Mortal and Venial Sin

[truthseekerjay]

The thead is all over the place. However I wanted to respond to you. Please forgive me but I still think you come off as a spoiled child. You don’t believe so you won’t receive communion, except on Easter( but then if you don’t believe why do it at all?). You go to church and read the bible, and follow the commandment, but don’t believe it matters(so then why do it or even bring it up in conversation). I’m confused you never answered my question. Why do you do these thing? If faith alone saves why be good at all? Why did Jesus bother teaching us to care for others if we simply need to believe in him? Why did he break bread with his disiples and say do this in memory of me? Why wouldn’t you want to do it every week to remember him, honor him?
Sorry more questions than answers… But I guess till you answer those nothing else I say would even make sense.

First of all, these things do matter to me, but my reasons now are different from when I was a Catholic. I believe that faith alone is how we are saved. When I read the Bible, participate in the Eucharist, follow the commands of Jesus, etc., I am putting myself in a state in which I am more receptive to the Lord and to putting my faith in Him. To use the Eucharist as an example, I do it yearly at a Protestant church to remind myself of what Jesus did because of my sinfulness. I don’t do it at a Catholic Church anymore because there is that extra concept of transubstantiation and that the Eucharist supernaturally improves your standing with God. These concepts are what I don’t believe, not that the Eucharist doesn’t matter. When I receive the Eucharist at a Protestant church, I don’t believe that it somehow erases my sins or makes me more holy, but I do it to put me in a better state to continue to accept God who is the only one who can help me fix my shortcomings and He has! As I’ve mentioned earlier, if I were to receive communion in the manner of Catholics, it wouldn’t do any good. I can’t hide that I don’t believe in transubstantiation from God, so why pretend and attend a Catholic church when I can just attend a Protestant church, which I feel is more conducive to my acceptance of God.

BTW, what is your definition of spoiled? Growing up, I thought it meant someone who always got what they wanted and were self centered. Growing up Catholic, I didn’t really have any bad experiences (from a worldly standpoint), so I guess you can call me spoiled in that way. I honestly wanted to stay Catholic when the Protestants would approach me and I tried to defend Catholicism as much as I could. I didn’t become Protestant to prove a point or to rebel. I liked my Catholic life the way it was, but more and more I felt like I was lying to myself as I read the Bible and researched other religions and that’s why I changed my ways. From a worldly standpoint, I’ve had to sacrifice more after leaving the Catholic Church (but it’s all worth it from a spiritual standpoint). It’s not easy to have my family and friends think that I’m deserting them. It’s not easy for a supervisor to tell me that I can’t talk about what I believe at work (during my lunch break). It’s not easy for a person to reject me as a potential boyfriend because of what I believe. If Catholic theology were correct, I would not use “spoiled” to describe me. “Misinformed” and “brainwashed” may be more appropriate terms, but definitely not “spoiled.”

If Catholic theology were correct regarding sins, I would think that people like me would be seen as not having full consent when we refuse to receive communion in the Catholic manner. If Catholic theology is correct, we didn’t choose to be “brainwashed” with incorrect Protestant, Buddhist, and Muslim ideas just like Catholics didn’t choose to be “brainwashed” to think that stealing an inexpensive item is not a serious sin. To me, having the concepts of mortal and venial sins provides loopholes for all sorts of actions to occur because the actor did not have “full consent.”

 

[I_v_I]

First of all, these things do matter to me, but my reasons now are different from when I was a Catholic. I believe that faith alone is how we are saved. When I read the Bible, participate in the Eucharist, follow the commands of Jesus, etc., I am putting myself in a state in which I am more receptive to the Lord and to putting my faith in Him. To use the Eucharist as an example, I do it yearly at a Protestant church to remind myself of what Jesus did because of my sinfulness. I don’t do it at a Catholic Church anymore because there is that extra concept of transubstantiation and that the Eucharist supernaturally improves your standing with God. These concepts are what I don’t believe, not that the Eucharist doesn’t matter. When I receive the Eucharist at a Protestant church, I don’t believe that it somehow erases my sins or makes me more holy, but I do it to put me in a better state to continue to accept God who is the only one who can help me fix my shortcomings and He has! As I’ve mentioned earlier, if I were to receive communion in the manner of Catholics, it wouldn’t do any good. I can’t hide that I don’t believe in transubstantiation from God, so why pretend and attend a Catholic church when I can just attend a Protestant church, which I feel is more conducive to my acceptance of God.

BTW, what is your definition of spoiled? Growing up, I thought it meant someone who always got what they wanted and were self centered. Growing up Catholic, I didn’t really have any bad experiences (from a worldly standpoint), so I guess you can call me spoiled in that way. I honestly wanted to stay Catholic when the Protestants would approach me and I tried to defend Catholicism as much as I could. I didn’t become Protestant to prove a point or to rebel. I liked my Catholic life the way it was, but more and more I felt like I was lying to myself as I read the Bible and researched other religions and that’s why I changed my ways. From a worldly standpoint, I’ve had to sacrifice more after leaving the Catholic Church (but it’s all worth it from a spiritual standpoint). It’s not easy to have my family and friends think that I’m deserting them. It’s not easy for a supervisor to tell me that I can’t talk about what I believe at work (during my lunch break). It’s not easy for a person to reject me as a potential boyfriend because of what I believe. If Catholic theology were correct, I would not use “spoiled” to describe me. “Misinformed” and “brainwashed” may be more appropriate terms, but definitely not “spoiled.”

If Catholic theology were correct regarding sins, I would think that people like me would be seen as not having full consent when we refuse to receive communion in the Catholic manner. If Catholic theology is correct, we didn’t choose to be “brainwashed” with incorrect Protestant, Buddhist, and Muslim ideas just like Catholics didn’t choose to be “brainwashed” to think that stealing an inexpensive item is not a serious sin. To me, having the concepts of mortal and venial sins provides loopholes for all sorts of actions to occur because the actor did not have “full consent.”

Praise the Lord my Brother and count it all joy!

 

[nantiope]

Truth seeker
I am guessing you ate looking for a fight, but you still didn’t answer all of my questions? So if you can’t answer my questions I can’t really answer you

If faith alone saves why be good at all? Why did Jesus bother teaching us to care for others if we simply need to believe in him? Why did he break bread with his disiples and say this is my body, do this in memory of me? Why wouldn’t you want to do it every week to remember him, honor him?
You want to put your faith in the bible alone, that’s great, but where did that bible come from? And what makes you think that it wasn’t your immaturity not your lack of faith that drove you away from the Catholic Church.

Do what you like, be who you want to be, but stop shunning about it and being so wishy washy for heavens sakes

 

[po18guy]

Truth seeker
I am guessing you ate looking for a fight, but you still didn’t answer all of my questions? So if you can’t answer my questions I can’t really answer you

If faith alone saves why be good at all? Why did Jesus bother teaching us to care for others if we simply need to believe in him? Why did he break bread with his disiples and say this is my body, do this in memory of me? Why wouldn’t you want to do it every week to remember him, honor him?
You want to put your faith in the bible alone, that’s great, but where did that bible come from? And what makes you think that it wasn’t your immaturity not your lack of faith that drove you away from the Catholic Church.

Do what you like, be who you want to be, but stop shunning about it and being so wishy washy for heavens sakes

Let us pray for Christian unity, as all are on a journey, which will take the entirety of their lives to fulfill.

 

[truthseekerjay]

Truth seeker
I am guessing you ate looking for a fight, but you still didn’t answer all of my questions? So if you can’t answer my questions I can’t really answer you

If faith alone saves why be good at all? Why did Jesus bother teaching us to care for others if we simply need to believe in him? Why did he break bread with his disiples and say this is my body, do this in memory of me? Why wouldn’t you want to do it every week to remember him, honor him?
You want to put your faith in the bible alone, that’s great, but where did that bible come from? And what makes you think that it wasn’t your immaturity not your lack of faith that drove you away from the Catholic Church.

Do what you like, be who you want to be, but stop shunning about it and being so wishy washy for heavens sakes

I think James said that faith without works is dead and I do believe him. To me faith alone means that if someone were to TRULY accept Christ and suddenly died, then he/she would have salvation. However, if they lived after accepting Christ, I would expect fruits of that acceptance. It’s like if someone passed the bar and then didn’t get a job as a lawyer. I would then question if they really passed the bar. Anyway, after coming to faith, I realized that life is bigger than this worldly experience that I have. My actions have consequences, so I want to make sure that I don’t hurt God, myself, or others when I do anything. When one accepts Christ, He gives that person a new heart and that person will start having genuine love for others. I do good things for the benefit of God’s kingdom although I know that nothing I do can erase my sinful nature.

To answer your second question, I do celebrate the Eucharist in memory of Christ. I just don’t do it in a Catholic church with it’s added concepts of transubstantiation and the ability to erase venial sins.

As to your third question, why not every hour? Jesus didn’t specify to do it daily, weekly, monthly, etc. BTW, I know what Jesus did for me on the cross and I TRY to live every minute of my life to show that I understood what He did. This includes being in prayer, reading the Bible, helping out a friend, etc.

The Bible came from God. I don’t think there was a pope around during Moses’ or Joshua’s time.

It could have been immaturity, but the fact is, I became more spiritually mature after I left. AND now that I have a better understanding of the world and having researched church history and other religions, I’m STILL on this website trying to see if there was something that I missed or overlooked back during my “immature” phase. As of right now, I’m not convinced that Catholic theology is correct.

What’s your definition of “wishy washy” and how am I exhibiting that trait?

 

[truthseekerjay]

Do what you like, be who you want to be, but stop shunning about it and being so wishy washy for heavens sakes

If by “wishy washy” you are referring to me considering what will happen to me if Catholicism were true, then I guess I might be wishy washy, but let me explain my thought process. Let it be clear that I do not believe in Catholic theology. I know that the path to heaven is narrow and I’m trying to simply point out that with the Catholic concepts of mortal/venial sins (also baptism of desire and invincible ignorance, which we didn’t talk about) that there really is no incentive for a Buddhist, Muslim, or even a Protestant to become Catholic if they wanted salvation. Because of these loopholes, I’m lead to believe that Catholicism may not be that “narrow path.”

 

[I_v_I]

To Catholics and Orthodox, this text is crystal clear. Paul forgave in the person (not place), of Christ - with the Authority over sin given him by Christ. Look at verse 5. Paul was not sinned aginast, but the Church. Paul then forgave in the person of Christ. That, is power over the sin of others - sin which was not against Paul. In each passage, there is a context, but there is also a principle. The context is Church discipline. The principle is Paul’s power over sin, by the authority and in the person of Christ.

In my opinion anyone that says this text (2 Corinthians 2:5-11) is “crystal clear” is making a grave mistake in judgment. This is indeed a very difficult text to deal with and is widely debated as to its meaning. Because of this, it is folly to make “church doctrine”, such as God giving men the power to forgive sins from it. There are certain principles in this passage that are clear, but Paul forgiving sins on anything more than the human level is not one. Please enlighten me to your reasoning behind why you believe this text is “crystal clear”. To be fair I’ll give you the reasoning behind my understanding.

The first reason is because the setting is much more in depth than most understand. Because of this many assumptions made about the characters of the text are taken as fact. Not saying we shouldn’t make educated assumptions about scripture, but I’m saying we shouldn’t make church doctrine off of it.

Secondly, the apostle Paul in the text in question (2 Cor 2:5-11) is purposefully vague in his description of those who were in the wrong so as to not belabor the suffering from sins that had already been repented of.

One thing in this text that I am absolutely positive of is that Paul was most definitely sinned against. Kind of befuddled you don’t agree. The immoral person, who failed to adhere to his admonitions as well as the congregation that did not separate themselves from him, sinned against Paul. This point is crystal clear according to:

Heb 13:17Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Please read my next post to understand what they made Paul go through by their prideful lack of submission.

Finally, you agree that the context is about church discipline, but you believe the principle of the text to be something pretty much unrelated as context relations go. I believe the principle to be the correct implementation of church disciple, specifically covering restoration after true repentance. I can find absolutely no basis to come to the conclusion here that Paul wants us to believe he forgave the offenders of their sins on any supernatural level.

From whom did you hear the words “Your sins are forgiven” or “I absolve you of your sins”? Did they have power over your sins?

I must apologize, I misunderstood. I thought the question was “have you ever heard of…”. But no, I praise God that I have never heard “I absolve you of your sins” spoken to me.

 

[I_v_I]

To Catholics and Orthodox, this text is crystal clear. Paul forgave in the person (not place), of Christ - with the Authority over sin given him by Christ. Look at verse 5. Paul was not sinned aginast, but the Church. Paul then forgave in the person of Christ. That, is power over the sin of others - sin which was not against Paul. In each passage, there is a context, but there is also a principle. The context is Church discipline. The principle is Paul’s power over sin, by the authority and in the person of Christ.

Description of the setting in order to show how Paul was sinned against (Heb 13:17), leading to his forgiveness in (2 Corinthians 2:5-11)

1. Paul wrote to church of Corinth about their error in a letter prior to 1 Corinthians. He addressed the issue of separating from church members who openly and unrepentantly practiced immorality (1 Cor 5:9). They claimed they didn’t understand, and seemingly wrote back asking how should they go about separating from the immorality of the world. They more than likely did this as an excuse not to have to act on Paul’s instructions (1 Cor 5:10-13).
2. Because of the ongoing issues Paul sends Timothy (1 Cor 4:17, 16:10).

We don’t know exactly what the report back from Timothy was as to how his visit with the church went, but we can infer that it was terrible because Paul stopped his work in Ephesus and went directly to Corinth. This was his second journey to Corinth (2 Corinthians 13:1-2, 12:21).

1. We find that Paul’s visit went horribly, to the point where he decided not to return in person again in order to spare the church members. His teachings were obviously rejected. (2Cor 1:23-2:1)
2. The text that we are discussing informs us of some of what went on (2 Cor 2:5-8)
3. After leaving Corinth Paul wrote the church a third letter “in tears”. This was a strong letter which we do not currently have, but we can infer from the following verses that he “ripped the church up and down” (2 Cor 2:3-4, 7:8-9).
4. This letter was sent by Titus. Paul got worried as Titus hadn’t returned as planned and went to look for him. They met up and Paul was told that the letter had the desired affect and the church was making changes in the right direction (2 Cor 2:12-13, 7:5-7).
5. However, there were still issues with false teachers so Paul planned another visit (2 Cor 12:14, 13:1).
6. Before making his third visit he penned 2 Corinthians which was at least his fourth letter to the church.

Had the church been willing to follow Paul’s direction in the first place, it would have saved him much time, effort and heartache.

 

[nantiope]

Sorry, I’m just more confused. I don’t mean to be so dumb but to use your analogy a lawyer who passes the bar but doesn’t practice isn’t a lawyer? Faith alone is enough to save, but if you have faith then you need works or you don’t really believe? You don’t believe that God could come down and be a part of communion or just doesn’t want to be bothered?
We were given the bible to show us the way, but up until very recently very few people were literate so God didn’t really want them to to be saved only the rich and smart and privileged? The bible was written in hebrew, so God doesn’t want us dumb English speaking people to understand it unless we spend hours learning Hebrew so we can translate it ourselves?

Wishy washy, confusing, one leg on each side, hypocritical, unsure of where you stand

Again, believe what you want, be who you want, I am happy you found God, I wish you thebest. May god bless you and give you the clarity you look for.

 

[truthseekerjay]

Sorry, I’m just more confused. I don’t mean to be so dumb but to use your analogy a lawyer who passes the bar but doesn’t practice isn’t a lawyer? Faith alone is enough to save, but if you have faith then you need works or you don’t really believe? You don’t believe that God could come down and be a part of communion or just doesn’t want to be bothered?
We were given the bible to show us the way, but up until very recently very few people were literate so God didn’t really want them to to be saved only the rich and smart and privileged? The bible was written in hebrew, so God doesn’t want us dumb English speaking people to understand it unless we spend hours learning Hebrew so we can translate it ourselves?

Wishy washy, confusing, one leg on each side, hypocritical, unsure of where you stand

Again, believe what you want, be who you want, I am happy you found God, I wish you thebest. May god bless you and give you the clarity you look for.

I copied my lawyer analogy and I’m going to paste it here so that you can see what I really said: It’s like if someone passed the bar and then didn’t get a job as a lawyer. I would then question if they really passed the bar. This may not be an accurate analogy, but I didn’t say that the person is not a lawyer if he doesn’t practice. If someone claimed to pass the bar and he/she took a job as sales assistant, I would question whether that person really passed the bar just like I would question if a person who didn’t try to spread the Gospel really had faith in Christ.

Like I said earlier, if someone died right after they truly accepted Christ, then I believe that he/she will be saved. There were NO WORKS done in this case, yet the person was saved. If a person truly had faith in Christ and lived, they would know from reading the Bible that faith in Christ is necessary for salvation and would want to spread that knowledge to the people they loved. Let me try to explain this with another analogy. If there was a disease going around that caused pain and you knew and believed that a drug would alleviate the pain (but not cure the disease), I would expect you to tell all your friends and family about the drug. If you didn’t tell your friends and family, then I would question whether you truly believed in the drug’s ability to ease the pain. You can do nothing to get rid of the disease, just like we can’t get rid of our sinful nature, but you can do things to alleviate the pain caused by the disease, just like we can read the Bible and follow the commands of Jesus to alleviate/prevent the consequences of our sinful natures.

God doesn’t just come down for us during our yearly celebration of the Eucharist. God is always with us all the time.

First of all, God can reveal Himself to whoever He wants. If you think that it’s unfair that He didn’t reveal Himself to the people who can’t read the Bible, then that’s like saying He’s unfair for not revealing Himself AT ALL to the people of the Americas, Africa, and Asia during that time. Did God not care for my ancestors? I’d like to think that He did. If God can make revelations to Abraham without a Bible present, I’m pretty sure God can reveal Himself to the illiterate people of the Middle East and Europe as well to the rest of the world during those times. Honestly, I think God has a plan for everyone and will be just and merciful. I don’t know what this entails exactly and this is why I have a strong incentive to spread the Gospel to as many people as possible. In this present age, we do have a Bible that’s readily accessible. Since God isn’t making clear revelations to me like He did to Abraham, I’m going to refer to the next closest thing that I can be sure is from God, which is the Bible.

With regards to translations of the Bible, I would hope that all the popes and all the higher clergy were well versed in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek since they claim that they are the only ones who can interpret the Bible correctly.

I’m not going to be posting on this website for a while, so if you’d like to continue finding out about what I believe, send me a private message with your email address.

 

[I_v_I]

I have no problem diving into the context and actually prefer it that way. That is where the rubber meets the road and misunderstandings come out of hiding weather they are admitted to or not.

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