Now you are trying to get me to comment on the burning-at-the-stake issue, which I figured you’d get around to sooner or later. I don’t have an opinion on the subject. Despite what modern society teaches, we don’t actually have to have an opinion on absolutely everything.
Yay! I’m glad you took it the way it was intended. I saw that poor little knight and just had to find something a bit more intimidating than him.
Wait… that’s St. George! I thought you guys didn’t believe in praying to ‘saints’ for protection. :ehh:
So is it fair to say that you are quite sure that what Luther did in “dividing the Church” could not have been guided by the Spirit, but you are not sure that the Church’s policy of handing over impenitent heretics for execution could not have been guided by the Spirit?
I’m sorry that you disagree my position on the matter, but it has nothing to do with a superior tone. We Catholics get accused of a lot of unfair things on this forum, and I forgive you for it. But I will not be bullied into condemning past Popes.
I am not a fideist in that we should just believe without reflection or deeper thinking deeper into things, but neither am I rationalist or someone insists on being rational in everything. If our faith required a reasonable justification I suspect Christ would not have said “blessed is he who has not seen and has believed”. I however while I came to faith based on simply hearing, later I had challenges to that faith and my views have changed over time and I also believe my faith to also be reasonable. Few people believe in illogicality or think their beliefs are true despite what they think they know.
There won’t be any more Prophets (major) to come and save the ‘remnant’ from their errors, like there were in the OT, because there can never be any more Prophets after Jesus. He was the fulfillment of all OT prophecy. He is the Revelation of God, who came to reveal everything we need to know for our salvation. He established His Church to safeguard that knowledge, until He comes back. Jesus is the only Prophet that will be coming in the future, but when He comes back, it will be to judge the whole world. By that time, it will be way too late for anyone to change their mind.
I’m not saying that other Christian churches don’t have any truth in them. They certainly do have some truth, in varying degrees. But, there’s only one Church that has always contained all of the truth, ever since Jesus established it through His Apostles. She has to guard it well, because He will judge Her much more harshly, because of all that He has given Her from the beginning.
What anyone outside the Church might ‘think’, doesn’t make a tittle of difference when it comes to knowing the truth. Jesus knows what He did and who is right, and that’s the only thing that really matters, in the end. I know I have to stick with the only choice that’s available to me, at this point in time. I’m not going to worry about what might happen in the future, because no one knows anything about that, but God. I already went through my own period of intellectual doubt, a very long time ago. It convinced me beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I was completely wrong. That’s when I decided to put all my trust in Jesus, and have never looked back since then. Everyone has to figure it out for themselves, and make their own choice.
If you don’t believe everything that Jesus said about His Church, how can you be so sure that you’re right, and He really abandoned His Church? How could that happen if Jesus promised to stay with Her (His Own Body/His Bride) until the end of the world? It makes no sense to believe that, especially when we still see so much spiritual evidence that proves Jesus is still very much alive in His Church. I’m referring to miracles, ben. They still happen. Look up St. Padré Pio (who died in 1968) and read about his spiritual gifts, and the miracles he performed while he was alive, and about all the people that are still claiming miracles attributed to his intercession, now. Miracles like those are signs from God that He’s still acting through His Church.
Perhaps the reformation served as a wake up call for the Church to do some house cleaning, but Luther and the rest didn’t have to abandon Her, to make those changes. Their actions were not the proper way to go about it. That’s what Councils are supposed to do. If they had followed the proper protocols and went through the proper channels, it might have made a huge difference, without any need for bloodshed, on either side. When things get to the point where there are so many errors are occurring, and confusion seems to reign, then the Church needs to gather the Bishops together to discuss what’s happening, and figure out how to fix it, without having people throwing up their hands and walking away. That never solves anything. It only made things much, much worse.
Of course it is.
Such a statement is very misleading, as any “limit” was solely to guard the faithful from error, faulty translations and incomplete texts. Promoted by the ignorant and not to be believed.
From the earliest times popes and councils, saints and scholars have encouraged Bible reading. Until some years after the printing press was invented, Bibles were scarce and expensive because copied by hand - so often there could be only one book in a town but, nearly everyone who could read could read Latin. Catholic monks faithfully copied the texts, and the production and use of translations, corrupted to support false teachings, was condemned. [See *What Catholics Really Believe, by Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, 1992, p 30-32].
Correct as to what you said but I only posted what CC says . It really is a “Catholic” baptism if it is done right, no matter by whom. This follows the Catholic line that the apostles were Catholic, the bible is Catholic, the Church Christ founded is Catholic, hence the right baptism is Catholic.
Correct. She fought hard against them. It was the gnostics however that alleged the apostles, the inner circle, as you say there was, held knowledge back from the rest. So they were wrong in that holding back part but close to your description of the apostles as you posted this: “Some of it was only passed on to others through oral methods, particularly those things that only pertained to the priesthood (the Apostles and those ordained by them to preach the Gospel, like Paul), that were never meant to be taught to other people”.
Of course not all are apostles. Nor all are prophets. Not all are teachers. But we are all to be disciples .Therefore it is very implicit to be like your “teacher, your apostle”. That you make more of the offices is where the problem comes in, making more distinction of the giftings and offices in the Body than should be, even reestablishing the priesthood class. And that after the Holy Spirit came to indwell and baptize all believers alike. So unlike the first Jews who failed in being a nation of priests (reduced because of sin to just one tribe), we are all finally equipped to truly be a royal priesthood.
Yes, and of course you have the rebellious Korah, but you also have the warning lesson of the Israelites wrongly wanting a visible king, just like the world, instead of their "invisible "Jehovah/Jesus’’ King.
Seems a bit harsh, almost cynical. I still prefer what you say about CC and apply it to Judaism: “She can’t just make things up a few hundred years after the fact, that were never there. All She can do is try to make those teachings more clear to us, especially when there are contradictions about what they really mean”.
No, not out of thin air but unfortunately out of divine raw material designed to be just so revealing and not any more. Everything CC declares is given with at least some scriptural, historical support
Hopefully you see I do understand as I hope you do also, that we do not pull things out of thin air either, nor reinvent the wheel, but also use scriptural, historical rationale.
Yes you have, and thank you. Most here explain their positions quite well.
Except when it is holding on to Truth. A Christian should be narrow minded, obstinate, and passionate, from the world’s point of view, and with the mind of Christ.
Yes. Some say a rhema Word. According to the faith in and by which it was written.(period).
No, probably not. I have no idea how to do that. I’m not a Bible Scholar, nor do I have a degree in theology, or anything else for that matter. I never even finished 9th grade of high school. I had to look up hermeneutic, because I have never heard that term, before. All I know about the Church and the Bible, is from personal experience and what I’ve learned on my own, by reading about it. Maybe if you could explain exactly what you’re asking me to do, then I could give it a shot. Otherwise, I really don’t know how to do that. Sorry.
Again, that is what you say to our paradigm, that Christ abandoned us if we have no pope or we are not perfect in doctrine and faith and morals. We do not say that .
Look for sure he left us with the apostles and even Peter, first amongst equals, user of the keys, proclaimer of the kingdom to the Jews and gentiles . We also have the assurance of our invisible Paraclete . We have the HG to the end. Not sure scripture says we have your kind of institutional heirarchy and Peter’s chair to to the end. His divine presence to the end is what He promised for sure. And for sure each congregation had its presbyters. For sure we can even council together. Beyond that comes the speculation. And I would also not challenge that that is not enough for the Holy Ghost to rule and guide with.
Sorry for putting it that way.No, probably not. I have no idea how to do that. I’m not a Bible Scholar, nor do I have a degree in theology, or anything else for that matter. I never even finished 9th grade of high school. I had to look up hermeneutic, because I have never heard that term, before. All I know about the Church and the Bible, is from personal experience and what I’ve learned on my own, by reading about it. Maybe if you could explain exactly what you’re asking me to do, then I could give it a shot. Otherwise, I really don’t know how to do that. Sorry.
Dr. Tait-
Of course. At least, it was to guard them from error. I’m not sure about the “solely”–human motivations are mixed, and when you have people defending a religious monopoly that is the source of their wealth and power, obviously baser motives may be at work as well (as, of course, was the case on the other side when rulers conveniently embraced a mode of “reform” that allowed them to confiscate Church property!).
All translations are faulty, more or less. Readers should be aware that until relatively recently (the 20th century, I believe) a translation made directly from the Greek and Hebrew was considered “faulty” by the Catholic Church. Catholic translations, when authorized, were made from the Vulgate translation. A translation of a translation is not, by most standards, likely to be very reliable.
Indeed. From earliest times until the second millennium, and again in the past couple centuries. But between the later Middle Ages and the eighteenth century, not so much.
Nope. The Catholic Encyclopedia clearly shows that you (and Keating, if he agrees with you) are wrong here. Authorized Catholic translations were absent altogether in late medieval England and some other times and places during the Middle Ages, and were allowed after 1564 only to those who had special permission to read them. This was not just about restricting bad translations. That’s an apologetics canard that won’t fly historically. The Catholic Church restricted “good” translations as well, out of a concern that reading the Bible might be spiritually dangerous.
Indeed I’m aware that there were vernacular translations in the late Middle Ages in most languages except for English, either approved or at least tolerated by the Church. The last two sentences don’t make sense, though. The 1525 translation, of part of the NT, was made by William Tyndale and was condemned as heretical. And there were three editions of the Bible in English, all based more or less on Tyndale’s work as completed by Coverdale (as indeed was the KJV), authorized by the English monarchy in 1539, 1568, and 1572 respectively (one under Henry after the break with Rome, and the other two under Elizabeth).
I’m not defending the Scriptures privately interpreted.
Well, I guess I was heading in the right direction after all, because Matthew 23 was exactly the chapter I was thinking of using as a reference. In a nutshell, Jesus was clearly telling the Pharisees that they weren’t really practicing what they preached, and, they were corrupting the word of God, and the Law of Moses. Outwardly, they made it appear that they were good and faithful Jews, but inside they were just hypocrites that had no faith at all.
All in all, an excellent post, Lori. Just to add on the highlighted part. Again, I was just back from a cell group meeting and among other things we discussed was this coming Sunday readings (Acts 1:15-26), which basically was about the choosing of Mathias to replace Judas because ‘someone else has to take his office’, (1 Jn 4:11-16) God lives in those who love, and Gospel (Jn 17:11-19), Jesus prayed that they may be one. Your post speaks very well about those passages.
Hi Edwin, and thanks for posting that.
.No, probably not. I have no idea how to do that. I’m not a Bible Scholar, nor do I have a degree in theology, or anything else for that matter. I never even finished 9th grade of high school. I had to look up hermeneutic, because I have never heard that term, before. All I know about the Church and the Bible, is from personal experience and what I’ve learned on my own, by reading about it. Maybe if you could explain exactly what you’re asking me to do, then I could give it a shot. Otherwise, I really don’t know how to do that. Sorry.
Some of us will just have to rely on other’s to know what truth is. IMHO, I guess it just would be good if everyone could see and admit we all rely on someone to understand what truth is.