Posted on 07/07/2009 10:30:02 AM PDT by TheRiverNile
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict called on Tuesday for a "world political authority" to manage the global economy and for more government regulation of national economies to pull the world out of the current crisis and avoid a repeat.
The pope made his call for a re-think of the way the world economy is run in a new encyclical which touched on a number of social issues but whose main connecting thread was how the current crisis has affected both rich and poor nations.
Parts of the encyclical, titled "Charity in Truth," seemed bound to upset free marketeers because of its underlying rejection of unbridled capitalism and unregulated market forces, which he said had led to "thoroughly destructive" abuse of the system.
The pope said every economic decision had a moral consequence and called for "forms of redistribution" of wealth overseen by governments to help those most affected by crises.
Benedict said "there is an urgent need of a true world political authority" whose task would be "to manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result."
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
You wrote:
“Of course. If one believes Jesus is God, one WILL live differently - because of one’s belief. But the works are a DEMONSTRATION of devotion, not a substitute for it.”
Do you sin? Did you sin BEFORE you became a Christian? All the Christians I’ve ever met have been sinners both before and after becoming Christians. If they become mired in sin and DO NOT REPENT they will not be saved. You might have repented ten years ago, but might commit murder and not repent of it. Will you still be saved then? No. Protestants, through their unbiblical beliefs, work themselves ino illogical corners. Here’s an example: http://www.geocities.com/area51/quadrant/2141/sinstory.htm
“Where we differ on assurance is on who is responsible. You say we are. Jesus says He is.”
I am not denying Jesus is responsile for our salvation. I am insisting that we are responsible for our damnation. Jesus suffered for us BUT WE MUST REPENT. John the Baptist called on people to repent. Jesus called on people to repent. And St. Peter made it plain enough: “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”
The idea that we are not called on to repent and cooperate with God’s grace is completely anathema to scripture (yes, pun intended). If we don’t cooperate we are damned. God does not save us against our will. He redeemed us, but we must be open to Him or we are damned.
“There will be non-Christians who enter the church and cause divisions. The solution isn’t to allow church leaders to interpret scripture for you, but “...building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God...”.”
The Church was the author of scriptures under the supervision of the Holy Spirit. Jesus sent the Church into the world to teach and baptize. The Church was given such authority and power because she is His bride and continues His mission on earth.
“And you can be assured of success, because of “him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy”.”
If I were to put several supposedly Bible believing Protestants in a room and ask them to discuss baptism they would come to different conclusions. Can infants be baptized? Some would say yes, others no. Does it effect a soul? Some say yes, others no. And so on. So, which of those Protestants is the “stumbling” one? What yor view does is make out the Holy Spirit to be a liar. That’s not your intention. That’s just the result. Since all of those suppsedly Spirit filled people can’t agree on the scriptures then the Holy Spirit must be a liar. I find that impossible to believe. The only other realistic option is that some men can believe they are led by the Spirit even when they are no. I am currently trying to help out a young Protestant woman I know who is mistaking what apparently is paranoid schizophrenia for visions of heaven and angels and so forth. She believes she is a prophet.
“That doesn’t mean we aren’t to be pro-active in following Him, or to be lax in doing good. That is what the new birth is all about - becoming a new creation.”
You’re still missing the point. Jesus is responsible for our redemption. If we don’t cooperate with Him we will be damned. That means more than just being “pro-active in following Him”. Our actions cannot make our salvation, but our actions can make the ground of salvation in us more fertile or more barren.
“Assurance of salvation isn’t a feeling.”
It isn’t a reality in any case.
“Many have feelings, and they are deceitful - we are capable of lying to ourselves.”
Thanks for admitting that. Now, square that thought - that we lie to ourselves - with the idea with the idea of the Spirit guiding all believers yet the believers disagreeing with one another. How can you? Clearly it is not the Holy Spirit that is the problem.
“In a sense, it is best to live as though there is no assurance, seeking to draw ever closer to God and trying to follow His will ever more closely.”
I agree, but I can’t see how you do. Why would someone need to live a lie? If absolute assurance is the truth then there is no need to do any more than what has been done. Also, to do more might - in your already expressed view - shift the “responsibility” as you put it from Christ to us. You need to think this through and make your view more consistent Right now you’re all over the place.
“But Jesus said He’ll take care of those given to Him. We cannot keep ourselves. Jesus can.”
Now you’re suggesting that Jesus saves men against their wills? We need Jesus’ grace, but if we aren’t responsible for ourselves and our actions to some great extent then we can’t be blameworthy either.
Even Martin Luther recognized this error of individual Scripture interpretations once he started to see for himself the damage it was causing....Unfortunately the damage had already been done
From Luther....
“This one will not hear of Baptism, and that one denies the sacrament, another puts a world between this and the last day: some teach that Christ is not God, some say this, some say that: there are as many sects and creeds as there are heads. No yokel is so rude but when he has dreams and fancies, he thinks himself inspired by the Holy Ghost and must be a prophet” De Wette III, 61. quoted in O’Hare, THE FACTS ABOUT LUTHER, 208.
“Noblemen, townsmen, peasants, all classes understand the Evangelium better than I or St. Paul; they are now wise and think themselves more learned than all the ministers.” Walch XIV, 1360. quoted in O’Hare, Ibid, 209.
“We concede — as we must — that so much of what they [the Catholic Church] say is true: that the papacy has God’s word and the office of the apostles, and that we have received Holy Scriptures, Baptism, the Sacrament, and the pulpit from them. What would we know of these if it were not for them?” Sermon on the gospel of St. John, chaps. 14 - 16 (1537), in vol. 24 of LUTHER’S WORKS, St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia, 1961, 304.
No, vlad. I have the assurance of my salvation, no matter what your church says. They twist scriptures to suit their agenda and they are leading way too many into hell.
Amen, Mr Rogers. Bless you.
1Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
Read all of 1 John 5. It talks of assurance.
“All the Christians I’ve ever met have been sinners both before and after becoming Christians. If they become mired in sin and DO NOT REPENT they will not be saved. You might have repented ten years ago, but might commit murder and not repent of it. Will you still be saved then?”
The problem is that you are confusing a decision with a new creation. That is why I hate it when someone says, “Ask Jesus to come into your life...”
NO! We die, and are raised a new creation - born again. “”Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
If we ‘make a decision for Christ’, we make a decision...but what we need is to be born again. “3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” - Romans 6
“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness...For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God...” Romans 8
If you have the Holy Spirit in you, you WILL repent. Not maybe, or might - you WILL, for it is God Himself convicting you. Jesus Himself said He would see us through to the end.
The assurance of the believer isn’t required for salvation, but it will follow with time. “...but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God”
Is it possible to deceive ourselves? Yes. There are people who deceive themselves into believing they are prophets - but that doesn’t mean prophets don’t exist. There are people who deceive themselves into thinking they are flowers - but that doesn’t mean flowers do not exist. There are people who deceive themselves about being children of God - but that doesn’t mean no one has been born again.
“If I were to put several supposedly Bible believing Protestants in a room and ask them to discuss baptism they would come to different conclusions.”
When I’ve done it, the answer isn’t quite as contrary as you indicate. I can’t think of any Protestant I’ve met who objected to Believer’s Baptism. Some - typically those that have been aligned with a government power at some time - permit infant baptism. As imperfect men, ALL of us have to fight against interpretations tainted with what we wish it said, versus what Scripture actually says. However, on matters of importance, it simply isn’t all that difficult.
There is a reason I call Martin Luther the Ann Coulter of the Reformation!
That said, I owe him a tremendous debt.
There will always be tares mixed with the wheat, trying to cause confusion. If I need to choose as a guide between Councils made up of wheat and tares, and divinely inspired scripture, I’ll take the latter.
“”That said, I owe him a tremendous debt.””(Luther)
I’m not understanding your point because Luther realized later that personal interpretation lead to divisions and error and you’re siding with the side of Luther before he believed in this error that HAS lead to divisions. MANY!
In any even,you’re praising a guy who was not even united in his own mind. Thus, we can see that a “house divided against itself will fall”.It has in the case of the reformation because there is no starting point that you agree upon or you would have one united protestant community united under Luther with dogmatic teachings.
Instead you have never ending divided communities that ALL claim the Holy Spirit is leading them to truth.
This is closer to Buddhism that claims many truths under one religion,Dear Brother
You wrote:
“No, vlad. I have the assurance of my salvation, no matter what your church says.”
The Bible says otherwise. YOUR sect teaches you to believe as you do. The Bible teaches otherwise.
“They twist scriptures to suit their agenda and they are leading way too many into hell.”
I posted the scriptures - especially about St. Paul and HOPE for salvation. No twisting on my part whatsoever. Instead, what we see is the Protestants here twisting verses claiming all manner of things that are clearly not in the text or can’t logically be deduced from the totality of scripture in the least.
You wrote:
“Read all of 1 John 5. It talks of assurance.”
No, actually it doesn’t talk about it at all. Not once.
Take a look:
“13I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 14This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
16If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he should pray about that. 17All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.”
We are confident of things: that we have eternal life - but we must refrain from sin. And some in LEADS TO DEATH. That isn’t a physical death he’s talking about. It’s a spiritual death - eternity in hell. Preaching that to people who have absolute assurance makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
And John continued:
“18We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him. 19We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. 20We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true—even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.”
Those who stay true to God - through His grace - can avoid sin, or at least the death of sin. Again, it is not absolute assurance of salvation at all.
True born again believers will stay true to God, and when we sin, we can be assured that He hears us when we repent and are cleansed by Him.
You wrote:
“The problem is that you are confusing a decision with a new creation.”
Nope. I am not confusing anything here. I rarely confuse things. You are the one confusing things. Even a new creation must make a decision. If decisions did not have to be made then Christians would NEVER ever be tempted to sin Are you ever tempted to sin? Then, gee, you must not be a new creation then, right? No, of course you are, but we must still choose Christ every day.
“If we ‘make a decision for Christ’, we make a decision...but what we need is to be born again.”
Those born again are still tempted - hence DECISIONS are made. We can choose well or poorly, but we still decide. God gives us the grace we need to resist sin, but we still must choose to resist that temptation.
The rest of wha you said in no way overturned that irrefutable logic. It is also entirely scriptural. Hence, the sacred writers - and God spaking through them - repeatedly warn us to avoid sin.
You wrote:
“True born again believers will stay true to God, and when we sin, we can be assured that He hears us when we repent and are cleansed by Him.”
Some will, some won’t. I think what you’re saying is essentially illogical because it denies what everyone in the world knows - some people backslide:
This is a classic example of the same sort of thins you just expressed:
The following dialogue is adapted from a real exchange that took place after a Catholic Answers parish seminar:
“Thanks for your presentation. I found it, er, . . . interesting.”
“Glad you thought so.”
“I’m not a Catholic. I’m a Christian.”
“I suspected you weren’t a Catholic from the way you phrased your compliment.”
“I think the only important thing is that you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. That’s all that’s required.”
“As I explained in my talk, that isn’t what the Bible says. The Bible nowhere makes that claim. That claim is a modern development of some branches of Protestantism.”
“I’m not a Protestant. I’m a Christian.”
“First of all, Protestants are Christians, as are Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Second of all, you are indeed a Protestant. If you’re a Christian, you belong to one of the three traditions, even if you aren’t aware of that. You may not call yourself a Protestant, which is fine, but you take your principles from Protestantism, so you’re a Protestant.”
“Anyway, as I said, all that’s necessary is that you accept Jesus. After that, you’ll live as a saved Christian.”
“What do you mean by that? Do you mean you won’t sin seriously?”
“That’s right.”
“But you will commit what we Catholics call venial—that is, light or minor—sins?”
“We remain sinners.”
“But no major sins?”
“Right.”
“Let’s take a hypothetical example. Let’s talk about a born-again minister. After being born again, he works as a minister for fifty years. So far as anyone can see, he leads a holy life. Then, in his old age, in one day, he engages in adultery, shoots his wife, intentionally runs over a pedestrian with his car, and commits suicide. (Let’s presume he’s not insane.) He dies unrepentant. Is this man saved or damned? Will he go to heaven or hell?”
“Hell.”
“Explain That, Please”
“But how does that square with being born again? You said a born-again person wouldn’t sin seriously, and here we have four serious, unrepented sins in one day.”
“It just means he was never saved in the first place.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Of course.”
“But think of what that implies. It implies you have no way to tell who’s saved and who’s not. You and all the other members of this hypothetical church thought for fifty years that this minister was truly born-again,; now you discover he wasn’t. If you couldn’t tell in his case—a case where he did, in fact, live a holy life until his last day—then how can you tell in anyone’s case, including your own?”
“You just know when you’re saved.”
“Didn’t this minister know too? No doubt he was convinced he was saved, but on your theory he was wrong. Don’t you see the problem here? If the minister couldn’t know his own status, how can you be sure you know yours? If he could be mistaken, why can’t you be? You seem to make a big deal out of this assurance of salvation, yet it’s no assurance at all because the only way you can be sure is to die without having sinned seriously. If you are logically rigorous, you’ll find yourself perilously close to the Catholic position.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the most you could have would be a moral assurance of salvation, not an absolute assurance. At any one time, you could say to yourself, ‘If I died now, I’d go to heaven,’ but you could never be absolutely sure that you’d always be in that condition. Catholics say the necessary condition is the state of grace. So long as we’re in the state of grace, we have a moral assurance of reaching heaven. But we know we can sin seriously and lose grace and throw away our salvation. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“But you can know you’re saved!”
“Not on the principles you’ve just told me. There’s only one consistent line for you to take.”
“What’s that?”
“Let me make clear first what it’s not. You can’t say the born-again Christian has an absolute assurance of salvation and, at the same time, say that we can’t tell who’s saved until death intrudes. That would mean we’d have to keep the assurance in suspense until death, which means it’s no assurance at all. Do you see that? That’s the line you can’t logically take.”
“So what line can I take?”
“There’s only one alternative. You’d have to say that the born-again believer is, indeed, assured of salvation . . . “
” . . . that’s just my point!”
“Wait a minute! Let me finish. You’d have to say he is, indeed, assured of salvation—and here’s the kicker—even if, at some time far in the future, he ceases to live uprightly and enters a course of frequent, serious sinning. In other words, you’d have to say that this hypothetical minister was saved despite the sins he committed and despite his lack of repentance. If you make any other argument, you undercut the absolute assurance of salvation. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“Hmmm.”
“And you see what I’m leading to—a rather revolting prospect: The born-again believer who is a gross sinner, even from the first day of his conversion, will be saved. After all, if he is saved even if he sins seriously only on the last day of his life, having lived a holy life until then, you have to say he’s saved if he starts sinning half-way to the end, or after only a year as a Christian, or even after only an hour. You have no good reason to put the dividing line one place or the other. Once saved, always saved—that’s your principle, and you must take it literally or not at all. Of course, that means you’ll have a tough time reconciling yourself with Galatians 5:19-21, which is aimed at Christians and which explains what sins will exclude them from heaven—just the kinds of sins this minister committed—and he warns the Galatians that these sins exclude from heaven, even though they were already Christians at this point. Beyond that, most Christians, of any stripe, immediately sense something’s wrong with that whole approach. It seems to go against God’s justice. It’s a divine invitation to engage in antinomianism.”
“In what?”
“In lawlessness. If nothing can undo the salvation of the born-again Christian, if no sin can merit hell for him, then he may think there’s precious little reason to be good. Since he’s got it made, why not enjoy himself here below? Why be good if being good can’t help effect your salvation? Perhaps it’s better to put it in reverse: Why not be evil if evil acts can’t forfeit your salvation? “
“As I said, the minister couldn’t have been saved in the first place.”
“Haven’t you been listening to what I’ve been saying?”
wow. just wow. What amazing admissions on Luther’s part.
Some of the things you post are utter nonsense.
“”wow. just wow. What amazing admissions on Luther’s part.””
It was the cunning Calvin who was deceptive and played upon divisiveness.
Here is a very good article from Dr Johm Rao Of Saint John’s University and president of the Dietrich Von Hildebrand Institute and The Roman Forum
Excerpt
http://jcrao.freeshell.org/BarrenHarvest
Anyone interested in the seed doctrine of Protestantism finds that Luther is ultimately not the man to explain it. Luther, in the final analysis, was a radical with many conservative kinks to him. He had, intellectually at least, a split personality. One has the clear impression that he stumbled onto only a few of the consequences of his thought, and these gradually and almost against his will. He seems to have accepted rather than embraced them, if such a distinction can be made. Moreover, his early dependence upon political support for survival quickly limited the development and prestige of Lutheran, or, as it is officially called, Evangelical Christianity.
The real sculptor of the total depravity doctrine is Jean Calvin, founder of Reformed Christianity. Frenchman, lawyer, writer, and zealot, Calvin squeezed from the concept almost everything that a man could eek from it while still believing in Christ. Calvin also saw the dangers of the Lutheran political situation, and determined that Reformed Christianity would, if anything, subject the state to religious controls. His prestige thus rose among independent-minded men, and Reformed Christianity became the form of Protestantism that penetrated Europe. Litvinov, when told in Depression New York that snow plows had been abandoned in favor of shovels in order to provide more men with work, asked why spoons were not used to insure total employment. Protestants, in a sense, asked the same thing. Why ought they to take the Lutheran hors d’oeuvre when they could have the Calvinist entrée? He who would know the doctrine of total depravity must look to Calvin.
The most important thing to realize about the Protestant seed is that it yields a barren harvest. Protestants thought that the concept of the Creation as a mirror of God robbed the Divinity of His uniqueness and majesty. So did the idea that men were the wounded lords of Creation who, with God’s help, might someday be washed as white as snow. The doctrine of total depravity, which humbled the whole of Creation, and men along with it, did so for the purpose of emphasizing the glory of God. It succeeded in accomplishing the opposite. It began by insisting upon a view of the universe so dreary as to make men flee from the harsh God who allowed it as though He were the demon. Instead of magnifying the glory of God, it ended in His rejection. Secondly, the doctrine of total depravity causes those who are formed by it, yet flee from it, to leap back into a rule-less Creation. There exists no way to navigate a course through the Protestant Creation, no path avoiding the bad and leading to the good. All is wicked. True, there are those who take the opportunity to flee from the Protestant God to embrace a universe which they wish to be as perfect as they once thought it to be depraved. Nevertheless, the tendency of secularized Protestantism is to leave men rule-less and ultimately in despair. Ignaz von Döllinger, the nineteenth century German Church historian who later broke with Rome, irritated many followers of the Reform by demonstrating how the doctrines of contemporary Protestant preachers ran totally contrary to the immediate desires of Luther and Calvin. One could go further. The Reformation is in and of itself a principle of contradiction. It destroys man and it destroys God.
This theme may be developed with reference to a body-spirit analogy. Creation, for the sake of my argument, may, somewhat inaccurately be referred to as the “body” of existence, and God as its “spirit”. The doctrine of total depravity has sought to humiliate the body, or Creation, for the glorification of the spirit, or God. It has done this in a four-fold fashion. The results of its efforts has been the abandonment of the spirit, the body’s declaration of independence from God, and Creation’s collapse into rulelessness. It is essential to examine each aspect of this four-fold humiliation in turn.
One might note, to begin with, that the doctrine of total depravity killed the “rhythm” of the body. Christ asked men to use their eyes and their ears to see and to hear. Catholicism did this, and realized that the human body followed certain rhythms. One of these rhythms was that of fasting and feasting. Most civilizations have recognized that men need to fast and to feast in order to answer a two-sided aspect of their character. Needless to say, man’s animal nature does tend to pull him towards a desire to sit down to an eternal banquet, but, when he does so, he pays a psychic price that even natural human wisdom has abundantly catalogued. Pagans understood the value of self-sacrifice. Christ demonstrated that renunciation, built upon His abandonment to the Cross, was the pathway to heaven. Catholicism has, therefore, noted in the fast not merely a kind of biological necessity, but an instrument predisposing man to be receptive to, accept, and merit sanctifying grace. Lent, and other periods of fast and abstinence, are naturally good for man, and supernaturally still more beneficial.
“If you want a response to a Scriptural anything, give me the specific verse, not a mass of Scriptures.”
1. I loathe guessing games about such things. They tend to come across as arrogant and they are not courteous nor thoughtful for thousands of lurkers who simply will not bother trying to wade through all the cutesy guessing and self-flattering intellectual escatalogical junk to ferret out wantever truth may be there.
2. Every expositor I've ever read about Babylon is convinced their conclusions and analysis are 100% purely Biblical and 100% purely right.
3. Babylong can logically be one of several or a combination of several things including Babylon, New York City, the USA, apostate Christianity etc.
4. I'm happy to learn from you or from 4 year olds or anyone else The Lord chooses to use to help me learn. I'm not interested in guessing games. I'm not interested in pontifical arrogance pretending to be well studied erudition.
A dog tends to behave like a dog. A cat tends to behave like a cat. The old man is a sinner who sometimes does a good thing. The new man awaits the redemption of the body, but is guided by the Spirit.
“Some of the things you post are utter nonsense.”
As Keating said:
“Wait a minute! Let me finish. You’d have to say he is, indeed, assured of salvation—and here’s the kicker—even if, at some time far in the future, he ceases to live uprightly and enters a course of frequent, serious sinning. In other words, you’d have to say that this hypothetical minister was saved despite the sins he committed and despite his lack of repentance. If you make any other argument, you undercut the absolute assurance of salvation. Do you see what I’m saying?”
That still stands - unrefuted.
Post 793 could be described as, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
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