Posted on 02/09/2015 12:47:13 PM PST by RnMomof7
Perhaps the most important aspect of the continuing controversies between Protestants and Catholics is the area of epistemology, or how we human beings know things--in this case, how we know divine truth. The question "How do you know?" is central to the Catholic polemic as it is presented to Protestants by some of the former's ablest contemporary defenders. 1 Unfortunately, these apologists not only commit a fundamental error in the target they direct this attack against, but they also miss a fatal flaw in their own logic.
The first mistake lies in the confusion of modern "evangelical" Christianity--almost universally identified by Catholic apologists as "fundamentalism"--with the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Many Catholic apologists have honed to near perfection the technique of blasting to smithereens the anti-creedal, anti-historical, anti-intellectual positions of "Bible-Only" fundamentalists. By focusing their attention on the "no creed but Christ" foolishness of the latter and wrongly equating it with the classical Protestant formal principle of Sola Scriptura, they attempt to expose what they believe to be a glaring inconsistency in something they rather generically call "the Protestant view". 2
After discarding this caricature as hopelessly false, the defenders of Rome then attempt to establish the authority of their Church by building a step-by-step inductive argument, or more simply stated, by gratuitously piling up "historical" facts as if such can stand on their own outside of their basic interpretive framework. In so doing, they ironically end up exposing a basic inconsistency in their own apologetic! This inconsistency appears when the Catholic principle of how humans know divine truth meets its Protestant opponent on the field of historical battle. Let us try to follow their reasoning.
The Bible--"Just Another Ancient Book"?
The argument usually begins by admitting up front that it is not going to treat the Scriptures as if they are divinely inspired, but merely as legitimate historical documents. It then proceeds to build a chain of "purely" historical evidence--passages of Scripture, quotations from early Christians and Councils, etc--which is supposed to show that Christ instituted a Church with certain properties, properties which are today found only in the Roman ecclesiastical hierarchy.
In a debate on Sola Scriptura with Patrick Madrid (then of Catholic Answers), James White asked Madrid how he could know that the Roman Church is the one true Church. Madrid responded as follows:
This is how I know, Mr. White. I can look independent of what I see in Scripture. In fact, I'm not going to even treat Scripture as an inspired document for the moment, just for the sake of argument. I'm going to look at whether or not a man named Jesus Christ lived. Can I prove that historically? Yes. Can I prove that Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead and appeared to many people who as eyewitnesses claimed that He died and rose from the dead? I can prove that. In two minutes I can't prove it for your satisfaction, but I think we would all agree that those things are true. I can demonstrate through non-Christian, unbiased sources, in fact sometimes actually biased against the Christian position, that Jesus Christ instituted a church. We can look at the writings of these early Christians, not only the apostles but also the men and women in the post-apostolic era. I can look at the Scripture and see what, independent of whether or not I believe it is inspired, I can look and see a description of the church that Jesus established. All of you know the verse in Matthew 16 verse 18, "On this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." Mr. White and I would argue all night long over what the rock is, but the fact is Jesus established a church. The next point is that as I look at Scripture I see that the church is described as having certain functions, certain attributes, certain characteristics, certain jobs that it has to perform, and I can compare and find out, well, historically, yes, I can show that that was done, through the writing of the Scriptures. So if I believe that Jesus is God, and I believe that His promise is true that He founded a church, then I have to say, this is the next step, I have to say, does that church, is there a church today which fits that description which is doing all the things that Jesus said. If that's true, if I can find that, and I have, by the way, it's the Catholic Church, then I know that what is described here in this book is the same church that I see today. So when that church tells me, Jesus said in Luke 10:16, "He who listens to you listens to Me, he who refuses to hear you refuses to hear Me," when I hear that Church speak I know that it is Jesus speaking through the church.
Notice that Madrid's argument follows the familiar evidentialist pattern of much of "evangelical" Protestantism, though it is used by him not to establish the authority of the Bible, but of the Roman Church 3 --a fact which reveals that there are two competing ultimate authorities in the debate: Sola Scriptura and the Catholic Magisterium. It is then marshalled against a caricature of the Protestant position--which, it is said, amounts to believing the Bible is inspired simply "because it says it is". 2 I quote Madrid again, from his essay "Sola Scriptura: A Blueprint for Anarchy":
Another problem for Sola Scriptura is the canon of the New Testament. "There's no inspired table of contents" in Scripture that tells us which books belong and which ones don't. That information comes to us from outside Scripture. Our knowledge of which books comprise the canon of the New Testament must be infallible; if not, there's no way to know for sure if the books we regard as inspired really are inspired. it must be binding; otherwise folks would be free to have their own customized canon containing those books they take a fancy to and lacking the ones they don't. And it must be a part of divine revelation; if it's not it's merely a tradition of men, and if that were so, Protestants would be forced into the intolerable position of championing a canon of purely human origin.
The Catholic doesn't have this problem, claim Madrid and the others, because he has an external authority--the Church--to tell him that the Bible is inspired and which books are contained in it. Madrid continues:
Sola Scriptura becomes "canon" fodder as soon as the Catholic asks the Protestant to explain how the books of the Bible got into the Bible. Under the Sola Scriptura rubric, Scripture exists in an absolute epistemological vaccuum, since it and the veracity of its contents "dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church." [quoting the Westminster Confession of Faith]. If that's true, how then can anyone know with certitude what belongs in Scripture in the first place? The answer is, you can't. Without recognizing the trustworthiness of the Magisterium, endowed with Christ's own teaching authority (c.f., Matt. 16:18-19; 18:18; Luke 10:16) guided by the Holy Spirit (John 14:25-26; 16:13), and the living apostolic Tradition of the Church (1 Cor. 11:1; 2 Thess. 2:15, 2 Timothy 2:2), there is no way to know for certain which books belong in Scripture and which do not. As soon as Protestants begin to appeal to the canons drawn up by this or that Father, or this or that council, they immediately concede defeat, since they are forced to appeal to the very "testimony of man and Church" that they claim not to need.
The problem with this line of reasoning should be manifestly obvious. Notice the numerous Scriptural references Madrid cites as part of his proof that we need the Church to tell us what the Scriptures are. Since he has already told us that no one (particularly Protestants, of course) can know the Scriptures apart from the witness of the Church, how then can he cite these passages of Scripture as part of his "proof" for how he knows those Scriptures in the first place?
The problem is particularly acute when we examine the central passage of Scripture Madrid cited--Matthew 16:18-19. These verses supposedly imply that the Church will be infallible (so that the gates of Hades will not prevail against it). But on the Catholic premise that the infallible witness of the institutional body of bishops is necessary in order for one to "know for sure" that the book of Matthew is legitimate while, say, the Gospel of Thomas is not, how can the book of Matthew be used as part of a "proof" of the existence of that infallible body of bishops? Thus, the Roman apologist uses Scripture to support his claims about the infallible Church and then inconsistently asserts that no one can know what Scripture is until the infallible Church tells him so!
These facts show us that despite the assertion that the authority of the Roman Church can be "proven" by the use of the New Testament records "merely" as legitimate historical records, exactly the opposite is occurring. Madrid and all Catholic apologists who use this type of argument are tacitly assuming from the get-go that they "know for sure" what books are trustworthy historical records, nay, even infallible historical records! On what basis do they reject the numerous heretical writings, many of which also claim to be presenting the "catholic" (universal) faith?
Those Marvelous, Unbiased, Infallible Catholic Historians
But the problems don't stop with this disingenous use of Scripture.4 Catholic apologists treat all of Church history with the same question-begging, "neutral" evidentialism. I will not even attempt to get into detailed refutations of Catholic historical points as historical points. Such is beyond the limited scope of this essay, and at any rate, has been done by others far better than I ever could. 5 My focus is on the inconsistent epistemology that is used by the Catholic apologists.
If we were to take the principle that such apologists apply exclusively against Sola Scriptura and make it into a general principle, it would be this: infallible external confirmation is a prerequisite for any claim to "know for sure" that a chosen ultimate authority is the correct one. Very well. If this principle is true, we should rightly expect Catholics to jump at the chance to show us such an infallible external proof for their Church, especially if they are going to parade through the town square proclaiming that Sola Scriptura is invalid because it has no infallible external proof. It seems obvious that if the identity and supreme authority of Scripture must be "proven" by means of an infallible external authority, then so must the identity and supreme authority of "the Catholic Church".
Oddly, this challenge goes unanswered. Though Catholic apologists often like to point out that even heretics quote the Bible in support of their errors, I have yet to find even one Catholic apologist who honestly attempts to grapple with the fact that many heretics (both past and present) also claim to be "the Catholic Church". 6 With tongue in cheek, I must ask these apologists how they can "know for sure" that the particular organization they are defending is the real "Catholic Church". How do they "know for sure" that the Protestant Reformers--or for that matter, the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses--weren't right after all?
Never ones to follow the supposedly Mormon-esque "I know its true because I feel it in my heart" tactic they wrongly attribute to classical Protestants, these heroically "objective" warriors tell us they have an answer to our query. They ask us to wait patiently while they zealously weld into place beam after beam of historical data, following a blueprint only they can see. Soon, they point proudly to the veritable skyscraper they have built, and note with triumph that its shadow overwhelms the pitiful shack of Protestant "novelties" that were seemingly spun from whole cloth barely five centuries ago.
Unfortunately for them, this massive edifice of historical trivia turns out to be utterly useless as a "proof". This is so because the very apologists who are compiling the evidence are not themselves infallible, and so, on their own criterion of knowledge, they cannot really "know for sure" that they are dealing with history fairly. How do they "know for sure" that they have not left some relevant historical facts out of the picture, or allowed their own peculiar biases to warp their reading of history, or perhaps even that the "historical" sources they are drawing upon are not clever frauds which have simply not been detected yet? 7
All these questions reveal that the use of historical evidences as a ground of faith in the trustworthiness of the Roman institution is a well-meaning, but nevertheless misguided tactic. Such evidences do have their place--as warrants, or supports, of the trust these Catholics already had in their Church (although they can still be challenged by Protestants). But if, as the Roman defenders tell us, the warrants for our faith must be infallible, these warrants can never serve as the foundations, since they, like the apologists who adduce them, are fallible.
If one still doubts the validity of my reasoning here, just ask why, if the historical skyscraper produced by Catholic apologists is really so incredible, really so "obvious", why does it not convince Protestants like James White, who is at least as well-informed about Church history as Patrick Madrid? And why can a James White or a William Webster produce similar skyscrapers that appear "obvious" to Protestants but not to Catholics? One begins to suspect that it is just not enough to say one's faith is true because it is "historical".
Conclusion
The claim that the identity and supreme authority of the Roman Catholic institutional Church can be established to be true solely by the use of non-inspired historical writings (which include those writings known as "the Bible") is false for two reasons.
First, it tacitly assumes the very thing that it is supposed to be proving. Both Catholics and Protestants take the Scriptures as reliable sources of information about God even if any given individuals in either camp cannot produce external supports for it. Protestants at least admit that this is what they are doing. Catholics, on the other hand (particularly the apologists), propose to treat Scripture "only as a historical document", which they then use to build up the authority of their Church. But in so doing, they ignore the fact that they are assuming that they "know" what books constitute "Scripture"--the very thing they deny that can be done apart from their Church!
Second, the claim that the identity and supreme authority of the Roman Catholic institutional Church can be established to be true solely by the use of non-inspired historical writings neglects to factor into its equation the fact that historical arguments are by their nature fallible, since they are constructed by fallible people who can never know all the facts and their inter-relationships with perfect clarity.
Thus, the apologetic tactic used by many Roman Catholic apologists today actually undermines the very "certainty of faith" it is supposed to safeguard. The Catholic tells the Protestant that he cannot know that Scripture is trustworthy since he doesn't have an infallible Church to vouchsafe the canon to him--that he has only a "fallible collection of infallible books". But the Protestant need not be nervous about admitting the truth of the last phrase, for he is still in a better epistemological position! He can simply reverse the argument and point out that the Catholic cannot know that Rome is the true Church, since all he has is "a fallible collection of (possibly false) historical trivia".
Hence, like the fundamentalists they so vehemently oppose, the argument of today's Catholic apologists rests in what one of their number, Patrick Madrid, termed "an absolute epistemological vaccuum". The irony is too delicious to ignore.
Well done! In addition to that. If you study the prophecy of Daniel concerning the 490 years allotted the nation of Israel you will see that the timing of Christ was exactly as it was prophesied.
Yes it is. And I completely, perfectly, and enduringly emptied that 100 bu wagon load of corn into the 1000bu storage bin. It was I who did it, it was in the past, the bin had nothing to do with the unloading. The bin enduringly now holds that 100bu of corn. The bin however is NOT full of corn.
we have to see this from Luke's perspective. he never indicates she was always favored with grace from birth or anytime prior to that.
however, from his perspective she was favored with grace when the angel spoke to her and from his perspective she remained that way. that's when the clock starts ticking on the perfect tense.
that should help clear up the issue even more.
No, it didn't depend on Mary. Do you really think God wouldn't have fulfilled His promise of a savior regardless of what Mary said? And the angel said "You will". The angel did NOT say "will you".
Or cognitive thought. The angel did NOT say "will you?". He said "you will". Big difference.
I'll betcha not for Catholics.
According to Rome it alone can interpret scripture .. it must be done by the magisterium to be "infallible " ...another non biblical belief
But could you point us to the "infallible "commentary of the entirety scriptures so we too could have access to the "infallible" meaning
Wrong. You can no more make the atonement a continuous event than you can His birth, the feeding of the 5,000, His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, etc. except by appeal to placing them within the timeless realm of God, which makes a mockery of His revelation to us in which we operate and He relates to us.
For aa shown in post 91 , you want to make the Mass "the same Sacrifice as that of the Cross," "a sacrifice of propitiation," "expiatory for sins," again and again placing the Lord upon your "altar to be offered up again as the Victim for the sins of man," offering "himself a most acceptable Victim to the eternal Father, as he did upon the Cross," "no less than on Calvary," and by which "the work of our redemption is carried out," only manner of offering being different. in that "the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner."
However, Christ plainly declared "It is finished,"
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins , the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18)
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; (Hebrews 10:12)
For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14)
Here you say Jesus does not mean what He says: “”This is my body” no more refers to bread literally being the Lord’s actual or transubstantiated body than “This cup is the new testament in my blood” means the cup is literally blood” That’s too bad for you.
Wrong again, as it is you who are engaging in a practice of endocannibalism, only known among pagans, based upon an inconsistent imposition of semi-literal understanding of the Lord's supper. For the Lord also did not say "this is turned into my body and body," which is what Catholicism teaches, while to be consistent with plain-language hermeneutic then you must regard statement as "I am the door" as literal, as well as those by others.
For the use of figurative language for eating and drinking is quite prevalent in Scripture, in which men are referred to as bread, and drinking water as being the blood of men, and the word of God is eaten, etc
For David distinctly called water the blood of men, and would not drink it, but poured it out on the ground as an offering to the Lord, as it is forbidden to drink blood.
And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Beth–lehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it. These things did these three mighty men. (2 Samuel 23:16-17)
To be consistent with their plain-language hermeneutic Caths must also insist this was literal. As well as when God clearly states that the Canaanites were “bread: “Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us” (Num. 14:9)
And or that the Promised Land was “a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof.” (Num. 13:32)
And or when David said that his enemies came to “eat up my flesh.” (Ps. 27:2)
And or when Jeremiah proclaimed, Your words were found. and I ate them. and your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart” (Jer. 15:16)
And or when Ezekiel was told, “eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” (Ezek. 3:1)
And or when (in a phrase similar to the Lord’s supper) John is commanded, “Take the scroll ... Take it and eat it.” (Rev. 10:8-9 )
Furthermore, the use of figurative language for Christ and spiritual things abounds in John, using the physical to refer to the spiritual:
• In John 1:29, Jesus is called “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” — but he does not have hoofs and literal physical wool.
• In John 2:19 Jesus is the temple of God: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” — but He is not made of literal stone.
• In John 3:14,15, Jesus is the likened to the serpent in the wilderness (Num. 21) who must “be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal” (vs. 14, 15) — but He is not made of literal bronze.
• In John 4:14, Jesus provides living water, that “whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (v. 14) — but which was not literally consumed by mouth.
• In John 7:37 Jesus is the One who promises “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” — but this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. (John 7:38)
• In Jn. 9:5 Jesus is “the Light of the world” — but who is not blocked by an umbrella.
• In John 10, Jesus is “the door of the sheep,”, and the good shepherd [who] giveth his life for the sheep”, “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” vs. 7, 10, 11) — but who again, is not literally an animal with cloven hoofs.
• In John 15, Jesus is the true vine — but who does not physically grow from the ground nor whose fruit is literally physically consumed.
Moreover, nowhere in Scripture was physically eating anything literal the means of obtaining spiritual and eternal life, but which by believing the word of God, the gospel. By which one is born again. (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-9; Eph. 1:13) For His words are spirit, and life. (Jm. 6:63)
Jn 6, and which we see examples of the Lord,
speaking in an apparently physical way in order to reveal the spiritual meaning to those who awaited the meaning, which, as elsewhere, the Lord revealed to true seekers.
In. Jn. 2:19,20, the Lord spoke in a way that seems to refer to destroying the physical temple in which He had just drove out the money changers, and left the Jews to that misapprehension of His words, so that this was a charge during His trial and crucifixion by the carnally minded. (Mk. 14:58; 15:29) But the meaning was revealed to His disciples after the resurrection.
Likewise, in Jn. 3:3, the Lord spoke in such an apparently physical way that Nicodemus exclaimed, "How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" (John 3:4)
And in which, as is characteristic of John, and as seen in Jn. 6:63, the Lord goes on to distinguish btwn the flesh and the Spirit, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," (John 3:6) leaving Nicodemus to figure it out, requiring seeking, rather than making it clear. Which requires reading more than that chapter, as with Jn. 6, revealing being born spiritually in regeneration. (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-9; Eph. 1:13; 2:5)
Likewise in Jn. 4, beside a well of physical water, the Lord spoke to a women seeking such water of a water which would never leave the drinker to thirst again, which again was understood as being physical. But which was subtly inferred to be spiritual to the inquirer who stayed the course, but which is only made clear by reading more of Scriptural revelation.
And thus we see the same manner of revelation in Jn. 6, in which the Lord spoke to souls seeking physical sustenance of a food which would never leave the eater to hunger again. Which again was understood as being physical, but which was subtly inferred to be spiritual to the inquirers who stayed the course. But which is only made clear by reading more of Scriptural revelation.
In so doing the Lord makes living by this "bread" of flesh and blood as analogous to how He lived by the Father, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." (John 6:57)
And the manner by which the Lord lived by the Father was as per Mt. 4:4: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4)
And therefore, once again using metaphor, the Lord stated to disciples who thought He was referring to physical bread, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." (John 4:34)
And likewise the Lord revealed that He would not even be with them physically in the future, but that His words are Spirit and life:
What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:62-63)
And as with those who imagined the Lord was referring to the physical Temple, the Lord left the protoCatholics to go their own way, who seemed to have yet imagined that the Lord was sanctioning a form of cannibaalism, or otherwise had no heart for further seeking of the Lord who has "the words of eternal life" as saith Peter, not the flesh, eating of which profits nothing spiritually..
And which is made clear by reading more of Scriptural revelation For as shown, the fact is that the allegorical understanding of Jn. 6:27-69 is the only one that is consistent with the rest of Scripture, and again, which nowhere in all of Scripture is spiritual and eternal life gained by literally eating anything physical, which manner of eating is what Jn. 6:53,54 makes as an imperative according to the literalistic interpretation. And as such it must exclude all who deny the literalistic interpretation of this section of Jn. 6.
Supposing one gains spiritual life by literally eating human flesh and blood is endocannibalism, not the Scriptural gospel.
Alpers and Lindenbaum’s research conclusively demonstrated that kuru [neurological disorder] spread easily and rapidly in the Fore people due to their endocannibalistic funeral practices, in which relatives consumed the bodies of the deceased to return the “life force” of the deceased to the hamlet, a Fore societal subunit. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%...9#Transmission
he custom of eating bread sacramentally as the body of a god was practised by the Aztecs before the discovery and conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards."
The May ceremony is thus described by the historian Acosta: “The Mexicans in the month of May made their principal feast to their god Vitzilipuztli, and two days before this feast, the virgins whereof I have spoken (the which were shut up and secluded in the same temple and were as it were religious women) did mingle a quantity of the seed of beets with roasted maize, and then they did mould it with honey, making an idol...all the virgins came out of their convent, bringing pieces of paste compounded of beets and roasted maize, which was of the same paste whereof their idol was made and compounded, and they were of the fashion of great bones. They delivered them to the young men, who carried them up and laid them at the idol’s feet, wherewith they filled the whole place that it could receive no more. They called these morsels of paste the flesh and bones of Vitzilipuztli.
...then putting themselves in order about those morsels and pieces of paste, they used certain ceremonies with singing and dancing. By means whereof they were blessed and consecrated for the flesh and bones of this idol. This ceremony and blessing (whereby they were taken for the flesh and bones of the idol) being ended, they honoured those pieces in the same sort as their god....then putting themselves in order about those morsels and pieces of paste, they used certain ceremonies with singing and dancing. By means whereof they were blessed and consecrated for the flesh and bones of this idol. This ceremony and blessing (whereby they were taken for the flesh and bones of the idol) being ended, they honoured those pieces in the same sort as their god...
And this should be eaten at the point of day, and they should drink no water nor any other thing till after noon: they held it for an ill sign, yea, for sacrilege to do the contrary:...and then they gave them to the people in manner of a communion, beginning with the greater, and continuing unto the rest, both men, women, and little children, who received it with such tears, fear, and reverence as it was an admirable thing, saying that they did eat the flesh and bones of God, where-with they were grieved. Such as had any sick folks demanded thereof for them, and carried it with great reverence and veneration.”
...They believed that by consecrating bread their priests could turn it into the very body of their god, so that all who thereupon partook of the consecrated bread entered into a mystic communion with the deity by receiving a portion of his divine substance into themselves.
The doctrine of transubstantiation, or the magical conversion of bread into flesh, was also familiar to the Aryans of ancient India long before the spread and even the rise of Christianity. The Brahmans taught that the rice-cakes offered in sacrifice were substitutes for human beings, and that they were actually converted into the real bodies of men by the manipulation of the priest.
...At the festival of the winter solstice in December the Aztecs killed their god Huitzilopochtli in effigy first and ate him afterwards. - http://www.bartleby.com/196/121.html
There may be some differences, but these have far more in common with the Cath idea of the Eucharist than anything seen in Scripture interpretive of the words of the last supper.
It seems such ardent defenders of Rome sadly have no other choices if they will remain such. But by God's grace we could have been the like.
He DIDN'T institute the Catholic church. That's what they CLAIM but their claiming it doesn't make it so. That's just what you have been taught all your life and likely, just like the rest of us cradle Catholics until God opened our eyes, blindly accepted it in unquestioning obedience to the Catholic church.
There are other groups who claim to be the one true church as well, the best known is the Mormons.
Jesus said He would BUILD His church. He didn't say *I am establishing a church*. The body of Christ is comprised of individual believers through out time and space irregardless of denominational affiliation.
The gift He gave us is the Holy Spirit, not some religious organization that burdens men down with more hoops to jump through to get to heaven than the Jews made up. He came to set us FREE, not to put us into another form of bondage.
They’re not factual.
They’re man-made fabrications of Catholicism.
So tell us, since other organizations call themselves the one true church as well, how is someone to know which one really is?
yes, angels have freewill, too.
You still do not know Greek
Amen and Amen!!
O don’t chicken out now. Go through it letter my letter for us. Show us where “full of grace” is found.
Pride goeth before the fall
Don't we know it! Those Catholics bragging and being so prideful they think they are the ones who wrote scripture and we should all thank them. Those prideful Catholics claiming they are the only church. Those prideful Catholics denouncing anyone who doesn't belong to that organization is not saved. Pride goeth before a fall indeed. See Revelation 18.
Amen.
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