I'm calling on everyone here in this forum EXCEPT Catholics !!!

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adstrinity said:
You’re a female!!! 😮 …Good to know! 😃 Thanks for sharing.

You. Calm down.

You do not perform the Sacrement, you go to it.

I told you there is no quota.

God promises you nothing if you do not obey His Will.

You should believe that there is only one thing that can separate you from the love of God and that is your separation of love for Him. If you willfully disobey Him and do not Love Him with all your being, then there is a chance.

It is up to you if you want to follow God to be saved. It’s up to God to save you. GOD OWES YOU NOTHING.
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So then we choose God and He doesn’t choose us? If God chooses us then when did He choose us?

Hint:

just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will (Ephesians 1:4-5).

Before the foundation of the world the elect were chosen by an immutable decree of God. So how did God know we would have faith and perform good works?

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).

So God even prepared the good works that His elect would perform “beforehand”? Where does our will even fit into this picture? Maybe God has provided an answer:

So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Romans 9:16).

Well what do you know, looks like God has provided an answer. Looks like our will has nothing to do with it.

for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).

"I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances (Ezekiel 36:27).

Who can resist God’s will? Only those destined for destruction:

**What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory (Romans 9:22-23).

Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden (Romans 9:18).

The LORD has made all for Himself,
Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom (Proverbs 16:4).

Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed (Acts 13:48).

To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out (John 10:3).

But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you (John 10:26).**

So God will save His elect & none other. Who are His elect?

for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED” (Romans 10:13).
 
sola_scriptura said:
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son (Romans 8:29).
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IOW, God sees the decisions you make from all time and He predestines it based on what He knows you will do. God does NOT predestine you capriciously.
 
ADS: You should believe that there is only one thing that can separate you from the love of God and that is your separation of love for Him. If you willfully disobey Him and do not Love Him with all your being, then there is a chance.

RA: Well, that’s not what my Bible says:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,** neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39) :extrahappy:

That, my friend, is Good News, as is this, from Jesus’ very mouth: “‘My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall **never **perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.’” (Jn. 10:27-29).

Here w have Jesus saying NO ONE can snatch them out of his hand and/or out of the Father’s hand, including the persons themselves, as noted by Paul who said NOTHING can separate us from God’s love, including “anything else in all creation” (that means you, too, and everyone else who is in creation).

Again, what you articulated isn’t Good News at all to me, it’s a job, imho. And it’s a job you can never figure out whether or not you’re doing it good enough to get the paycheck. I’ll take the “gift” of eternal life that God has already purchased for me by his blood. “IT IS FINISHED.”

R.A.**
 
Steve: Show me where Protestantism is allowed in scripture.

RA: Now, you’re just talking past me and not actually addressing my explanation of the text, and isolating words/phrases away from their context, and, sadly, just repeating claims. Here is a perfect example:

“14 What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?”
NO!!!

Duh, no kidding. 🤷 That was my point. It’s a dead faith. Not real. False.

This is NOT a statement about how “good works” activates a faith, thus making it able to save us. READ THAT AGAIN. This is NOT a statement about how “good works” activates a faith, thus making it able to save us.

This is a verse pointing out how “good works” *prove *the reality of a true/saving/justifying faith residing in a person. That’s all. If you already ARE saved/justified, then good works will show your true faith as being true. If you do not have “good works” then that means whatever faith you have, it is in reality, a FALSE faith (dead).

An apple tree, in other words, bears apples (good works) because it already IS an apple tree, not in order to become one. And if it bears no apples, but something else, then it ain’t no apple tree.

Sigh…

R.A.
 
steve_b said:
IOW, God sees the decisions you make from all time and He predestines it based on what He knows you will do. God does NOT predestine you capriciously.
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God does not do anything arbitrarily or capriciously I agree – however, I reject the idea of foreseen faith as forming the basis for election.

The idea that omniscient foreknowledge can precede providence is, as both Calvin and Augustine explained, rather absurd from a logical perspective (no disrespect to your view since a year ago I would have agreed with you).

It winds up saying God only does what He knows He is going to do because He knows He’s going to do it (try saying that ten times 🙂 ).

In other words God becomes a prisoner of His own knowledge. There’s a variety of theories on this, including some pretty interesting ones on the Catholic side (perhaps the most elaborate is Molinism, which many protestants agree with, authored by the 16th century Jesuit Luis Molina of Spain).

However, after examining all of these soteriological theories and matching them against both scripture and logic I must firmly agree with Calvin.

The idea Molina presented is that God has knowledge of counterfactuals. The roots of this theory can perhaps be traced back to Aquinas who wrote (in Summa Theologica) that God not only knows what will be, but what can be.

Molina tried to create a doctrine that both preserves free will and divine providence and foreknowledge (which can have logical tension with one another). He imagined that God surveys different possible worlds to see what our decision would be in each of them and elected accordingly. This theory actually attracted me for some time, until thinking about it more deeply.

In each of these different worlds God sees us in – would it really be us God sees in each observation? It would seem that by imagining me as a Chinaman or African (or perhaps as an inhabitant of some sort of alien world) I would cease to be me, and become an entirely new person. Hence it wouldn’t really be me God sees making these alternative choices, it would be a different person (or creature I suppose) in each observation.

Then I began to ponder the creative process and how we are given a soul by God. Believe me I’ve heard perhaps every theory under the sun, including very viable theories that assert all souls were created at once (at creation). However, what we at least know for sure is that God endows us with a soul and He know the who, what, and where (since we know God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent – even if you’re OVT you at least believe the latter two are true, which is enough for the following example).

In other words when a person is conceived or born into a cannibalistic tribal village in a jungle somewhere with no contact with the outside world God knows He is placing a soul into a person who will be born into such circumstances. This is the one consistent fact with every creation theory I’ve encountered.

Considering this we have to seriously ask ourselves, does God really give every person on the planet a genuine opportunity at faith in Christ? The answer is obviously and resoundingly no.

Calvinism fits nicely with the scriptural text, while other theories I’ve studied simply require too much in the way of theological gymnastics to force into the text of scripture. They also require us to ignore logical a little bit too much for my taste.

Don’t get me wrong I do think there is a level of randomness in the universe. I do also believe God can see the future. However, with regard to election God actually chose us before the founding of the world for reasons that have nothing to do with us. We might view this as arbitrary but that is only if we view it from our perspective, and not God’s.
 
Richard_Abanes said:
RA: Now, you’re just talking past me and not actually addressing my explanation of the text, and isolating words/phrases away from their context, and, sadly, just repeating claims. Here is a perfect example:

"14 What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?"NO!!! Duh, no kidding. 🤷 That was my point. It’s a dead faith. Not real. False.

This is NOT a statement about how “good works” activates a faith, thus making it able to save us. READ THAT AGAIN. This is NOT a statement about how “good works” activates a faith, thus making it able to save us.

This is a verse pointing out how “good works” *prove *the reality of a true/saving/justifying faith residing in a person. That’s all. If you already ARE saved/justified, then good works will show your true faith as being true. If you do not have “good works” then that means whatever faith you have, it is in reality, a FALSE faith (dead).

An apple tree, in other words, bears apples (good works) because it already IS an apple tree, not in order to become one. And if it bears no apples, but something else, then it ain’t no apple tree.

Sigh…

R.A.
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IOW, there is no “sola” fide, because faith is NOT sola.
 
Not much left to say, bro.

RA
“The Truth is out there” - The X-Files
 
Ag_not said:
Would you be so kind as to give me your 3 biggest reasons as to why, according to your denomination and faith, the Catholic Church is unequivocably WRONG in it’s teachings and practices.

My reason for asking this is because I will then research each of the reasons you give, and personally satisfy myself as to their validity, or not, for myself, as part of my journey into faith.

I hope this question does not break any forum rules; Im not looking to give a platform for anti catholic rhetoric and respect the fact this is a catholic board. I merely want to try and get into one place, i.e. here, what the main arguements are against Catholicism, and then investigate them for myself. I thought it would be the most expedient way to do this. If Im wrong, I apologise to the admins, and please delete this post as you see fit.

This is really for my own education and exploration, and trying to get the things I want to research into some sort of ordered fashion.

Bruxilda.
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My reasons
  1. EWTN Radio
  2. Catholic answers Forum
  3. Patrick Madrid
I can not believe what I read and on this blog and what I hear on ewtn Radio Some apologist claim to be perfect Christians All they do is judge other christian and make a fortune selling their Own Books and Audio and Video products. They create hatred among christian groups then sell books telling people how to attack other Christian groups.
 
Pixie_Dust said:
Simply amazing. I love a good conversion story! 😃

Personally, I can’t think of Mary without remembering the last recorded words she spoke in Scripture - John Ch 2, telling the waiters at the wedding in Cana, “Do whatever He tells you.”
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Heres a really bad pic of the cross I was referring to. It looks a bit different to other cross’s Ive seen. There seems to be lettering around the plate at the back of Christs head but its way to tiny and worn to be able to read.
My camera doesnt want to play tonight for some reason - I cant get the closeup in focus.

View attachment 4372
 
Why I’m not Roman Catholic…I’m going to be a priest and ya’ll don’t let women be priests :).
 
Would somebody please correct RA for me? I’m on my phone. Ta muchly!
 
Ag_not said:
Heres a really bad pic of the cross I was referring to. It looks a bit different to other cross’s Ive seen. There seems to be lettering around the plate at the back of Christs head but its way to tiny and worn to be able to read.
My camera doesnt want to play tonight for some reason - I cant get the closeup in focus.
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It’s lovely, looks like it might be copper and would polish up nicely, but it’d be tedious. The letters were probably INRI, short for “Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm” aka Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
 
**AG: **and thank God you know more that 2000 years of tradition, hundreds of popes, and all the schools of theology put together

RA: Well, I never said that, but that’s beside the point. And do you really want to get into the Popes? That that would be a colorful thread that reads like a slash-burn, cut-em-up, X-rated novel complete with mistresses, paganism, and some rather horrible crimes against humanity. Hmmmmm…No, let’s not go there.

Oh, and yeah, lots of protestants did bad things too, but not as the Vicar of Christ. So, just thought I’d mention that before you go there. 👍

RA

Oh, I forgot, both Hinduism and Buddhism go back further than RCC. And has some very learned and wise men. So, I guess you know more than 3000 years of tradition, thousands of monks and holy men, and all the schools of spirituality put together.
 
Richard_Abanes said:
**
RA

Oh, I forgot, both Hinduism and Buddhism go back further than RCC. And has some very learned and wise men. So, I guess you know more than 3000 years of tradition, thousands of monks and holy men, and all the schools of spirituality put together**.

I WAS going to reply with a cutting swipe of sarcastic wit 😃 but ACTUALLY, I know nothing 😛

Truely, I know absolutely nothing.

That’s why Im not burdened with the self imposed responsibility to lead Catholics away from the one true Church founded on Christ using errant logic, misguided studies, and syrupy rhetoric that sounds sweet but gives you earache after a bit; like some people here :rolleyes:

And what a relief it is too, I can tell ya 😛
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