Truth: is it relative or not?

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Jesus also said to deny yourself, or should we only listen to the parts we like.
 
Again, I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t do good things. Good things should be a voluntary outpouring of our love for God, not a prescribed list of things that some man imposes upon us.

“All of our righteousness is as filthy rags” and does nothing to make us “righter” than Jesus’ blood and our acceptance of His gift.

Jesus is not some angry judge standing in heaven frowning down upon us for the sins we forgot we did and then didn’t atone for by our hard work. He is our loving Savior who paid the price for us once and for all.
 
philophoser said:
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
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The Church has never claimed that Peter or any Pope is infallible. Infallibility refers to only certain declarations by the Pope.

And as I stated in my post 67, Catholic doctrine is not ‘sola scriptura’ like many (all?) Protestant denominations. Our teaching comes also from tradition, which would include knowledge passed down from the apostles who knew Jesus personally.

Apart from this, it stands to reason that if Jesus is going to establish His Church on Earth, that He would also give it a little spiritual guidance and protection from making grave doctrinal error. Why establish His Church and then let it go completely off the path, teaching all sorts of falsehoods? That doesn’t seem like the act of a wise and loving God who actually wants to speak to His people and lead them.
 
Poet -
Okay… so the Catholic church is the true church because they say they are? And the Catholic church also never falls into error because they say they don’t?
Is there any logical reason to believe this is true, especially given their long and storied history of getting just about every possible thing to do with temporal affairs completely wrong for centuries? Including repeatedly selecting the wrong person to be Pope?
 
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philophoser said:
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
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I have addressed that:

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.
While you may not agree that those are good enough reasons to listen to the pope yourself, it most certainly addresses your statement that Catholic teaching is what it is ‘because the pope said so.’ This is just not true.
 
A lot of words, but you didn’t answer the question. Did Jesus preach penance or did he not?
 
Poet said:
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.
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Okay, which goes back directly to the question or truth. If truth is a reality that exists independent of the Catholic church, then 2000 years of subsequent teachings will move the church closer to Truth, or further away.
If the Truth of Jesus’ message was repentance, then teaching a message of penance for 2000 years has moved the church farther and farther away from the Truth of Jesus’ teachings. In this way, 2000 years of doctrine that contradicts the Bible is not a good thing or a thing to boast about.

Of course, if truth is relative and corresponds to “whatever the Catholic church happens to believe at this time,” (which seems to be the way truth operates in Catholicism), then the church decides truth and they are always right because they say they are and we have nothing to discuss.
I view truth in the first way. Good teaching points us to truth. False teaching leads us into error. Catholic teachings evolved over 2000 years and have moved steadily away from the Truth of Jesus’ and Paul’s and Peter’s and John’s teachings in the Bible. Because humans fail. Saying “no we don’t” doesn’t make it so.
 
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Jesus preached repentance and then told those who accepted this message to do good works. The question is not “should we do good works?” The question is “do we help God save us by doing good works?” Jesus never taught that. He taught the opposite.
 
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You don’t seem to understand what Jesus taught. Did Jesus heal to save himself? Was He crucified to save himself?
He said to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Him. How do you follow someone, but by doing what they did.
 
Philosopher, with all due respect, I have addressed that and no Catholic believes the Catholic church is the true church ‘because they say so’ or that they’re infallible ‘because they say so.’

I told you exactly where in the Bible we see Jesus stating that He is building His church on Peter, the rock and how tradition shows us that Peter passed that authority on to the men who came after him, down to our present day priests.

Now, if you would think that Martin Luther or King Henry VIII or Calvin or the guy who just opened a new Bible church down the block has a greater claim than that to having founded the true church, you are free to belong to those.

But I think it’s disingenuous to keep claiming that the Catholic Church or any Catholic believes the Catholic church is the true church ‘because it says so.’ This just isn’t true.

Can you explain why any other Christian denomination might be more legitimate?

With all due respect, you seem angry. Why?
 
I’m also curious why you think that penance is somehow contrary to what Jesus taught, as if repentance and penance are mutually exclusive things. When I harm someone I love, I want to do something to make it up to them in some little way. It’s an act of love that is normal between people so why wouldn’t we do the same for God?

These things are not mutually exclusive. It’s not either/or but both/and.
 
What have I said that makes me seem angry? I’m not angry.

And what could be the origin of the view that the Church never errs? You deny that it is Biblical, which means it is believed because it was said by somebody and then believed afterward, correct?
 
philophoser said:
For ~1,000 years, a priest who was hearing confession would say “May God have mercy on you and forgive you your sins.” Around the 12th century, this was changed to “I absolve you from your sins.” Which of these is true?
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The essential words (form) used in the Prayer of Absolution are “I absolve you” in the Latin Rite. However, Eastern Catholic Churches use different words and prayers but the absolution is considered perfectly valid. So the Church recognizes that there is more than one form allowed for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. See Catechism of the Catholic Church-- numbers 1449 and 1481.
 
From speaking with my brother on the topic, I believe my disagreement stems from the Catholic belief of “infused righteousness” whereby our righteous works help to perfect Christ’s work on the cross and thus we save ourselves with God’s help.
I think this doctrine grew out of a long tradition of focusing on making outward shows of piety that resulted from a misunderstanding of Jesus’ message of repentance due to Jerome’s translation “do penance.”
Sorry, run-on sentence there.
 
philophoser said:
And what could be the origin of the view that the Church never errs? You deny that it is Biblical, which means it is believed because it was said by somebody and then believed afterward, correct?
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‘Denying it’s Biblical’ is an interesting way of phrasing it. It is Biblical that Jesus built His Church on Peter and historical fact that Peter handed that authority, received directly from Jesus, down to the present day priests.

‘Tradition’ is not merely 'somebody said something once so we believe it. We know that Jesus did and said a great deal more than is in the Bible. Those who knew him personally would certainly have taught all they knew to the early Christians, including other words or deeds or teachings of Jesus Himself. This is not merely somebody just making something up and nobody questioning it.

Catholic Answers has a page on papal infallibility.
 
However you want to phrase it, the belief was started at some time by somebody affiliated with the church in Rome.
At some point, somebody first said, “hey since we are the one true church, it makes sense that the Holy Spirit would never let us teach anything false.” And then people decided it was true.

Pronouncing yourself and your church to be true for all eternity in every important doctrine was probably not a hard view to accept. But believing things because we want to believe them is an important bias we should acknowledge as humans.
 
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