Free will is about man's will, not the intellect. God's doctrines do not concern man's DECISION to choose right or wrong, but what IS right or wrong.
So, if every school child in America had been issued a "fork manual" in school, then there would be less error.
OR, they could have been better taught as a "youth" by their "Mother", the Church - if I may continue the parallelism.
Well, that's a matter of interpretation. Remember who you're talking to. :)
Can we agree that God wrote the Bible through men and their own latent abilities and knowledge?
Why should I expect Catholic leaders to espouse Protestant themes?
There was no "Protestant" themes, that is my point!!! Sola Fide is an idea, it is not something patented and trademarked by Protestantism that could only be utilized by its "inventor"! IF the idea was found in Scripture and believed by the Church as legitimate development, we would have seen something, don't you think? We are talking about men who had MEMORIZED the Bible, for heaven's sake! These guys LIVED Scriptures and were aware of it. But we don't find any sort of concept of what would LATER be called Protestantism. This is telling, to me, that the Protestant pillars were innovations, never thought of before.
At some point, and ever since, the circulation of the Bible exceeded the reach of Catholicism. At that point, the Bible becomes useless to all who have it, but do not have Catholicism to tell them what it means.
Not useless, but a source of heresy, unfortunately. Today in the Latin Rites Liturgical Lectionary, we read about the Eunich who asks Philip for interpretation: "How can I know without it being explained?"
Do you think this is an efficient means of spreading the Good News?
You mean passing out bibles and let others figure it out? No. Faith comes through hearing, not reading.
In Catholicism, the Bible, by itself, is a relatively worthless book.
I never said that. Catholics, though, have been taught a particular paradigm in understanding God's revelation - which comes through Tradition and Scriptures. Thus, a man certainly can take the Bible and read it - as long as they remember the paradigm, the totality of revelation. Certain things are to be understood a certain way, such as verses that talk about Christ's subordination to the Father... We realize that Jesus and the Father are equal outside of the Godhead.
I don't believe that such correctness can be passed down infallibly, I don't believe that those extra-scriptural, oral teachings could have remained inerrant through the ages.
Two things to remind you of...first, we believe God guides His Church so that it can REMAIN the Pillar and Foundation of the Truth. Secondly, the "oral" tradition DID get written down - by the Church Fathers or the Liturgy that we celebrate. It is not a 2000 year old telephone game.
Yes, God said that, but you are talking about cannibalism, which is contrary to God's word. Therefore, it is impossible for Jesus to have meant it in the literal sense. Any other sense involves a symbolic interpretation. Of course, in Catholicism, maybe "eat" and "flesh" do not mean "eat" and "flesh". I don't know how that "plain meaning" would be explained.
Jesus is offering His sacramental flesh. We do not deny the symbolic interpretation. But neither do we deny the literal sense. Christ's glorified flesh, as the bread from the miracle immediately preceding the John 6 Discourse, was miraculously enough to feed the crowd - just as Christ's flesh is enough to feed the world. The Bread of Life that He gives for the world is His flesh (Jn 6:51) If you look at the Greek Version that follows, you will be convinced that Christ meant a literal sense. Chewing with teeth? Tearing flesh, as in animal eating? No, this is something more than "chewing on the Word of God in thought".
FK, this is something that ONLY the Spirit can enable us to comprehend. It is not something that can be explained and understood with the man of the flesh:
"No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:44
"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life." John 6:63
This is not geometry, but a mystery that only God can reveal within us...
God is not the author of evil. God knows what evil will happen as a result of His passing over the evildoers, but He is not responsible.
Yes, you have said that, but then you contradict yourself when you say that man cannot choose good. If man has no free will to choose between good and evil, then God must do everything - you clearly say that man does not cooperate AT ALL. Thus, God, not man, is responsible for the good AND the bad that is done.
IF a person can ONLY do one thing, HOW is he responsible for not doing the other? Cannot a man rightly ask God "What do you expect? You FORCED me to choose evil! I cannot choose good! How can you then judge me, if I do what I was made to do?" Ask yourself honestly these questions - would God be righteous if man CANNOT but do one thing - sin - but is COMMANDED to do good that HE cannot do?
If so, then the Bible is subject to error. Or, did the writers just "choose" to be perfect?
Hardly. You are forgetting God's foreknowledge and His ability to instill within a particular man the proper knowledge and ability to present HIS - GOD'S - inerrant word, whether it be in parable, allegory, novel, narrative, history, myth, or whatever literal genre He decides to present.
I have never talked about Islam, and I could not care less about Islam, nor any comparison of myself to it. I don't think it's right for YOU to slap a label on me, and then demand that I defend that label. That's ridiculous.
I apologize if I have offended you. Islam takes a literal interpretation to EVERY WORD of the Koran because God Himself has supposedly SAID it, not through a medium, like in the Judeo-Christian tradition... If a Christian takes a literal interpretation of every word of the Bible as if God spoke it, then we forget that God wrote the Bible for men of different eras, with man's take mixed in. A Holy War has a different meaning then it did for the Jews of 4000 years ago! Do we continue Paul's "law" of women not speaking in Church or having their heads covered? Fundamentalism, whether Islam or Christian, is very inflexible and is usually the cause of much suffering among the people who have to deal with their adherents. It is not God's intention that the People of God cause suffering among other people!
Can you look me in the eyes and tell me that if an honest poll was taken of the whole Church, that the majority would say that contraceptives should never be used?
The majority of advisors to Pope Paul VI suggested to him in the early 1960's that the Catholic Church ALSO follow the lead of every other Protestant community and do away with the absolute use of condoms, allowing it in limited actions. The Spirit guided the Pope to go against this "poll" and say NO! Humanae Vitae, the so-called "birth control" encyclical of the 1960's, caused a HUGE stir in the American Catholic churches. Unfortuantely, the bishops were often part of the dissent! This is a fine example on how God works to maintain the teachings of the Church given by the Apostles, even in the face of popular whims of society. The Church is built on a Rock.
It is THIS teaching that the Church looks back upon, not the whims of Catholics TODAY! If the Church has "always believed, everywhere and from all time" a particular idea or concept, it must have been given by the Holy Spirit. Man is a fickle creature. It is impossible that he hold to a particular idea or concept for any length of time unless God is guiding him... Such things we call "universal principles".
I said that man misinterprets sometimes.
I agree. But God didn't desire that we be left in the dark. He gave us the Church to be the pillar and foundation of the truth. God desires that all men be saved AND COME TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH! He gives us this ability through a God-guided Church, which consists of heirarchy AND the people within it. Even we, the lay, have a "sense of the faithful" that the Spirit guides within us. But this sense does not include merely one particular society or one era. The Church is timeless and transcendant to time, since its Head is also. We are united to the saints of ALL ages. Thus, the "sense of the faithful" expands to all time, all places. Because we have a screwed up generation here in America doesn't mean that the "sense of the faithful" is void.
Regards
Free will is about man's will, not the intellect. God's doctrines do not concern man's DECISION to choose right or wrong, but what IS right or wrong.
I'm not sure I understand the distinction you are drawing. Are you saying that, in this case, man's intellect is dominated to prevent error, but that leaves man's free will completely intact?
Can we agree that God wrote the Bible through men and their own latent abilities and knowledge?
I think so. But you raise an interesting point. Could the Apostles have written things that were at least "semi-new" even to them? Paul seemed to be responding to questions and correcting error, so I wonder if "new" ways of dealing with issues came out in his writings for the first time (through God's inspiration, i.e. Paul had never thought of it like "that" before). I don't know why not.
There was no "Protestant" themes [in the early days of Christianity], that is my point!!! ... But we don't find any sort of concept of what would LATER be called Protestantism. This is telling, to me, that the Protestant pillars were innovations, never thought of before.
How can that be if we Protestants today approve of some of what you would call Augustine's error?
Secondly, the "oral" tradition DID get written down - by the Church Fathers or the Liturgy that we celebrate. It is not a 2000 year old telephone game.
OK, I had this big argument that I was going to make, but then I realized that you think the Bible itself is infallible for EXACTLY the same reason that you think the writings of the Church Fathers are infallible. OTOH, MY argument for the Bible's infallibility could never apply to the writings of Church Fathers because everyone agrees that "some number" of them were in error.
FK, this is something that ONLY the Spirit can enable us to comprehend. It is not something that can be explained and understood with the man of the flesh: ...
So anyone who disagrees with the Catholic interpretation on this is a "man of the flesh"? Wouldn't that mean that all of the rest of us are unregenerate and unjustified? How could this be when you recognize our baptisms? Perhaps your answer will be that when we were baptized we were fine, but then we grew up to be Protestants, which is a mortal sin? :)
IF a person can ONLY do one thing, HOW is he responsible for not doing the other? Cannot a man rightly ask God "What do you expect? You FORCED me to choose evil! I cannot choose good! How can you then judge me, if I do what I was made to do?" Ask yourself honestly these questions - would God be righteous if man CANNOT but do one thing - sin - but is COMMANDED to do good that HE cannot do?
If we take the Fall as the starting point, then at that moment, all mankind was forever doomed, right? I think we can agree on that. Therefore, if God did nothing else, and just sat back and watched, then all humans would wind up in hell. Would God be just in doing this? I suspect you would say "No", and I would say "Yes". What does God owe us? I don't think a thing at this point.
So, if God doesn't owe anyone salvation, then why is He responsible for those who are lost if He chooses to save some? No man ever has a right to say "What did you expect?" God would say "Where were you when I ..."
I remember that you said, in effect, that God does have a duty to offer salvation to all if He expressed His wish that all be saved. I pointed out that this was an undecreed wish. God does, however, make some decreed wishes (promises) about His elect, does He not? I do believe that God has to come through on those, and my ASSURANCE is that He will do just that.
Yes, God is righteous when He chooses not to sufficiently grace certain people to be able to accept Him. The questions that you posit above such as "How can [God] then judge me, if I do what I was made to do?" are under the assumption that there are two sides to this "court case". There are not, there is only one side, God's. The accused have no "rights" of their own on Judgment Day, God gives rights to those whom He will. There is absolutely no room at all for any sense of human "fairness". God is far more "fair" than we could possibly imagine! :)
FK: "If so, then the Bible is subject to error. Or, did the writers just "choose" to be perfect?"
Hardly. You are forgetting God's foreknowledge and His ability to instill within a particular man the proper knowledge and ability to present HIS - GOD'S - inerrant word, whether it be in parable, allegory, novel, narrative, history, myth, or whatever literal genre He decides to present.
Is this an example of what you said above, about the separation of man's will and intellect? I don't understand how God-infused (specific) intellect can trump man's free will, and yet it is still free. If God had infused an allegory into Matthew's head about a certain issue, could Matthew have used his free will to write it literally? You appear to say "No". So where is the free will to reject God's grace?
Islam takes a literal interpretation to EVERY WORD of the Koran because God Himself has supposedly SAID it, not through a medium, like in the Judeo-Christian tradition...
OK, and I have tried to say that I do not believe for a moment that every word in the Bible is intended to be taken literally. But I do believe that lots of them were. :)
Do we continue Paul's "law" of women not speaking in Church or having their heads covered?
Well, if I was the pastor of my own church, I certainly wouldn't have those rules, BUT, if some other Christian church wanted to observe them, I would not think less of them. Women would either show up or they wouldn't.
It is THIS teaching that the Church looks back upon, not the whims of Catholics TODAY!
Thank you for the background on the contraceptive issue. And, when you speak of "the Church" leading the hierarchy, which Church is it? You admit, and I agree, that the majority of any laity of a church might change their collective views on important issues over time. So what is it that is leading the hierarchy? I read what you said about the "sense of the faithful" being across time, but how can it be said to "lead" the hierarchy if it never means anything specific?