Beginning from the Incarnation to the Crucifixion, its been the free will of man. “My kingdom is not of this world.” But you see the problem goes deeper. Many Protestants are unread and untutored in theology. The works of Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, Benedict et al, go over their heads. They listen to their stupid foursquare church corner street pastors and think their weekly rituals of “Bible readings” and guitar and piano kumbayas are all about faith. Try telling that to the scores of prominent theologians, professors, intellectuals, and preachers who have spent a lifetime studying theology in major universities and have after much thought and debate converted to the Catholic faith. There is one authoritative and only ONE authoritative body founded by Christ. The rest is all manure for feeble minded individuals who use a fourth-grade literacy to seek literal interpretations of text unhinged from context, and the tradition of received revelation.
Your current pope has spent a lifetime in studying theology.....Romam Catholic theology. Care to explain how he’s gone off the rails?
Have you studied at a seminary? Do you have any qualifications from an accredited seminary?
Will? Yes.
Free? No.
Your church has taught you wrong.
Romans 6:15-23 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Liberals.
We gladly Swap them for hundreds of millions of souls coming to faith in Christ, as they leave Rome... and that's just South America!
Try telling that to the hundreds of thousands of equally qualified prominent theologians, professors, intellectuals, and preachers who converted to faith in Christ and eternal life, who would never trade if for a religion of false works.
Thing about Catholic theology is that it’s not self-evident. You can explain all you want; you can proclaim it from the rooftops. But you’re not going to convince anybody unless you can convince them that the source of your authority is valid.