Stumbling Block for Protestants?

[Porknpie]

The Prayer of Manasseh would fit in this since it is OT.

admittedly I was speaking about the NT but since you brought it up, The Prayer of Manasseh has apostolic origin or was used in the liturgy universally?

It’s interesting because my understanding is the CC has no problem with the Orthodox inclusion of additional books that the CC does not think fits the above outline.

Jon

I’m not sure what you mean by “no problem”? Explain?

PnP

 

[Randy_Carson]

Yes, but Randy people are fallible. That’s why John tells us “1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” How do we test the spirits - through the examination of scripture. I mean what else do we have other than the infallible word of God? I’m not saying the RC church is preaching a false doctrine, but I feel they are practicing misplaced traditions. Does that make you counterfeit absolutely not.

Well, thanks. I think.

It is true that people are fallible - even the pope MOST of the time. But on a very few occasions under very precise circumstances, the pope has issued a teaching and defined it infallibly.

More to your point, however, is the fact that Jesus established a Church which is protected from teaching false doctrine by the action of the Holy Spirit. This is a God thing, not a man thing.

So, what else do we have other than the infallible Word of God? We have the infallible Church that God built so that we could understand the Word of God.

 

[Randy_Carson]

People are fallible and then you cite a fallible person?

Now, be fair…he was citing the Book of John.

 

[JonNC]

admittedly I was speaking about the NT but since you brought it up, The Prayer of Manasseh has apostolic origin or was used in the liturgy universally?

I understand it is used liturgically in Orthodoxy.

I’m not sure what you mean by “no problem”? Explain?

The CC, AFAIK, does not consider it Church dividing.

Jon

 

[Randy_Carson]

I am pretty sure the Christians John was telling this too referred to the OLD TESTAMENT a bit, but primarily tested it against the Christian traditions they were taught and the practices the Apostles and evangelists taught them in person. Since the New Testament was both not fully written yet, and certainly not compiled.

Think about it.

The Apostle John comes to your town and preaches the gospel. You accept it and believe it. And you are baptized. He preached to you every week for years. During that time you have the Old Testament and a couple letters from a missionary named Paul.

If someone came to your town and started saying “you don’t need to be baptized” to be a Christian, then how would you test that person?

Solely by the few writings you have?

Or by the teachings that you were taught day in and day out for years.

It was these teachings that are handed down through a living church.

The church has been alive for 2000 years. It did not write a book, die and only 1500 years later did people try to reconstruct it.

Candidacy is over. You’re in.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Candidacy is over. You’re in.

I will print this and take it to my pastor! LOL

 

[Randy_Carson]

I will print this and take it to my pastor! LOL

 

[Porknpie]

Weeeelllllll. Not the big issue for me, Pork, but thanks for the invite.

RCIA always looking for good teachers Jon. You don’t have to convert.

 

[PRmerger]

.Absolutely… PR you must add this to your repertoire.

 

[PRmerger]

No offense, but your point is ridiculous. John who was appointed by Jesus filled with the Holy Spirit made this statement. By your standards we should question every profit in the Bible. Honestly if we are going to debate lets not nit pick.

Stew’s point is a trenchant one. It is a logical application of your argument.

A. All men are fallible.

Or

B. Some men have been given the charism of infallibility.

One of the above has to be true.

And if you are a Christian who believes in the inspired Word of God, as written in the Gospel of John, then we must conclude that you believe that B is true.

 

[PRmerger]

Of course He established the church and it consisted as a result of the evangelical efforts of the early disciples. What is your point?

That you believe that some men were indeed infallible.

To wit: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul.

And that you believe that a group of men, Catholic men, (Catholic bishops, to be exact) were given this charism of infallibility in discerning the canon of the NT for you and me.

 

[PRmerger]

Now, be fair…he was citing the Book of John.

But that’s like citing, “Wherefore art thou, Romeo!” and saying, “To be honest, he was citing ‘Romeo and Juliet’, not Shakespeare.”

Who is the author of the Book of John if not John? And was he a fallible man when he penned this, or was he given the charism of infallibility?

 

[PRmerger]

That is correct. Scripture alone is not sufficient, and this point was driven home dramatically (and decisively) in the “Does the Bible Teach Sola Scriptura” debate between Patrick Madrid and James White. Here is Madrid’s rebuttal of White’s use of 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

Can anyone guess what this coming Sunday’s 2nd reading is?

wait for it…

wait for it…



usccb.org/bible/readings/102013.cfm

 

[PRmerger]

Are there any words or actions of Jesus defined within Catholicism that were not recorded in any book of the NT but have been officially attributed to Him?

Look at this verse:

[BIBLEDRB]Acts 20:35[/BIBLEDRB]

Now, can you find in any of the Gospels where Jesus said “It is better to give than receive”?

No?

Then how did the inspired writer know Jesus actually said this?

Through…

Sacred Tradition.

 

[PRmerger]

It is not deferring while in the flesh, it is making the authority while still Jehovah in heaven. Did he not authorize Moses and the prophets and the Psalms etc. etc. Did he not authorize Judaism for that mission of writings ?

If you want to state that Jews must obey their leaders, then I don’t have a problem with that. :nope:

 

[PRmerger]

I don’t even bother arguing in those terms, as I said waaay back when the thread first started. Infallibility is irrelevant since both of us believe they got it right, by virtue of being guided by the Holy Spirit. I would put the emphasis on Him.

Excellent.

Then what you have acknowledged is that the charism of infallibility was given to the CC. On multiple occasions. At least as it applies to discerning the canon of the NT.

This is a huge admission, Per Crucem. Huge! :extrahappy:

 

[Marie5890]

Why do more Protestants not convert to the Church? Is the Sacrament of Penance (confession) a stumbling block to conversion? We see many Catholics no longer going to confession, and many others converting to Protestantism. Blaise Pascal several hundred years ago commented that he believed Confession was indeed a stumbling block to Protestant conversion.

Your thoughts?

No, I think it’s more multi-leveled than that.

A study of the past 2000 years of Christian history does show that not all developments necessary=spiritual realities.

I’ve been study Augustine’s Confession and I can even see that.

 

[PRmerger]

And by what criteria is being able to trace one’s bishops all the way back to the apostles a qualifier?

Seriously?

I am astonished that you would deny the importance of such a thing!

 

[PRmerger]

Who determines that 7 sacraments is a requirement to be considered the Church that received the canon of Scripture? Where is the evidence that there were 7 sacraments when the canon was even received, considered the numbering of the sacraments fluctuated throughout early church history?

As the 7 sacraments were all established by Christ, to exclude one or any of them is to be deficient in the receiving the graces Christ furnishes for us.

 

[PRmerger]

I have a problem with this. On the one hand, we’re always told that the Catholic Church really is more than the Pope, and that even the doctrinal teaching authority of the Church is vested in the whole episcopate, etc. Yet on the other, when an inconvenient fact like, oh, I don’t know, long centuries in which faithful Catholics in good standing were able without censure to own other human beings as slaves, then suddenly we revert to the idea that a few encyclicals in the 15th century mean that the Roman Church is untainted in any way by the actions of some of its most prominent members.

To indict the CC for its alleged embracing of slavery is to indict St. Paul as well, Novocastrian.

So I would be very, very careful about making any accusations against the Church.

For it will only serve as fodder for, say, an atheist, to use this very same argument against you by pointing to St. Paul’s alleged embracing of slavery.