Why does the Catholic Church and the Vatican have so many doctrines? .

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.Why does the Catholic Church and the Vatican have so many doctrines? .
 
Wesley7 said:
Why does the Catholic Church and the Vatican have so many doctrines? . .
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Just the doctrines taught by, and handed down by, the apostles. Perhaps you would like to discuss a particular doctrine? Blessings, Brian
 
Wesley7 said:
Why does the Catholic Church and the Vatican have so many doctrines? . .
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Once you find and accept the truth, you can’t help but think about it a lot. Like a creative chef who loves food, you come up with a lot of recipes.
 
Wesley7 said:
Why does the Catholic Church and the Vatican have so many doctrines? . .
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As stated by other posters, we merely have what has been passed down to us from the Apostles by Oral and Written teaching:

2 Thessalonians 2:13

“So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the** traditions **that you were taught by us, either by **word of mouth **or by our letter.” (NRSV)
 
Because the truth is not simple, it does not simply ignore or discount aspects of human existence. On the contrary the truth encompasses the whole of creation. Thus the dogma of the church is by neccesity rich and varied as it encompasses the entirety of the human condition and the fullness of the faith because everything, absolutely every part of life must be focussed towards the lord and giver of life, God.

The fullness of the truth is within the Catholic Church, it is not like some forms of protestantism which focus on one idea (say faith in jesus and your saved) to the expense of social teachings and everything else. Instead the church IS a whole way of living and of looking at the world oriented solely towards the great commandmant "to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength and love your neighbour as yourself" from which every other teaching flows.
 
Wesley7 said:
Why does the Catholic Church and the Vatican have so many doctrines? . .
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As oppose to what? So few to none? For starters,the Catholic Church is nearly 2,000 years old,while some churches are not even 100 years old.
 
Wesley7 said:
Why does the Catholic Church and the Vatican have so many doctrines? . .
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That’s like asking, why does the Bible have so many pages?

All of that Scripture is useful for teaching (2 Tim 3:16). The word doctrine is cognate with doctor, and the words mean teaching and one who teaches, respectively. Thus teaching and doctrine are the same thing and every verse of the Bible is meant to teach. That’s a lot of teaching/doctrine, and men do not have authority to remove doctrines any more than they have authority to remove pages or books from the Bible.
 
The Catholic Church has, as you phrase it, so many doctrines, because the truth is complicated, encompassing all of creation, and the doctrines of the Catholic Church are designed to take that complexity into account. These doctrines are designed to help Catholics live according to Christ’s example, and that, contrary to what some Protestant sects will tell you, is not a simple thing to do. If it were, the Bible would not be nearly as thick as it is, but rather would be only a sentence or two long. All the doctrines of the Church have evolved in the course of its nearly 2,000 year history, and they all have a purpose.
 
These doctrines are designed to help Catholics live according to Christ’s example, and that, contrary to what some Protestant sects will tell you, is not a simple thing to do.
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You can take a look at the link on my sig. Many of the doctrines define ethical behavior. As technology, scientific discoveries, and society change, we need to develop corollaries based on scripture that specify what is sin, and what is not.

Good question.
 
Wesley7 said:
Why does the Catholic Church and the Vatican have so many doctrines? . .
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Doctrines and Dogmas allow us as Christians to know how to live our life according to God’s plan and so that we know what to believe - especially when two supposed christian messages contradict each other.

Without these things I would argue it would be most difficult to endure to the end.

That being said there are many who oppose the doctrines - perhaps because they do not understand them or contradict what they believe.
 
Judaism (in which we are the fulfillment) is a rather ‘doctrinally-based’ faith itself. So we have that aspect, plus 2000 years of Christianity in which we have not only to teach what the Holy Spirit reveals to us (remember the Scripture about Him leading us to all truth --anybody think that we have somehow today January 6, 2011 managed to ‘know’ all truth yet??) in order to bring the faith to those who have never heard it (nonChristians), but we also have to in a sense defend the “FULLNESS” of truth which we possess against the well-meaning nonCATHOLIC Christians who have somehow managed to lose or alter portions of the truth in their own searching.

So yes, it’s complicated in that so much has to be first a ‘rehash’ of God’s teaching, and that so much else has to be a ‘response’ to people getting that teaching WRONG.

But ultimately IF people would take the time to listen (and to obey the Church’s legitimate authority). . .and we didn’t have to do so much ‘correction’ in response to people ‘getting it wrong’. . .it would be a lot more simple.

When we are first learning English (a long time ago for some of us!) it seems like there are a lot of stupid, petty, and contradictory rules out there. But as we learn, we absorb those ‘rules’ until they become a ‘second-nature’ to us and we don’t have to think about how we read --we just ‘read’.

Without those ‘stupid petty rules’ we might still learn to read, but it would be much harder, we’d make more errors, and we might NEVER get some things exactly right. . .
 
Wesley7 said:
Why does the Catholic Church and the Vatican have so many doctrines? . .
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Why does your country have so many rules and laws?
Criminal law
Traffic law
Fisheries law
Civil law
Matrimonial law
Aviation law
Federal law
etc etc?

You want a faith with no rules?

Do you think God doesn’t have rules?
You want a demonstration of what ‘man’ has done with the simple 10 - Commandments and splintered it a hundredfold?

Hope you get the picture.

:cool:
 
Wesley7 said:
Why does the Catholic Church and the Vatican have so many doctrines? . .
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because they have been revealed by God

why do you post a question about CAtholic doctrine on the non-Catholic forum? you have been around long enough to know the forum rules, and that specific questions on specific doctrines are discussed on the apologetics forum, so you will find it much more rewarding to ask your question there.
 
b/c they’re relaying Truths about God who is infinite. They’ve only scratched the surface.
 
Coming out of the cave, the old monk said, “In the ancient tongue, alpha means ‘eagle.’ It is the bird of heaven, that which represents God - transcendent, over all. Beta is the Hebrew word; we hear it in the name ‘Bethel.’ It means ‘house, home,’ the place in which we are familiar, comfortable, in control, the place where we live out our lives day to day. But these two words, so opposite, have been conjoined: ‘alpha’ and ‘beta,’ because in Christ Jesus heaven is wedded to earth. Christ is the Word made flesh to dwell among us, to pitch his tent in our midst. We are not estranged any longer. This is easy; this is simple,” the old monk said. “Every child knows the alphabet, and so any heart can accept our Faith.”
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The above passage is quoted from Fr. Mark Gruber OSB’s journal Journey Back to Eden: My Life and Times Among the Desert Fathers, which I purchased back in September at a time when I really needed something like that. I’ve read it, that specific passage, over and over again. I think it is a perfect encapsulation of the true faith.
 
Wesley7 said:
Why does the Catholic Church and the Vatican have so many doctrines? . .
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Because that is the way Jesus Christ set it up! The Catholic Church is the living Christ. It is Jesus Christ alive and well in this world.

As long as there is a RCC we can be guaranteed as Christ Promised that he will not leave us orphans. The gates of hell will never prevail. The RCC is here today as yesterday. IT will be here by the Power of the Holy Spirit until Jesus reveals himself once again as Man.

For now he is here in the form of the Holy Spirit.
 
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