Your thoughts please

[R_C]

As this thread proceeds, all I keep reading is the word “division”.

Hence:

The One Church is under the Vicar of Christ.

 

[House_Harkonnen]

If "Truth: exist, it MUST be singular.

So there can be but One True Church

Why is your church the one? Or why is it not the One?

God Bless you,
Patrick

There is only one church, the body of Christ.

All believers are part of it.

My particular denomination is an outward visible element of the church, as is yours and every denomination.

 

[PJM]

=JonNC;12000015]Hi Patrick. The one true Church is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, of which you and I are both members. Certainly, the pure form of His truth exists in the Church Triumphant, which is unaffected by sinful humans. I pray we see each other there.

Jon

THANKS Jon,

God Bless,

I posted this in the non-Catholic Forum, hoping some would reply. It’s curious that none have.

 

[PJM]

=CruceSignati;12000020]I can kind of give you a Baltimore Catechism answer.
The Catholic Church is the one true church because it has the four marks of the one true church. It is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Does that answer your question in some way?

Very goood,

 

[PJM]

=JRKH;12000046]This will be true if there is only one true definition of “Church”…

So the first discussion would need to be - what is that True definition of “Church”…

Peace
James

OK

For THIS discussion we can use:

“A Church is a building dedicated to God for Divine Worship”

 

[JonNC]

that simply cannot be.

Since we have different beliefs about very critical issues, both cannot be “truth”. Only one can have all truth. Other can have some, but truth is not a moving target.

I simply cannot accept that Luther somehow had a better idea than Jesus.

I certainly would not accept that any man has a better idea than Jesus. Beyond that, I agree that truth is not a moving target. Truth is also not determined by any one man other than Christ.
Responding to James (who I’m sure saw this coming ), Lutherans believe the Church to be the congregation of believers where the word is preached and the sacraments administered. While the human sin that causes doctrinal error and division wounds the unity of the Church, it does not wound the Church itself. The truth of His Church is not compromised or eliminated by human sinfulness and misunderstanding on this Earth. Our confusion as His people is not His confusion, and our errors do not in any way mean the gates of Hell will prevail.
Understanding this, while I know that I am a member of His one true Church, I cannot deny that you are, too, and in fact freely welcome the fact that you are, as are many other people that call themselves Christian.

Where His people, the regenerate, are gathered around word and sacrament, there is His Church.

Jon

 

[PJM]

=MacQ;12000156]Not to be a devil’s advocate, but I always look at the assumption a statement is built on.

So there aren’t “truths”?

Many hold even if by denail, that truth is not singular. How else can one expain the multitude of competing Christian faiths?

 

[JonNC]

THANKS Jon,

God Bless,

I posted this in the non-Catholic Forum, hoping some would reply. It’s curious that none have.

Well, you know me by now, Pat. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Jon

 

[PJM]

=Povero;12000209]Your “a priori” is not necessarily correct, it is based upon Human perception, Human rationalizations, Human experience. “Truth” can encompass anything God creates from Himself. Does one “religious belief” contain ALL “truth”? How can that be, since that belief is directly dependent upon Human reportage, Human response, Human imagination, Human everything? I think the greatest TRUTH has been recently discovered by (of all things) “science” which has now proclaimed that the Universe was created in ONE TRILLIONTH OF A SECOND. I make the analogy: we are the mouse on the “space station”; we understand our surroundings within our limitations and we believe in that understanding; we have adapted to survival within those self perceived limitations; we have no concept of space, let alone the space station we are on; we cannot design a space station; we cannot credibly interpret other things on that space station (i.e., we are basically, on this planet, ignorant of things that exist in the oceans).

SO: what is at least ONE “truth” we can rest upon: that Jesus lived, that He suffered, that He died, that He rose. I have no doubt. Many other “christian” denominations have erred seriously because of Martin Luther and we know this. However: do we absolutely KNOW that OUR specific beliefs are “right”? I don’t think it’s possible, really, for any creature to understand the Creator. I think, perhaps, what Jesus intended was to free us of “laws” and self condemnation. I think, rather, He intended us to pray as he taught us (which, by the way, came from the prayers taught to Him by the Blessed Mother as faithful to Judaism in His time). Superstitious behavior is a very well known attribute of “learning” and can be seen at every level in every species. Let us not suffer from the hubris that imagines we, the creatures, can have any full understanding of our Creator.

If what your opinion stated was the truth; sorry it’s not; then it might be valid:

Mt. 16: 16-17 "16] Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven

Luke 12:12 “For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what you must say”

John 14:26 “But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you”

John 16:13 “But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. For he shall not speak of himself; but what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak; and the things that are to come, he shall shew you.”

Amen?

 

[PJM]

=cmodrmac;12000971]If "Truth: exist, it MUST be singular.

So there can be but One True Church

Why is your church the one? Or why is it not the One

the premise is false -

get yourself a copy of Logic by Pascal

but to humor one-all the believers in Christ are the Church -there are different sects if you will but in the Episcopal Church we believe that all are doing God’s work-for example the Pope is a holy man who is doing God’s work so is Bishop Tutu of my Church as are the Lutheran Medical Missions and the work of the Moravian Church with the poor

Fair enough, BUT. allow me then to ask:

Is Working “for God” the SAME as “DOING God’s work?”

And THANK you for your Good WORK!

 

[PJM]

=JRKH;12000218]It’s a tricky question…There is only one ultimate truth…but there can be various “truths” in support of that one ultimate Truth.

To take a somewhat silly example…It is True that I have always lived in a house. Of course one of these was actually my parents house…two were frame houses, one a log house and 4 were brick houses.
One Truth = house. Many variations on how that Truth was built…

Does that make sense?

Peace
James

Yes BUT, I defined “church” for you; to which I would add the caveat: “with One Common set of faith beliefs”

 

[PJM]

=MacQ;12000291]Yes.
It’s true you always lived in a house.
It’s also true that they weren;t always the same.
It’s also true that you didn’t own them all.
It may also be true that you went to school(s).

Lots of TRUTHS
Doesn’t seem at all “tricky” to me.

So allow me then to requalify the OPQ

“A Chirch is a bldg. dediated to Devine Worship, wherein there is one comon set of Faith beliefs, based on lonf-defined-specified and specific issues and questions”

 

[PJM]

=Hans W;12000430]What about if this “Truth” is not accessible to us humans.
There might be a Truth but it is beyond our understanding.

Just a thought

Like the Trinity, for example. BUT does THAT mean that lack of understanding VOIDS “truth?”

 

[PJM]

=Sochi;12000504]What IS is Truth. That might include the idea of church, or some variant, as there has been some sort of explanation for the Unknown called that, or religion, since man fell from animal instinct, or as that seems to have been called in your faith’s Bible, Eden. But the lesser cannot encompass the greater. There then cannot be a “true” church, only one that thinks it is, based on the bias of its members, who are also incapable of either containing the Truth or presenting any useful facsimile of it, especially as an intellectual proposition. There is no container for Truth as such, as that to the human mind is incomprehensible. And one doesn’t have to go to a church to know that.

So it is on you to make a link between the singularity of Truth and the notion that there is, or might be, or could be, or needs to be, a church that is equal to it, or even hypothetically represents it, as Totality can have no useful representation, save perhaps, as very insufficient ad hoc pointers, “1,” “I AM THAT I AM,” or perhaps “1=0.” Any church is necessarily less than Truth itself. The OP proposition is a semantically null, and the question, as does the proposition, makes unwarranted assumptions.

It feels like, from other things you have posted, that you like to make grand assumptions that appear to have value of being proved in your favor. You claim to identify as your accomplishment in being educated on a kind of line of thinking which is not accepted by any means to be as Universal as you feel your claim to that is. Therefore the “shrug” is hubris.

And what do you men “If?”

I limited the question as the OPQ to religious beliefs.

From Father Hardon’s Catholic Distionary:
“TRUTH. Conformity of mind and reality. Three kinds of conformity give rise to three kinds of truth. In logical truth, the mind is conformed or in agreement with things outside the mind, either in assenting to what is or in denying what is not. Its opposite is error. In metaphysical or ontological truth, things conform with the mind. This is primary conformity, when something corresponds to the idea of its maker, and it is secondary conformity when something is intelligible and therefore true to anyone who knows it. In moral truth, what is said conforms with what is on one’s mind. This is truthfulness and its opposite is falsehood.”

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

Truth is Tri-personal in Trinity and makes known the presence of Truth, who is One God and no other.

Does not the bible define Truth? Truth is a person, God personified in Jesus Christ (incarnate) who reveals Truth.

The bible relates Truth as being the Pillar and foundation of Truth is The Church.

The bible reveals the Church as being nothing other than the body of Christ.

Where is the body of Christ? No where else where His True presence body, blood, soul and divinty is present; In the Catholic Mass in His Eucharist.

Those who “eat my body and drink my blood” are in the body of Christ.

We go to the Truth, because Truth first came to us. To be Truth, Truth has to reside in you, with you and through you.

To gain knowledge of the Truth, one must follow the Truth, who is the pillar and foundation of Truth the Church.

To follow the Church =pillar and foundation of Truth, one must be in the Church, the body of Christ in full communion with the head of the Church Jesus Christ Truth Himself.

 

[PJM]

=Neofight;12000695]It’s philosophical, but:

“Truth” is singular. What is “true” is one of many, hence plural.

There are many (plural) that called themselves Churches (just as even scripture talks of the many who are called gods and the one True God), but only one of them is the True Church.

Pilate asked, “What is truth?”, not what are the (many) truths, because truth is the (singular) set of everything true.

peace and all Good!

LETS GET BACK on track here:

The issue is TRUTH as it relates to the possibility of there being ONLY ONE TRUE CHURCH.

Agree or disagree and explain why

 

[JonNC]

Like the Trinity, for example. BUT does THAT mean that lack of understanding VOIDS “truth?”

Now this I like, Pat. Its the point I was trying to make to TexanKnight.

Jon

 

[PJM]

=MacQ;12000766]what next…we discuss what the meaning is IS is?
I give up…I have no idea what you’re getting at.

ONLY if we can get Bill Clintions take on it

 

[PJM]

=cmodrmac;12000971]If "Truth: exist, it MUST be singular.

So there can be but One True Church

Why is your church the one? Or why is it not the One

the premise is false -

get yourself a copy of Logic by Pascal

but to humor one-all the believers in Christ are the Church -there are different sects if you will but in the Episcopal Church we believe that all are doing God’s work-for example the Pope is a holy man who is doing God’s work so is Bishop Tutu of my Church as are the Lutheran Medical Missions and the work of the Moravian Church with the poor

THAT said, Working FOR God does NOT by itself make yours the OTC

 

[MacQ]

If "Truth: exist, it MUST be singular.

So there can be but One True Church

Why is your church the one? Or why is it not the One

the premise is false -

get yourself a copy of Logic by Pascal

but to humor one-all the believers in Christ are the Church -there are different sects if you will but in the Episcopal Church we believe that all are doing God’s work-for example the Pope is a holy man who is doing God’s work so is Bishop Tutu of my Church as are the Lutheran Medical Missions and the work of the Moravian Church with the poor

Makes sense to me…and catholics are called to believe that too.
Some of the discussion here strikes me as pseudointellectual…well, BS.
Thanks for a cogent post!