Posted on 02/10/2004 7:02:28 AM PST by evets
Gibson was interviewed by the Herald Sun in Australia, and the reporter asked the star if Protestants are denied eternal salvation. “There is no salvation for those outside the Church,” Gibson replied. “I believe it.” He elaborated: “Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She’s a much better person than I am. Honestly. She’s, like, Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it’s just not fair if she doesn’t make it, she’s better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Then God Bless and guide you
Then you reject truth in favor of opinion.
LOL! Too funny!
On the serious side, don't ya know they're nodding and high-fiving in joyful glee, --- they've not replied. They believe it.
That is precisely what the Catholic Church teaches.
No problem -- that's why I provide links to virtually everything I cite. You can look at Unam Sanctum and the specific Vatican II document on who is considered to be part of the church universal and who isn't.Many were somewhat ambiguous in language which has caused much consternation among Catholics as you have probably noticed. The Truth, in and event, always continues to be the Truth, unchanged and unchangeable. We may differ as to specifics, but I believe that we would both say that.
Yes, we do agree. However, I think that if you look at the language of the Vatican II document that I cited you to you will find that the language is very specific. Unam Sanctum and other earlier documents say that, to be Christian, one has to be subject to the Roman pontiff. Current RCC teaching is completely different. Either one is true or the other is true -- both cannot be true.Papal infallibility is papal infallibility. It is doctrine. It is dogma. It is true. You disagree. I understand that you disagree. That is one reason but only one why you are not Catholic. I am.
That's fine. I would just argue that papal infallibility runs into big trouble on this and other issues. One of the vexing problems of papal infallibility is that no one can produce an infallible list on how many times popes have spoken infallibly. Some say only half a dozen times while others say many more. The prophets and apostles didn't have that kind of ambiguity. When they said "thus saith the Lord" they meant it -- there was no debate afterwards about whether the prophet or apostle was really speaking the word of God or just expressing a personal opinion.These things don't matter that much though. The important thing is that all of us as Christians have a once-in-a-lifetime chance of witnessing to people through Mel Gibson's movie. I firmly believe that God will use this movie to plant some heavy-duty seeds. It will be our job to make sure that these seeds are watered, fertilized, and kept free of choking weeds.
Really?
- The trinity is strongly hinted at in the Old Testament and explicitly taught in the New Testament. For example, Matthew 3:16-17 says "After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened (for him), and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove (and) coming upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
As another example, Matthew 28:19 says, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit..."
Finally, John 1 says that, from the beginning, "the Word was with God and the Word was God."
The New Testament is rather plain, I think, in presenting the fact that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three persons in one being. There was a great debate at Nicaea, of course, almost three hundred years after the church was founded but the dissenters were silenced -- not by any new revealed doctrine -- but by the church affirming what scripture plainly taught.
- The New Testament in most cases was received by the church as the individual books were written (Hebrews was one example to the contrary). For example, 1 Peter 3:15-16 says "And consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, as our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, also wrote to you, speaking of these things as he does in all his letters. In them there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures." It didn't take a church council to decide that Paul's writings were scripture -- they were accepted as scripture because Paul was an apostle and demonstrated the attributes of an apostle.
- Luther didn't "invent" the doctrine of salvation by faith alone -- it is the teaching of scripture and was the belief of the early church. Catholics and Protestants both often misunderstand the doctrine. It is more properly stated like this: We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and the kind of faith that saves is the kind of faith that produces good works. Read that again and then do a scripture study on salvation -- it will become crystal clear to you. I provide cites to several verses (and I don't just do this for my entertainment, you know!) but there are plenty of other passages which support this doctrine.
When Jesus was asked (John 6:29), "What can we do to accomplish the works of God?" Jesus replied "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent." Faith plus works is not required for salvation -- see the entire book of Galatians for a refutation of this false notion.
John wrote that "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life." (John 3:26). Paul, and especially James, expanded upon the words of Jesus and said that even though only faith is required, we demonstrate that we have saving faith by the works that we do.
God saved us in order to do good works, not because we've already done good works. "For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them" (Ephesians 2:10).
If we claim we are saved but do not bear the fruit of good works, then we aren't really saved: "They claim to know God, but by their deeds they deny him" (Titus 1:16).
So, in summary, none of the doctrines you mentioned were discovered or "invented" later -- they are part and parcel of the teachings of the New Testament and were believed and taught by the early church.
Actually less than a dozen passages have been infallibly interpreted by Rome. The Catholic church encourages the study and debate over the meaning of the vast majority of scripture. Pick up any Catholic scholarly journal and you'll find plenty of debate.
What about churches that claim to be Catholic and accept the authority of the pope yet teach some really bad things?I don't know where you live, but if there are any Hispanic Catholic churches in your area you ought to visit a few. It will make your jaw drop when you see the things that are taught and how full of superstition they are. They're one-third Christian and two-thirds Central and South American folk religion.
You, as a knowledgeable Catholic, have much more in common with even the shakiest of Protestant churches than you would with most Hispanic Catholic churches. I kid you not -- go see for yourself if you can. You'll come away a little less dogmatic on the idea that there are no divisions within Catholicism.
Looks like the Bible disagrees with you:[A]as it is written: "There is no one just, not one, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. All have gone astray; all alike are worthless; there is not one who does good, (there is not) even one. (Romans 3:10-12)If Mary were truly sinless, this would have been one of the several good places for scriptures to state this. A sinless Mary was most definitely not the teaching of the early church and many of the early fathers stated as such.I'll take the plain teaching of scripture and the express teaching of the early church anyday over some myth concocted centuries after the church was founded.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.