Not Convinced.....

[KathleenGee]

I respect mothers, especially Christ’s Mother because without her, Christ would only be True God…and there would be no meeting between the Divine and mankind…

A most profound event…that chose Mary as the link. Yes, we do owe her our respect and veneration. And she is not dead but alive with Christ.

 

[Richard_Kastner]

First off, I don’t care about Mary one bit. She is dead, she is in heaven, and she has absolutely NOTHING to do with my salvation. Nothing about Mary or her place in the bible has anything to do with my belief in God and my salvation with God.

Mary is not important to me. She is another person in the bible who had a very important place. However she does not affect my salvation and has nothing to do with it. God/Jesus determine my salvation and they are the ones that help me through it. Mary has nothing to do with it. I do not care if she sinned or was sinless. It doesn’t change anything about my belief or salvation in God.

Bravo, Blue. :extrahappy: Do you think you could tell that to Gregg Alvarez

 

[Richard_Kastner]

Alright, your definition is just fine, my question to you is still damaging. If you cannot tell which books do or do not belong in the Bible, how do you know that you are not missing some very important salvation related information which accidentally got excluded from the Bible? For all you know, your canon is missing information that bares directly on your salvation and that there are, in fact, damning doctrines taught in your canon. Because of sola Scriptura, you just can’t know.

That’s where faith comes in. I have a bible and I BELIEVE that all the information I need for my salvation is contained within it’s pages. That is also how I KNOW it is sufficient.

So I have another question for you: did the Catholic Church just “get lucky” with the canon, or was the Church divinely assisted in discerning it?

The bible is the word of God. The specific books that comprise it are in it because He wants them there.

 

[zach_dunn]

That’s where faith comes in. I have a bible and I BELIEVE that all the information I need for my salvation is contained within it’s pages. That is also how I KNOW it is sufficient.

What do you say of the Mormon who BELIEVES that all the information they need for their salvation is contained within the pages of the Book of Mormon and that is how they KNOW it is sufficient; or, further, what do you say of the Muslim who believes that the Qur’an contains all anyone needs for salvation and that is how they know the Qur’an is sufficient? The bottom line here is that you have no reason for believing the Bible is complete and right, your faith could be completely wrong but you have no way of telling.

The bible is the word of God. The specific books that comprise it are in it because He wants them there.

As I’ve been demonstrating here, you don’t even know what the Bible is! You “believe” the canon you have is correct, I “believe” the canon that I have is correct. My belief is backed also by history and reason, your belief, however, is groundless. I hope you are understanding what I’m telling you.

 

[Richard_Kastner]

What do you say of the Mormon who BELIEVES that all the information they need for their salvation is contained within the pages of the Book of Mormon and that is how they KNOW it is sufficient; or, further, what do you say of the Muslim who believes that the Qur’an contains all anyone needs for salvation and that is how they know the Qur’an is sufficient? The bottom line here is that you have no reason for believing the Bible is complete and right, your faith could be completely wrong but you have no way of telling.

As I’ve been demonstrating here, you don’t even know what the Bible is! You “believe” the canon you have is correct, I “believe” the canon that I have is correct. My belief is backed also by history and reason, your belief, however, is groundless. I hope you are understanding what I’m telling you.

Ok

 

[GreggAlvarez]

Richard,

1. I refuse to tell you what I mean by grace.
2. Are you purposefully ignoring my arguments? Since you refuse to answer my objections, I will answer yours in hopes that you will actually join the argument instead of reading it, disregarding it and giving your own redundant argument (which my argument objected anyway) again and again.

NO, WE have not established that fallacy… YOU established that by adding stuff that is NOT there (why am I still surprised). Here is how your argument would follow through (past where you THINK it ends):

1. Mary’s flesh is sinful.
2. Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh.
3. Jesus came in the likeness of Mary’s sinful flesh.
4. According to Scripture, the Word was made flesh.
5. Jesus had to get the flesh from someone.
6. By definition of biology, Jesus, as the Son of Man, took flesh from His Mother (or whatever title you wish to give so that you are in disagreement with the Church because how dare the Church be right about something).
7. BUT Mary’s flesh is sinful.
8. Therefore the flesh He took is sinful.
9. Therefore, Jesus’ flesh was sinful
10. Therefore, Jesus IS sinful.

This is how your argument follows through unless you change your view. I only agree with 2, 4, 5, and 6. Reality differs from your view. This is what you get for twisting Scripture around. You get a sinful Jesus. Can you live with that? All the answers are in the Church. I am only saying what the Church teaches and using reasoning to show why your argument is simply false. Right now, I am not even saying the Church is right (although I certainly believe it); I am just proving why YOUR argument is wrong (UNLESS you believe Jesus is sinful).

Which brings me back to the same thing I have been saying and YOU twisted it. Mary’s sinlessness plus the Holy Spirit’s sinlessness equals Jesus’ sinlessness. If Mary was sinful, then Jesus is sinful. No way around it UNLESS you say that Jesus is sinful. Then He fell short of the Glory of God according to 3:23. BUT, I know this is not your belief. The Church is right on the teachings of Mary (which are Christological and I am finding that out more and more as I use Christ as the central theme of my arguments).

 

[Genesius]

What whole mess?

I think the poster is referring to the mess of how you are all disagreeing; of how there are a ton of different Protestant denominations all claiming to have the same Holy Spirit interpret the Sacred Scriptures for them, and all coming away with different interpretations. Just a guess.

 

[Genesius]

Gregg, not to argue against you, my brother, but I would have to disagree with part of what you are advocating. Although I fully concur with the Church’s Marion doctrines, including the Immaculate Conception, I would say that I do disagree with your logic. Mary could very well HAVE BEEN conceived in original sin without Jesus necessarily being born that way. Obviously, God can do anything He wants.

If you use your logic, it opens the door to the common argument against it being that if Mary HAD to be conceived immaculately for Jesus to have been born sinless then Mary’s mother would have to be, and so on. But we know that doesn’t follow. Therefore, one has to concede that Mary was born immaculately conceived simply because that is the way God CHOSE her to be conceived, in order to be the ark of the new covenant.

Again, not denying her immaculate conception, just questioning the idea that she HAD to be. Just my humble opinion, but also something to be said for a ‘logical’ argument when speaking of the mysteries of God.

 

[faithfully]

First off, I don’t care about Mary one bit. She is dead, she is in heaven, and she has absolutely NOTHING to do with my salvation. Nothing about Mary or her place in the bible has anything to do with my belief in God and my salvation with God.

Mary is not important to me. She is another person in the bible who had a very important place. However she does not affect my salvation and has nothing to do with it. God/Jesus determine my salvation and they are the ones that help me through it. Mary has nothing to do with it. I do not care if she sinned or was sinless. It doesn’t change anything about my belief or salvation in God.

I’m sure given your lack of interest in Mary that you might not realize that your tone of voice comes off as incredibly disrespectful. And I suspect, based on your verbage that you don’t care.

But listen to what you’re saying…

“That you don’t care about her one bit.”
“That’s she’s not important (to you)”
“She has NOTHING to do with your salvation”

Without Mary, the woman GOD chose to bring us Jesus in a way that God chose as appropriate… We’d have NOTHING? We wouldn’t have a man/God born among humans, willing to die for our sins… We’d have NO SALVATION… Trust me, she has EVERYTHING to do with you being saved. She birthed your ability to be saved. And she did so graciously, when she had everything to lose among the human race.

I’m assuming you go by some form of the 10 commandments… Does your list NOT include Honor Thy Mother and Father?

And wouldn’t be it be safe to say that Jesus would PERFECTLY follow the 10 commandments? That he too would honor his mother and father? And Given that Jesus is our salvation… does it not stand to reason that perhaps we should extend a weeeeeeee bit of honor towards his mother? At least not speak of her as some old, worthless has-been, not even worth a moments consideration?

For he did not have to turn water into wine. He did so, because his mother asked him to. Even he stated to her, it was not his time (to be proving who he was). Consider that he loves her so much, we ought to at least appreciate his desire to honor his own mother. NOT worship her. HONOR her… in the same way, at the very least, we are expected to honor our own imperfect parents.

 

[BlueShadow123]

I’m sure given your lack of interest in Mary that you might not realize that your tone of voice comes off as incredibly disrespectful. And I suspect, based on your verbage that you don’t care.

But listen to what you’re saying…

“That you don’t care about her one bit.”
“That’s she’s not important (to you)”
“She has NOTHING to do with your salvation”

Without Mary, the woman GOD chose to bring us Jesus in a way that God chose as appropriate… We’d have NOTHING? We wouldn’t have a man/God born among humans, willing to die for our sins… We’d have NO SALVATION… Trust me, she has EVERYTHING to do with you being saved. She birthed your ability to be saved. And she did so graciously, when she had everything to lose among the human race.

I’m assuming you go by some form of the 10 commandments… Does your list NOT include Honor Thy Mother and Father?

And wouldn’t be it be safe to say that Jesus would PERFECTLY follow the 10 commandments? That he too would honor his mother and father? And Given that Jesus is our salvation… does it not stand to reason that perhaps we should extend a weeeeeeee bit of honor towards his mother? At least not speak of her as some old, worthless has-been, not even worth a moments consideration?

For he did not have to turn water into wine. He did so, because his mother asked him to. Even he stated to her, it was not his time (to be proving who he was). Consider that he loves her so much, we ought to at least appreciate his desire to honor his own mother. NOT worship her. HONOR her… in the same way, at the very least, we are expected to honor our own imperfect parents.

I care about her as much as I would care about say Noah.

Not nearly as much as I would my family or God. Think of it like this… When I am worshiping God or reading the bible, I’m not focusing on Noah, Mary, Moses… or any of them, I am focusing on God and my salvation and what I need to do in this life. That does not mean those people are not important. They definitely did have important part to do with God, but does not change how I see God or my salvation. They are part of Gods plan. If it wasn’t them, it would have been somebody else.

I said in my post that she had an important part, but she was part of God’s plan all along. God knew before he made us that Jesus would be born from her and that she would accept to become pregnant with Jesus. She was part of the plan. Sure, she deserves a high position, like I said in my post, but she has nothing to do with my salvation. I don’t pray to her, or think about her that much because I don’t need to do so to be saved.

I just don’t hold her in extremely high regard unlike pretty much all catholics. But thats fine, because that is my choice. She has nothing to do with my salvation. I do not need to pray to her, I do not need pictures or statues of her… she has nothing to do with my worship to God. I never said she isn’t in a high position, she surely is, but still has nothing to do with my salvation.

PS: this original post was made for Richard because he was making assumptions of what I thought about Mary that were not true.

 

[Richard_Kastner]

Richard,

1. I refuse to tell you what I mean by grace.
2. Are you purposefully ignoring my arguments? Since you refuse to answer my objections, I will answer yours in hopes that you will actually join the argument instead of reading it, disregarding it and giving your own redundant argument (which my argument objected anyway) again and again.

NO, WE have not established that fallacy… YOU established that by adding stuff that is NOT there (why am I still surprised). Here is how your argument would follow through (past where you THINK it ends):

1. Mary’s flesh is sinful.
2. Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh.
3. Jesus came in the likeness of Mary’s sinful flesh.
4. According to Scripture, the Word was made flesh.
5. Jesus had to get the flesh from someone.
6. By definition of biology, Jesus, as the Son of Man, took flesh from His Mother (or whatever title you wish to give so that you are in disagreement with the Church because how dare the Church be right about something).
7. BUT Mary’s flesh is sinful.
8. Therefore the flesh He took is sinful.
9. Therefore, Jesus’ flesh was sinful
10. Therefore, Jesus IS sinful.

This is how your argument follows through unless you change your view. I only agree with 2, 4, 5, and 6. Reality differs from your view. This is what you get for twisting Scripture around. You get a sinful Jesus. Can you live with that? All the answers are in the Church. I am only saying what the Church teaches and using reasoning to show why your argument is simply false. Right now, I am not even saying the Church is right (although I certainly believe it); I am just proving why YOUR argument is wrong (UNLESS you believe Jesus is sinful).

Which brings me back to the same thing I have been saying and YOU twisted it. Mary’s sinlessness plus the Holy Spirit’s sinlessness equals Jesus’ sinlessness. If Mary was sinful, then Jesus is sinful. No way around it UNLESS you say that Jesus is sinful. Then He fell short of the Glory of God according to 3:23. BUT, I know this is not your belief. The Church is right on the teachings of Mary (which are Christological and I am finding that out more and more as I use Christ as the central theme of my arguments).

Your logic here just does not follow, not to mention contrary to scripture. The first I have shown you. Rom.8:3For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

This says that Jesus came IN THE LIKENESS of sinful flesh. That does not mean that Jesus was sinful. The only flesh that Jesus came in the likeness of is Mary and you agreed with this “Jesus’ flesh was in the likeness of His Mother’s.” The only possible logical extrapolation from this is that Mary is sinful.

Here’s another Ezekial 18:20The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

So when applied to Jesus situation. Because Mary is a sinner does not mean that Jesus, because of her sin is also sinful.

Oh, BTW this post.

And a other thing that went unnoticed. You say Mary has sinful flesh. Therefore, Mary was sinful or full of sin. Now, what are you getting at here, you ask? Gabriel addressed Mary, “Hail, full of grace.” One CANNOT be both full of sin AND full of grace. Those two are incompatible. The Church has an explanation. You apparently live with the idea that Mary was sinful (full of sin) and full of grace. Believe us yet?

You seem to think that because Mary was full of grace that she could not have sin. Gregg, when I asked you for a definition of grace you refused, so let me give you the definition. Grace is the unmerited gift of salvation manifested in the sacrifice of Jesus. In the old testament that salvation was realised by a looking forward to Jesus. In the new testament it is realised by looking back to Jesus. When the angel said to Mary “Hail, full of grace” he was aknowledging that Mary had accepted the salvation from her sins provided by the holy child she was carrying. All sinners are provided with grace. Eph.4:7But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. But in order for a gift to be a gift it must be accepted. Mary did accept the gift of salvation for her sins, thus the angels address “Hail, full of grace.”

 

[GreggAlvarez]

Genesius,
Thank you for your comment. I wholeheartedly agree with you.
BUT I have to comment that Mary HAD to be born that way. Job’s question “How can something clean come from something unclean?” has to be put into context of our Lord. Reality is that God CAN do what He wants as you said. He could have very well just have made Jesus sinless without Mary being sinless. BUT the Word was MADE flesh and had to take that flesh from somebody.
He was not MADE sinless; He just WAS (because of His overcoming temptation and such). His sinless flesh had to come from somebody’s sinless flesh.

The Holy Spirit’s sinlessness PLUS Mary’s sinFULness would just does not add up (according to Job) to Jesus being sinless, so this has to be false. But did He contradict Job? No, certainly not. God knew from the beginning that Mary, by her free will, would say “Yes!” so He chose her to be His Mother and that is why we NEED Her sinless. He knew this from the beginning, so that is why it is written “for nothing is impossible with God.”

Does that explanation help? I understand that my logic stands UNDER the outcome of Her free will. Perhaps, we may not agree on WHY but the logic stands under this assumption. Thank you for the critique. It may help Richard with the overall picture (which is the point of all my posts).

God bless!

 

[Genesius]

Genesius,
Thank you for your comment. I wholeheartedly agree with you.
BUT I have to comment that Mary HAD to be born that way. Job’s question “How can something clean come from something unclean?” has to be put into context of our Lord. Reality is that God CAN do what He wants as you said. He could have very well just have made Jesus sinless without Mary being sinless. BUT the Word was MADE flesh and had to take that flesh from somebody.
He was not MADE sinless; He just WAS (because of His overcoming temptation and such). His sinless flesh had to come from somebody’s sinless flesh.

The Holy Spirit’s sinlessness PLUS Mary’s sinFULness would just does not add up (according to Job) to Jesus being sinless, so this has to be false. But did He contradict Job? No, certainly not. God knew from the beginning that Mary, by her free will, would say “Yes!” so He chose her to be His Mother and that is why we NEED Her sinless. He knew this from the beginning, so that is why it is written “for nothing is impossible with God.”

Does that explanation help? I understand that my logic stands UNDER the outcome of Her free will. Perhaps, we may not agree on WHY but the logic stands under this assumption. Thank you for the critique. It may help Richard with the overall picture (which is the point of all my posts).

God bless!

Okay, not to keep this going…LOL. But…

1. Isn’t it the Spirit that’s sinless, not the flesh? Like St. Paul tells us, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”?
2. In response to your quote, “Job’s question ‘How can something clean come from something unclean?’ has to be put into context of our Lord.” could easily cause one to ask why that in turn does not have to be put into the context of our Mother as well? In other words if nothing clean can come from nothing unclean, then how could Mary have been immaculately conceived? Do you follow? If her mother’s flesh was unclean then how could Mary have been born immaculately? I hear that argument a lot by non-Catholic Christians and we expect them to just accept the idea that it ends with Mary.

It’s the same logic (or illogic) that I note when we argue athiests back to a creator. We say that everything had to be created by a first creator. Sounds logical, right? But then they ask, “So, then who created God?” Our response…“Oh, He just always existed.” That’s not logic…that’s faith.

 

[zz912]

First off, I don’t care about Mary one bit. She is dead, she is in heaven, and she has absolutely NOTHING to do with my salvation. Nothing about Mary or her place in the bible has anything to do with my belief in God and my salvation with God.

Mary is not important to me. She is another person in the bible who had a very important place. However she does not affect my salvation and has nothing to do with it. God/Jesus determine my salvation and they are the ones that help me through it. Mary has nothing to do with it. I do not care if she sinned or was sinless. It doesn’t change anything about my belief or salvation in God.

I thought similar to you until I started looking at the Church. I really wanted to understand Marian dogma, and the more I learned, an important point suddenly was revealed to me. Learning more about Mary INCREASED my understanding of Jesus. You can’t get the full picture of Jesus if you don’t understand and treasure His Ark. The Jews didn’t worship the Ark of the Old Covenant, and understanding the Ark better helped them understand and appreciate God more.

 

[GreggAlvarez]

Richard,
Is that THE definition of grace? Nowhere in the Bible does it remotely even hint that. “Full of grace” must actually mean “Full of unmerited gift of salvation manifested in Jesus”. That is ridiculous. John 1:16 (in addition to many other verses) is absurd with your definition. This is why I refused. I admittedly cannot give a definition because God’s gifts sometimes cannot be fully explained. You apparently have full understanding of everything. That is why you give a definition that fits with “all you have to do is believe in Christ, trivialize the Cross and sit on your lazy behind until you are in heaven”… Give me a definition of grace that actually fits the Bible.

And my argument STILL stands. Your “use” of my logic was not even close to “my” logic. Logic is an abstract principles that is used by everyone. Some just do not understand it which is fine. Do not argue logic with me if you do not understand how I was using it. I was showing that the logical (if you even want to call it that) argument you presented shows that Jesus is sinful. Case in point. You are NOT objecting my argument. You are just saying it is wrong. Learn how to argue or admit that you cannot argue. You are wasting my time. I only come back in hopes that you might (JUST MAYBE) at least argue using some kind of reasoning. So far, my hopes have proven unfruitful.

Read the premises over again in my last post. See how the ONLY way to reach the conclusion of Jesus sinlessness is that Mary is sinless. If you cannot follow that, then I will show you. But until then, you are being illogical according to the argument I gave.

Get over youself. Humble up. Become Catholic and be hated like the rest of us. You will be better in the outcome because carrying the cross will be a daily task. Instead of now as you being a Protestant, which is that God saved you and all you have to do is believe that God saved you. Trivializing the Cross is terrible in my eyes.

Let us makes a deal.
Unless you can figure out a way out of one of my 9 premises from my last argument, then…
Mary is sinless. So is Jesus. This is the logical conclusion from the argument of “Mary’s sinfulness” that you provided. Oh… And attack the premises because the conclusion follows exactly from the premises.

 

[zach_dunn]

Ok

So you’re admitting I’m right? Why are you still Protestant?

 

[GreggAlvarez]

Genesius,

1. Yes. I am not contradict that. If I was, then Jesus giving us His flesh to eat would only make us more sinful. Can I explain it fully? Nope and I do not claim to.
2. Yes, they can use that argument but to no avail. “For nothing is impossible with God” is something all Christians can agree. If they use that argument of infinite regress, then it follows that God could not have known that Mary was going to say yes. Fact is that she DID say yes and God knew that she qwould say yes and rightly so because she did. Hence, the Immaculate Conception and her being the Mother of God. He did it to preserve Mary from sin and to give His only Son the sinless flesh He needed to complete His task. God’s grace is greater than sin and God’s mercy is more powerful than evil and God knows how to transform it into good. (That last sentence was from Pope Benedict XVI.)

Does that make sense?

 

[benidict]

Ya sure but you did have a tendency to lean towards her sinlessness and I was disagreeing with that leaning.

Well if she did sin that would put a crimp in the CC’s credibility wouldn’t it?

i would put more stock in Marys sinlessness, than say…E.G. Whites prophetic “gift.”

 

[Being_Brave]

TracyR,

ONE of my “ah-ha!” moments came when I read in James (2:17-18, 24, etc…) that works are necessary. Before then I’d assumed it was something superficial, but after reading it and really thinking and praying about it, I realized it was something that even non-Catholics do; they just call it acting Christian.

 

[Richard_Kastner]

So you’re admitting I’m right? Why are you still Protestant?

I was responding to this post

As I’ve been demonstrating here, you don’t even know what the Bible is! You “believe” the canon you have is correct, I “believe” the canon that I have is correct. My belief is backed also by history and reason, your belief, however, is groundless. I hope you are understanding what I’m telling you.

What I hear you saying is that you believe in the bible and I believe in the bible but your way of believing the bible is better than my way of believing the bible. That your way is based on reason and my way is unreasonable, that you believe according to some historical evidence whatever that is and I just believe, which to your way of thinking is “groundless”. This is my understanding of what you where saying and when I said “OK”
I was merely answering your last question. “I hope you are understanding what I’m telling you” I was simply saying that I understand that you are saying that your WAY of believing is better than my way. I was in no way admitting that I agree, only that I understand. Quite frankly I find this discussion as somewhat a waste of time. Do you really think that I would convert to Catholicism because you think that your way of believing in the bible is better than mine?