Truth: is it relative or not?

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Okay, so when Jerome translates “metanoia” (literal meaning; change of heart, best word in English “repent”) as “paenitentiam agite” (literal meaning; do works to show your contrition, best word in English, “do penance”), is it possible that this translation led the church erroneously away from a doctrine of inward repentance to a doctrine of outward acts to show worthiness?
 
@philophoser

I am not knowledgeable in Latin or Greek or Hebrew so I’m not going to comment on what you claim is a poor translation.

But: when the Church makes a dogmatic declaration, this is something that is supernatural and the Holy Spirit prevents it from teaching falsely.
 
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Okay so Jerome’s (mis)translation is true by virtue of the fact that the church says it is by virtue of the fact that they’re never wrong by virtue of the fact that they said they’re never wrong?
 
The teachings of the Church come through Apostolic Succession, not (exclusively) through Bible translations. The only reason the New Testament Bible exists in the first place is because of the apostles.
 
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Okay, so the fact that John’s message was “repent” and Jesus’ message was “repent”, but the Catholic church thought it was “do penance” from 400AD-1979AD doesn’t matter because the Holy Spirit was able to use a mistranslated Bible and a succession of bishops in Rome to perfectly convey God’s word despite this error?
Keep in mind, the Catholic church HAS corrected the error in translation in 1979 with the Nova Vulgata. (compare Matthew 3:2 and Matthew 4:17 Douay-Rheims with Nova Vulgata).
 
Blockquote The problem I’m having is that nothing can convince a Catholic that they’re ever wrong.
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Did you come here to genuinely ask a question or did you come here to convince Catholics they’re wrong?
philophoser said:
Church: “Catholic, the church is the source of all truth in manners of doctrine and cannot err.”
Catholic: “why?”
Church: “because we said so.”
A person who holds this view by faith is immune to evidential and logical debate.
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I don’t think that’s the Church’s answer to that question. 😉 😃
It’s a much, much deeper issue than that and I would think entire books have been written on why the Church thinks it’s the source of all truth in manners of doctrine and cannot err.

It goes back to Christ laying hands on Peter and saying, “You are the rock and on this rock I build My Church.” He granted Peter, the first Pope not only authority, but certain spiritual protection and guidance of the Holy Spirit to protect the Church from falling into grave error in doctrine.

I would also add that our doctrine is drawn from
  1. tradition (which comes at least in part from the oral tradition passed down from those who knew Jesus personally
  2. Scripture
  3. 2,000 years of great minds
  4. 2,000 years of great saints who spent a great deal of time on their knees, praying, fasting, etc.
Doctrine is not just tossed out as a fun idea on a whim and the flock ordered to believe 'because I said so. It comes from the points listed above, with a great deal of study and prayer. Those four points are why I believe the Catholic Church just might know what it’s talking about, more than a Protestant pastor who teaches based on his own personal reading of the Bible. We can’t learn and know in a single lifetime what 2000 years of great saints and great thinkers have achieved and learned.
 
@philosopher

You’re really starting to lose me big time because I’ve read written works of the saints over various time periods and they definitely all believed in repentance, so I don’t know why you think this translation is as catastrophic as you think it is.
 
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In what verse did he promise Peter “certain spiritual protection and guidance of the Holy Spirit to protect the Church from falling into grave error in doctrine”?
Five verses after Jesus gives Peter all of this “infallible” authority, he says “Get behind me, Satan!” A few chapters later, Peter is denying that he knows Jesus or was with him. Man is fallible.
 
Take these two competing views of Jesus first word that he preached:
“Repent” - change your heart and reform your mind to be more like God.
“Do penance” - do outward works to show how sorry you are.”
Are you saying a belief in one over the other is not important as far as what doctrines are believed and taught?
 
@philosopher

Both of them are completely Biblical concepts in both Testaments. Repentance without penance is like stealing your classmates pencil when she’s not looking, being sorry, and then not giving it back to her.
 
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I understand that all Christians are called to do good works. All Christians are called to give back the pencil. I’m asking, does this translation error call into question the teaching of the sacrament of penance? What is the logical answer to this, and what is the Catholic answer? You will see that they are very different from each other.
 
Consider also, that every…single…verse that Aquinas uses to argue for the validity of the sacrament of penance (as it concerns doing works to receive absolution; not confession to priests and other things) relies on this important mistranslation.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4084.htm#article7

Interpretations of Matthew 4:17, Acts 2:38, Luke 24:46, among many others, result from this mistranslation.
And then there is this:
" Wherefore at the outset of His preaching, our Lord admonished men, not only to repent, but also to “do penance,”"
No he didn’t…
 
“Do you see why logic and evidence can never persuade somebody who believes this?”.

Your logic and evidence has been questionable or non-existent. If you want to convince a Catholic they are wrong, stop proclaiming falsehoods as truths.

As to translations, I have yet to find a truly Catholic translation of the Bible. A thorn I will always bare.

Have ever considered that you are fallible and that your reasoning is wrong?
 
I have given evidence. I have presented arguments. Some answers have persuaded me. I’m willing to be persuaded by others. I will not “submit my intellect” to the teachings of every bishop who has ever lived in Rome for the last 2000 years because they said I should. “Because I said so!” is not a reasonable answer, and I’ve asked for evidence that there is another reason to believe that what the Pope says is true. I’m still waiting.

Regarding evidence, you can easily find a Douay-Rheims Bible and a Nova Vulgata Bible online and compare them and see if the evidence I provided is “questionable or non-existent”.
And you can look up Aquinas teachings in the link I provided and see if his “evidence” is what I said that it is.
 
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Easy. Read Matthew 4:17 in the Nova Vulgata.
After 1575 years they fixed Jerome’s error.
 
Now the question is, is it logical to accept doctrines born from an error simply because the Catholic Church says they should?

If your mortgage document mistakenly stated you had to pay for 32 years instead of 30, would you say “how am I going to pay for these last two years?” Or would you say “ that’s not right. I don’t owe the money?”
 
Again, give your evidence. Spell it out. I don’t read Latin. What does Jerome’s error have to do with your statement “no, he didn’t”?

Either our Lord preached penance or he did not. Why evade the question.
 
John preached a message of repentance (Matthew 3:2)
Jesus preached a message of repentance (Matthew 4:17)
Jesus absolved the thief on the cross because of his faith.
Paul preached a message of salvation by grace through faith, in Ephesians and in numerous other passages (how many times does he say none are justified through works of the law?)
John says Jesus is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2)
The apostles taught that if you Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall be saved (Acts 16:31)
Nobody taught atonement through works in any form except possibly James in James 2. But why would it be logical to explain away 100 verses of clear teachings of atonement through faith, grace, and most importantly, Jesus’ sacrifice for us by reference to the one hard to understand verse (James 2)?
 
600 years later, during the time of Pope Gregory, there was still no “sacrament of penance.” Good works were the voluntary outpouring of dedication to God in the personal life.
This slowly began to be warped throughout church history. I’d imagine the primary reason would be Jerome’s mistranslation, which obscures Jesus’ actual message of repentance, inward heart change.

Penance in the Catholic Church - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Read the history section
 
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