L
Les_Richardson
Guest
Sure, I’ll respond.
The passage you refer to from Romans 8 causes me to refer back to the words of Jesus, “Without me you can do nothing” from Gospel of John 15, V.5 and in the same discourse He says He no longer calls them slaves (his disciples and us I believe) but friends, which St. Paul then echoes in the same chapter of Romans vs. 15-17. All of which is to say that the Christian may first experience conversion in some measure through fear of God, but as that person draws nearer to God in contrition, prayer, and obedience, the fear of God becomes love for God. All of this occurs as we willingly give over our own selfish will to the will of God, through Christ Jesus our Lord, **enabled **by the Holy Spirit. We could not do it on our own. God is three persons, but one God, so that when we focus on Jesus Christ, praying as He taught us to the Father, the Holy Spirit works in us and intercedes for us in language we cannot begin to understand. (Note: he is speaking of a language of the trinity, not a language or non-language coming from us.) So we don’t need to focus on the Spirit, because by focussing on the One who became man like us, and loving Him totally, we enable the Holy Spirit to work and produce the fruit of holiness in our lives. *(Important side-bar; The focus on Jesus Christ is critical because we are taught that by His **Name **that we discern the spirits, by His **Name *we have any authority, so that shifting the focus from Christ, even a little, puts our theology and practice off centre) Indeed, we don’t know how to pray as we ought, and yet when we begin to pray, the Holy Spirit steers us, in a manner of speaking. In that other famous chapter from St. Paul to the Corinthians he says that engaging the mind is better than praying only with the spirit.
Speaking of peace, he also says that God is not a God of *disorder *(some translations use the word uproar) but a God of peace.
Seems pretty straightforward there. The CCC has some clear teaching on prayer as well, in the section Christian Prayer (Part 4 I believe it is)
The outer limits? Quite simple really. There are things that go on, and we are told that they are by the power of the Holy Spirit, and I know you would agree that is patently false because of the outrage you express whenever I bring them up, but, the people that practice such things are the spirtual, doctrinal cousins of the people from which the CCR originally received its “charisms”, Protestant Pentecostals. That is fact. There is a common ancestry. I’m asking the question, what is it that you *believe *that makes you draw the distinction between what you and others within your charismatic group do, and what those people do in those Protestant groups? If you haven’t thought about it, fine. Just say so. That’s cool. I’m trying to get at what you think, not just the fact that you trust the good Catholic Authority.
I’ll give you an example of what I mean by determining what a person/group actually believes by their practices. Let us say a given charismatic group, in the process of bringing someone into the group, with their study literature and in practice in prayer meeting, teach and encourage someone to make sounds with their vocal chords, practice and then ask for the gift of tongues. That is what I call “teaching” tongues or a “methodology of tongues”. From that practice I can determine a number of things about what they believe tongues to be, ie., how common it is, the relative importance of tongues in the bigger picture of salvation and holiness. I can even trace the pedigree of the theology from that, and can speculate in an educated way about what direction they are headed.
In this thread originally, I was hoping to get charismatics to draw the lines of their own doctrine WRT these type of issues.
The passage you refer to from Romans 8 causes me to refer back to the words of Jesus, “Without me you can do nothing” from Gospel of John 15, V.5 and in the same discourse He says He no longer calls them slaves (his disciples and us I believe) but friends, which St. Paul then echoes in the same chapter of Romans vs. 15-17. All of which is to say that the Christian may first experience conversion in some measure through fear of God, but as that person draws nearer to God in contrition, prayer, and obedience, the fear of God becomes love for God. All of this occurs as we willingly give over our own selfish will to the will of God, through Christ Jesus our Lord, **enabled **by the Holy Spirit. We could not do it on our own. God is three persons, but one God, so that when we focus on Jesus Christ, praying as He taught us to the Father, the Holy Spirit works in us and intercedes for us in language we cannot begin to understand. (Note: he is speaking of a language of the trinity, not a language or non-language coming from us.) So we don’t need to focus on the Spirit, because by focussing on the One who became man like us, and loving Him totally, we enable the Holy Spirit to work and produce the fruit of holiness in our lives. *(Important side-bar; The focus on Jesus Christ is critical because we are taught that by His **Name **that we discern the spirits, by His **Name *we have any authority, so that shifting the focus from Christ, even a little, puts our theology and practice off centre) Indeed, we don’t know how to pray as we ought, and yet when we begin to pray, the Holy Spirit steers us, in a manner of speaking. In that other famous chapter from St. Paul to the Corinthians he says that engaging the mind is better than praying only with the spirit.
Speaking of peace, he also says that God is not a God of *disorder *(some translations use the word uproar) but a God of peace.
Seems pretty straightforward there. The CCC has some clear teaching on prayer as well, in the section Christian Prayer (Part 4 I believe it is)
The outer limits? Quite simple really. There are things that go on, and we are told that they are by the power of the Holy Spirit, and I know you would agree that is patently false because of the outrage you express whenever I bring them up, but, the people that practice such things are the spirtual, doctrinal cousins of the people from which the CCR originally received its “charisms”, Protestant Pentecostals. That is fact. There is a common ancestry. I’m asking the question, what is it that you *believe *that makes you draw the distinction between what you and others within your charismatic group do, and what those people do in those Protestant groups? If you haven’t thought about it, fine. Just say so. That’s cool. I’m trying to get at what you think, not just the fact that you trust the good Catholic Authority.
I’ll give you an example of what I mean by determining what a person/group actually believes by their practices. Let us say a given charismatic group, in the process of bringing someone into the group, with their study literature and in practice in prayer meeting, teach and encourage someone to make sounds with their vocal chords, practice and then ask for the gift of tongues. That is what I call “teaching” tongues or a “methodology of tongues”. From that practice I can determine a number of things about what they believe tongues to be, ie., how common it is, the relative importance of tongues in the bigger picture of salvation and holiness. I can even trace the pedigree of the theology from that, and can speculate in an educated way about what direction they are headed.
In this thread originally, I was hoping to get charismatics to draw the lines of their own doctrine WRT these type of issues.
God Bless.
