Sola Scriptura--now I get

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St.Eric:
Is it just me or should this get moved to an thread of its own?
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haha, i was thinking the same thing. i might start one some time soon about under what circumstances non-Catholics can be saved because i don’t really get that.
 
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JSmitty2005:
The CCC’s statement that Protestant “ecclesia communities” are a “means of salvation” QUOTE]

But only as derived through the power of the Catholic Church and the Sacrements instituted therein. All saving grace comes from Christ through his church and the sacrements.
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Eden:
Jesus never explicitly addresses war in the Bible, so please do not claim that he does. Also, during the first century to century and a half after Jesus’ death and Resurrection Christians thought Christ’s return was imminent. They were preparing for His return so the reality of the need for defense was not a focus. So, the teaching on war did not become “the opposite”, it became defined as it had never been previously.

The Church is also not the war-mongering institution you would like to present it to be.

The Catechism emphasizes “Blessed are the peacemakers”:

The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war.

2308 All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.

However, “as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed” (Gaudium et Spes 79).

**2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time: **
  • the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
  • all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
  • there must be serious prospects of success;
  • the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
The Gospels present Jesus as being generally opposed to violence and encouraging peacemaking, but do not clearly address the question of war fighting.

The Christian tradition seeks to reconcile Christ’s opposition to violence with the protection of the innocent and the preservation of justice and peace.

Instead of extolling the martial virtues, Jesus declares ‘Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called God’s children’ (Mt. 5: 10).

BUT

In Matthew 10: 34, Jesus says: ‘You must not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have come not to bring peace but a sword’.

Christ physically drove the moneychangers from the temple (Jn. 2: 15). And St Paul (Romans, 13: 4) insisted on submission to civil authority, since it came from God. ‘It is not for nothing that they hold the power of the sword, for they are God’s agents of punishment bringing retribution on the offender.’

A leading authority on just war theory, James Turner Johnson, argued that the early Christian rejection of war-fighting and killing stemmed from their expectation that the Reign of God was imminent and not from pacifism. The gradual realisation that Jesus’ Second Coming was taking longer than expected led the Christians gradually to focus on more immediate issues, such as military service. Johnson argues that the sizeable Christian presence in the Roman Army from at least AD 174 indicates that many Christians accepted the legitimacy of military service, and presumably had for some time.

In short, changes in the army, in Roman society and the Christian communities resulted in divergent practices in different parts of the Empire even from early in the second century AD, as the earlier millennial leanings gave way to a realisation that Christians had to contribute to the maintenance of the security of the Empire.

The problem for the Christians was how to maintain the prohibition against killing and violence but also to recognise the need to defend the innocent against violence.

The first major attempt to think through this problem came (well before Constantine) from Clement of Alexandria (AD c.150-c. 215), whom Johnson regards as ambiguous at times, but who could also be seen as the first Christian just war thinker introducing two elements of what would later become standard just war theory, arguing for the defence of the Empire (just cause), on the authority of the emperor (right authority).

www.compassreview.org/winter03/7.html
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You can chose to ignore God’s Word, but your doing so won’t convince me. All I can say is Jesus told us to love our enemies and no matter how much you rationalize and water down the Word of God, it will never be right for a Christian to kill another human.

The world has a right from God to kill, but Christians are not part of the world.
 
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St.Eric:
But only as derived through the power of the Catholic Church and the Sacrements instituted therein. All saving grace comes from Christ through his church and the sacrements.
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I know what the teaching says, but I don’t understand it. How does this grace get from the CC to the Protestants? They lack a connection to the Church because they have separated themselves from Her. Like Augustine said, the Spirit does not follow an amputated member. Also, even though we may have things in common, it will not profit them. Protestants do not have all the sacraments and the ones that they do have are invalid.
 
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kujo313:
I dont think…
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I knew we could agree on something! 😉
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kujo313:
I dont think that he, himself, interprets, but what is revealed to him through the Holy Spirit.
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You dont think he interprets? Why dont you ask him that. Claiming to have something “revealed by the holy Spirit” is a claim of infallibility as the Spirit cannot “reveal” anything but Truth. Do you really believe Angainor would make such a claim? You remain in fantasy land, despite all the info provided to you. You have ignored my previous posts to you as well - do you find me difficult to engage in dialogue?
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kujo313:
Also take note, he says he wants his students to go home and look it up for themselves in their own Bibles (Scripture!)
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And your point would be???
 
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JSmitty2005:
I know what the teaching says, but I don’t understand it. How does this grace get from the CC to the Protestants? They lack a connection to the Church because they have separated themselves from Her. Like Augustine said, the Spirit does not follow an amputated member. Also, even though we may have things in common, it will not profit them. Protestants do not have all the sacraments and the ones that they do have are invalid.
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But they do have the word as given to them in the bible through the RCC. The word may produce a desire for them to know and love Christ. However, their ignorance of the fullness of the truth prevents them from becoming a member of the church. Does this make sense?
 
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Giver:
You can chose to ignore God’s Word, but your doing so won’t convince me. All I can say is Jesus told us to love our enemies and no matter how much you rationalize and water down the Word of God, it will never be right for a Christian to kill another human.
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If anyone is ignoring God’s Word, it is certainly you. Eden did not rationalize nor water down God’s Word. They simply took Scripture in its entirety to come to a logical conclusion…something that you did not do by only quoting “love your enemy.” Speaking of which, what does it mean to you to “love your enemy”? Does it mean to withhold due justice? I think not. I believe (along with St. Thomas Aquinas) that to love is to will the good of another. I certainly will the good of my enemies but that does not mean that they are no longer my enemies!
The world has a right from God to kill, but Christians are not part of the world.
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That simply doesn’t make sense. If there is any rationalizing going on here, it’s not by Eden, but by this statement above. Christians are not “of the world” but we certainly live in the world.
 
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St.Eric:
But they do have the word as given to them in the bible through the RCC. The word may produce a desire for them to know and love Christ. However, their ignorance of the fullness of the truth prevents them from becoming a member of the church. Does this make sense?
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Yes, it does, but their Bible is incomplete. Also, why didn’t the Church Fathers and popes of the past make a clause such as this when they condemned the ancient heretics? All heretics have some truth so does that mean that all heresies are a “means of salvation”? Is only a partial truth needed for salvation? The Church didn’t seem to think so when it came to groups like the Pelagians or Arians or Cathars, so why with the Protestants is this exception made?
 
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JSmitty2005:
Yes, it does, but their Bible is incomplete. Also, why didn’t the Church Fathers and popes of the past make a clause such as this when they condemned the ancient heretics? All heretics have some truth so does that mean that all heresies are a “means of salvation”? Is only a partial truth needed for salvation? The Church didn’t seem to think so when it came to groups like the Pelagians or Arians or Cathars, so why with the Protestants is this exception made?
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Remember that it is not a blanket exception. those who have not heard the full gospel of the Catholic church have the possibility of salvation. “Heard” also means to understand it and still reject it. Also, some of the heretical groups were so far off that they have to be condemed, for instance when they deny the trinity or the divinity of Christ. Very few pretoestant sects does this (some do I know).
 
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St.Eric:
Thank you for your answer. Sounds like you are not too far off from the RCC. You have your own magisterium consisting of yourself (as a sunday scholl teacher) and the “community” that helps others to “see the truth” in scripture that you interpret.
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If you drop the “scare quotes” and an extraneous qualifier, you almost got it:We have our own magisterium consisting of myself (as a sunday scholl teacher) and the community that helps others to see the truth in scripture.

I ask you to make one more simple change of mindset. The magisterium is not ours (my protestant denomination’s) but ours (all of Christendom’s).

“We” includes all Christians.
 
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Angainor:
If you drop the “scare quotes” and an extraneous qualifier, you almost got it:We have our own magisterium consisting of myself (as a sunday scholl teacher) and the community that helps others to see the truth in scripture.

I ask you to make one more simple change of mindset. The magisterium is not ours (my protestant denomination’s) but ours (all of Christendom’s).

“We” includes all Christians.
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There’s something wrong with that equation when “the pillar and foundation of the truth” teaches contradictions…
 
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JSmitty2005:
Not explicitly, but it is implicit in your rejection of the authority and teachings of Christ’s Church.
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No not implicitly either.

Yes, I reject the authority of saints, popes, martyrs, doctors, and fathers. No, this in no way implies I think they have played no role in helping people to come to see Christian truths.
 
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Philthy:
Why do most nonCatholics seem to do their utmost to hide the actual church they belong to? Does your church not have a name? Is that explicitly stated as part of your common confession of truth or is that a conclusion you have reached on your own based on YOUR UNDERSTANDING of those confessions? Do you have a website to those confessions?
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I am a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (it is in my profile–no hiding here). Here is our exhaustive list of common confessions.
 
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montanaman:
There’s something wrong with that equation when “the pillar and foundation of the truth” teaches contradictions…
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People teach contradictions. The Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth.
 
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Angainor:
People teach contradictions. The Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth.
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Bingo! But you say that the Church includes all Christians (Catholics and Protestants alike), yet we believe contradictory things. The Church is the pillar and foundation of truth and therefore cannot teach contradictions. So, the Church can only consist of Catholics or one specific sect of Protestantism if it is not to be self-contradictory.
 
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