What are ways that Catholic and Evangelicals can have better and more respectful dialogue?

[Theo2]

My mom might have had the same reaction. Her generation was a period they called the fortress church. The church was being attack from so many fronts that we hunkered down for the duration. The Pope John XXIII said we were going to open the windows and air out the church.
I don’t think I would get offended by words or insults. If you want to discuss Mary send a private message. We don’t want anyone to get shocked.

 

[kainosktisis]

also think that Evangelicals should almost never criticize moral failings, the liturgy, or any other things that are not essential differences.

And this is valid, too. As many of them may not have anything similar, be prepared to explain these things to them.

Some Protestants are open to history about the Church, & some not. Most accept the Scriptures for matters of faith.

 

[GrantKlentzman]

I just wanted to let everyone know that I will be going to a convention for a week. I will probably not be doing too much on these forums. I will be regularly posting next Monday most likely.

 

[kainosktisis]

I agree, but I also think that with some people, you have to take things one thing at a time as they are willing, are open, & capable of hearing & understanding.

Some things, as Catholics understand them, Protestants have no equivalent. Patience & consideration is key - & knowing your audience.

 

[GrantKlentzman]

Ok I’ll look into the arguments you have presented. But please explain to me how you can reconcile that no man can merit God’s favor with CCC 2068?

 

[theLordsvassal]

Bob tells me what Sue believes.

I talk to Sue. No matter what Sue tells me she actually believes, I believe Bob instead.

What Bob tells me Sue believes is given greater priority than what Sue tells me she believes.

This is the essence of the Catholic-Protestant conversation, often-times. [And yet, people are surprised things aren’t working out!]

My counsel is to pick one spiritual issue and discuss it in detail. For example, this issue of faith and works which was raised. On this topic, I think that people most often disagree because they do not really understand what the other person really thinks. The problem may be exacerbated by the fact that those in conversation might not even wholly understand what the Lord teaches and believes!

Consequently, this requires an openness to consider that, “Hey, I might be wrong about something or lack a full understanding.”

Or is it just me?

Figuring that out takes time … do you have the time?

For example, on this issue [faith and works], I might say something like “the Lord is looking for fruit” [based upon Matthew 7:19, Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.]

What is funny about this is that our works are tried by fire: Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is (1 Corinthians 3:13).

To me, this suggests that fruit manifests as acts of obedience to God [what the bible terms good works in Ephesians 2:10: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them].

This is why we are commanded to work out our salvation in fear and trembling before the Lord, obeying the commandments and submitting to the will of God:

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13).

Notice, it is the grace of God that works in us; yet, we participate through the exercise of our free will to come into agreement with his grace for the rest of our lives.

Therefore, I ask: practically speaking, when do we find grace and faith absent works?

I would argue that simply believing Christ is an act of faith and work of obedience to God.

However, does anyone who is truly repentant actually believe that a real Christian would NOT possess both faith and acts of obedience to God?

Yet, we are destroying the church and the work of God over this factious fallacy that forms no real basis of concern.

There is always a temptation to separate ourselves from others in the body of Christ due to our pride, as if we are an elite cadre of super spiritual saints who alone hold the esoteric keys of knowledge to truth and salvation.

Let God be God and every man a liar!

 

[theLordsvassal]

My point was that people are always setting up false spiritual dichotomies [as in 'it’s an either/or proposition" when in fact “it is both!”].

Take the 3rd chapter of John’s gospel for example: John 3:16 says that God loves the world; the last verse (36?) says that the wrath of God abides on the lost sinner?

Well, which is it: does God love the unbelieving and unrepentant pagan or does his wrath abide upon him?

BOTH: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” (Romans 5:8).

 

[MT1926]

I think I made a valid definitive claim. One, I quoted the Catechism (which is an official Roman Catholic source) and I also stated what most evangelicals believe. Believing that salvation is by faith alone in Christ Alone and believing that you have to do good works in order to be saved seem to me to be logically contradictory and therefore cannot both be right. As a result, we should respectfully dialogue and discover which way leads to salvation. Please keep this dialogue on topic. I have already said in the original post that this discussion is not to discuss whether or not Catholicism or Evangelicalism is true but rather to see how we can better dialogue. Thank you

Why do you believe I was going off topic Grant?

I bolded the text I was addressing three times in my post. Here it is again…“We can’t both be right”.

I am not trying to pick on you, I’m trying to respond to the OP. You just brought up another point about having a dialogue.

Read the other persons post carefully and find the context of the post.

I bolded it three times, to point out my context and yet you jumped to the conclusion that my post was defensive against your position. Yes I did give a defense about Catholic Understanding but that was just to point out we can both be right, on certain aspects of salvation, if we would get our definitions in line.

On a final note just to help you out a little more with being respectful of the others position. Just like the Bible the Catholic Catechism has to be read in context. If you are not 100% sure that you understand the context don’t site it to validate your claim. You sighted CCC 2068.

The Council of Trent teaches that the Ten Commandments are obligatory for Christians and that the justified man is still bound to keep them; The Second Vatican Council confirms: "The bishops, successors of the apostles, receive from the Lord . . . the mission of teaching all peoples, and of preaching the Gospel to every creature, so that all men may attain salvation through faith, Baptism and the observance of the Commandments.

This section of the Catechism has nothing to do with the Catholic Church’s teaching on Salvation. This is about the importance of the 10 Commandments and us still needing to observe the commandments. So even though you believe you made a valid claim, you sighted a Catholic Source out of context to validate your claim. Which would basically invalidate your claim in the eyes of a knowledgeable Catholic.

I’m not arguing Justification here, I’m trying to point you to the importance of CONTEXT.

God Bless

 

[MT1926]

Honestly I think this is more of a modern problem sometimes, and it can impede dialogue.

I’m not sure what you mean by this? Not that I disagree with you. I totally agree that this is more of a modern problem. Just not sure if we are on the same page as to why this is a modern problem.

Would really appreciate knowing your thoughts on this before I apply why I believe this is a modern problem to the rest of your response.

I want to respond to the rest of your post but how you answer this might affect the outcome of my response.

God Bless

 

[GrantKlentzman]

I’ll look into what you have said. However I will probably not be able to participate in the next few days. Please be patient and I’ll check out what you have said.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Discussions between Catholics and non-Catholics comes down to a single point: what is the TRUTH?

The greater question is, how do you achieve salvation? If people outside the Catholic Church can achieve salvation, it would be good to know how?

 

[adf417]

Catholics believe that you attain salvation by faith, baptism, and observance of the commandments (CCC 2068). Whereas Evangelicals believe that salvation is received by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone apart from works. We can’t both be right. Therefore, we should respectfully dialogue about topics like these.

Hi Grant. It pains me to watch someone misquote the CCC as you have here, out of context and from a section not even found in the index under “salvation”. This is not a fair comparison of the Catholic view of salvation. For a more in depth look at the Catholic view of salvation see the more than 30 references here on page 845 of the index.

http://ccc.usccb.org/flipbooks/catechism/index.html#845

Peace!!!

 

[ZMystiCat]

CCC 2068 says nothing about merit. It lays out some things necessary for salvation but doesn’t delve into what salvation is or the nuances of what is going on when one obtains it. If you want to develop a better understanding of the Catholic view of salvation, you should start with CCC 1987-2029 (the article on justification, grace, and merit), not CCC 2068, which is discussing the importance of the Ten Commandments after everything has been said on the nature of salvation.

Based on this, when we read CCC 2068, we should be coming into it with the understanding that that we:

1. Cannot merit grace and salvation. That is, we can never work hard enough or well enough to earn God’s favor.
2. God’s grace, while free, is not forced on the individual. The individual must freely receive and freely cooperate with grace rather than freely reject it.

The second point makes it clear that saying baptism or the Ten Commandments are necessary for salvation are not opposed to Catholic teaching, because they are how we receive and cooperate with God’s freely-offered grace. The first point, though, reigns us in to remind us that we are recipients of grace and merit, not earners of them. This reigning in is, unfortunately, where a lot of Protestant apologists get completely lost in trying to criticize the Catholic Church. They know that we believe works are necessary, but they miss why those works are necessary.

By the way, I’m not trying to berate you. It’s a good question that gets into territory sort of foreign to many Protestants, particularly monergistic ones, so I can see why there’s confusion and had those myself when coming from Presbyterianism. I just sort of wish more Protestants would ask the question rather than quote mine the catechism and accuse us of not being Christian because, as I believe is well-demonstrated in this thread, quote mining can lead to some problems when dialoguing.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

How can we better dialogue with each other on the primary issues that divide us

This can only happen with prayer, we need to pray for each other and with each other, for the good of our communities.

 

[DarkLight]

I’m not sure what you mean by this? Not that I disagree with you. I totally agree that this is more of a modern problem. Just not sure if we are on the same page as to why this is a modern problem.

Late reply, but…the way I see it is that we’re in a society where it’s very hard to say, I think you’re wrong about this, without it being seen as an insult. There really are things in our respective faiths where for one to be right the other must be wrong - for example, as a Catholic I believe confession to a priest is the normative way set out by God to forgive sins, while a protestant might believe that direct prayer to God is the only way.

The problem in our modern society is it’s much harder for people to be in a position where we can communicate both respect and disagreement. There’s an idea that disagreeing with people’s deeply held beliefs is automatically disrespectful to the person you’re disagreeing with.