Protestant Statements of Faith and Catechisms: Luther's Small Catechism

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GladTidings said:
Chapter 8, number 8. No free will?
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The Reformed view is that man lost free will because of the Fall. The will is in bondage to sin, so that the only way we can come to Christ is if he calls us with irresistible grace. However, the Reformed also believe that once a person is regenerated, they are also free from the power of sin and their free will is restored. Chapter 9 Of Free Will:
IV. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, He freeth him from his natural bondage under sin;(h) and, by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good;(i) yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.(k)
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AugustTherese said:
Well, then that means the True Church is not one, but many - with various doctrines, various ‘Bibles’, different ‘Sacraments’, etc. etc.
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Do, do you believe, for example, that the Church Triumphant is part of the one True Church? Do you believe that Christians from numerous human traditions transfer to it?
I do. And I also believe that Christ’s Church remains one Church regardless of how human sin causes division within it.
 
JonNC said:
Do you believe that Christians from numerous human traditions transfer to it?
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No, not in the way that you define and use ‘human traditions’. Heresies and schisms do not ‘transfer to’ the One Church Christ founded. If they did, then the gates of hell have prevailed.
 
AugustTherese said:
No, not in the way that you define and use ‘human traditions’. Heresies and schisms do not ‘transfer to’ the One Church Christ founded. If they did, then the gates of hell have prevailed.
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Let me know when that part of the Church known as the Church Triumphant has been prevailed upon by the gates of hell. Then we’ll know His Church has.
The Catholic Church in communion with the pope has been accused of heresies and being in Schism too, so a triumphalist opinion from any source is just that: and opinion. The Church is made up of baptized believers, as Christ’s own words tell us.
 
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AugustTherese said:
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JonNC:
The Catholic Church in communion with the pope has been accused of heresies and being in Schism too
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So, we are all in heresy and schism? Man, that’s unfortunate!
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Your words, not my mine, but if we understand schism as “the formal separation of a church into two churches or the secession of a group owing to doctrinal and other differences,”, then yes you and I and all Christians are in schism
 
AugustTherese said:
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JonNC:
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AugustTherese:
Speak for yourself! We belong to the Church Christ founded and promised that no heresy or schism would prevail. 🙂
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Yes we do, and it won’t.
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You literally just said, “you and I and all Christian are in schism”…
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Are we all united? If not, we are in division. Unless you have a different definition. Here it is again:
schism- the formal separation of a church into two churches or the secession of a group owing to doctrinal and other differences.

So yes, unless you can show we are all united, we’re divided
 
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JonNC said:
So yes, unless you can show we are all united, we’re divided
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We are all united, that is, those in the Catholic Church. But the Catholic Church is not in schism. Just because someone may say She is does not mean it is so.
 
AugustTherese said:
We are all united, that is, those in the Catholic Church. But the Catholic Church is not in schism. Just because someone may say She is does not mean it is so.
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We are all united, that is, in baptism and therefore the universal Church. But the Catholic Church in communion with the pope is indeed in schism with other Christian traditions within the Church. Just because someone says it is not doesn’t make it so.
We, you and I , are equally divided from each other by virtue of our membership in traditions that are not in communion.
 
JonNC said:
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AugustTherese:
We are all united, that is, those in the Catholic Church. But the Catholic Church is not in schism. Just because someone may say She is does not mean it is so.
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We are all united, that is, in baptism and therefore the universal Church. But the Catholic Church in communion with the pope is indeed in schism with other Christian traditions within the Church. Just because someone says it is not doesn’t make it so.
We, you and I , are equally divided from each other by virtue of our membership in traditions that are not in communion.
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"Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that “there is one God, one faith, one baptism” may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that “those who are not with Christ are against Him,” and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore “without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate.” Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: “He who is for the See of Peter is for me.” A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: “The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root? - Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos

“”[T]here are many other things which most properly can keep me in [the Catholic Church’s] bosom. The unanimity of peoples and nations keeps me here. Her authority, inaugurated in miracles, nourished by hope, augmented by love, and confirmed by her age, keeps me here. The succession of priests, from the very see of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave the charge of feeding his sheep [John 21:15–17], up to the present episcopate, keeps me here. And last, the very name Catholic, which, not without reason, belongs to this Church alone, in the face of so many heretics, so much so that, although all heretics want to be called ‘Catholic,’ when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house" - Saint Augustine, Against the Letter of Mani Called “The Foundation” 4:5 [A.D. 397])
 
You should probably apologize to Jon for falsely accusing him, of all people, of indifferentism. Finding mutual fault between two conflicted parties is not synonymous with the dishonest sort of thing you accuse him. At least, your own catechism doesn’t seem to think so:
Wounds to unity
817 In fact, “in this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame.” 269 The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ’s Body - here we must distinguish heresy, apostasy, and schism 270 - do not occur without human sin…
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steido01 said:
You should probably apologize to Jon for falsely accusing him, of all people, of indifferentism. Finding mutual fault between two conflicted parties is not synonymous with the dishonest sort of thing you accuse him
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I am not the one that said:
JonNC said:
yes you and I and all Christians are in schism
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Those words call Our Lord a liar when He promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church. The Church Christ founded, i.e. the Catholic Church, was never in schism, is not, and will never be!
 
steido01 said:
So which source is wrong, you or your church’s catechism?
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Stating that ‘both sides are to blame’ does not mean the Catholic Church is in schism.

e.g. My wife and I got into a mutual argument, she ended up leaving me. Even though ‘both sides are to blame’, that does not mean that we left each other, no, she left me.
 
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Schism is a state between two, not a state from one.

Keeping the house in the divorce just means you happened to have a bigger army at the time. Had Lutherans had one additional vote on the Imperial Diet, Rome night very well have become a Lutheran city by force of the Holy Roman Army. I doubt you’d be so comfortable to put all your eggs in the basket of ‘place’ if that were so.
 
AugustTherese said:
Those words call Our Lord a liar when He promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church. The Church Christ founded, i.e. the Catholic Church, was never in schism, is not, and will never be!
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Triumphalist, through and through. The EO is clearly part of Christ’s Church, as are western non-Catholics.
We,as members of His Church, because of our sin, are in schism. We are not united. We do not receive His body and blood at the same altars, next to each other.
But we are all members of His One True Church, and His Spirit will guide us back to unity, and the gates of Hell will not prevail.
 
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