Posted on 10/15/2001 6:54:40 AM PDT by malakhi
| Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams |
...yes, and more often than not...It's just that we hardly ever discuss what we agree upon; we all seem to focus on our disagreements. Human nature? or a tactic of the enemy who wants to divide us?!!!
Well said thar pilgrim.Lol (*g*)
Becky
It is certainly not my place to argue that Scripture is not sufficient unto salvation, but consider the following:
Where do we get our beliefs about abortion? There are many OT passages that we take to imply that abortion is murder (but for example, if life actually begins...say ... an hour before birth we are still "fearfully and wonderfully made" and He still "knew us in our mother's womb"). I believe that our understanding that life begins at conception is largely the continuing working of the Holy Spirit in the body of believers (for Catholics, through the Church itself).
This ongoing horror in our land has certainly become part of our mission and we rightly wage war against it, but was it part of Scripture?
Before you answer, consider: The Jews certainly didn't seem to take all of the OT passages that we see related to abortion as being so. If something you did caused a pregnant woman to lose her child you were penalized an amount of silver (not the punishment for murder, of course). To this day, polls indicate that the vast majority of Jews in the U.S. are pro-abortion (some polls have it as high as 80%)
Consider also that the Christian churches did not come out in lockstep opposition when Roe v. Wade was announced. In fact, it was only the Catholics and Baptists among the major denominations that immediately recognized the sin. Among those who initially failed to oppose this infanticide were several denominations that held strongly to a Sola-Scriptura viewpoint - yet they failed to see it.
Before I end this, however. I cannot lump "the Jews" in one basket like that. There are certainly large numbers of faithful (largely orthodox) Jews who recognize abortion for what it is - murder. My post is not intended to begin a debate about abortion (I suspect we pretty much agree on the topic), I intended to give an example of critical church teaching that is not found explicitly in Scripture, but grew out of it in response to the Holy Spirit (and find a topic that was more contemporary than discussing the doctrine of the Trinity, etc.)
I can't speak for dignan3, but I agree with you completely. Just as the privilege of "bearing the Son of God" is also God's gift to you. She just got to do it in a completely unique way.
Many Protestants seem to think that the Catholic position is that Mary had somehow "earned" Christ by being the best person (works righteousness), or that we believe that she could have gotten to Heaven on her own (again because she was such a "good" person. Neither of the above is true (quasi-Catholic voodoo types in Brazil notwithstanding).
The only way they could "see" this was to compare what they had already learned from the Church and the way they were taught to live with what was written. Fact is that we normally see in Sacred Scripture what a particular teacher/tradition tells us we need to be looking for.
I have no problem giving due’s where deserved, and I have said so in post past. From all I have read, the church in Rome did begin the collection of ancient manuscripts and became the receptacle of most early Christian writings, and since they considered themselves the church that Christ said he would establish here on earth, it is a given that they were the ones who felt the need to be in control of all writings, and through the Holy Spirit's guidance, made the final decision on the canon.
God had a job to get done, and you just happened to be the ones who had most of the writings, but remember, you had nothing to do with writing them, you simply collected them, and if you hadn't, God would have found someone else that would have.
I'll ask you a question, do you think the Catholic Church ever had any intentions of mass producing them in an everyday language, then distributing them to the world?
If it hadn't been for the reformation they would still be in Latin, and only your clergy would be allowed to own them.
By the time the Bible was canonized, and was beginning to be read by some, you had already established most of your doctrine, and there sure was no turning around then. Isn’t that ironical, the ones that God gave the honor of sifting through all the manuscripts and preserving the word for the whole Christian world, should be the ones who now reject it as final authority, and do as the Jews did, put tradition and human authority over the written word.
Mk 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
I know you won't respond (as apparently my posts in regards to Greek do not exist), but you're only half right here. She is the subject of the verb, but as it is in the middle/passive (there is only one way to denote the two voices in the perfect participle), she is being acted upon. When I say, "I was hit" it doesn't say a whole lot about me except what happened to me. It doesn't say that I have a quality of "hitness" which makes people hit me. That is the stretch which you are attempting to make when you say that the participle in the middle/passive shows us something about Mary. She is the object of grace (a far better translation of charitoo than favor, synonomous to the Hebrew word that is translated in KJV "favor" as in "Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord"). It's not that she has some "graceness" which causes her to be the object of grace.
A little here and a little there, I happened to hear part of a Christian broadcast today, by Ron Dart, of CEM, and he was on this very subject, and he was saying how the minute Mark or one of the writers would finish a manuscript, it would be rushed off to have copies made, and then they were sent it to all the Churches, so they already knew what the word said, long before there was a canon or an organized church system in effect.
By the way, most of it was memorized, word for word.
Thanks for your analysis of the actual language (from someone who actual knows something about it), this is the best explanation I've seen to understand the meaning conveyed by the writer and speaker.
Never denied It. She did need saving just like the rest of us.
I don't know why? It is an easy one. Mary was Immaculately Conceived for the sole purpose of being Christ's mother. Thus the cause of her sinlessness was Christ
And what bit of extra-biblical logic do you use to come up with this one? Why do you have so little regard for the one thing that God told us is inspired by Him...the holy writings...and so MUCH regard for that which is NOT inspired by God? Venerate the Christ, NOT his mother.
You didn't ask for a Biblical explanation, all you asked was how could Mary need a Savior if she was without sin? If you don't like the clearly obvious Logic (God, FYI, isn't restricted by 4d He invented time) explanation for a belief then you shouldn't' ask for it. If you wanted to know WHAT we base this (Immaculate Conception) belief on, then you should have asked THAT question.
Agreed. Interesting that the Holy Spirit used the Catholics to do that though if they were not part of the body (not a claim I think you are making, but certainly one we have heard here).
you had nothing to do with writing them, you simply collected them,
If by that you mean the same thing as the Jews who finally closed their Scripture didn't write it themselves, sure. If you mean that Christians authored the Bible and Catholics aint part of them...no.
I'll ask you a question, do you think the Catholic Church ever had any intentions of mass producing them in an everyday language, then distributing them to the world?
If it hadn't been for the reformation they would still be in Latin, and only your clergy would be allowed to own them.
They absolutely would have! The only reason the Latin was the translation of the day was the same reason that the Bible of Jesus' day was in Greek. That was the language used by the largest number of literate people around the world. There almost certainly was a sinful desire on many church leaders to keep the club as small as possible, but there is a larger desire to maintain the integrity of the Scriptures. He who controls the translation of a text can change doctrine (look at Benjamin Franklin). It is in all of our interests to avoid willy-nilly translating of Scripture. Mass distribution was of course more closely related to cost and reliablity of copying. For the first several hundred years of the church, copies of Scripture were more valuable than the churches that held them. In some cases more than whole towns. They represented the faitful efforts of many thousands of man-hours of labor
Interestingly, this was hardly a Catholic failing alone. Did you know that the first English translation of the Scriptures printed in America was after the revolutionary war (Side note - It was printed by the U.S. Congress for "the use of our schools" kind of defeats that old notion that the founding fathers didn't want prayer in schools hmmm?). The Church of England controled who could translate the scriptures and it was against the law.
Another interesting example deals with the Deuterocanonical (or apocryphal) books of the OT. Did you know that it wasn't until the 1700s that the Puritans succeeded in getting copies of the KJV that did not include the Apocrypha? That's right, for over a hundred years the KJV included those "Catholic" books. I know it's true, I actually have a copy.
Isn’t that ironical, the ones that God gave the honor of sifting through all the manuscripts and preserving the word for the whole Christian world, should be the ones who now reject it as final authority, and do as the Jews did, put tradition and human authority over the written word.
I would love to see a source for that. The Church most certainly does NOT place tradition & human authority over Scripture. At their very "worst", they would place tradition, apostolic authority and Scripture as equals (with Scripture being "first among equals" in most understanding). "Apostolic authority" would recognize that God did not cease giving man revalation after the closing of Scripture (something non-Catholics can't agree on so I'm not sure which side of the fence you fall on). My example on abortion a few posts ago is a possible example.
This "hot-off-the-press" hypothesis can't be substantiated because we don't have any of these supposed copies nor do we have any report of them. That the Church finally settled on just FOUR gospels, however, suggests that these got into circulation comparatively early and were widely circulated. Commerce and correspondance moved around the Med. in the First Century about as fast as it did it in the 19th Century. I don't rule out that they were available, at least in some form, during the first generation, since modern speculations--which put most of them into the 70-85 period seem to me to be just that--speculations.
So, indeed, why would they lie? Why is it the scriptures and those who quoted and agree with them are wrong and the ones who agree with your doctrines are right? It's a rhetorical question - answer it to yourself.
How meany said they were the children of Mary? As I pointed out before, yes the early Fathers believed Jesus had siblings, however the one's I've read maintain that they were the sons of Joseph from a previous marriage as recorded in 'The Protoevangelium of James'(that has come up right?). What Early Church Fathers said Mary was the mother of the other children?
This "hot-off-the-press" hypothesis can't be substantiated because we don't have any of these supposed copies nor do we have any report of them. That the Church finally settled on just FOUR gospels, however, suggests that these got into circulation comparatively early and were widely circulated. Commerce and correspondance moved around the Med. in the First Century about as fast as it did it in the 19th Century. I don't rule out that they were available, at least in some form, during the first generation, since modern speculations--which put most of them into the 70-85 period seem to me to be just that--speculations.
It is probably more likely that limited copies were made by the chuch receiving the letter for local communities (this may account for variant endings for certain epistles...Originals would have greetings to individuals within the local church...copies sent to other towns might not) and that more copies spread as churchs shared what they had been given. I understand that this was the case for much of Jewish Scripture as well (the dead sea scrolls do not contain precisely the same "canon" that we use today).
I would love to see a source for that. The Church most certainly does NOT place tradition & human authority over Scripture.
Do you mean one from the Catholic Encyclopedia or New Advent? No probably not, that is what we do on these threads every day.
Christ condemned the Pharisees for having the authority to lessen the burden on the people, but they refused to do so, simply to keep them in abject submission.
All other Churches have this same power to loose and to bind, and some have gone way too far at loosening, but your church is as tenacious as a pit bull, and even things like eating meat on Friday, which as most of your traditions, have no Biblical backing, still you refuse to do away with this useless law, for fear your empire might crumble.
You have painted yourself into a corner, and now you have no way out, you have to hold onto traditions that even your own hierarchy must wish weren't there, but you can't do anything about it now, because all of your traditions are foundational cards, in your house of cards.
That is untrue, there were I believe over 6000 manuscripts of the NT found, complete, partial, and fragments, and most of these were those copies that each Church has made when an epistle was finisned.
We believe that, or something similar, to be the Catholic position because Catholics keep telling us that she was born without a sin nature and that she ought to be "venerated" because of her lofty position as the "Mother of God" or "Queen of Heaven."
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