Posted on 05/11/2005 10:04:08 AM PDT by NYer
(from the link you have)...47. It is forbidden to any man to change this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition or, by rash attempt, to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul …
This is just my opinion, each you will believe what you will believe and it is not my intent to put anyone down or say you should believe this or that…you each must choose and I pray the you choose to believe the true gospel message of Christ as our Savior.
That being said I guess what gets me is that no where did Peter or Paul nor any author of biblical text mention word one about the assumption of Mary (and I think --, Catholics correct me here if I'm wrong -- that the Catholic Church declares the Bible to be the inspired Word of God from the Holy Spirit)...Also, I cannot find any Church/apostolic tradition outside the idea popping up around the 4th century at the earliest…doesn't that seem a bit odd? If it were a true tradition of the apostles wouldn’t it have been a tradition from the earliest of church times? After all, each of the apostles lived in the same time period as Mary and it would seem that the apostles would pass this tradition on if it were A) true and necessary to be known for salvation and B) to be followed as strongly as the Catholic Church (via the variious Papal dogmas) commands it to be followed today…Consider this, only two humans were full body assumed (please correct me if I am wrong) Elijah and Jesus and both were documented in the Bible. Knowing this, why would this extremely important truth of Mary's assumption not be added to the New Testament via John who was now Mary’s son as commanded by Christ on the cross? Wouldn’t he of all people joyfully be spreading this miracle of Mary’s assumption or did he rather just ignore to tell his fellow believers? Many theories could arise from this but the two that seem to stick out to me are 1) it did not actually occur or 2) even if it did it was not relevant to the message of the gospel and therefore was not used to convert the lost souls to Christ
Don't get me wrong, Mary is a very important person in the plan of God for our salvation and she is and should be granted the respect of all Christians as a great example for us in being devoted to Christ by following his teachings and also doing what we all should do BELIEVE......Mary clearly understood the Jesus was her Savior and was devoted to Him and was likely a great mom...Additionally, by Mary being chosen by God the promise that the Messiah would be of the lineage of David was undisputedly fulfilled...I guess the bottom line is what the Gospel says clearly rings true regardless of what side of the fence any of us fall on in this matter...Only thru belief in the fulfillment of the promise of Christ's death and resurrection can we be saved (of course along with repentance of our sin and baptism as decreed)...can't we just focus on that? After all it’s clear Mary herself made that her focus!
I do have a question about the sinlessness of Mary that I’ve longed to ask and this seems to be a good format for this…and again this is asked in a respectful tone, I’m just curious to hear from a Catholic point of view…here goes (forgive me, it's late and my question below kind of flows all over the place):
How can the Pope decree (according to the Catholic faith, he is inspired by the Holy Spirit and infalliby did so in his dogma decree) that Mary was sinless when scripture (aka the inspired Word of God thru the Holy Spirit) tells us only one was sinless and that this person was Christ? Additionally I cannot find any source of early Church/apostolic traditions from AD 33-200 that have any mention of Mary being exempt from original sin or was sinless). It would appear that the Holy Spirit is contradicting himself when comparing the explicit truths declared in the Popes dogma of Mary's sinlessness and scripture's teaching of one sinless person, Christ. We are then asked to choose which to believe, the scripture that states that only one, who is Christ, is without sin or the dogma decree of the Pope that in addition to Christ, Mary also is sinless, based on the authority of the apostolic tradition and the Church. Only one of these truths can stand; for if the Pope's dogma decree of there being two, not just one, sinless is true then the scripture of only one sinless cannot be true for as we know Christ is not Mary nor is Mary, Christ they are two unique individuals...Please explain how these two statements, which are both claimed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, do not fully contradict each other and which truth is therefore false.
Thanks for your respectful answers...
Actually there is neither, because the scriptures were not written in English.
"An arian, gnostic, and maybe even a nestorian would say something like that. There is a tendency among Christians who do not recognize the Mother of God to slide into one form of heresy or another concerning the natures of Christ."
In the words of that great apostle, Paul. "..After the way which they call heresy (because I don't accept your "Tradition"), so worship I the God of my fathers..".
Prayer, penance, reparation and conversion.
These are the messages of our Blessed Mother.
You expect Catholics to have a debate based on your terms, so I'm asking you to prove the basis for your foundation. You keep asking for proof in the Scriptures for Catholic beliefs when the basis of your entire argument doesn't exist in the Scriptures either.
I said "...Come on, God knew what Mary was going to say. It is a figure of speech to say that the angel "waited" for Mary's reply."
You said "...This is effectively saying that Mary either didn't have free will or that God knew that she would not exercise it. Free will is the essence of original sin."
I respectfully disagree.
God's foreknowledge does not take away from our free will. If I know that my daughter is playing with matches, and I allow her to continue and start the house on fire, I "foreknew" that it would happen. Did I take away her free will? Hardly. Not the best analogy, but it is clear that foreknowledge does not have to interfere with free will.
And your statement regarding "free will is the essence of original sin". You should rethink that - it is ridiculous. God has free will. I suppose He, too, has original sin? And Jesus? And Adam and Eve BEFORE the fall?
God foreknew that Mary would respond "Yes" to the angel. God's plans cannot be overthrown, because of His foreknowledge of events.
Regards
Do you even realize that I am asking about the Mormon Heavenly Mother, which is not Mary?
Very kind, thank you much.
"I would say that Baptism is an outward and public sign of an inner transformation wrought by the Holy Spirit which has brought one to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
(we're getting far afield here aren't we.)"
I agree with both of the above statements.
Regards
You are talking to someone who believes in a heavenly Mother and trying to persuade him with the Bible? I don't believe he is very interested in what the bible has to say about Heaven.
First, it's almost like you are trying to make it sound bad to discredit Mormons. Second, the similarities between false doctrines about highpowered heavenly females are pretty striking and it's no big secret that I have a problem with Marianism. My ultimate, and not too secret, goal is to point out something that might actually make people stop and say, enough is enough, where's my bible.
"And this is, sadly, the experience of many Catholics who are devoted to Mary. Believe it or not, when I was Catholic, I was VERY CATHOLIC."
Your mentioning this several times throughout this thread is leading me to believe otherwise. Sorry about the doubt, but people who go to Mass several times a week are generally much more humble than you are showing yourself to be (presuming you were active during the Mass. "going to Mass" doesn't mean much if you are not participating).
You have posted about a dozen times about this, so it naturally brings about some doubt, wouldn't you think? If I was to say over and over "I was an Evangelical Christian pastor" 10 times in one thread, what would you think?
Regards
"Do you even realize that I am asking about the Mormon Heavenly Mother, which is not Mary?"
I humbly beg for your forgiveness, as I didn't realize in your post you were speaking about Mormonism. Stange that Mormonism is mentioned in this thread!
Regards
Actually some do, though RC's are definitely all over the map on all doctrines, contrary to their claim. They believe her to be the wife of the Holy Spirit, therefore the Wife of God, therefore equal to anything anyone might think of as a Heavenly Mother.
You are the kindest Freeper of all times. I mentioned Mormonism here because I've always had a thing about Marianism and I just learned that Mormons believe in a Heavenly Mother. I think comparisons need to be made.
"God has no mother: No beginning of days or end of life."
Mary is the Mother of Jesus. Jesus was and is God. He has two natures. Mary is not the mother of a nature, but a person. Thus, we are going to have to move away a little from your incredibly rigid interpretations of the Bible (like "there is no 'mother of God' in my Bible").
The word "Bible" is not in the Scriptures, either. I guess we can't believe in it, according to that logic.
Regards
Do your own research. This sort of information is exceptionally easy to find why should we do it for you. Our Church doesn't hide information, look it up.
OK, I don't really know where you stand on RC things, I wish my memory was better. But in discussing the Trinity on a previous thread with Mormons one very smuggly said "Ah can you show me where trinity is mentioned in the bible, I can't seem to find it". They they come up with all of this Heavenly mother stuff as if it is in the bible. So the hypocracy in the smuggness really bothers me along with the whole Heavenly mother thing.
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