Prayers For, To,and Through the Dead

Reformed Apologetics Thoughts of Francis Turretin Blog ^ | April 21, 2009 | Francis Turretin Fan

[Springfield Reformer]

MM: How awful to never know if you have done enough, obeyed enough , prayed enough to get even into purgatory.

ET: If you are so sure of your salvation, do you even pray anymore? Do you still keep the Ten Commandments?

Or are you on "cruise control" now?

ET, I hope you realize you are presenting a well-recognized and worn thin straw man here. Not one FRevangelical you are arguing with here believes that sin is OK.  Not. one. My question to you is this:  Do the RCs who regularly repeat this gross falsehood really believe we believe that?  An honest question.  I'm trying to figure this out.  

Because we've made it very clear for a very long time what we believe.  Salvation is secure, yes, but it is also transformative.  Our old reprobate self, if that's all we had after salvation, would certainly see blanket forgiveness as an excuse for rampant sinning.  But that's not what salvation is.  Not in Scripture, and not to us.  It is a life-changing event. We don't become perfect, but we do become motivated passionately to follow Jesus, and passionately to avoid sin.  It's a real change,  from the heart, or it isn't real salvation.  That's our belief, and that's our personal testimony.

So I'm asking, do you wish to state for the record you did not know we believed that way, or never heard that about us before?  Or is it that somehow you just don't believe we really believe that, no matter what we say?  I am genuinely curious. 

Because for all our differences, this is something we. could. actually. resolve!  All we'd have to do is agree to believe each other when we say we really believe sin is bad and to be avoided. Then we could bookmark it, create a thread memorializing resolved issues, which we could ever after refer to and say, look, by accord of an "ecumenical council" between the FR RC's and P/E's, this issue is no longer in contest between us. Think how great that would be!  Then we could go on to find some other low hanging fruit, things we could agree on, and eventually maybe we could even have shorter threads. Readable threads! Wouldn't that be great?  Well, wouldn't it?

Peace,

SR.  

[Iscool]

HERE are some very interesting facts about the Catholic deuterocomical books...

[caww]

Well let me just say that yours and others posts are not wasted breath....for they “equip the saints” ...with teachings they might not otherwise have....and this in order to go out into the world and tell the catholics who will listen.

I have proof...:)

[caww]

Why thank you...I have put that with my “required reading” list. It looks easily understandable from what I have already read.

I did read some about this in the past for my own understanding but would be good to have a refresher course to put under my belt as opposition to ‘all things’ of God has been escalating more and more. So I’m being quite selective in my studies of late.

Francis is quite busy trying to bring the religions to common ground of understanding and appears to be the Globalists ideal for that as he jets around the world....this along with the Emerging Church as a partner and that of the World Council.

So we continue to arm ourselves....as that time draws near closer yet.

[caww]

......”a backlash of accusations of “hate”, “Catholic bashing”, spreading of discord and ignorance of Catholic doctrine.”.....

It does derail/distracts from the topic of debate....and if there’s no debate then truth is never revealed.

Maybe it’s just time to scroll on by when they “insert” such statements into their responses until they’re ready to present their case....that is if they can make a case.

[Springfield Reformer]

If you all agree with each other, why do you have so many tribes and why is everybody tribe-hopping?

Protestants/evangelicals largely do agree with each other on a vast majority of issues.  There are two major dynamics that cause the "tribe-hopping" you find so off-putting.  Most serious is the incursion of liberalism, outright rejection of Scripture, supernaturalism, Christian morality, etc., by those supposed to be church leaders, usually fostered by a deliberate infiltration of the denominational seminaries.  What happens is typically that those remaining faithful to God and His word get pushed out of the buildings and the denomination proper and have to start from scratch somewhere new.  

The other big dynamic is petty stuff that has nothing whatever to do with theology proper.  People church-hop for the music, the pews are uncomfortable, somebody hurt their feelings, I've seen it all.  Well, maybe not all, but I've seen a lot of ridiculous reasons for looking up a new church.  If you were to do a serious statistical analysis, I'm guessing the people who change over disputes as to the exact meaning of a given Scripture are an extreme minority, compared to the nonsense factors.

And in those matters where there are identifiable doctrinal differences between groups, they seldom involve questions so deep they would each say the other party is lost.  They are more like modes of baptism, or theories about the Second Coming, or should the Lord's Supper be held every Sunday or only once a quarter, or should believers get involved in politics.  That's where the majority of us are at.  

At my church, for example, we intentionally look past all that fru fru every Sunday.  We routinely pray for other churches in Springfield, churches which to you look like these sharp divisions, but which we regard as our brothers and sisters in Christ, whom we love, and desire to be blessed and used of God for the Gospel as much as we wish that for ourselves.  And if you're missing that inner dynamic, you're really missing the big picture, you're missing the work of the Holy Spirit.  When any two fellowships agree on Scripture as the leading authority in faith and practice, that's the work of God, and you're going to have a lot more in common than not, and the Gospel above all, because God has written it so clearly that it cannot be missed by honest hearts seeking out God's truth.

Peace,

SR

[boatbums]

I think that if some could have made their case, they would have and not tried to derail the discussion from the get-go. It looks like RnMomof7 is their most recent target because of the type of threads she has been posting over the last month or so. What I find most curious are the accusations against her of being ignorant of Catholicism when she was a teacher of new Catholic converts, introducing them to the religion and its tenets. She probably has a better working knowledge of their Catechism than a majority of the Catholic posters here. Attacking the messenger seems to be the prime reaction of a few and they don't even realize how badly it makes them look when they won't/can't defend their faith. It does far more to repel that to appeal to seekers of the truth. Taking personal offense over anything that is posted in opposition to ones faith is NOT the productive way dialog should happen.

Thankfully, there are a few Catholics who are good representatives and who don't shy away from explaining their beliefs. We may never agree on all things, but their respectful and gentle attitudes do far more good than the nasty and insulting tone taken by others. We should all be mindful of this and not allow our feelings to get injured in the fray in such a way that we forget for whom we are speaking and WHY we are doing it.

[boatbums]

So which denomination is the best for you?

Curious challenge coming from someone who has this as their tagline:

"We have a rogue curia in Rome".

So, which denomination of Catholicism is the best for you? Traditionalist, SSPX, Sedavacanist, Modernist, Conservative, Liberal, Opus Dei, Jesuits, Dominicans, etc.???

[HossB86]

Physical actions do not cause spiritual realities to happen.

ROTFLMAO. What do you call Christ's physical sacrifice on the Cross?

Wow. Nice straw man there. The physical act referenced was your statement of baptism causing salvation.

Sheesh. And Catholics want to be taken seriously.

Hoss

[HossB86]

Hmmmm. And I thought only God was omniscient.

Funny; I thought the very same thing about your post:

I really like it how each of y’all speaks for how everybody else believes. Everybody is his own chief, each speaking for the same thousand tribes.

Pot meet Kettle

Hoss

[HossB86]

I flip them; Luther ripped them.

That's the problem with the Roman Catholic Cult: page flipping, but no reading.

Hoss

[HossB86]

Wonder if the poster believes the CCC?

Hoss

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

The muslim suicide bombers are sure they're going to Heaven and they're sure they're doing the right thing.

We have Papists who are positive that salvation is through the Roman Catholic Church even though their "infallible" magisterium is filled with sodomites and leftists who have been changing even their own theology right beneath the true-believers' dumb noses.

You should get a load what crap your church teaches even in their approved biblical commentaries, and you guys want us to kneel and scrape and beg for salvation from you guys when most of you aren't capable of much more than very basic and puerile apology in defense of your works-righteous doctrines?

Come now, I'll stick with the holy scripture, and sit at rest with Luther, with Calvin, with John Knox, with the tens of thousands of Christians who have been martyed for their faith, and with Augustine, and Chrysostom, and so many others, on the essentials of the Gospel. You guys don't even have the essentials anymore.

[metmom]

Show me examples of Catholic unity.

Show me that ALL Catholics hold exactly the same views on all moral issues and church teaching.

Show me that a top down authoritarian structure guarantees unity of belief amongst the laity and clergy and fidelity to it.

Explain to me how the EO can hold different views on significant areas, like the supremacy of the pope and doctrine about Mary and still be considered in communion with Rome.

[metmom]

Paul tells us in Corinthians that very thing.

The Rock (petra) is Christ.

[ealgeone]

Then why do the Prots have different beliefs on the immorality of birth control, pre-marital sex, abortion, homosexual relations, etc. Why do they have different beliefs on ordaining female or homo as ministers and bishops?

Dude....I've already told you to get off that catholic high horse.

How many catholics get drunk on a weekly basis?

How many catholics have affairs?

How many catholics use drugs?

How many catholic priests abuse little boys?

How many have been fired?

How many catholics vote for dimocrats that support abortion, homosexual rights, etc?

How may catholics read their bible on a regular basis?

How many catholics attend church on a weekly basis?

You see....we can keep playing this game.

How many catholics don't know their own ccc?

How many catholics on this board have different beliefs on the various topics?

Remember what I said about the play ground?

[metmom]

Do all Catholics agree on abortion and gay marriage?

[metmom]

No, because those are RCC issues and there are widely varying beliefs about all of them.

Most FRoman Catolics on this board have issues with your position on Catholicism and we all have seen that.

So explain to me again how unified Catholics are in what they believe.....

[metmom]

So if people are incapable of correctly interpreting Scripture, then they aren’t capalbe of correctly interpreting the church’s interpretation of it and need someone to interpret the interpretation.

Nor are they capable of correctly interpreting the CCC and need someone to correctly interpret THAT, and the interpretation of that.

And so it goes on forever, interpreting the interpretations....

[ealgeone]

I flip them; Luther ripped them.

Proof required.