Question on Purgatory, Answered!

[LutheranScholar]

You have just been shown that Our Lord requires our cooperation with His Will for us to be saved (post #130), as against your error that nothing else is required from us.
When the Christ founded His Catholic Church He warned “if he refuses to hear even the Church let him be like the heathen and a publican.” (Mt 18:17).
Another error, as following conscience essentially involves making sure that the conscience is correct. Conscience is not a god but a judgment of the practical reason, so there can be no “informed decisions” when the formation of conscience is in error.

The real Catholic is not in “blind belief” precisely because it is the Christ who commands that He be followed through the only Church he founded.

As the Christ taught His Apostles: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." (John 14:15-18) “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in My name, He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” (John 14:26) “But when He comes, the Spirit of truth, He will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify Me, because He will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that He will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:13-15)

As Msgr Cormac P Burke (Law and Dissent, 1985) points out, for the real Catholic, there is never a conflict between the authority of the Church and conscience, because belief that Christ has given His Church authority to teach without error is part of his conscience, freely accepted.

The only way we know “Christ’s teachings” with certainty is through His own Church which He established and which gave us the Sacred Scriptures as the Word of God, as Christ wrote nothing. Further dogma “proposes, in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith, truths contained in divine Revelation or also when it proposes, in a definitive way, truths having a necessary connection with these.” (CCC #88).

I notice that LutheranScholar is most unscholarly in avoiding the clear teaching of Christ on His Church.

I’m* in *Christ and His Church, sir. I neither avoid her teachings nor do I water it down with human traditions and adiaphora. The Holy Spirit is Who gives us the gift od conscience in the first place, that was how God’s law was written in the hearts of unconverted Gentiles in St. Paul’s day. The " clear teaching of Christ and His Church" is not limited to the See of Rome and those who voluntarily choose to follow her. Sorry, but the Catholic Church has no copyright to the Truth, which alone may be found in Christ Jesus.

 

[LutheranScholar]

There’s another point which I’d like to address. You mention above that the Holy Spirit does it all, and that he gives us the desire to do the things that please God. But what about free will?

What about it? It doesn’t exist. We can follow Christ or we can follow Satan, in the guise of what we think* we *want. The Holy Spirit leads us to Christ, Who is the only way to the Father.

 

[LutheranScholar]

I’m not really understanding what you’ve written here. Are you saying that we don’t have to try to avoid sin, because we are already forgiven for whatever we do by Christ’s sacrifice?

If we are regenerated in Christ, we focus on those things of the spirit that are opposed to those things of the flesh. We may not be able to avoid sin, but the Holy Spirit can lead us away from those near occasions of sin and He can do the work that is impossible for man to do. " Who then, can be saved?" He looked around at them all and said, " for man this is impossible, but not for God. For God all things are possible."

 

[Denise1957]

What about it? It doesn’t exist. We can follow Christ or we can follow Satan, in the guise of what we think* we *want. The Holy Spirit leads us to Christ, Who is the only way to the Father.

Okay…so no free will. Huh.

 

[Abu]

LutheranScholar #126
Sorry, but the Catholic Church has no copyright to the Truth, which alone may be found in Christ Jesus.

Such a sorry denial of the Christ is proof enough of the error, rampant in this quarter, clearly against Christ’s mandate:
All four promises to Peter alone:
“You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church.” (Mt 16:18)
“The gates of hell will not prevail against it.”(Mt 16:18)
“I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven." ( Mt 16:19)
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” (Mt 16:19) [Later to the Twelve].

**Sole authority: **
“Strengthen your brethren.” (Lk 22:32)
“Feed My sheep.”(Jn 21:17).

Jesus warned dissenters: “if he refuses to hear even the Church let him be like the heathen and a publican.” (Mt 18:17).

St. Paul says also, “through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph 3:10).” The Church teaches even the angels! This is with the authority of Christ!

But LurtheranScholar seems to feel that he is above St Paul, Christ and His Church.

 

[spedteacherita]

But LurtheranScholar seems to feel that he is above St Paul, Christ and His Church.

Hi, Abu,

There are many of us who are Protestant and feel the same way as LS about his faith. This doesn’t to me feel like a charitable way of debating with him. I’m sure that LS does not consider himself above St. Paul, Christ and His Church.

You understand the Church in a different way than we as Protestants do and not one of us feel that way either. Let’s debate with our information that we share - just as you have been doing all along. I appreciate the information that you share in our debates and it’s that information that will be a deciding factor in how a person may changes his or her beliefs.

Thanks and God bless!

Rita

 

[PRmerger]

Obviously they *can *stand up to scrutiny and they have stood up to scrutiny. Just because *you *dismiss them doesn’t make them any less valid.

Well, then, good.

I thought you were bristling at being questioned about providing apologia for your beliefs.

Your sentiment was, “These are my beliefs, thank you very much and now I’m leaving this thread!”

If I misunderstood, then I apologize.

I will continue to ask pointed questions and hopefully you will be able provide answers that are consonant with reality, logical and bear up to the scrutiny, LS.

Actually, isn’t it the Catholic Church that insists that her people believe* all of the teachings *of the Magisterium?

Indeed.

Does it encourage questioning,

LOL! Ummm…did you notice the name of the site you’re on?

Catholic…

ANSWERS.

Which implies that there are Catholic…

QUESTIONS.

If the Church did not encourage questioning, we would not have this apostolate.

Indeed, we wouldn’t have theology departments, Catholic universities, doctors of the Church.

 

[LutheranScholar]

Such a sorry denial of the Christ is proof enough of the error, rampant in this quarter, clearly against Christ’s mandate:
All four promises to Peter alone:
“You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church.” (Mt 16:18)
“The gates of hell will not prevail against it.”(Mt 16:18)
“I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven." ( Mt 16:19)
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” (Mt 16:19) [Later to the Twelve].

**Sole authority: **
“Strengthen your brethren.” (Lk 22:32)
“Feed My sheep.”(Jn 21:17).

Jesus warned dissenters: “if he refuses to hear even the Church let him be like the heathen and a publican.” (Mt 18:17).

St. Paul says also, “through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph 3:10).” The Church teaches even the angels! This is with the authority of Christ!

But LurtheranScholar seems to feel that he is above St Paul, Christ and His Church.

Jesus was speaking of Peter’s Confession.
Ah, if you deny the Roman Catholic Church, you deny Jesus, eh? At least, that’s what the Roman Catholic Church teaches ( hardly surprising for an institution seeking to regain some fictitious " monopoly" on salvation. Sorry, that polemic doesn’t work).
Ad hominems are usually employed by people who have run out of arguments.
A smug and Pharisaical attitude is hardly what Christ expects of His People.
Cherry- picking Biblical verses doesn’t help your case or that of Rome at all.
Sorry, Abu, but you’re not qualified to at as either my judge or that of the Protestant Movement as a whole. You don’t know my heart, but Christ, Who dwells therein as He does in all His faithful, does.
Beware your Pride in presuming to speak for God. Such sin is what got Lucifer cast out of Heaven.

 

[LutheranScholar]

Well, then, good.

I thought you were bristling at being questioned about providing apologia for your beliefs.

Your sentiment was, “These are my beliefs, thank you very much and now I’m leaving this thread!”

If I misunderstood, then I apologize.

I will continue to ask pointed questions and hopefully you will be able provide answers that are consonant with reality, logical and bear up to the scrutiny, LS.

Indeed.

LOL! Ummm…did you notice the name of the site you’re on?

Catholic…

ANSWERS.

Which implies that there are Catholic…

QUESTIONS.

If the Church did not encourage questioning, we would not have this apostolate.

Indeed, we wouldn’t have theology departments, Catholic universities, doctors of the Church.

I’ve seen the questions and how they have been answered on this site. If you’re Catholic, you’re golden. If you’re anything else, you’ll get a pack of ravening wolves try to beat your faith down with relentless verbiage and supported by a contingent of people intent on congratulating themselves on how pure their faith is and on how *awful *it is that everybody can’t be exactly like you. There are a few people intent on dialogue, Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox alike and they’re the ones that keep the dialogue going.

 

[LutheranScholar]

I can understand what you are trying to say in the rest of your post, but this statement is wrong. We can avoid sin, if we want to. If we are not strong enough to fall into temptation (of sin), we can ask for strength (from the Lord) so that we may not sin. When Adam (and Eve) sinned, they did so out of their free will and thus were punished.

If we can repent for our sin, we can therefore avoid that sin in the first place.

Yes, we sin and being of the flesh, it is easier to sin than trying not to, but that does not mean we have to fall into the way of the flesh. Paul speaks about the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And there were Christians who do not sin. Honestly, the sins that we often committed, those that we confessed, many of them that we could have avoided.

The thing is, we often do not try hard enough, do not repent hard enough. It is easy to say I repent - but what degree of repentance? Is it just lip-service repentance? Often our priests would chastise us, we are confessing the same sin, again and again. So what happened?

Yes, we may repent but we also want to have the best of both worlds. Are we condemned? Maybe yes for that but God is merciful and Jesus had died for us. But would God compromise on sin? No, He does not.

Thus one still need to be purified for our imperfection. But for many Christians who have repented of their sins sincerely, why, of course, they do not need to be further purified.

Reuben.

I agree with most of what you say here, Reuben J… CFW Walther and Martin Luther alike said that Confession should be for those who are willing to allow the Holy Spirit to transform them and their lives and not a revolving door for impenitent sinners. The Book Of Hebrews as well as the Pauline Epistles and even the very Gospels themselves ( not to mention the Books of the Old Testament) point to the necessity to not stubbornly resist grace as we are prone to do as humans, but when the Holy Spirit enters our hearts to joyfully allow the Holy Spirit to do His work. How we can avoid sin, well, I can’t say that that’s really possible. Walther’s Law and Gospel speaks of the impossibility of us in our human state ( untouched by grace) to avoid sin, or even to* want *to do so. he also goes on to speak of the necessity to hear the Law, that we might understand our utter filth before God before we can be comforted by the Gospel. Mixing Law and Gospel together is considered by our church to be an extremely serious error that can indeed *endanger *one’s salvation. Now, CFW Walther, while being the first President of our Synod ( and the first head of Concordia University in St. Louis) was himself not without sin. None of us are. When we are touched by grace, we have the Third Use of God’s Law, which is to serve as a guideline for the regenerate on how to best love God and serve our neighbor. The First Two Uses are #1: To restrain the reprobate with threats of punishment and #2: to show how utterly powerless we are to please God with outward observance without inward conversion. The fact that it does begin and end with Christ is a source of great consolation to us and our assurance of salvation is what gives us the hope to approach the Throne of Grace every day in prayer with praise, confession, contrition and petition. God is great to all of us.

 

[LutheranScholar]

Hi, Abu,

There are many of us who are Protestant and feel the same way as LS about his faith. This doesn’t to me feel like a charitable way of debating with him. I’m sure that LS does not consider himself above St. Paul, Christ and His Church.

You understand the Church in a different way than we as Protestants do and not one of us feel that way either. Let’s debate with our information that we share - just as you have been doing all along. I appreciate the information that you share in our debates and it’s that information that will be a deciding factor in how a person may changes his or her beliefs.

Thanks and God bless!

Rita

Amen, Rita. Thank you for putting it so much more clearly than ever I could.

 

[PRmerger]

I’ve seen the questions and how they have been answered on this site. If you’re Catholic, you’re golden. If you’re anything else, you’ll get a pack of ravening wolves try to beat your faith down with relentless verbiage and supported by a contingent of people intent on congratulating themselves on how pure their faith is and on how *awful *it is that everybody can’t be exactly like you. There are a few people intent on dialogue, Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox alike and they’re the ones that keep the dialogue going.

This sounds suspiciously like Sour Grapes Mentality.

And be careful, LS. It is good for you to be here and in dialogue with knowledgeable Catholics, so try not to get so unstrung.

We are simply asking questions, responding to answers.

Namely, we are dialoguing.

It is a forum, after all.

That’s the nature of forums.

No one has been anything but sanguine and charitable to you here, on the threads that I’ve seen.

There are a multitude of non-Catholic posters here who have been here a long time, and are able to dialogue rather serenely and with aplomb and charity.

I suggest you model your posting style after them.

 

[LutheranScholar]

Well, then, good.

I thought you were bristling at being questioned about providing apologia for your beliefs.

Your sentiment was, “These are my beliefs, thank you very much and now I’m leaving this thread!”

If I misunderstood, then I apologize.

I will continue to ask pointed questions and hopefully you will be able provide answers that are consonant with reality, logical and bear up to the scrutiny, LS.

Indeed.

LOL! Ummm…did you notice the name of the site you’re on?

Catholic…

ANSWERS.

Which implies that there are Catholic…

QUESTIONS.

If the Church did not encourage questioning, we would not have this apostolate.

Indeed, we wouldn’t have theology departments, Catholic universities, doctors of the Church.

I can’t exactly force people to accept my answers if they don’t want to, PR.
I understand that this is an apologetics site, which is designed to give as clear a picture of the Catholic Faith as possible and also to guide people to acceptance of said faith.
I also see that there are non- Catholic Christians who are given a fair hearing and indeed are greatly esteemed by the site members.
Pose your questions. I’ll answer them in the best way I can, which isn’t always very good. I’m not Martin Luther, Martin Chemnitz, CFW Walther or any of our star apologists in our Modern Age.
To say that a sincerely given answer isn’t part of Catholic preaching, why, it isn’t supposed to be. It was an answer given by a Confessional Lutheran who is still studying ( Hence, Lutheran Scholar, not Lutheran Pastor, Confessional Master or St. John the Steadfast).
I’ll do my best to provide as coherent a Lutheran apologium as I can, but there are many others out there who can do a far better job than I can.

 

[LutheranScholar]

This sounds suspiciously like Sour Grapes Mentality.

And be careful, LS. It is good for you to be here and in dialogue with knowledgeable Catholics, so try not to get so unstrung.

We are simply asking questions, responding to answers.

Namely, we are dialoguing.

It is a forum, after all.

That’s the nature of forums.

No one has been anything but sanguine and charitable to you here, on the threads that I’ve seen.

There are a multitude of non-Catholic posters here who have been here a long time, and are able to dialogue rather serenely and with aplomb and charity.

I suggest you model your posting style after them.

Good point. That’s actually why I deleted the above post. I can’t force people to share my faith and I don’t want to do so ( it’s not for me to build on the foundation of another), but on the same token, trying to overwhelm me with a bunch of posts stating why I’m wrong altogether because of my lack of agreement with a point of Catholic teaching is hardly charitable. You’re pointed questions are very welcome indeed, just like Reuben J’s or anybody else’s, but if I’m under the impression that people are simply trying to wear me down or take me away from the faith that rescued me from Satan’s jaws not that long ago, I will respond with the same tone I’ve been addressed with.

 

[LutheranScholar]

I’m not really understanding what you’ve written here. Are you saying that we don’t have to try to avoid sin, because we are already forgiven for whatever we do by Christ’s sacrifice?

That’s a very concise and true way to put it. We have already been forgiven.

 

[PRmerger]

Does it encourage questioning, or does it accuse those who follow their consciences of being " cafeteria Catholics" when they make their own informed decisions on what is or is not correctly taught by the Catholic Church?

As far as “cafeteria Catholics”: no one should be creating a god that conforms to their own views, LS.

And that’s what cafeteria Catholics do.

We are simply telling folks: you should conform your religion to what is true, not to what agrees with your own views.

But the cafeteria Catholic issue is a nonsequitur to your point of your assertion that Catholics can’t question.

Clearly, the fact that this apostolate exists refutes your assertion.

In fact, the ancient mantra of Catholicism is: fides quaerens intellectum.

IOW: question. Seek. Find the answer.

Blind faith is a heresy in our faith, LS.

[qyote] So, while I am accused of " blind belief,"

Who has accused you of that???

what, exactly, are those who follow everything the Catholic Church says because that’s what they’re supposed to do doing?

That is blind belief–something the Catholic Church forbids.

 

[LutheranScholar]

As far as “cafeteria Catholics”: no one should be creating a god that conforms to their own views, LS.

And that’s what cafeteria Catholics do.

We are simply telling folks: you should conform your religion to what is true, not to what agrees with your own views.

But the cafeteria Catholic issue is a nonsequitur to your point of your assertion that Catholics can’t question.

Clearly, the fact that this apostolate exists refutes your assertion.

In fact, the ancient mantra of Catholicism is: fides quaerens intellectum.

IOW: question. Seek. Find the answer.

Blind faith is a heresy in our faith, LS.

[qyote] So, while I am accused of " blind belief,"

Who has accused you of that???

That is blind belief–something the Catholic Church forbids.

It’s my research, coupled with prayer, tripled with the activity of God through His Church in my life that has led me to my faith, PR. I gladly hold, as do Catholics, other Protestants and Orthodox, a faith firmly grounded in Biblical tradition, traditions which are tested against Scripture and subordinate to them . Have I been accused of " blind belief?" Why, since I do offer what I consider very fair and balanced views and reasons for the faith that I hold? I’ve been accused of a few things, such as holding myself over and above St. Paul, Christ’s Church and Christ Himself ( not by you, but those ueber- Catholics who scream for Protestantism’s downfall) by people I don’t know personally and whose theological opinions about me personally are quite irrelevant. If I actually* cared *that much, I might go complaining to the admins about being " personally attacked," but how would that help dialogue? If there were a bunch of people waiting outside with machine guns at the ready, prepared to shoot me if I didn’t recant my Lutheranism, I might claim persecution, but that’s not the case here. While acknowledging our differences, I was hoping to come to a common understanding of those parts of the faith that we share.

 

[PRmerger]

I can’t exactly force people to accept my answers if they don’t want to, PR.
I understand that this is an apologetics site, which is designed to give as clear a picture of the Catholic Faith as possible and also to guide people to acceptance of said faith.
I also see that there are non- Catholic Christians who are given a fair hearing and indeed are greatly esteemed by the site members.
Pose your questions. I’ll answer them in the best way I can, which isn’t always very good. I’m not Martin Luther, Martin Chemnitz, CFW Walther or any of our star apologists in our Modern Age.
To say that a sincerely given answer isn’t part of Catholic preaching, why, it isn’t supposed to be. It was an answer given by a Confessional Lutheran who is still studying ( Hence, Lutheran Scholar, not Lutheran Pastor, Confessional Master or St. John the Steadfast).
I’ll do my best to provide as coherent a Lutheran apologium as I can, but there are many others out there who can do a far better job than I can.

Fair enough.

I’m still not understanding how your reconcile the idea that sin stains your soul with the idea that nothing unclean can be in the Holy Tabernacle of Heaven.

How do you reconcile these two points?

 

[LutheranScholar]

Fair enough.

I’m still not understanding how your reconcile the idea that sin stains your soul with the idea that nothing unclean can be in the Holy Tabernacle of Heaven.

How do you reconcile these two points?

Okay, well, after taking a deep breath and having some Swiss Miss, let’s see if the Lord will lend some coherency to my passion. The Blood of Christ cleaned that stain of sin from my soul. I am made clean by Christ, by His Body and Blood, by no merit of my own, no work of my own. Jesus did all of that already. I can approach the Throne of Grace because Jesus enables me to do so.

 

[PRmerger]

, but on the same token, trying to overwhelm me with a bunch of posts stating why I’m wrong altogether because of my lack of agreement with a point of Catholic teaching is hardly charitable.

Wow.

Firstly, I’m pretty sure no one is “trying to overwhelm” you with a bunch of posts.

Secondly, what’s uncharitable about stating you are wrong because of your lack of agreement with a point of Catholic teaching?

There’s absolutely nothing uncharitable about saying someone is wrong.

The uncharity may reside in how that is presented.

But simply the fact that you’ve been told someone believes you are wrong is absolutely NOT UNCHARITABLE. Not even close.