I understand this. As person who has experiences in grace both sacramental and non, I can attest that Jesus does pour out His graces wherever He can. He did, however, institute certains ways (sacraments) where His grace would be imparted, so it makes sense to use them. Why not stand under the spout where the glory comes out?
****A lot of people who believe in Baptism’s necessity have had a problem answering this very good question. But one simply needs to look at the situation and use a little common sense.
Good points. Notice, too, that since that time, no unbaptized person has ever received such grace.
Every “heretic” that the Church burned at the stake was being condemned to hell by the Church. What else? Getting them to heaven quicker? No, they were condemned for their “heresies” and the punishment meted out by the Church was death by burning at the stake. They certainly weren’t being given any more time to recant their “heresies” and belief the Church’s “truth.” In all fairness to the RCC, the Reformers were not much better in dealing with anyone that questioned them, when they were in a position of power to use the state to enforce their teachings. There often was no such thing as separation of church and state.
Two points:
If a person is condemned to be burned at the stake, they have no more time to recant, and when the flame is lit, they are given no more time, right? So I’m not sure I understand your first point.
I understand it is always a person’s own sins that send them to hell. But it is the church that has declared certain beliefs to be sins and it has not just casually pointed them out, pleading for repentance. It has declared “heretics” worthy of hell for their beliefs and has in fact sent them there (if that is where they went) prematurely by lighting the flames that consumed them. There was a time when to disagree with Rome meant certain death.
**When the church had power to do it, the church condemned many for heresy and had them burned at the stake for it. What the church did in pronouncing various anathemas was simply declare what constituted heresy deserving of such punishment. There is nothing wrong with identifying false teaching but the false teachers are to prayed for, offered counsel, reasoned with, and even publicly chastised (in word only), and then just left to the Lord as to His own punishment, which can be far worse than man could ever inflict. I have no doubt that my biblical stand against infant baptism would have gotten me the stake if this were five or six hundred years ago, as in fact it did to many believers back then. I can never “recant” of believing the Scriptures and their teaching that only believers should be baptized, and if I didn’t, I would have been burned at the stake by your church. Praise God for the freedom of religion that we have today to declare the truth without threat of death at the stake for doing so.
**Yes, we both agree that “the church punished people for heresy” and, I add, that punishment often was burning the heretic at the stake. But obviously we can’t say the heretic “benefitted greatly” by the church’s showing them their “heresies” and burning them at the stake for them, if they were as convinced of the truth of their beliefs as the church was convinced of the error of them. Undoubtedly, many who “recanted” did so involuntarily, under threat of death, without seeing any other benefit to it.
My point is they were offered numerous times to recant their heresy or else suffer the punishment of (whatever punishment was defined). Although I can’t speak for every instance, under normal circumstances they were offered sufficient opportunities to recant. This is enforced by the fact that the Church would have benefited “propaganda-wise” to thave the person recant and revert.
You leave out one small point, although you gently swept it under the rug earlier. It was the authorities who burned these guys at the stake. Not because the Church told them to (you think royalty like to “cow-tow” to the Church?!?!).
My Muslim and my Mormon friends often make the same argument you have. I find you all equally unconvincing that your “truth” is the one and only truth. So, I’m just going to trust the Holy Spirit (not Plato) to lead me, and if that means that I am unknowingly in a cave that he never asks me to leave, then so be it.Neither did Plato’s cave men - because they had never known anything else. They thought they were experiencing all that there was of reality.
That’s how I felt when I was Protestant, too - I thought that I was experiencing everything of God that there was to experience, because I had a strong prayer life, and a very intimate connection with Jesus.
I am. I’m standing under the overflowing fountain of grace that comes from life blessed by presence of the Holy Spirit, both in my baptism and in my personal walk.
Your Muslim and Mormon friends lack one thing - historical continuity with the Church established by Jesus Christ.
But what if they had no reason to recant other than to save their own lives? You have embraced certain doctrines, like infant baptism, because your church teaches them to be true. What if a religious body came into power that declared that infant baptism is unscriptural and shall no longer be practiced, and that all who believe it to be proper must forthwith cease such belief or be burned at the stake? Would you recant, no matter how much time you were given to do so?
Certainly not - which means if being burned at the stake is the consequence of holding that belief, then they might as well do it today, rather than put it off.
Hey, GS – come with me some time. I’ll show you those stained glass wndows! :angel1: They’re a WHOLE lot better from the inside!
The most beautiful church is not a church of gorgeous stained glass windows. I can put such glass in any building; the presence of it does not make a building a church. A church is a congregation of the people of God. Such a church can meet in a mud hut or no buidling at all. I’ve been in many a church where they were so focused on the stained glass that they never saw the one that glass was intended glorify.
He wasn’t speaking literally - he was referring to spiritual stained glass windows.
No, GS, gimme a break here! I wasn’t referring to “stained glass windows” – as in w-i-n-d-o-w-s; I was referring to the quote from Hillaire Belloc that the beauty of the Church can be fully appreciated only from inside – like the windows of Chartres. They don’t do a thing for you if you’re standing outside. Wasn’t that post in response to you – and on this thread?