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To: Buggman
No, they're not. Scripture claims that Christ paid the full price for our sins on the cross, and that He was crucified once and for all. Catholic tradition claims that we also have to either burn in purgatory or obtain (via purchase or otherwise) indulgences to pay for our own sins, and that Christ still relives the agony of the cross in the "bloodless" sacrifice of the Mass. Scripture claims that Christ alone is our mediator before God and that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth. The Catholic traditions say that we must also have a priest, the saints, the angels, and Mary to mediate between us and God, and that only the traditions can lead us into the truth of the Scriptures.

Post historical evidence from the early Christians (Church Fathers, etc) that supports your interpretation of Scripture and denies Catholic Tradition.

The claim that there is perfect harmony between Scripture and Tradition is disingenous--if there was, Catholics wouldn't be so threatened by sola scriptura, since they would be able to prove all their beliefs by the Scriptures apart from Tradition.

The only thing Catholics are threatened by is the possibility of embracing your errors and losing their soul.

Did Christ not often speak in parables and symbols? To resume my earlier flippancy, when Christ said He was the Vine, does that mean He was green and leafy? When He said that He was the door of the sheepfold, does that mean that He is made of wood and has hinges? Clearly, Christ often used metaphors to describe Himself!

So who decides when He is being literal and when He is metaphorical? Martin Luther? Post historical evidence from the early Christians (Church Fathers, etc) that denies the objective presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

Likewise, Christ Himself when instituting the Lord's Supper said, "Do this in rememberance of Me"...

DO THIS. What did Christ do? He made the bread His Sacred Body and the wine His Precious blood. The priests of the New Covenant do the same thing acting in persona Christi.

Except for two things. First, Christ used two different words for "rock"--petros and petra--indicating that two different rocks were in view: Peter as the "piece of rock," and Himself as the great rock on which the Church was founded. Peter, as Paul later pointed out (Galatians, I think), did not die for us to make us his Church; Christ did.

Christ spoke Aramaic. St. Matthew's Gospel was written in either Aramaic or Hebrew, not Greek, as we know from Eusebius of Caesarea. This was then translated into Greek and the word for Peter was rendered into the masculine form "petros". Peter remains the rock.

Secondly, get an exhaustive concordance and go through the whole of the Scripture. Who is repeatedly throughout the whole referred to as the Rock of our salvation? It isn't Peter.

How many times does Christ have to say something to make it true?

Perhaps Christ said "little Cephas" and "big Cephas" respectively, and Matthew rendered those into "petros" and "petra" in the Greek. Perhaps He used the same word but pointed to Himself when He said, "On this Rock I will establish My Church." Heck, Greek was in such common use in those days, the Lord could have easily interjected the Greek words into His Aramaic presentation the same way we might pepper our sentences with Latin!

Conjecture, speculation, musings...all false.

As I pointed out earlier, not all of them did. Origen for one rejected Peter's supremacy.

Ever stop to wonder why the Church does not deem him "St." Origen?

444 posted on 08/13/2004 10:25:18 AM PDT by Fifthmark
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To: Fifthmark
Post historical evidence from the early Christians (Church Fathers, etc) that supports your interpretation of Scripture and denies Catholic Tradition.

I might do that just for the fun of it, but really, what's the point? I already posted an allusion to Origen showing that there was serious debate about Peter's primacy in the fourth century, and you dismissed it out of hand. Why should I bother do do the extra groundwork when it's not going to have a bit of effect on you? Will you commit to change your mind about Catholic doctrine if I do find such examples?

Besides, you miss the point. You're the one who argues for the primacy of Tradition; I'm arguing that the Scriptures speak for themselves and contradict your traditions, so what would be the point of using tradition to prove my point?

I've provided Scriptural reference after reference, and so far the bulk of your counter argument is to simply ignore the Scriptures altogether. Since that's our mutually accepted source of authority, you need to be able to prove all of Rome's teachings from the Bible, not from your ever-changing traditions.

The only thing Catholics are threatened by is the possibility of embracing your errors and losing their soul.

The fact that you think believing in Christ over the papal decrees will lose your soul pretty much tells us who you really put your trust in . . . and it's not Him.

So who decides when He is being literal and when He is metaphorical?

The context, both the immediate and the context of the rest of Scripture. To take the Peter argument, not only does the original Greek disprove your assertion, but the whole context of the rest of Scripture tells us that the Rock is the Lord, and no one else.

Or to take the Eucharist debate, the immediate context (Jn. 6) tells us that those who partake of Him will never hunger or thirst. If He meant the whole discourse in purely literal terms, then no Catholic should ever eat or drink again to prove their interpretation. But, if Catholics do indeed get hungry like the rest of us, then something more than physical hunger and thirst is meant--and something more than Christ's physical flesh and blood is meant as well.

He made the bread His Sacred Body and the wine His Precious blood.

That's the weakest argument for the Eucharist. Christ was standing there in His literal flesh and blood; He was therefore obviously being symbolic in the presentation of the bread and wine, or else He would have presented a miraculous sign that the bread and wine had literally transformed.

St. Matthew's Gospel was written in either Aramaic or Hebrew, not Greek, as we know from Eusebius of Caesarea.

Nevertheless, we do not have this Aramaic original, so you are merely speculating without any basis as to what it said. My speculations on the other hand, are based on the clear differences between the two words translated "rock" from the Greek--I'm assuming that the translator had a clue and a specific reason to call attention to the difference between the words.

When we find Matthew's Aramaic autograph, give me a call. Until then, the RCC has absolutely no Scriptural basis for its claim that Peter was hereby made the first pope.

How many times does Christ have to say something to make it true?

How many times does God have to claim that He is the Rock for it to be true?

475 posted on 08/13/2004 2:06:27 PM PDT by Buggman ("Those who are foolish in serious things, will be serious in foolish things.")
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