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FatBoy
Guest
So you refuse to take the CC’s word for it. Sounds kinda prejudice to me.
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Contarini
Guest
Those two statements are mutually contradictory. Savoir le grec (ou le francais, ou meme l’anglais), c’est vraiment l’apprendre sans cesse. Et ca veut dire qu’on peut le savoir sans le savoir parfaitement, ce que vous venez de nier.
So the only knowledge of Greek that counts is that of an accomplished professional scholar? Sorry, but this is the kind of attitude that is killing the classical languages, and language learning generally. Every little counts.
A “working knowledge” simply means a knowledge that is usable, even if it’s imperfect. There’s nothing wrong with that. We are all imperfect–presumably you are too, though from your post one wouldn’t know that you know this!
Well, the standard evangelical argument is that each denomination has a different perspective on matters not essential to the faith, and that this makes for a healthy diversity, an opportunity for humility for all Christians (who need to learn to listen to those with whom they differ rather than writing them off), and (perhaps most importantly) a more effective evangelization, since Pentecostals may reach people that Presbyterians or Catholics cannot.
I do not agree with this argument for a minute–I am simply reporting it as fairly as possible.
Edwin
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Calvinator
Guest
Read the canons on justification at Trent and you will see why I think your church teaches a salvation of works.
It’s not prejudiced, it’s just my honest opinion.
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FatBoy
Guest
The Council of Trent
The Sixth Session
JUSTIFICATION CANONS
CANON I.-If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.
Source: history.hanover.edu/early/trent/ct06jc.htm
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Bishopite
Guest
Who do you think condemned the pelagians and semi-pelagians? It certainly wasn’t Protestants, that’s right they didn’t exist yet and neither did monergism. The Catholic church opposed the pelagians at the council of Orange 529 A.D., maybe you’ve missed canons 18-20…
CANON 18. That grace is not preceded by merit. Recompense is due to good works if they are performed; but grace, to which we have no claim, precedes them, to enable them to be done.
CANON 19. That a man can be saved only when God shows mercy. Human nature, even though it remained in that sound state in which it was created, could be no means save itself, without the assistance of the Creator; hence since man cannot safe- guard his salvation without the grace of God, which is a gift, how will he be able to restore what he has lost without the grace of God?
CANON 20. That a man can do no good without God. God does much that is good in a man that the man does not do; but a man does nothing good for which God is not responsible, so as to let him do it.
The OP mentioned St. Augustine and Protestants being fond of him. That’s a good thing I believe, but why they selectively quote him I’m not so sure. And why these same Protestants never address Augustine’s Catholic view on purgatory and praying for the dead…
“That there should be some fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, through a certain purgatorial fire” (*Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Charity *18:69 [A.D. 421]).
“We read in the books of the Maccabees [2 Macc. 12:43] that sacrifice was offered for the dead. But even if it were found nowhere in the Old Testament writings, the authority of the Catholic Church which is clear on this point is of no small weight, where in the prayers of the priest poured forth to the Lord God at his altar the commendation of the dead has its place” (The Care to be Had for the Dead 1:3 [A.D. 421])."
willcoxson.net/faith/augprot.htm#apocrypha
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Bishopite
Guest
Parlez vous francais? Vous parlez tres bien. Je parle a petite francais. Je suis ne en France et ma mere est la France.
I hope you understood what I wrote.
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Protestant101
Guest
My favorite quote from St Augustine is below… I use it when I talk with people who also feel Augustine was Protestant…
For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. (St Augustine)
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1405.htm
A Protestant would never say the above…
This is actually one of my favorite quotes from Augustine too. I have always wondered where it came from. Can you give me a specific reference, and page number?
(LOL. I thought someone just said that a protestant would “never” say this quote? Now what do we do?)
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Protestant101
Guest
Jesus beat the Catholics on this one.
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Calvinator
Guest
Your church is synergistic and seemingly semi-Pelagian. It would seem that Rome reverted back to the old heresy at Trent. Not fully, but at least partially hence the semi-Pelagian tag.
I believe it is in canon V where we learn that according to Rome, one co-operates with God and converts themselves to their own justification. So, IMHO your church teaches a type or works salvation.
As to what you claim about Augustine…so what? I know in City of God there is some text supporting some idea of purgatory. So at a minimum it seems that Augustine believed in some type of purgatorial cleansing either throughout his life or at least he did at some particular point in his life…
Has someone used, hijacked if you will, Augustine’s writings to disprove purgatory?
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Calvinator
Guest
Good night all.
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Nella
Guest
I love your posts!! Good night and God bless.
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Palladio
Guest
I am still scratching my head about your reply in particular and protestants protesting on this site in general, as it they could expect any quarter from Catholics. I’ll take your not one minute parting shot as charity, close as it may have followed upon your ad hominem on my self-knowledge, which was just little uncharitable. For my part, I am not convinced by your reply for one second.
Quant aux langues…
You’ve misundertood the argument, in part because you’ve misunderstood Sainte-Beuve. The argument concerns the authority of the RCC to read and interpret the Bible, as opposed the doomed and typical Protestant approach of monolingualism and every man his own interpreter. Yes, the RCC must have superb Greek scholarship to do this: the NT was written in Koine, not English, and especially not Tudor or Stuart English.
Surely you’ve misunderstood the argument, since when you endorse (albeit in a strawman argument ) an “imperfect knowledge” you must be referring to the laity. That’s already one problem, however, which is why I mention it: with so many sects, the laity is in the saddle of reading and interpreting according to its own lights: atomization within fragmentation.
(What’s killing the classics is nothing like what you mention, and that one I’ll just forgive you on, especially as it is totally beside the point.)
I think we live in different worlds: you mention two sects, when there may be tens of thousands, and nobody seems to want to argue with the figures of 500 to 1000!
A lottery of religions thanks to the blessed reformers and their rascal offspring, most of whom cannot be blamed because they were and are ignorant of Hebrew, Greek, Latin and the learning in modern languages which clarify the Bible and the one true holy and apostolic faith, the RCC.
I think I understand, however: I used to think the reformation produced a few religions, one or two of which not so different from my own. I read the reformers with interest and sympathy, and the Puritan divines (Gataker, for one) so far as time could take me.
Then it dawned on me after years of study: the questionable and rapid course of events in sixteenth-century history not only suggested nothing like the early days of the church, but despite some admirable learning here and there, the arguments were wrong, even bad: Calvin’s views on predestination are completely untenable, and hateful: not even his NT reference bear scrutiny prima facie! These were not reformers, they were renegades and outlaws protected by scoundrels like H VIII and the German princes.
By their works…: contraception (the pill kills), legalized abortion on demand, the slow but certain sanctification of homosexuality and homosexual marriage (where else but in the Bay State!): these are the views of mainstream protestantism, hard to distinguish from the town hall or the playboy channel.
No doubt some sects reach more than the RCC, even if She is yet larger and older than the groups these wayward believers form and keep forming: but with what do they reach them? The very fragmentation and atomization which have lead us to “all our woe.”
Evangelicals: to the extent that they become aware of the true history of the Church and of Her theology, they will come back to Her. They were the one and only group to stand with the RCC on abortion in recent years and Her efforts to out-law partial-birth abortion. Nor did they take part in the Catholic bashing after Supreme Courth, with its five Roman Catholic justices, decision.
God bless.
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GKC
Guest
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Bishopite
Guest
Yeah, right hindsite is 20/20. So, Jesus specifically condemn the pelagians, yet they hadn’t yet existed?
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Protestant101
Guest
Their “doctrines” sure did.
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a_priori
Guest
Salvation is by faith. But salvation involves works. If you have no works then you have no faith. No one does works in a vacuum. He who performs works does so because he has faith.
Faith and works are the same thing.
Works are the vital signs of faith. The diagnosis is easy. Walk up the patient. (You must be omniscient.) Check for works. If there are none then there is no faith.
Why does everyone keep trying to separate the two?
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Bishopite
Guest
You falsely equate semi-pelagianism with synergism; a false assumption leads to a false conclusion.
Converts themselves? Again, you are starting off with a false assumption. God gives us grace to have faith and do works, all of the geniune faith and works are from grace (Eph 2:8-10) so that all cooperation from man is from grace and when Catholicism speaks of our merit it isn’t speaking of strict merit, only Jesus can strictly merit any good. Our good is from grace, the works and all as is also taught in Mt 25:34-40.
The “so what” is because you Calvinists readily attempt to use St. Augustine as an example of A church father who taught the “Calvinist” form of Protestantism and this is completely false. Augustine was a Catholic Bishop who believed in purgatory and many other doctrines opposed to Calvinism.
Yes, he did and again his beliefs are not those of Calvinists nor Protestants; he was an orthodox Catholic Bishop who followed the teachings of the Catholic church who has preserved the once for all revelation given to it by Jesus Christ.
Why would anyone use Augustines writings to disprove something he affirmed? I’m not sure of what you are saying here.
Protestants often quote a single church father like Augustine in order to try to show him as being in agreement with them. Is it not interesting that Augustine believed purgatory, which is linked with justification in Catholic theology, yet you want to say that his position on justification is like yours?
And isn’t it interesting that Augustine believed in purgatory (the final step of ones sanctification) way back in the fourth century?
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FatBoy
Guest
Do you and your fellow Calvainest not “co-operate” with God when you say the “sinner’s prayer”? Sounds like your talking out of two sides of your mouth Calvinator.
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Contarini
Guest
Well, Augustine did say that purgatory/purgation was not binding dogma, and I’ve seen that used. (I would use it myself, since unlike most Protestants and Catholics I actually agree with Augustine on both counts–that there probably is some sort of purgatory, and that it is a theological opinion rather than de fide.)
Edwin
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Contarini
Guest
Not all of us see religious discussion as war to the knife. I’m sorry that you do.
No, it wasn’t charity, just clarity.
It was, and I apologize.
But the point is that the Protestant approach (as opposed to, say, the fundamentalist approach) is not one of monolingualism.
The Westminster Confession is probably as close to an expression of mainstream Protestantism as one can get, and it explicitly says that people are expected to make a “due use of the ordinary means.” That does not mean that each person sits down in a corner with the English Bible and ignores everything else.
The Council of Trent essentially said that scholarship in the original languages was unnecessary, since the Vulgate was sufficient. So I think this argument misses the mark. Scholarship in the original languages is far more essential for Protestants than for Catholics, and I think this is actually a problem with Protestantism.
No, I’m talking about everyone. No one has more than an imperfect knowledge of anything, for one thing. And for another, the average pastor in any religious body is not going to be a great scholar of ancient languages. The Catholic priests I have met don’t strike me as any more learned in that respect than most of the Protestant pastors I know. Roughly equivalent to Methodists, in my experience (maybe a hair better), and inferior to Anglicans and Presbyterians. I don’t think this is a matter of the first importance, by the way.
It is, but just to avoid misunderstanding, I spoke rashly in the heat of the moment. What I should have said was that an insistence on the kind of scholarship one could expect of an educated 19th-century gentleman (for whom a false quantity was as fatal as saying “where is it at” would be today) is sealing the doom of the classics. Most of us do not have access to that kind of education–I am mostly self-taught in Greek and Latin, which is why I’m sensitive on the point (though Erasmus was self-taught in Greek, which is encouraging to me). We need to encourage people to pick up what they can rather than mocking them (us?) for their deficiencies.
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