Posted on 02/15/2006 6:22:47 AM PST by NYer
Anyone not confessing the full doctrine of the church is heterodox.
Since you used the example of Catholics; If a Catholic professes abortion is ok, or should be legalized that are anathema, they are heterodox, and they are not part of the Catholic church.
Full Court, in the post that brought my comment on, said: "We don't need a group of weak and fallible men to interpret SCRIPTURE for us. We have the HOLY SPIRIT in us to guide us and convict us." In other words, he is claiming that all believers should be able to tap into the Holy Spirit's guidance and inerrantly interpret Scripture. But this is self-evidently not true when one sees the multiplicity of differing Scriptural interpretations coming from people who equally hold to this theory. Therefore, since he seems clear enough that he believes he is guided by the Holy Spirit in some special way, he has anointed himself to be his own magisterium. This is a natural outflow from the basic Protestant doctrine of the "perspicuousness of Scripture." Therefore I called upon him to notice the refutation of the idea from simple observation of the conflicting Scriptural interpretations around him.
With "Cafeteria Catholics," the situation is quite different. When they act as if they are their own, self-anointed magisterium, they manifestly act in opposition to their Church's teaching on the matter. The Church makes no claim that each and every individual believer is so endowed by the Holy Spirit, and it is thus not guilty of furthering an obvious misunderstanding of the Holy Spirit's role in these matters.
Since I was pointing out that his erroneous understanding of his ability to interpret Scripture is derived from the concept of scriptural perspicuousness, which Catholics don't share, I said that Cafeteria Catholics are not a good parallel case to cite, and are irrelevant to what I said.
There are none so blind as those who will not see. I fear that at least some of these folks demonstrate sufficient familiarity with the exposition of the Truth - and then refuse to embrace it - that they imperil themselves more than they know. And they'd have little excuse if they did so imperil themselves; they accuse us of "legalism" exclusivity and triumphalism when we talk about what we know to be the objective requirements for salvation, yet they cheerfully damn every non-Christian to Hell without a hearing on every bit the legalistic mindset they accuse us of! If God uses their own logic and bumps it up one rung of the ladder to accuse them out of their own mouths, it is very possible that He will hold them to a stern accounting for their lack of sanctifying grace after a death without access to absolution. Not my job to so declare, of course, but it *is* a logical outcome based on His own objective norms.
Did Jesus speak Aramaic or not? It's a simple question. Yes or No.
What, then, are they? They are not angels. If kerryusama's contention is correct that there are only three humans in Heaven mentioned by Scripture, then what is left to explain the presence of these elders?
In every single case in the Bible where the word "elders" is used, it refers to human beings. What else could it be here? Besides, Revelation 7:13-15 not only mentions one of these elders again, it also has him asking St. John a question: "Who are these clothed in white robes, and whence have they come?" John relpies: "Sir, you know." And then the elder responds: These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him night and day within His temple..."
Please, what could be plainer? Not only is the elder spoken to by St. John clearly a human, but he makes direct mention of a multitude of martyrs (definitely not angels!) who "are" before the throne of God (i.e.: in Heaven), *before* the end of the world, as the seventh seal hasn't even been opened yet. Check out also, if you please, the reference to this host of people in Rev. 7:9-10, immediately preceding John's conversation.
It is simply ridiculous to suppose that Heaven will be uninhabited by the souls of humans before the End.
When I first read the Revelation, one thing really bothered me. It did not look like hell existed. So I ask my wife, "Honey, does hell exist?" and she replies, "Of course not, have you been drinking?"
So I searched to find out how I was so wrong for so long. The immortality of the soul, like so many other errors in modern Christianity, came from pagans from a long time ago like Plato. These guys felt earth was hell because of its constant chaos. They laid down on the ground and looked up and decided that the stars beyond the 7 planets that they could see was heaven or the pleroma or spirit world. The planets themselves were demi-gods, and spirits descended from the pleroma at birth and there mission was to shake off the earthly things, become heavenly, beg the demi-gods to help them, and re-ascend to the pleroma. When Paul went to Rome and the rest of the generally Hellenistic world and started to preach - and then left, this nonesense started creeping in.
Now, I ask you, Tenn2005, whart kind of God would we serve if we were first in heaven, then tossed out to try to live a righteous life in this sin infested world, only to die and have our "spirit" rise back to heaven, only to be tossed out again into the sinc infested world at judgement day? What kind of God would we serve if our loved ones were in heaven looking down at our suffering and watching us sin against God?
No. God knows that we are prone to sin, error and failure. He foreknew that breaches would come in His Church's unity. He encompassed that in His Providence. But He would NOT have allowed such errors to overcome His Church *immediately* after He founded it and gave it its set of original "operating instructions." That is blasphemy to even say, since it says, in effect, that He was too incompetent to even get His Church off the ground on the right footing. The Parable ofm the Wheat and the Tares (Matthew 13:24-30) has more than one application, of course, but certainly one of the applications is the state of affairs the overall Chritian community finds itself in with respect to so much division. He knew it would come, but He Himself did NOT instigate it with murkiness and obscurity in His own words.
###"We don't need a group of weak and fallible men to interpret SCRIPTURE for us. We have the HOLY SPIRIT in us to guide us and convict us."###
Do I detect that you are non denominational? How do you interpret the following? Why was it written? Do you think someone should study chapter and verse and interpret?
Chapter 21- Verse 25
"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen."
My friend...the myth is that Peter was in Rome. You cannot show me, from scripture, that this is not so.
Does the name Loraine Boettner mean anything to you
Never met the person....or heard of him.
Oh? Has any Catholic admitted on here the Catholic Church was wrong on what it teaches in matters of faith or morals?
Thank you. The Pro-Life position (which you spelled correctly in my opinion, capital "P" and "L"--wish the FR spell checker reflected this) is a noble and moral courageous stand. You are right to make a strong stand against euthanasia.
I'm not your enemy.
As far a vanity is concerned, I also accuse myself of the same.
In pointing out errors, homosexual Catholic Bishops and priests are to blame for the pedophile, rape, and corruption of young boys and men. But, connecting the heresy of Protestant Liberalism to the abominations of divorce, abortion, contraception, homosexualization, etc. are so historically evident that it's impossible to ignore it or cast it aside as non-existent. What Satan could never do externally with Protestant Revolt, Masonic Lodges in Europe, Mexico, etc., he couldn't do internally with open rebellion even within the ranks of the Vatican. Yes, the Church has had disastrous popes just as the nation of Israel has had disastrous kings. Yet, Jews and Catholics thrive in spite of human weakness. Likewise, all Christianity thrives in spite of human failings. The Holy Spirit makes it so.
Some say of the same Poles (accuse them of vanity) who prove time and again that Stalin and the Soviets were responsible for the mass murder of Katyn Forrest? It was Stalin who promoted the tactic "deny everything". Where is it that they go too far? Proving the crime, or demanding an apology? Personally, I think that the Poles today would get a better warm and fuzzy if Putin just says, "Mass murder is wrong in all cases, including what the now defunct Bolshevik Soviets did at the Katyn Forrest and Gulags. We'll never support or condone such violence nor tolerate it from our own or our neighbors." Putin wouldn't have to make promises of going after those NKVD responsible knowing that it would rip the internal order of Russians; and, Poland would be wise to not demand that (as it would create an unstable, possibly even hostile neighbor).
Thus, President George W. Bush has given American Catholics (who follow the strict orthodox of Catholic Dogma), solid confidence in Presidential leadership in spite of his not being Catholic...and even defeating a Senator who merely pretends to be Roman Catholic!
I try to be forthcoming with my errors the same way the late Pope John Paul II apologized for the misdeeds of Catholics. I accuse myself of vanity, but I doubt I'm wrong about Protestant Liberalism and its connection to the errors of the spirit of this world. What influenced such rebellion was the same spirit that encouraged the fall of man.
I don't hold you accountable for my Irish ancestors' losing their property or lives because of what Protestants did. I don't even want an apology. I wouldn't even hold you accountable for the friction my parent's Catholic and interracial marriage experienced by living as a young military family in the South (friction that could not have happened without Protestants feverishly backing the xenophobic KKK, heavily anti-Catholic even more so than it was against Jews in America, historically cannot be ignored).
Thus, it's neither frustration, rage, nor vanity that I point at was has created extreme anxiety in my life. But, Praise Jesus, the Sacraments Reconcile it; and, I even offer your attacks against me as part of the shared suffering on the cross in trying to expose errors. I hope this ends the spirit of the words you chose in describing me or my posts.
A better term for all Christians is the "new Israel", to which Paul refers. That term links the Old Testament children of God to the New Testament children of God, one the children of the promise of the first coming of Jesus and the other, children of the promise of everlasting life in Jesus when He comes again.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
838 "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter." Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church." With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist."
From orthodox wiki:
Traditional Christianity affirms that the laws or Torah of the Old Testament is the word of God, though many Christians deny that all of the laws of the Pentateuch apply directly to themselves as Christians. The New Testament indicates that Jesus Christ established a new covenent relationship between God and his people (Hebrews 8; Jeremiah 31:31-34) and this makes the Mosaic covenant in some senses obsolete (Hebrews 8:13). A change of covenant can imply a change of law. Many have interpreted Mark's statement, "thus he declared all foods clean" (Mark 7:19) to mean that Jesus taught that the pentateuchal food laws were no longer applicable to His followers. The writer of Hebrews indicates that the sacrifices and the Levitical priesthood foreshadowed Jesus Christ's offering of himself as the sacrifice for sin on the Cross and many have interpreted this to mean that once the reality of Christ has come, the shadows of the ritual laws cease to be obligatory (Heb 8:5; 9:23-26; 10:1). On the other hand, the New Testament repeats and applies to Christians a number of Old Testament laws, including "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18; compare the Golden Rule), "Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul and strength" (Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema) as well as every commandment of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments (Exod 20:1-17). In fact, in Matthew 5:17, Jesus said that He did not come to abolish the Law.
While some Christians from time to time have deduced from statements about the law in the writings of the apostle Paul that Christians are under grace to the exclusion of all law (see antinomianism), this is not the usual viewpoint of Christians.An example of one more common approach is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) which divides the Mosaic laws into three categories: moral, civil, and ceremonial. In the view of the Westminster divines, only the moral law such as most of the Ten Commandments directly applies to Christians today. Others limit the application of the Mosaic laws to those commands repeated in the New Testament. In the 1970s and 1980s a movement known as Christian Reconstructionism (Theonomy) argued that the civil laws as well as the moral laws should be applied in today's society as part of establishing a modern, theocratic state. Others are content to grant that none of the Mosaic laws apply as such and that the penalties attached to the laws were limited to the particular historical and theological setting of the Old Testament, and yet still seek to find moral and religious principles applicable for today in all parts of the law. The topic of Paul and the law is still frequently debated among New Testament scholars.
In the late 20th century some Christian groups, primarily those found in or influenced by Messianic Judaism, have asserted that Torah laws should be followed by Christians. Due to a different understanding of Biblical passages such as those referenced above, dietary laws, seventh day Sabbath, and Biblical festival days are observed in some way within such segments of Christianity. As with Orthodox Judaism, capital punishment and sacrifice are not practiced because there are strict Biblical conditions on how these are to be practiced. Christians who attempt to follow Torah law do not do such works in order to achieve salvation, but rather because they believe is it a way of more fully obeying God (see Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 5:17). See sources below (Lancaster and Berkowitz).
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