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M
MIZER
Guest
Here is an interesting side bar that fits this conversation. I picked up my 14 year old daughter from volleyball last night and she started telling me how she got into a ‘defense of her faith’ situation with another girl on the team who happens to be a good friend of hers from elementary schoool (of all people). The other girls have always given her (my daughter) a little grief over being Catholic. She’s the only Catholic in the HS volleyball program. Such a young age to be persecuted in this way.
Anyhow, the other girl was saying (and this is another one of those classic mis-conceptions about the CC…are you all taught this stuff in Sunday School?), “Catholics believe they can sin all they want and still go to heaven because they can just go to confession and everything is fine.”
My daughter tried to explain to the girl that going to confession was the same as the fundamentalist practice of asking God for forgiveness and that reception of the Sacrament would have the same effect that that being “born again” or " getting saved" would have for her friend, in her church, but the girl would have none of it. The other girl continued to argue, dis-believing what my daughter was telling her and refusing to accept anything other than what she’d been taught about Catholics by her non-Catholic (anti-Catholic?) family and church.
I guess the fundamentalist system is, get 'em while their young, teach them as many un-truths about the One TRUE Church as possible and hope it sticks. Then I think the kids must be told to get out there and try to throw Catholic kids into confusion whenever and wherever the possibility may arise.
Anyhow, the other girl was saying (and this is another one of those classic mis-conceptions about the CC…are you all taught this stuff in Sunday School?), “Catholics believe they can sin all they want and still go to heaven because they can just go to confession and everything is fine.”
My daughter tried to explain to the girl that going to confession was the same as the fundamentalist practice of asking God for forgiveness and that reception of the Sacrament would have the same effect that that being “born again” or " getting saved" would have for her friend, in her church, but the girl would have none of it. The other girl continued to argue, dis-believing what my daughter was telling her and refusing to accept anything other than what she’d been taught about Catholics by her non-Catholic (anti-Catholic?) family and church.
I guess the fundamentalist system is, get 'em while their young, teach them as many un-truths about the One TRUE Church as possible and hope it sticks. Then I think the kids must be told to get out there and try to throw Catholic kids into confusion whenever and wherever the possibility may arise.
M
MIZER
Guest
Hi Jrssls,
I’m going to take your points of faith one at a time. Others will probably have more to say as well. Don’t feel ganged up on, remember you posted this on a Catholic web-site. I will also try and show you how each of these points is a denial of the “whole,” of the Gospel of Christ which is only taught infallibly by the One True Church.
Your first point:
You accept the Bible, which is nothing more then the family papers of the Catholic Church, as the word of God. (You even Capitalize the word, Word, as if the written word was in fact the very Word of God, which can only be the person of Jesus Christ according to John 1:1) but that’s another thread altogether.
Whether you realize it or not you must trust the Catholic Church in order to believe that this particular collection of writings is the Bible and yet you reject that same Church when it tells us that some other writings are also a part of the true teachings of Christ and should be trusted to be so.
If we refer to the Scripture cite you quote as evidence (I’m assuming), that this statement is Gospel, we see that it in no way states that any written word (from any source) is the only infallible word of God.
2Tim3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
This verse must be tortured in order to get out of it what you have been taught it means. That’s why I challenged SIA to try reading the Bible with the idea that he would only assent to what it says and not as a means to deny what the Church teaches. If you read this verse and simply allow it to mean what it says and assent to what it simply says then you cannot believe that it supports the first tenet of your faith as you’ve stated it above. This verse does not say that the Bible is the only inspired word of God, nor does it say that the Bible is infallible nor does it say anything about authority.
(Other long standing questions of mine: where does the Bible claim for itself the authority to teach? How can an inanimate object be an authority figure? Why would Jesus give authority to a book, an inanimate object, something that can neither make a decision nor enforce a law and again, where can we read about Jesus doing this?)
As you may have guessed, the other problem with your statement is the word “infallible.” Infallible means “incapable of error.” So because a book cannot, in and of itself, teach anything, it cannot be said to be an infallible teacher. In the hands of one who would misinterpret a piece of literature, it may be said to “teach” error. Only the one, true interpretation of the Bible can be said to be infallible. What you have here is someone’s opinion about what they think this verse means. So you are saying that, that person’s private interpretation is infallible. This is not only false, but dangerous.
Consider the following:
Suppose you where setting out to renovate your house and you read somewhere (a source that you considered infallible on teaching the finer points of home improvement) that a screwdriver was useful for renovation, and for opening a can of paint. If whom ever was teaching you how to go about renovating your home told you that this written direction meant that a screw driver was the only tool to use for opening cans of paint and that these directions were the only infallible instructions to be used for home improvement, you would miss out on a lot of other infallible information about how to renovate your home. If you didn’t have a screw driver but had a paint can-opener, you wouldn’t know what to do with it. If you did have a screw driver you might get that can of paint opened but you wouldn’t know that the screwdriver was actually created for another purpose entirely and you would never accomplish your goal.
This is what you do by following a misinterpretation of 2 Tim 3:16, instead of just letting the verse mean what it says, that the Bible is the inspired word of God (but not the only inspired word) and that it is useful for teaching, rebuking and training in righteousnes (but is not an infallible source unless it is infallibly interpreted and it is not the only source for teaching and training in righteousness).
If you go to the first letter of Timothy, you would find that St. Paul did not hold to this first tenet of your faith. In fact in chapter 3 verse 15 he calls the Church the pillar and foundation of the truth. So according to St. Paul, we should be looking to the Church for any interpretation we may need. For now, however, if you are unwilling to do that, if you will just let the verses mean what they say, you would be closer to the truth then you are when you assign infallibility to the mere opinions of men.
I’m going to take your points of faith one at a time. Others will probably have more to say as well. Don’t feel ganged up on, remember you posted this on a Catholic web-site. I will also try and show you how each of these points is a denial of the “whole,” of the Gospel of Christ which is only taught infallibly by the One True Church.
Your first point:
There are two problems with this statement. The first one is the word “only.” It is a denial that there is any other written text which is God’s own truth. This belief, as you state it here, has always baffled me in light of the facts of history surrounding the Bible and how it was compiled and protected for more then a thousand years before the printing press was even invented. It didn’t just fall out of the sky you know?
You accept the Bible, which is nothing more then the family papers of the Catholic Church, as the word of God. (You even Capitalize the word, Word, as if the written word was in fact the very Word of God, which can only be the person of Jesus Christ according to John 1:1) but that’s another thread altogether.
Whether you realize it or not you must trust the Catholic Church in order to believe that this particular collection of writings is the Bible and yet you reject that same Church when it tells us that some other writings are also a part of the true teachings of Christ and should be trusted to be so.
If we refer to the Scripture cite you quote as evidence (I’m assuming), that this statement is Gospel, we see that it in no way states that any written word (from any source) is the only infallible word of God.
2Tim3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
This verse must be tortured in order to get out of it what you have been taught it means. That’s why I challenged SIA to try reading the Bible with the idea that he would only assent to what it says and not as a means to deny what the Church teaches. If you read this verse and simply allow it to mean what it says and assent to what it simply says then you cannot believe that it supports the first tenet of your faith as you’ve stated it above. This verse does not say that the Bible is the only inspired word of God, nor does it say that the Bible is infallible nor does it say anything about authority.
(Other long standing questions of mine: where does the Bible claim for itself the authority to teach? How can an inanimate object be an authority figure? Why would Jesus give authority to a book, an inanimate object, something that can neither make a decision nor enforce a law and again, where can we read about Jesus doing this?)
As you may have guessed, the other problem with your statement is the word “infallible.” Infallible means “incapable of error.” So because a book cannot, in and of itself, teach anything, it cannot be said to be an infallible teacher. In the hands of one who would misinterpret a piece of literature, it may be said to “teach” error. Only the one, true interpretation of the Bible can be said to be infallible. What you have here is someone’s opinion about what they think this verse means. So you are saying that, that person’s private interpretation is infallible. This is not only false, but dangerous.
Consider the following:
Suppose you where setting out to renovate your house and you read somewhere (a source that you considered infallible on teaching the finer points of home improvement) that a screwdriver was useful for renovation, and for opening a can of paint. If whom ever was teaching you how to go about renovating your home told you that this written direction meant that a screw driver was the only tool to use for opening cans of paint and that these directions were the only infallible instructions to be used for home improvement, you would miss out on a lot of other infallible information about how to renovate your home. If you didn’t have a screw driver but had a paint can-opener, you wouldn’t know what to do with it. If you did have a screw driver you might get that can of paint opened but you wouldn’t know that the screwdriver was actually created for another purpose entirely and you would never accomplish your goal.
This is what you do by following a misinterpretation of 2 Tim 3:16, instead of just letting the verse mean what it says, that the Bible is the inspired word of God (but not the only inspired word) and that it is useful for teaching, rebuking and training in righteousnes (but is not an infallible source unless it is infallibly interpreted and it is not the only source for teaching and training in righteousness).
If you go to the first letter of Timothy, you would find that St. Paul did not hold to this first tenet of your faith. In fact in chapter 3 verse 15 he calls the Church the pillar and foundation of the truth. So according to St. Paul, we should be looking to the Church for any interpretation we may need. For now, however, if you are unwilling to do that, if you will just let the verses mean what they say, you would be closer to the truth then you are when you assign infallibility to the mere opinions of men.
M
MIZER
Guest
Jrssls’s second tenet:
Look at the verse:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Again the verse does not say what you have been taught it means. Just look at it. Where does it say that God is three persons in one entity? It does not. No verse in the Bible teaches us about the truth of the Trinity. The word Trinity does not appear. Not once. If I were a pagan with no person, no infallible Church, to teach me what this verse means, I would think it was talking about three seperate entities. I could read elsewhere in Scripture the concept of the Father being God, and I could even read about attributes of the Son and of the Holy Spirit that might make me think they were also God’s but I could never put the three together into a mystery like the Trinity unless someone taught me to do so. That someone, in the history of Christendom is the Church Christ established to teach all nations the truth of the concepts we read about in the Bible. This truth, the Trinity, Three persons in one God, is found in the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church, not in the Bible. This is another truth you accept by trusting in the infallible teaching of the One True Church.
Because your church (or some other body or individual) has taught you to reject, or deny that which is Catholic, and to believe that the Bible alone is the only infallible source for truth, you must find some verse that can be used to support this tenet of your faith. So, although the tenet is true, the interpretation of your supporting verse is false. Again this denial of the true teachings of the church is dangerous because while you embrace a false rendering of this particular verse, you miss the true, universal teaching it holds.
So, again, if you would read the Bible and assent to what it simply says and not change what it says to deny the CC then you would see that what Matt 28:19 is telling us is that disciples are made by baptism. Disciples are not made by orally confessing to their new found faith in Christ Jesus. This verse actually refutes “faith alone”. It is telling us that through the Sacrament which incorporates us into the Body of Christ, Baptism, we are made disciples, followers.
The verse also gives us the formula so that when you read that other verse your teachers also misinterpret and use to deny the truth of the CC, it’s the one they say means that Baptism is “coming to Christ by faith alone” (it’s a verse that says something like being Baptised in the word, you could probably give me the cite) you might put the two together and understand that the words to be used for valid Baptism are, “I Baptize you in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit.” When we are Baptised “in the word”, we are made disciples. The word baptism should never be re-defined to mean anything other than what Christ said it was, ie: being born again. Being born of water and spirit. Water and spirit is Baptism.
This of course, is Catholic teaching. It is an infallible truth found not Matt 28:19 but rather in Sacred Tradition.
Look at the verse:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Again the verse does not say what you have been taught it means. Just look at it. Where does it say that God is three persons in one entity? It does not. No verse in the Bible teaches us about the truth of the Trinity. The word Trinity does not appear. Not once. If I were a pagan with no person, no infallible Church, to teach me what this verse means, I would think it was talking about three seperate entities. I could read elsewhere in Scripture the concept of the Father being God, and I could even read about attributes of the Son and of the Holy Spirit that might make me think they were also God’s but I could never put the three together into a mystery like the Trinity unless someone taught me to do so. That someone, in the history of Christendom is the Church Christ established to teach all nations the truth of the concepts we read about in the Bible. This truth, the Trinity, Three persons in one God, is found in the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church, not in the Bible. This is another truth you accept by trusting in the infallible teaching of the One True Church.
Because your church (or some other body or individual) has taught you to reject, or deny that which is Catholic, and to believe that the Bible alone is the only infallible source for truth, you must find some verse that can be used to support this tenet of your faith. So, although the tenet is true, the interpretation of your supporting verse is false. Again this denial of the true teachings of the church is dangerous because while you embrace a false rendering of this particular verse, you miss the true, universal teaching it holds.
So, again, if you would read the Bible and assent to what it simply says and not change what it says to deny the CC then you would see that what Matt 28:19 is telling us is that disciples are made by baptism. Disciples are not made by orally confessing to their new found faith in Christ Jesus. This verse actually refutes “faith alone”. It is telling us that through the Sacrament which incorporates us into the Body of Christ, Baptism, we are made disciples, followers.
The verse also gives us the formula so that when you read that other verse your teachers also misinterpret and use to deny the truth of the CC, it’s the one they say means that Baptism is “coming to Christ by faith alone” (it’s a verse that says something like being Baptised in the word, you could probably give me the cite) you might put the two together and understand that the words to be used for valid Baptism are, “I Baptize you in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit.” When we are Baptised “in the word”, we are made disciples. The word baptism should never be re-defined to mean anything other than what Christ said it was, ie: being born again. Being born of water and spirit. Water and spirit is Baptism.
M
MIZER
Guest
jrssls’s third tenet:
The is perfect as far as I can tell. This is the one tenet of faith which I said is an assent to the truth. Who Christ is, essentially. Along with our common Baptism, this is the bottom line which makes us all brothers in Christ. Amen.
M
MIZER
Guest
The fourth tenet of Jrssls’s faith,
Have a good day…I prayerfully bid you adieux. Did you know? This French word for farewell, literally means, “to God.”
Of course this depends on what you mean by rapture and I’m out of time. If someone else wants to take this one, go for it. I’ll have to come back to this later. Much later.
Have a good day…I prayerfully bid you adieux. Did you know? This French word for farewell, literally means, “to God.”
Q
qui_est_ce
Guest
This is a classic example of cherry picking verses to make the Word fit personal beliefs. continue to the next verse
2Tim3:17
**so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work. **
The following, then is the teaching in context:
2Tim3:16-17]
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness
2Tim3:17
so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
The Teacher does the Teaching. The teacher is trained in the Scriptures so he can TEACH them.
Another point is that at this time, NT wasn’t even written, but orally taught. The written Scripture Paul was speaking about was the OT
The footnote in my Bible (NAB which is a tranlation by Catholic AND Protestant scholars:
4 [16] All scripture is inspired by God: this could possibly also be translated, “All scripture inspired by God is useful for. . . .” In this classic reference to inspiration, God is its principal author, with the writer as the human collaborator. Thus the scriptures are the word of God in human language. See also 2 Peter 1:20-21.
2 Peter
Chapter 1:20
Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation,
Great analogy
Protestants have issues with the word “only.”
I was listening to a CD by Scott Hahn on the Blessed Mother in Scripture. And a statement he made shouted out to me. He says we can’t read our personal views into Scripture. We have to interpret ALL Scripture (OT and NT) the way the earliest Christians practiced and interpreted it. The Church declares as infallible doctrines when accepted beliefs are challenged by heretics. (Council of Trent deslaring Books of Bible when ML threw out the Deutoro’s).
C
Cinette
Guest
I am Catholic and I love my Faith.
However, this is a difficult question. First of all God is the judge. As I have said before I do believe that we have more resources for salvation.
Having said that I believe that there are many Protestants who will go straight to heaven zoom!
Actually this is not a very good question.
Only God can answer.
:doh2:
However, this is a difficult question. First of all God is the judge. As I have said before I do believe that we have more resources for salvation.
Having said that I believe that there are many Protestants who will go straight to heaven zoom!
Actually this is not a very good question.
Only God can answer.
:doh2:
D
distracted
Guest
that’s what is really creepy … how some people say things like this as though they were proven facts. not opinion… :hypno: .I can’t wait to meet you one day to discuss this…Purgatory…or heaven.Which ever comes first. I just hope it isn’t the other place of the 2 places we expect to end up though.
You’re so sure…even though scripture talks about purification by fire. Hmmn.
D
distracted
Guest
it wasn’t a question… it was something a saint or two said… and they said it as though they knew it to be true… (didn’t say “this is my opinion” before saying it…).I
Actually this is not a very good question.
Only God can answer.
D
distracted
Guest
i understand the angry face at the end…I guess the fundamentalist system is, get 'em while their young, teach them as many un-truths about the One TRUE Church as possible and hope it sticks. Then I think the kids must be told to get out there and try to throw Catholic kids into confusion whenever and wherever the possibility may arise.
Frankly, hearing this kind of thing makes me hate Protestantism more than ever… (if that is possible
)…And you know what i am really going to hate?? Well… no, i am not going to hate it because i am going to give it to God and also because it isn’t worth it…
But someone is going to read this and immediately post something about how i shouldn’t hate Protestants…
Beam me up, Jesus!!
M
Matariel
Guest
That’s horrific!Here is an interesting side bar that fits this conversation. I picked up my 14 year old daughter from volleyball last night and she started telling me how she got into a ‘defense of her faith’ situation with another girl on the team who happens to be a good friend of hers from elementary schoool (of all people). The other girls have always given her (my daughter) a little grief over being Catholic. She’s the only Catholic in the HS volleyball program. Such a young age to be persecuted in this way.
Anyhow, the other girl was saying (and this is another one of those classic mis-conceptions about the CC…are you all taught this stuff in Sunday School?), “Catholics believe they can sin all they want and still go to heaven because they can just go to confession and everything is fine.”
My daughter tried to explain to the girl that going to confession was the same as the fundamentalist practice of asking God for forgiveness and that reception of the Sacrament would have the same effect that that being “born again” or " getting saved" would have for her friend, in her church, but the girl would have none of it. The other girl continued to argue, dis-believing what my daughter was telling her and refusing to accept anything other than what she’d been taught about Catholics by her non-Catholic (anti-Catholic?) family and church.
I guess the fundamentalist system is, get 'em while their young, teach them as many un-truths about the One TRUE Church as possible and hope it sticks. Then I think the kids must be told to get out there and try to throw Catholic kids into confusion whenever and wherever the possibility may arise.
My anti-Catholic boss made the same exact statement about Confession! I told him that you have to have** true contrition **for your sins for it to be valid, and a firm purpose of amendment. This is always a requirement, and if you don’t have those and the priest says absolution, you’re still unforgiven!
M
Matariel
Guest
Actually, I think that majority of Christians who will be saved, whether Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, or Catholic, are going to have a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooog stay in Purgatory, including me and my past mess-ups. :bigyikes:Having said that I believe that there are many Protestants who will go straight to heaven zoom!
D
distracted
Guest
Very good point, one i was going to make once and somehow got… well, distracted…
So SO true… and yet… better to be crucified with Him than without Him…
which brings up a very interesting point… The thief was in the Real Presence… and he was suffering… Very Catholic, huh??? 
*and “nothing unclean will enter heaven” are both found in the Bible. Both verses must be true. How do you reconcile the two? Even if you say the thief on the cross was saved at the point he believed then you still must admit that somehow his soul was cleansed. His soul was washed clean before he stood in the presence of God. That’s Purgatory.* also, the church teaches that if one dies immediately after baptism, having committed no sins afterwards, he goes straight to Heaven…It is only after having sinned after baptism that someone then needs purging… (confession… expiation)
i am not sure he was “wayward” (though you may be right). I think he was well within his rights to do what he did… Maybe some bishop or priest was out of line in promoting the indulgence thing… God knows… but i am not sure the pope was (?).
Honestly, is that the best you’ve got? Don’t you want to throw in something about pedophile priests?
I have a good answer for that issue… I’ve heard it from more than one reliable source that Protestants are guilty of that crime twice as often as Catholic priests are…
M
Matariel
Guest
This is true, especially in the case of the Southern Baptist paedophile scandals… but it’s been proven (by Philip Jenkins, a non-Catholic no less!) that the numbers of paedophiliacs in the general population by ratio is waaay higher than the number of either Priests or ministers combined. Although this does not excuse there behaviour.
But even as Jesus had Judas, so the Church has its Judases.
D
distracted
Guest
yeh, but you have to admit, it seems particularly odious in the clergy :hypno:This is true, especially in the case of the Southern Baptist paedophile scandals… but it’s been proven (by Philip Jenkins, a non-Catholic no less!) that the numbers of paedophiliacs in the general population by ratio is waaay higher than the number of either Priests or ministers combined. Although this does not excuse there behaviour.
But even as Jesus had Judas, so the Church has its Judases.
uch: uch: :hypno:The devil has come down hard on the world because he knows he is running out of time.
M
Matariel
Guest
After Pope Leo XIII had finished saying Mass in the Vatican Chapel where he was attended by some Cardinals and other members of the Vatican staff, he suddenly stopped at the foot of the altar, where he stood for about ten minutes, as if in a trance, his face ashen white.yeh, but you have to admit, it seems particularly odious in the clergy :hypno:
The devil has come down hard on the world because he knows he is running out of time.
When asked what happened, the Pontiff explained that as he was about to leave the foot of the altar, he suddenly heard voices-------two voices, one kind and gentle, the other guttural and harsh. They seemed to be coming from near the tabernacle. As he listened, he heard the following conversation:
The guttural voice of Satan, in his pride, boasted to Our Lord:
“I can destroy Your Church.”
The gentle voice of Our Lord:
“You can?” Then go ahead and do so."
Satan: “To do so, I need more time and power.”
Our Lord: “How much time? How much power?”
Satan: “75 to 100 years, and a greater power over those who
will give themselves over to my service.”
Our Lord: “You have the time, you will have the power. Do with them
what you will.”
Pope Leo XIII understood that Satan was to be given a certain amount of time in order to accomplish his purpose; and a greater power to spread evil, through those human agents who would dedicate themselves to his cause.
Q
qui_est_ce
Guest
My theory is we are in the 1000 year reign now. We may even be out of the 1000 reign when the devil is released for his final assault on earth. I just passed a gay bar for men, they are advertising a three day flesh fest with bottles of Rum. GROSS
D
distracted
Guest
i heard God gave him the 20th century for his evil designs… Not at all surprising… the 20th cent saw Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Amin and i know i am forgetting a bunch… Ted Bundy, etc… Weird…
He wrote the St. Michael prayer for the purpose of thwarting the devil… (the pope did). We are supposed to say it after every Mass… Who’s idea was it to stop doing so???
Another weird thing… the other day i was resting/praying and almost fell asleep and i heard this “guttural” voice myself. Scared the living crud out of me… Cant’ recall what it said… i think i was too scared to hear what it said… just a few stupid words anyway…
(i know they were stupid because i know ?] it was the devil…
)
Q
qui_est_ce
Guest
i heard God gave him the 20th century for his evil designs… Not at all surprising… the 20th cent saw Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Amin and i know i am forgetting a bunch… Ted Bundy, etc… Weird…
He wrote the St. Michael prayer for the purpose of thwarting the devil… (the pope did). We are supposed to say it after every Mass… Who’s idea was it to stop doing so???
Another weird thing… the other day i was resting/praying and almost fell asleep and i heard this “guttural” voice myself. Scared the living crud out of me… Cant’ recall what it said… i think i was too scared to hear what it said… just a few stupid words anyway…
(i know they were stupid because i know ?] it was the devil…
I agree, by now we should know better. We’re supposed to be civilized. Sadam Hussein, Osama bin Ladin,
I say the St. Michael prayer. I don’t ever remember that we were supposed to pray it after every mass publicly. I have never heard it read even pre-Vatican II
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