The Great Schism, The Iconoclast controvarsy, the Avignon Papacy, The Inquisition, V2, just to name some, as a remedy of mass confusion?

These are all examples of ecclesiastical activities (actions engaged by persons in positions of authority). They are quite unlike the chaos that ensues when each person becomes their own authority. Granted, each of thees is an example of problems the Church needed to confront.

I hope you mispoke yourself, since clearly none of them were “remedies”.

So, there was no mass confusion before the reformation, is that your teaching?

No. Not like there is now.

 

[guanophore]

So, basically you want us to believe that the councils, papal bulls, encyclicals, and so forth were called to vote on the color and theme of St. Peters? I have the book set Vatican Council II: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations-- 100s of pages of confusion clarification which has since spawned 100s of other books trying to explain the explanations.

Certainly the church has consistently wrote to define and clarify the Teaching of the Apostles. The NT letters are the first examples of this.

Yes from the NT to the present day, the purpose of all these documents is to clarify and teach the faith.

Every time a misunderstanding threatens the flock, the teaching authority responds with clear instruction. This is is what Jesus commanded, when He instructed them to “teach them all I have commanded”. This responsibility was passed to the successors of the Apostles.

You haven’t explained the purpose of the pronouncements, publications,

These are included in what is stated above.

movements, papal relocations, military actions, mass migrations,

Not sure what you mean by “movement”?

What does a papal relocation have to do with resolving confusion? Are you bringing this as an example of confusion? If so, I concur. However, this does not constitute “chaos” in the flock.

Not sure how military action relates at all. Are you suggesting it has something to do wtih doctrine?

What mass migration? And what does it have to do with doctrine?

forced conversions, inquisitions and misc. get-togethers/historical inconveniences.

Please clarify this. Forced conversions are expressely against the will of God. Are you saying that they are an example of doctrinal chaos?

get togethers? Do you think people having get togethers causes doctrinal chaos? I am afraid you lost me again.

I am not sure what a “historical inconvenience” is.

 

[MaryTeresa2]

Ya know Guanophore, some people can’t seem to get it because they have not been here. When I was brought up in the Methodist church, taught why John Wesley, Martin Luther and others broke from the Catholic church it was all rather vague. The Sunday service was all rather vague. There was no substance and any preacher you got had a different way of going about the whole thing, you never knew what you had. Of course there were nice sermons given, of course we read scripture. As we all know, we can see the truth in Sacred Scripture, everyone can gain something by it. BUT, BUT, there was a draw pulling me elsewhere, something said to me ‘that Catholic family down the street has something we don’t’… those kids going to the Catholic school had something that seemed to keep them from the worldly-ness we saw around us in our school. I admired them. I began to go to the Church. I was blown away! The Holiness was so evident! After attending Catechism and converting, I KNEW what it was! I knew what they had tossed out with the bath water in the reformation! It continues to grow, to bear fruit. There is no argument once one experiences it. But trying to convince someone, to get them to feel what we do, it’s like trying to describe the color blue to a person who has never known sight. They feel they are on the right path, they are convinced of their faith and I guess who are we to try to convince them otherwise…they are free to chose. And if opening someone’s eyes by words were easy then it would have been done a couple hundred years ago. It takes the Holy Spirit and that can only happen if they are willing to be open to Him. It becomes more of an agenda to some to convince someone… perhaps themselves… as to why they don’t need what was given out 2000 years ago. I admire your ability to engage so intelligently. My arguments are more plainly spoken. Yet have any of these folks answered any of us as to why they are willing to settle for only a portion of the pie? Have any of them ever attended Catholic Mass, studied the CC? Felt the Truth pour over them? So at the end of the day, you can rest assured that you know where you stand and why and you can reap the fruits in your soul. I wonder if non-Catholics can ever feel that sense of knowing peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding? Or is that why they still continue to argue to us who have something as to why they are fine without it? And our only argument is to come and share the fruits!

 

[guanophore]

I take it this means you can not tell us what councils were called to deal with mass confusion about Church Doctrines?

No, I think the mass confusions were about the rampant heresies. The purpose of the councils were to clarify the Church Doctrines.

By definition, all of the councils were (and in the future will be) called to address mass confusion about RCC doctrine.

No, Jon. Catholic doctrine is not “Roman”.

When I was a kid, we always ate fish on Friday. Then, suddenly it was ok to eat meat. We, and almost every family we knew were confused, was it ok to eat meat or not? Then came a decree, it was OK, and we never looked back.

This is a discipline, not a doctrine. It sounds like you may have been baptized Catholic. It also sounds like you left the Church before you understood the Teachings.

I hope being on CAF will fill in some of the gaps.