Ralphy's Questions for Catholics

[CentralFLJames]

You pretty well described one of my bibles,the Roman catholic one which I purchased in 1957. It has a lot of names in it, mostly cardinals, reverend’s, and other people. Also a great number of pictures. The chapters and numbers were added later as an easy way to find info in the bible. Is this bible inspired?

I see you dodged my question - you are pretty good at ignoring questions Ralphy.

Well at least it does sound like you have an authentic bible if it has all those Catholic clergy attesting to its accuracy and its a Catholic Bible - this is good news for you.

My bible has 3 levels of Nihil Obstat and Imprimaturs (official Church attestations that it meets all apostolic standards) and a papal fore-letter with papal seal as well as a list of 61 or so highly educated (PhD etc.) religious ordered priests and bishops. These markings and credentials give a Catholic the assurances that a Catholic bible publication is highly reviewed and meets this higest standards of accuracy and peer review among the world’s leading experts in theology, language translation, historical accuracy and meets other pedigrees (e.g. translation from the oldest manuscripts cross checked with other codexes).

Do you know that many Protestant bibles were originally published and approved only by secular men who worked for the King of England rather than the Lord of Lords? The publishing company’s that were permitted to print the Protestant bibles at one time decided all on their own with no authority whatsoever other than a business decision to remove the deuterocanonicals from the back of the Protestant’s new bible to save printing costs! It was bad enough that Protestants removed these 7 books and put them in a seperate appendix but to then decide to toss them out to save costs tells us a lot about how Protestants lack any central authority or consensus of opinion or control over what should be published as “the Protestant Bible”.

Don’t you think all of God’s Word should be printed in the bibles and no cost should be spared to give us all of it and no publisher should be able to reprint only what he wants to without somone with authority controlling the contents? Who approves the Protestant bibles - market forces?

I’d still like for you tell me how you know your bible has all of God’s word in it and its all been translated correctly? Does any bible NT book even list all the “inspired” NT books that should be assembled together into the NT bible?

James

 

[ralphy]

If Pope Innocent’s declaration of the contents of the Bible was not infallible, then we can only guess at what belongs in the Bible - there is no way to be certain that we have gotten the right books in there.

What do you think - can we trust that Pope Innocent got the right books in there?

Pope Innocent was just a man like anyone else,a sinner that needed to be saved. Christ has no respect of persons. I leave it up to God to get the right scripture where He wants it. Ralph

 

[cazayoux]

Pope Innocent was just a man like anyone else,a sinner that needed to be saved. Christ has no respect of persons. I leave it up to God to get the right scripture where He wants it. Ralph

and HOW did God do that?

do not ignore the history.
yes … all men are sinners … and as we see from the apostles Jesus chose, God can use sinners to accomplish His goals.

michel

 

[ralphy]

I see you dodged my question - you are pretty good at ignoring questions Ralphy.

Well at least it does sound like you have an authentic bible if it has all those Catholic clergy attesting to its accuracy and its a Catholic Bible - this is good news for you.

My bible has 3 levels of Nihil Obstat and Imprimaturs (official Church attestations that it meets all apostolic standards) and a papal fore-letter with papal seal as well as a list of 61 or so highly educated (PhD etc.) religious ordered priests and bishops. These markings and credentials give a Catholic the assurances that a Catholic bible publication is highly reviewed and meets this higest standards of accuracy and peer review among the world’s leading experts in theology, language translation, historical accuracy and meets other pedigrees (e.g. translation from the oldest manuscripts cross checked with other codexes).

Do you know that many Protestant bibles were originally published and approved only by secular men who worked for the King of England rather than the Lord of Lords? The publishing company’s that were permitted to print the Protestant bibles at one time decided all on their own with no authority whatsoever other than a business decision to remove the deuterocanonicals from the back of the Protestant’s new bible to save printing costs! It was bad enough that Protestants removed these 7 books and put them in a seperate appendix but to then decide to toss them out to save costs tells us a lot about how Protestants lack any central authority or consensus of opinion or control over what should be published as “the Protestant Bible”.

Don’t you think all of God’s Word should be printed in the bibles and no cost should be spared to give us all of it and no publisher should be able to reprint only what he wants to without somone with authority controlling the contents? Who approves the Protestant bibles - market forces?

I’d still like for you tell me how you know your bible has all of God’s word in it and its all been translated correctly? Does any bible NT book even list all the “inspired” NT books that should be assembled together into the NT bible?

James

I hope you forgive me if I chuckle to myself about the statement you make about all those people you refered to under the three levels of “Nihil Obstat and Imprimaturs, papal fore-letter with papal seal as well as 61 or so highly educated (PhD etc) religious ordered priest and bishops” WOW ! Is this suppose to be impressive. Do you know that God has no respect of persons. All of them being sinners as we are. I can thank God we are all equal at the foot of the Cross. Ralph

 

[cazayoux]

All of them being sinners as we are. I can thank God we are all equal at the foot of the Cross. Ralph

Nobody here thinks otherwise.

michel

 

[jmcrae]

Pope Innocent was just a man like anyone else,a sinner that needed to be saved.

Of course he is. But God gives him the gift of infallibility so that when he teaches us something, we can know for a fact that it is true.

But, if the Pope was not infallible (ie: not given by God the gift of getting it right) then how can we know that we even have a Bible?

 

[allhers]

You Roman catholics like to use that word "infallible’ to describe the popes. Who came up with that word, only God is infallible. Ralph

Actually I think its everybody but Catholics who like to throw that word around. We Catholic’s know that he (the Pope), is only infallible when teaching on matters of faith and morals, the Holy Spirit leads to all truth and will not allow him to err in these matters.

I am a Catholic, Latin Rite, I guess some refer to us as Roman Catholic, to me Roman Catholic means that I follow the teachings of Jesus and they are handed on by the Pope - still-all of them. He is the Vicar of Christ, His representative in the visable Church on earth, the Church that the Bible speaks of as the Pillar and foundation of the Truth. (Jesus is the truth). We are the Church Militant (on earth).

 

[allhers]

Pope Innocent was just a man like anyone else,a sinner that needed to be saved. Christ has no respect of persons. I leave it up to God to get the right scripture where He wants it. Ralph

,and God left it up to His Apostles that He chose.

 

[ralphy]

and HOW did God do that?

do not ignore the history.
yes … all men are sinners … and as we see from the apostles Jesus chose, God can use sinners to accomplish His goals.

michel

I don’t know how God does what He does, I just have to believe Him and trust Him. Ralph

 

[ralphy]

Of course he is. But God gives him the gift of infallibility so that when he teaches us something, we can know for a fact that it is true.

But, if the Pope was not infallible (ie: not given by God the gift of getting it right) then how can we know that we even have a Bible?

I did not read in the bible that there was a gift of “infallibility” do you have a scripture verse for that? Just maybe it came from Roman catholic teaching ! Ralph

 

[jmcrae]

I did not read in the bible that there was a gift of “infallibility” do you have a scripture verse for that?

Luke 10:16.

 

[CentralFLJames]

I hope you forgive me if I chuckle to myself about the statement you make about all those people you refered to under the three levels of “Nihil Obstat and Imprimaturs, papal fore-letter with papal seal as well as 61 or so highly educated (PhD etc) religious ordered priest and bishops” WOW ! Is this suppose to be impressive. Do you know that God has no respect of persons. All of them being sinners as we are. I can thank God we are all equal at the foot of the Cross. Ralph

I hope you forgive me for chuckling at your very predictable pattern of rope-a-dope and dodging questions. Ralph, did you avoid giving answers when you went to take a test in high school or to get your driver’s license? Or am I assuming too much here Ralphy?

Protestants like to use that phrase “God is no respecter of persons” but many Protestants do not really understand what this means.

This phrase is from Romans 2:11.
Romans 2:11 There is no partiality with God. (NAB)
Romans 2:11 For God does not show favoritism. (NIV)

It also brings forward a prior OT teaching and Peter acknowledges it too:
*Deuteronomy 10:17
For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe.

Acts 10:34 Then Peter proceeded to speak and said, "In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. *

It seems some of our Protestant friends in their rush to disrespect Catholic ecclesial authority just want to force this verse to mean almost in the negative sense that God disrespects persons – especially anyone with authority and wearing a Roman collar.

But this is of course wrong. It means simply that God does not show favoritism in His judgements. But does it really mean he can have no favorites and does not respect His own authority that He gives to certain specially selected apostolic men? NO and NO.
*
Luke 1:28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Matthew 3:17 This is My beloved Son. My** favor **rests on Him"

Matt. 23:2 – shows that the Jews understood the importance of succession to the chair and its attendant authority. Here, Jesus respects Moses’ seat (“cathedra”) of authority which was preserved by succession. In the Church, Peter’s seat is called the “cathedra,” and when Peter’s successor speaks officially on a matter of faith or morals, it may rise to the level of an “ex cathedra” (from the chair) teaching.

Acts 1:20 – a successor of Judas is chosen. The authority of his office (his “bishopric”) is respected notwithstanding his egregious sin. The necessity to have apostolic succession in order for the Church to survive was understood by all. God never said, “I’ll give you leaders with authority for about 400 years, but after the Bible is compiled, you are all on your own.”
*

But here is an interesting twist - is God showing partiality to the Jews here?
*
Romans 2:10
But there will be glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, Jew first and then Greek.
*

The answer is again NO - but unless one knows why the literal read certainly suggests He is.

James

 

[jmcrae]

It is occuring to me to think of this:

God is no respecter of persons, yes - but it is not God who is being asked to respect a person’s level of education, or his ordination to the priesthood, or the fact that he is the Pope. God is above all these things. There is no one who is better educated than God; God, in Jesus, is the ultimate Priest, and it is God who is speaking through the voice of the Pope. So, of course God does not have to hold these people as being higher than Himself.

We, on the other hand, are below them. Someone who has a better education than I do is likely to know things that I don’t know, and have things to tell me that I could learn from. I am also not a priest in any sense except for the priesthood of the baptized; the priest has a higher callling in life than I do. And the Pope, the man through whom God speaks, is likely to be opening up knowledge of God’s will for me, so it would probably be a good idea for me to put aside my pride, and listen to what he has to say.

The upshot of my point is that, we are not God. Just because God is no respecter of persons, does not mean that we can just go ahead and not respect anybody, or pretend that we are in some way “greater than” those who have a better education than ourselves, or who have been anointed by God in special ways.

Just a thought.

 

[allhers]

I did not read in the bible that there was a gift of “infallibility” do you have a scripture verse for that? Just maybe it came from Roman catholic teaching ! Ralph

Did you ever read these verses in the Bible?

St. John 20:30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of (his) disciples that are not written in this book.

St. John 21:15-17 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

He then said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.”

He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” (Jesus) said to him, "Feed my sheep.

(In the footnotes for these verses it says this)
In these three verses there is a remarkable variety of synonyms: two different Greek verbs for love (see the note on John 15:13); two verbs for feed-tend; two nouns for sheep; two verbs for know. But apparently there is no difference of meaning. The threefold confession of Peter is meant to counteract his earlier threefold denial John 18:17, 25, 27.
The First Vatican Council cited these verses in defining that Jesus, after his resurrection, gave Peter the jurisdiction of supreme shepherd and ruler over the whole flock.

St. John 21:25 There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.

 

[CentralFLJames]

The upshot of my point is that, we are not God. Just because God is no respecter of persons, does not mean that we can just go ahead and not respect anybody, or pretend that we are in some way “greater than” those who have a better education than ourselves, or who have been anointed by God in special ways.

Just a thought.

And in fact Jesus teaches that we should not presume to hold ourselves above others who are in fact of higher estate than we are. Chauvinism in trying to show equality with every one we come in contact with is itself presumptuous and disrespectful. Showing respect to authority is seperate from showing mutual respect for each other by our debt of dignity to the potential of Christ in each of us:

*Luke 14:8-11
When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place. 10 “But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you. 11 “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” *

James

 

[cazayoux]

I don’t know how God does what He does,

This is, in part, due to a lack of knowledge of history.

I just have to believe Him and trust Him. Ralph

How do you know who ‘Him’ is?
Whether you like it or not, you have 100% trust in the Catholic bishops of the 4th century (and that the Holy Spirit that led those sinful men) that TOLD YOU what scripture actually is.

The Catholic Church is the ONLY reason you have a set list of new testament writings that we all agree upon. (1) Because the Catholic Bishops put the question to rest as to what was and was not inspired writing, and (2) Because the Catholic Church painstakingly, by hand, preserved the texts of scripture for CENTURIES.

Now you say you ‘just have to believe Him and trust Him’. I agree. To believe Him and trust Him is to follow the church that JESUS founded. This same church that told you what was and was not inspired scripture.

michel

 

[cazayoux]

I did not read in the bible that there was a gift of “infallibility” do you have a scripture verse for that? Just maybe it came from Roman catholic teaching ! Ralph

I haven’t seen anyone give this verse yet…

whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

give this some thought … can the church that Jesus founded actually teach something that is in error? There is no error in heaven, so it would be impossible for something to bound in heaven that was untrue.

michel

 

[SteveGC]

Ralphy,

You do know that all of these good people here are trying to help you, right?

We’re not in the business of expressing dominance, or superiority over anyone. I admire your tenacity in staying the course here, and engaging in dialogue with a very gifted and intelligent Catholic crowd (myself not included )

We just really want you to open up a bit, ralphy. We’re not trying to take away your faith, or challenge your commitment to know and serve Christ.

We do think you might be fearful of opening up to the truth, which I know you think is false. But you have to admit that when genuine questions and issues come up that you have no answer for, a man who is not open to the truth responds much like you have time and again…stiff-arming the issue, and re-proclaiming a trust in God (which again, we don’t deny is critical for all of us).

You have to admit also…it does seem odd that someone (anyone) who clings to the Bible so dearly as their SOLE authority, doesn’t like to discuss the origin of that Sacred Book at all, doesn’t really care how it came to be, how it was that they now are in possession of inspired human teaching of Christianity, when the Bible itself doesn’t proclaim that God intended for most Christians to have a copy. I’m not saying that the Holy Spirit wasn’t at work in the world to ensure eventually the written Word could be in nearly every household. But I’m saying that it’s odd you give no credence to the canonizers - to the men who compiled all the historical inspired writings. Do you know that they didn’t put the NT together by basing it all off of who the authors were? Did you know they KNEW the teaching of Christ themselves authentically (inspirationally), and were able to compile the NT by the contents of the writing that conformed with revealed truth, which they KNEW themselves? This was nearly 400 years after the last apostle died, ralphy. How on earth was that possible? I would think a Sola Scripturist would be enthusiastically interested in all this, no?

God Bless

 

[CentralFLJames]

I haven’t seen anyone give this verse yet…

whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

give this some thought … can the church that Jesus founded actually teach something that is in error? There is no error in heaven, so it would be impossible for something to bound in heaven that was untrue.

michel

And here is an example of what the Catholic Church bound as one of its major first fruits of The Church - The Bible.

Any bible-only Christian who wants to attack Catholic papal infallability is hopelessly wrestling against himself and with God in trying to loose what God will not permit. For what The Church binds on earth (in sin or ecclesial action) has also been bound in heaven. Any who still want to try to arm wrestle with The Church must also wrestle with God and is suicidal. That is essentially as self-binding oneself in the sin of presumption with a very strange cord; a cord of of irrationality that leaves one with a “nice” religious book of popular sayings rather than the infallable Word of God.

Here is what The Church has bound on earth and in heaven - The Catholic Bible.
http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:5eY8D73bmpb_pM:http://www.marianland.com/tan1007/lati2204x.jpg http://tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn...isname.com/images/bibles/Ignatius_Biblesm.jpg

James

 

[sodak]

I don’t know how God does what He does, I just have to believe Him and trust Him. Ralph

Really? When are you going to start - by believing all of the Bible, and not just a few cherry-picked verses that you’ve twisted to your own belief system. You haven’t answered half of our questions. You’ve answered NONE of mine. NONE.

The only thing I see you trying to do is to get people to question their faith. You talk about serving the word of God, but can’t even come up with a cogent explanation of why you believe YOUR Bible is God’s word.

And yet you think we should take you and your opinions seriously. I realize that you are just going to ignore this post like all the rest. I’m content with getting this in here so that the many people that come by later and read this thread can see the many inconsistencies in your arguments and lack of arguments.