I am a Protestant who wants an honest answer

  • Thread starter Thread starter JesusFreak16
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
40.png
CAtoIL:
MrS:

What is the official Catholic Church position regarding protestants? Are we able to attain salvation outside the Catholic Church?
Click to expand...
Do you really think it is important to worry about what the Catholic Church’s position is regarding protestants? I think it is more important to think about what Gods position is regarding protestants! I don’t care what protestants think about me! My life is a walk with God, only what he teaches is important to me. I could careless about winning a popularity contest with people of other faiths.

You probably were taught that Catholics believe that Protestants are going to hell. Well you heard wrong! I was never taught that, I have been a life long Catholic and not once have I heard such a statement from my Catholic Family.It is true that there are bad teachers, I am sure someone out there believes this to be true. But I can probably speak for the majority of Catholics when I say that it is GODS decison on if your going to hell NOT the Catholics or the Protestants or the budists. You should worry more about that.
👍 👍
 
Hello All,

Quick question about this thread. As a Protestant, if I know I am going to be saved one day and the next day I commit a mortal sin, I am still saved?

ybiC,
Confused Catholic
 
40.png
Randell:
Do you really think it is important to worry about what the Catholic Church’s position is regarding protestants? I think it is more important to think about what Gods position is regarding protestants! I don’t care what protestants think about me! My life is a walk with God, only what he teaches is important to me. I could careless about winning a popularity contest with people of other faiths.

You probably were taught that Catholics believe that Protestants are going to hell. Well you heard wrong! I was never taught that, I have been a life long Catholic and not once have I heard such a statement from my Catholic Family.It is true that there are bad teachers, I am sure someone out there believes this to be true. But I can probably speak for the majority of Catholics when I say that it is GODS decison on if your going to hell NOT the Catholics or the Protestants or the budists. You should worry more about that.
👍 👍
Click to expand...
Randell:

You presume far too much. You know nothing about me except that I have posted an honest question seeking an honest answer. I would never presume to tell anyone what they should worry about or what they were probably taught. My responses to inquiries are based on what I know, not what I assume.
 
40.png
Randell:
You probably were taught that Catholics believe that Protestants are going to hell. Well you heard wrong! I was never taught that, I have been a life long Catholic and not once have I heard such a statement from my Catholic Family.It is true that there are bad teachers, I am sure someone out there believes this to be true.
Click to expand...
Well, you are at least right about the existance of bad teachers. If there were more good teachers, then more Catholics would know that it is a dogma of the Catholic faith that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. It is true that in recent years some prominent theologians, including John Paul II, have speculated that it might be possible for Protestants and suchlike to be in the Catholic Church without realizing it, and thus be saved by virtue of their (unwitting) association with the Church, but one way or another it is quite definitely the case that outside the Catholic Church one cannot be saved.
 
40.png
twf:
Ozzie and others:
We are certainly saved by grace alone…but not by faith alone. I assume you agree that we must accept Christ through repentance and faith to be saved. If so, then you agree that humans must do something to be saved. Obviously we are not saved because of what we did (faith, repentance, acceptance) but because of Christ’s grace; however, we must co-operate with God and be willing to receive this grace. So far I assume you agree with me.
Click to expand...
No, I do not agree. We are saved BY grace THROUGH faith, period! (Eph. 2:8-9). The Bible says nothing about us being willing to "receive this grace." The propositional gospel is that we BELIEVE in Christ, i.e., His Person and once for all sacrificial death on our behalf, for ALL our sins (Col. 2:14-15), and His subsequent, bodily resurrection. When one believes he is *given freely, *by God, eternal life in Christ (Jn. 3:14-18). When one believes he does not cooperate by wilfully "receiving grace," but instead it is BY divine grace that God saves Him forever.

The difference is subtle, but vast. This is why RCs can never come to understand the Biblical doctrine of assurance of salvation. They still think they can save themselves by pleasing God. They have no idea what the word “propitiation” means. That Christ is the “propitiation” for all our sins.
 
Incredible, Indelible Child-Of-God… Read my URL and be at peace. Choose right. Choose the Light. AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM (Latin: For the Greater Glory of God) www.reddink.com/INDEX My Pop, who’s a Catholic missionary in Nigeria (I love you, Pop), taught me a long time ago this: That if you think your Finite Existence means something, Protestant, you’re probably right. However, what you do withat Finite Existence is what gets you into Heaven or Hell. And we don’t have long. 60? 65? 75? years is all the time it takes God to yawn. God bless you with discernment, brudda.
 
40.png
Ozzie:
The difference is subtle, but vast. This is why RCs can never come to understand the Biblical doctrine of assurance of salvation. They still think they can save themselves by pleasing God. They have no idea what the word “propitiation” means. That Christ is the “propitiation” for all our sins.
Click to expand...
No, RC’s will never come to understand the totally unbiblical 400 year old so called ‘Biblical’ (actually totally non-Biblical) protestant ‘doctrine of assurance of salvation.’

An evangelical friend of mine brought up on this now rejects this particular ‘doctrine’ after reflection on, guess what? The Bible! 👍
 
40.png
GrzeszDeL:
Well, you are at least right about the existance of bad teachers. If there were more good teachers, then more Catholics would know that it is a dogma of the Catholic faith that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. It is true that in recent years some prominent theologians, including John Paul II, have speculated that it might be possible for Protestants and suchlike to be in the Catholic Church without realizing it, and thus be saved by virtue of their (unwitting) association with the Church, but one way or another it is quite definitely the case that outside the Catholic Church one cannot be saved.
Click to expand...
Erm, the ‘speculation’ you refer to is actually Catholic teaching detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church - a sure norm for teaching the faith JPII, and this teaching is from Lumen Gentium of Vat II, an ecumenical council.

Speculation. Absolutely not.
 
40.png
Ozzie:
The difference is subtle, but vast. This is why RCs can never come to understand the Biblical doctrine of assurance of salvation. They still think they can save themselves by pleasing God. They have no idea what the word “propitiation” means. That Christ is the “propitiation” for all our sins.
Click to expand...
Where do you come up with this stuff. We as Catholics absolutely believe you do not earn your way to heaven. We do believe actions taken on earth do earn merit and are pleasing to God when done with the same spirit as Jesus, what is wrong with that. By inference you are saying Catholics are trying to fool God by their actions on earth. That is insulting. Catholics know that Jesus is the Way and the Truth. We know you cant fool the Truth. Absolutely no way. I imagine all sorts of people, Catholics too, do try to fool God by supposedly holy actions but their heart is known.

Christ was asked how many would be saved. His answer did not give a number or say all but said strive to enter, the road is narrow. To me it implies that the road of a Christian is tough, not all are saved though Christ came to save all.

I think you only see half the equation. Christ came and forgave but also asks for repentance. For us Catholics that comes in the form of a sacrament, the Sacrament of Reconcilition. This power to forgive sins was given to Peter and therefore all of his successors. This is why Catholic priests can absolve just as Christ absolved 2,000 years ago. Only in the Catholic Church can sin, committed during a lifetime, be removed.

We, as Catholics, see salvation in a much broader context. That is why many converts and cradle Catholics love the richness of our faith.
 
40.png
Ozzie:
No, I do not agree. We are saved BY grace THROUGH faith, period! (Eph. 2:8-9). The Bible says nothing about us being willing to "receive this grace."
Click to expand...
Ozzie,

You could not be more wrong. I am going to give you only a couple of examples from scripture but there are more.

In Acts 7:51 Steven tells the Jewish elders, "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.

Also read the parable of The Sower in the Gospels.

God does not take away the gift of free will. And the gift of faith or any other gift from God is something that we can accept or reject. Use scripture and your common sense and you will see this inescapable truth.
 
hi LISA,
Your question require a direct answer and its just NO BODY Knows Where U going To, For Christ say 'Do not judge others '.

Lisa the basic fact is that we all are striving to be Holy but we must all try to be free 4rm sin though we are Human we can still make it with God’s Grace which is already sufficient for us.
Lisa u just have to be good

Thanx
:cool:
 
40.png
dessy:
hi LISA,
Your question require a direct answer and its just NO BODY Knows Where U going To, For Christ say 'Do not judge others '.

Lisa the basic fact is that we all are striving to be Holy but we must all try to be free 4rm sin though we are Human we can still make it with God’s Grace which is already sufficient for us.
This is all fine and orthodox writing.
Lisa u just have to be good
Click to expand...
This is heresy. Nobody is going to earn his way into heaven with good works. Far more important than being “good” is being humble and penitent. I have much more hope for a penitent sinner who avails himself of the Holy Sacraments of forgiveness than for a “good person” who takes no notice of the abundant mercy which God communicates to us through His Catholic Church.
Click to expand...
 
40.png
JGC:
Erm, the ‘speculation’ you refer to is actually Catholic teaching detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church - a sure norm for teaching the faith JPII, and this teaching is from Lumen Gentium of Vat II, an ecumenical council.

Speculation. Absolutely not.
Click to expand...
Actually, the “speculation” I had in mind was from Crossing the Threshold of Hope, which is (unlike Lumen Gentium or the CCC) not a magisterial document. I would be loathe to relegate the statements of an ecumenical council like Vatican II to the category of “speculation,” but I would also vigorously deny that Vatican II really said anything at odds with my own (rigorous) EENS position. I would be happy to discuss this further, but this thread would not be a suitable milieu. It would be difficult to hold a sensible discussion on the right interpretation of LG while folks are hurling Bible quotes at each other as part of a “justification” debate. If I find time later, I will try to start a thread entitled something like “Lumen Gentium vs Cantate Domino” or some such, or you could start one yourself. 🙂
 
When GrzeszDeL speaks on No Salvation Outside the Church, I agree…this has been taught from the beginning of the Church. Popes have taught it Ex Cathedra…

It is really not all that hard to reconcile oneself to this teaching…because we all agree that there is ONE Baptism.

Anyone baptized ’ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ IS CATHOLIC.
Sorry for the public announcement, for those Protestants who may not have know! It can be shocking when one first finds out they are Catholic.
The reason you may be a Catholic (provided you were baptized in a Trinitarian manner, using water) is because Baptism is something DONE TO US by God. It leaves an indelible mark upon our souls that can never be removed or denied, ignored or chased away.

** Catholics do not think water is magic…we believe in keeping to the Divine Tradition began when Jesus started all this. We follow the same “word of mouth”/oral Divine Tradition that has been kept in place and pure by the Same Holy Spirit that kept it pure before the Bible was compiled…we trust the Holy Spirit’s ability to act in all ages.**
So, the water is the vehicle, the conduit, for the Grace(free gift of God) to come to us. I suppose God chose to give us a visible sign since we are also living in the physical realm. God has always worked through our physical realm and even chose to come into our world as one of us. So, He made water-the necessity of our bodies, the visible conduit of the Grace He imparts.
Isn’t God wonderful to be thinking of our humble minds>knowing that we would be more apt to “get it” if we had something to compare it to, in the physical world? God does that with all His Sacraments!
 
Many of our difficult discussions can be solved by humility. When God said through Isaiah 55:8 “My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways.” Maybe he missed the opportunity to add ‘sometimes’, ‘usually’ or ‘almost always’ but more likely He got it just right. “My thoughts are not *[never] *your thoughts.”

Grace is a mystery. Though God, through the sacred authors said may things about ‘grace’ I missed the absolute definition or the claim that all was said that could be said. I need to remember that on my best and brightest day I cannot think like God.

We should not let this be the ‘beam’ in our eye. I don’t know how God himself would resolve the issue of grace and works. I feel certain that his answer would be overwhelming and beyond our capacity.

I’m a Catholic who was born Cathlolic, left the church for 35 years, was dragged back in by my wife that I adore (please can’t we pick any other church except Catholic, there are hundreds of them), while behaving and praying God touched me and I am Catholic again. In my life I have been adamently confident on both sides of this argument. Logic would say that I was wrong once but all of us would say that God loved me always.

I will pray to God today that he may make this mystery clear. Often God does not work on my time table; tomorrow I may not have an answer. Because God is infinitly greater than I am, even if he explained this mystery to me personally, I could not understand and would probably communicate it ineffectively.

I doubt that either side would suggest that a good Christian example was somehow optional. If your reason for prefering grace alone was to get out of Christian service I would suspect many verses of scripture would mediate against that approach. If you intended to give your life to God, repent of your sins as they arose and try to be Christ to your neighbors it shouldn’t make a difference. You can accept grace as God’s mystery.

Christianity currently is made up of approximately 2 billion sinners. If you feel that this won’t lead to some misunderstanding you are pathologically optimistic.
 
Well! After reading all these “straining at the gnat” posts, I now well see why Martin Luther wanted to delete the Book of James from the Canon. Though he did not succeed, his idea has taken a stranglehold on his, and the other “reformers” followers and marched right on down the past 500 plus centuries. As a former protestant, I recall the emphasis placed on scripture. But it is VERY selective, obviously. Now, having come home to Rome, I truly see the necessity for the magisterium and tradition, Never more than in this discussion.

“GOD is my judge”, Edmund Campion, Martyr]
.
 
40.png
Ozzie:
No, I do not agree. We are saved BY grace THROUGH faith, period! . . . . This is why RCs can never come to understand the Biblical doctrine of assurance of salvation.
Click to expand...
Hm, is that what you think the early Christians believed. Can you cite some of the early Church Fathers on that?
 
Lisa, I have not read any of the other posts so what I am about to say may have already been mentioned. I don’t think that you are going to hell, simply because I do not know you and I cannot assume the worse about you. I must first believe that you are following God’s Word and doing the things He asks you to do. The Catholic Church’s view as I understand it is that we are like seperated brothers and sisters and I would never wish damnation on one of my family and we are all part of God’s family. The way I look on it the Catholic Church as so much to offer to make our time with Christ so much more rewarding. Do not take any of ours words as fact but talk to a priest and ask him the same questions. No priest is going to try to convert you unless you honestly desire it. Sit at the back of a church as Mass is being held and just experience it. Ask yourself if what they are telling me is true what does that mean to me. Finally, just mull this around in your head. Jesus said He would build His church upon this rock and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. He said “church” not churches. If the church that existed from the 1st century to the break with Martin Luther was not the church founded by Jesus Christ, then where did it go. We know that it existed because of the letters from Paul. If that early church failed to survive and was replaced by the Roman Church then did Jesus lie to us when He said that His church would repel the gates of hell?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top