What do YOU find confusing about Catholicism?

[MargaretofCortona]

The idea that we are inherently wretched and inclined to sin yet God will punish us for acting according to our natural. The fact generations are cursed due to the sin of Adam. I do not understand Genesis at all. I prefer the new testament.

 

[De_Maria]

You mean, the word, “impassable”?

But God is also a personal God. So, that amounts to one of those paradoxes.

Scripture depicts God as a loving and caring God. He is even described as jealous. Scripture is inerrant. Therefore, how is God impassible?

As the saying goes, two contradictory statements can’t be true at the same time. And I think that “time” is the key to understanding this dilemma. In eternity, outside of time, God is impassible. But in time, God is a personal God who loves us and cares for us.

That’s the only way I make sense of it.

 

[Hope_Philomena]

I sort of see what you’re saying. God isn’t confined to the concept of time, so the possibilities are endless I suppose.

 

[De_Maria]

The idea that we are inherently wretched

That’s the Protestant teaching. The Catholic Church teaches that we are inherently good because we are made in the image of God. But we have a fallen nature with a propensity to sin.

and inclined to sin

The inclination is not beyond remedy. As proof, we have the many faithful of the Old Testament, who obeyed God and were saved. See Hebrews 11.

yet God will punish us for acting according to our natural.

God has given all mankind a choice. Obey Him and live or disobey and be punished. He gave all men a conscience to guide them through life. Even non-Christians, have no excuse for not obeying God’s will.

The fact generations are cursed due to the sin of Adam.

That is also Protestant doctrine. Adam’s sin caused Adam to lose Original Justice. Since He lost this condition, He could not pass it on to the rest of us.

I do not understand Genesis at all. I prefer the new testament.

[/QUOTE]
Yeap, it is hard.

 

[MargaretofCortona]

Wow. Thanks. Is there any sources for this? I think I’ve associated myself with the Protestant understanding of God. Most of my in real life friends are Protestant. I believed their teaching without learning my own.
Here’s life’s biggest question.
Why do we make mistakes?
How forgiving is God for our mistakes?
I cannot seem to ignore anyone let alone myself honestly.
I keep thinking I should know better or how 8 wish I acted differently.
Why does God give us all the same strengths? Why do we have weaknesses in character, personality, etc.?
There are certain poor habits I struggle to overcome.
If we all have free will or the willpower to make the right choices, then why is it difficult?

 

[De_Maria]

Wow. Thanks. Is there any sources for this?

The Catechism:

356 Of all visible creatures only man is “able to know and love his creator”.219 He is “the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake”,220 and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity:

What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good.221

I think I’ve associated myself with the Protestant understanding of God. Most of my in real life friends are Protestant. I believed their teaching without learning my own.
Here’s life’s biggest question.
Why do we make mistakes?

Because we are not perfectly united to the Holy Spirit.

How forgiving is God for our mistakes?

Perfectly, if we repent.

I cannot seem to ignore anyone let alone myself honestly.

I don’t know what that means.

I keep thinking I should know better or how 8 wish I acted differently.
Why does God give us all the same strengths?

He doesn’t.

Why do we have weaknesses in character, personality, etc.?

I don’t know. God even made the Angels different from one another.

There are certain poor habits I struggle to overcome.
If we all have free will or the willpower to make the right choices, then why is it difficult?

[/QUOTE]
That is the old yoke that we haven’t discarded completely. The more closely we are united to God, the easier they are to overcome.

 

[MargaretofCortona]

Oops I suck at writing on the phone. Like I meant I cannot seem to forget myself let alone others. For some people all that is easy. I keep wondering why God has given us different strengths? If we were to completely rely on Christ, we would make no errors? The suffering of the saints seems like such a turn off. I guess with the Lord there is always something not right about you. Something to change. I don’t know why I don’t have the best image of God. He comes across a perfectionistic critical parent.

 

[2towers]

What confuses me the most is why so many people are trying their hardest to mess it up.

 

[De_Maria]

Oops I suck at writing on the phone. Like I meant I cannot seem to forget myself let alone others. For some people all that is easy. I keep wondering why God has given us different strengths?

I don’t know. But it is a fact that He has:

Romans 12: 3 For by the grace given to me I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than one ought to think, but to think soberly, each according to the measure of faith that God has apportioned.

If we were to completely rely on Christ, we would make no errors?

That’s what I understand to be true. The Virgin Mary is our proof.

The suffering of the saints seems like such a turn off.

They didn’t seem turned off. They understood the role they were playing as victim souls.

I guess with the Lord there is always something not right about you. Something to change. I don’t know why I don’t have the best image of God. He comes across a perfectionistic critical parent.

[/QUOTE]
I guess so. But if you love your parents, you know that they want the best for you.

Romans 8:28 God’s Indomitable Love in Christ. 28 We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

 

[sonofbarry]

The theology of the resurrection (ours, not JC’s).
It’s terribly confusing. I’ve never had a clergyman explain the theology, much less the logic, behind it.

 

[De_Maria]

The theology of the resurrection (ours, not JC’s).

They’re supposed to be the same. What do you see as different?

It’s terribly confusing. I’ve never had a clergyman explain the theology, much less the logic, behind it.

Then, you should probably go by JC’s. But, could you point to what you see as the difference between the clergy’s explanation and what you view as JC’s?

 

[MargaretofCortona]

I made another typo. I think I should utilize my computer. I mean I cannot seem to forgive myself and let alone others. Not many people fully trust in the Lord because they do not know Him. I don’t know if we will all be like Mary. Why does God demand so much from us? Like God calls us to be perfect. I do ultimately think my parents have my best interest in mind but I don’t think their methods to get their point across is the best.

 

[Andy_82]

That’s a good one. It’s an ancient religion with a lot of literature and law to cover. But, the most confusing thing for me would have to be the old ladies I run into at mass. I’ve never seen anyone treat a pew as if it were a space to be guarded at all odds. It’s more funny than confusing. But, it does make you wonder if they’ve lost a bit of sight as they’ve got on.

 

[AlNg]

Someone wrote:<<Just think about this: “it is impossible to travel into the past, because we could change it, so the present would never actualize”.>>

It is impossible for a human. But not for God.

Really? How is it possible that God can change the past? Changing the past would involve logical contradictions. Are you sure that God can change the past?

 

[De_Maria]

Someone wrote:<<Just think about this: “it is impossible to travel into the past, because we could change it, so the present would never actualize”.>>

De_Maria:

It is impossible for a human. But not for God.

Really? How is it possible that God can change the past?

All things are possible with God.

Changing the past would involve logical contradictions.

No, it wouldn’t. If God changed time, you wouldn’t even be aware of it. So, what would you contradict?

Are you sure that God can change the past?

[/QUOTE]
I’m certain.

 

[Scowler]

All things are possible with God.

I can hardly wait to see the first God-created four sided triangle drawn on the reverse side of a Mobius strip, held by a married bachelor.

 

[De_Maria]

I can hardly wait to see the first God-created four sided triangle

You mean, a square.

drawn on the reverse side of a Mobius strip,

Easy peasy. Just pick a right side.

held by a married bachelor.

[/QUOTE]
Otherwise known as a priest.

Nothing difficult here. All you need is the right nomenclature.

 

[Luke6_37]

I puzzled over this reply for a few minutes. I don’t think I have a particularly Greek philosophical worldview.

N.T. Wright would argue that you certainly do! You are making three mistakes common to Western Christianity, which produces a distorted view of the great Biblical narrative and this distortion makes it difficult to understand the Gospel and especially the meaning of the Cross. These three mistakes are related and reinforce one another…

• The first is to platonize our eschatology
• The second is to moralize our anthropology
• The third is to paganize our soteriology.

Eschatology refers to the ultimate destiny or purpose of humankind. Why were we created in the first place? If you read the Creation story in Genesis 1 - 3, you will see that we were NOT created to ultimately exist as disembodied souls in a non spatio-temporal place called “heaven”. Rather, humanity was created to bear the Image of God on earth. We are the mediators between God and Creation, because we are partly both. That is our vocation and purpose and that is the end to which we are returning.

The message of the Gospels is about our personal salvation WITHIN this greater Biblical narrative. The Greek word that is translated into English as “sin” literally means “missing the mark”. At its root, all sin is a form of idolatry. When we worship something other than God (e.g., knowledge, money, power, pleasure) we give that thing the power that should be ours and reduce and distort our humanity - we “miss the mark” of genuine humanness. As a result, the image of God that we bear begins to fracture and we become enslaved by the idols we worship. Salvation is freedom from slavery.

Continued in next post…

 

[Luke6_37]

I puzzled over this reply for a few minutes. I don’t think I have a particularly Greek philosophical worldview.

Continued from previous post…

Jesus was sent to take back the power that has been handed over to idols, to defeat them and to break the chains of slavery that held humanity in their grip. Because he is Israel’s King (Messiah) he can appropriately be our representative on the battlefield (think of David and Goliath); because he is our representative, he is our substitute and bears the full fury of the evil we empowered; because he rose from the dead, he proved to have emerged victorious, thus robbing evil of its power over those who believe in him. However, the Resurrection goes even a step further than this, for on that day God began the restoration of the work of Creation that was begun in Genesis 1 & 2. The blood of Christ purified the world so that there would no longer be any barrier between God and his people (this is how “atonement” worked in the Jewish Temple), and the Biblical vision of New Creation of a New Heaven and New Earth coming together as one was fulfilled. This is what Jesus meant by the coming of the Kingdom of God.

There is nothing incoherent about this very Jewish story, which runs straight through the Old Testament all the way to the book of Revelation. However, when you assume a platonic eschatology (we are souls seeking to return to heaven) and a moral anthropology (the knowledge of good and evil trumps our relationship with God, which was the sin of Adam & Eve) and a pagan soteriology (sacrifice understood as the death of an innocent victim in order to appease the wrath of the god), then you introduce all sorts of misconceptions and internal contradictions that are derived from pagan world.

If you want to make sense of Christianity, you need to change your way of thinking. The word for that is conversion.

If you have an hour, watch this:

 

[Techno2000]

PJM:

Dear friend in Christ,

What do YOU find to be confusing or mysterious about Catholicism?

God Bless you

Patrick

I do not understand why the Church requires approvals of personal revelations. The early Christians did not need any approval. If someone received a personal revelation from Christ on an issue where the Church is wrong, they would discard it as heresy and shun the idea and or the person.

Current Canonical Explanation: RESPONSE TO APPARITIONS AND VISIONARIES FOR ROMAN CATHOLICS

Since the abolition of Canon 1399 and 2318 of the former Code of Canon Law by Paul VI in AAS58 (1966) page 1186, publications about new apparitions, revelation, prophecies, miracles, etc., have been allowed to be distributed and read by the faithful without the express permission of the Church, providing that they contain nothing which contravenes faith and morals. This means, no imprimatur is necessary.

The Discernment of Visionaries and Apparitions Today by Albert J. Hebert, S.M., Page III