Well, let’s hope. There are some Catholics out there who don’t act very “Catholic”.No Catholic on this forum will condemn you, 1beleevr, as it is against our religion to condemn anyone.
I’m glad you said it, because I was actually thinking it sounded a little rank-like as a read it.
(Especially the atheist comparison.)Condemning heretical doctrine is not the same as condenming those who espouse it.
Yes, I understand your position. Personally, I dont’ believe it is possible to “prove” any matters of faith from the Holy Scriptures. I think this is particularly true of the Marian doctrines.
And He is not the only one! He created Adam and Eve that way, and also His mother, so that he could take His human flesh from her flesh without the stain of original sin.
Well, this is undestandible. We all know how fallible people are. However, the Teachings are not kept in tact by humans,but by God. It is He who preserves His word, guards, protects,a nd promulgates it. If He were not able to do this, then we would not have a Bible, either. The Teachings that were alive and well in the Church that resulted in the formulation of the canon in 382 did not suddenly and mysteriously “disappear” after the Bible was canonized.
There is another thread running on this, and I suggest you visit it. It is called “3 baptisms”. The Apostles understood that baptism replaced circumcision as the entrance rite into the Kingdom. They had no reason to withold it from infants. They taught their disciples the same. There was no quarrel about baptizing infants until the Reformation,when men decided that God was not able to preserve His word in the Church, and broke away from it.And once more, when did the practice of baptizing babies begin and why? Was this something that started after the deaths of the apostles?
I think the context of the book of Revelation makes it clear which heresies these were.
People were abandoning the infallible teaching of the Church, and falling into error. This has happened from the beginning of the Church, until the present time. The fact that men fall away from the Truth does not subtract from the Truth. The fact that Judas betrayed Christ does not invalidate what He taugtht.
This is what the Catholic Church does also, heis. We can see the thread of the Word of God through the Fathers, demonstrated in their response to historical events. Nothing is accepted as doctrine that the Apostles did not establish. The only difference is that we accept that the Word of God is not confined to the Scriptures, and is alive and well in the Church, just as Jesus deposited it.
Do you imagine that Catholics do not use the Written Word to defend against the Evil One? Misuse of the Word by trying to make it the Sole Authority goes against Apostolic Teaching. However, the Apostles taught that the Scriptures are the Divine Revelation of God, and are profitable to the Christian life. For some reason you seem to think that, since Catholics will not misplace the scriptures, we do not honor them.
I think this is a very good point. When we see what the Teaching of Jesus has done to the world, does it not stand to reason that, had Mary had other offspring, there would be some evidence?
You didn’t answer the question, and you’re very confused about salvation. For instance, salvation is not first guaranteed and then those “saved” know what He said.
Jesus didn’t leave us a Bible to read and figure things out, and create our own faith system from it. He first established His Church as the pillar and bulwark of the truth… not the Bible. The pillar and bulwark of the truth wrote the Scriptures and assembled them into the Bible. This Church which Christ built is the one who defines doctrine, and the one who made the Bible. God gives us doctrine and Scriptures through the same source. This is how we know the Word of God revealed. To say otherwise is to be at odds with history and even more, be at odds with God.
Why do you negate what the Holy Spirit has done in God’s one Church, by protecting the true teachings?
Nope, you didn’t do this correct for me, but more importantly are not doing it correct for yourself.
I actually enjoyed reading this rant, James. Highly relevant and appropriate for the topic at hand, including the comparison of atheistic proofing that seems to highlight the double-standard Bible-only Christians possess. They want clear, unambiguous (concrete) biblical proof for Catholic beliefs…yet allow for obscurity and ambiguity for their own beliefs…some which they actually received and accept from Catholics (triune nature of God, generational transmission of original sin, etc), and other erroneous ones made up by their founding fathers (sole authority of the Bible, invisible-only church, etc.). None of these concepts is biblically perspicuous, and of course the erroneous ones are completely absent, and yet they believe them. Then they turn around and say that Marian doctrine is NOT clear in the Bible, and immediately dismiss it as false. Double-standard exposed.
This also is a very good point that, frankly, I hadn’t thought of.
Yea - his statement caught me early this morning and I just felt the need to respond.I’m glad you said it, because I was actually thinking it sounded a little rank-like as a read it.
Yes, I think I can see what you meant. (Of course, I’m Catholic. 1believr and other Protestants might be harder to convince.)
Same reason they did not include the definition of the hypostatic union, the Trinity,and the reason the day of rest is observed on Sunday. They never dreamed that the Holy Scriptures would be separated from the Sacred Tradition that produced them.
Absolutely. The Church chose the 27 books out of 400+ floating about, claiming to be inspired.
Yes, I understand. It is very difficult for those who have been reared under the error of Sola Scriptura, separated from the Apostolic Succession, to receive the faith from the Apostles. They are accustomed to receving faith in isolation from the Church Jesus founded.
The Bible is inspired and inerrant.It was never intended to be a full compendium of the faith, or to exercise authority (an activity that only persons can do).
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I expect this, and all kinds of other errors to arise. Separation from the Apostolic Teaching can only result in error.You can add Matthew 1:25,“But Joseph did not have sexual relations with Mary until after her Son was born,” and not expect someone to say, “Hey, I thought you guys said Mary was a perpetual virgin”! Talk about a double standard!
First of all, the dogma of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary or her Immaculate Conception musn’t be reduced to a theory no more than the dogma of the Holy Trinity should be. Second, the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church has nothing that needs to be proved as evident to disbelievers, although it’s scripturally “evident” that Mary was sinless from conception and had no other children. Third, the deposit of faith consists of both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. The latter preceded the former and produced it, so there can be no contravention between the two in the Apostolic Catholic faith.
The “inclination” towards marital relations is actually just your modern-day interpretation of the ancient vernacular and phraseology. “Until” happens to be an unfortunate English translation of the text, because most people today only use that word to signify that what precedes it changes after whatever follows it. That was not the exclusive case of the word back then.
Read this
We don’t need it “concrete”, we need it authoritatively, and/or within the full context of Scripture. And as James restated, we are not inferring protestants are atheists…far from it. But the logic used is often atheistic in its structure.
No. Where did you get that idea? Just because the councils that canonized the Bible were undeniably Catholic, part of the lineage that came directly from the Apostles who wrote the NT, doesn’t infer that we believe these writings were not inspired. We’re just telling you that all these men were Catholic.
What we actually expect (or rather, would hope for) is that no one would need to question this phraseology from the perspective of attempting to prove The Church wrong. You are not supposed to be outside of Her tutilege and guidance. Because you are, you come at every doctrine of The Church with a skeptical, unbelieving posture. 1beleevr, you’re supposed to be on the inside with us. Trust me, when you get over your anti-authority mentality with respect to The Church, and align your faith with that of the sacred deposit, these types of ambiguous concepts become much easier to understand, and accept.You can add Matthew 1:25,“But Joseph did not have sexual relations with Mary until after her Son was born,” and not expect someone to say, “Hey, I thought you guys said Mary was a perpetual virgin”! Talk about a double standard!
….and that is bad b/c you want the power to decide for him regarding what is and what is not concrete evidence?
And here it is….your declaration of what is concrete. Here (I’ve posted something similar on another thread) is what assumptions go into your concrete:
You know, I think this would be a fair demand if I am talking to an atheist or non-Christian…after all, the rising from the dead claim is rather extraordinary. Let me ask you this, would you ask a Mormon to provide “concrete evidence” or would you simply adopt all of his assumptions and let him and his apostles determine for you what constitutes concrete evidence? Now I am not saying that you are a Mormon, but I suspect that you would be closer to a Mormon than I would be to an atheist.
And wouldn’t the NT references to brothers and sisters count as such a preservation…or would you require the apostles to be preemptive and say something like “by ‘brothers’ of course, as you all know, I mean full blood brothers and not something else”?
…or given that Jesus said, "“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” …it might be that the early church was actually faithful enough to Christ’s words to understand that faith in Christ was more important than a genetic link through Mary. As such, a believing brother, such as James got due recognition (for his faithfulness) in Acts and non-believing siblings were not particularly important.
I reject any authority that contradicts the Word of God. The CC believes it is the sole authority when it comes to the faith. Yet, how do you suppose Jesus would respond to the CC if he was on this earth today. Do you believe he would say well done, thou good and faithful servant, or do you think he would be satisfied. LOL. Don’t answer that, I already know your answer.
Do you really understand what JRKH said? Simply, Protestants make the same claims about uniquely Catholic Christian doctrine, that atheists make about Christian doctrine which Protestants accept. Then, JRKH turns the tables and asks the Protestant to actually back up what they believe using these same standards, which cannot be done…thereby making the point. So, it’s hypocritical of Protestants to do use the same arguments as atheists when they can’t rise to that to defend things they support…, and it was exposed for using these false standards. There seemed to be no real Protestant effort to seek to be honest here, and learn what Christ taught. It was a teaching moment for Protestants, but there was apparently no learning that occurred on your part, just unhelpful defensiveness.….and that is bad b/c you want the power to decide for him regarding what is and what is not concrete evidence?..
If you were honest, you would simply say that you reject what doesn’t agree with the faith system you have made for yourself.