Posted on 10/21/2006 4:52:03 AM PDT by NYer
Now, dear heart, . . . please avoid getting your hopes up.
Pontifical traditional organizations are blessed with such ancient fossilized columns of truth that
THEY AND THEY ALONE
ARE AUTHORIZED TO ASK QUESTIONS and expect an answer.
THEY harumph, do NOT answer questions!
So shape up in your expectations.
[Oh, dear, there I go again. Maybe it was something in the teah I drank while waiting for the cone 10's to fall in the kiln? Or was it one of those skupposedly questionable revelations from the ethers having nothing to do with truth or reality or anything else edifying, supposedly. In this case, that might be right.]
GREAT POINTS. Thanks.
Your use of the Virgin Mary in your "satire/humor" is both disgusting and offensive.
NOT AT ALL.
Any Scriptural phrase or sentence about which there are multiple plausible explanations . . . on the part of earnest authentic Believers . . .
Cannot very well be included in the set 'abundantly clear' by any stretch of the imagination . . . except perhaps for those for whom bias has clouded all standard definition of "clear."
As has been thrown at me a lot hereon . . . "clear" is inaccurate because of multiple plausible alternative definitions, explanations . . . THEREFORE, WHAT'S PRESUMED TO BE CLEAR MUST NOT BE CLEAR BECAUSE 20,000 FOLKS (and sects--don't forget the sects--those dirty nasty little groups) DIFFER on what clear is.
So, now, via Billdo Klintoon, we have THAT DEPENDS ON WHAT THE MEANING OF CLEAR IS . . . entered into the discussion log.
LOL.
Great points.
Thanks.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . . Praise God!
Perhaps communication is possible hereon after all.
So are slams of gnosticism and "sects" all the more so when viewed as wholesale untrue by the recipients.
BTW, I suspect Mary would have a good laugh over it. I don't see her as 1/1,000th as starchy about herself or other realities as a lot of folks in this present world are . . . particularly in a certain . . . sect.
OK. Sorry.
Sadly, as the scars on my arms show . . . picking at scabs is a lifelong problem. Sigh.
I will always call others out when they are degrading toward Christ's family.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
I did not make it personal. My post addressed only the offensive comment he made, not him personally, according to your rules.
"It's an interpretation guided by the Holy Spirit, at least in my case."
There's a diff bet what is between God and a person's conscience and what what is in scripture.
As determined by whom? Heretics? Obviously not, otherwise, every heresy of every sort would have claim to "divine inspiration". Orthodoxy is determined by the bishops of the Church; that is precisely what distinguishes orthodoxy from heterdoxy. Orthodoxy is not determined by agreement with one's own private and personal interpretation of Scripture or one's own private and personal determination of "what God is saying". That would entail the elimination of orthodoxy (and heresy) altogether, for then each person would have his own orthodoxy, evacuating the very concept of all meaning.
That is why St. Augustine is exactly right when he says: "For my part, I should not believe the Gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church." Notice the contrast between the great saint Augustine, and the contemporary individualist for whom the Church has nothing to do with the Gospel or salvation; it just "me and Jesus". In actuality, it is not the Bible per se that determines orthdoxy (as 20,000+ different 'sola scriptura' sects demonstrate); it is fundamentally the Church, particularly, her bishops in succession from the Apostles and in communion with the bishop holding the seat of Peter. Just as in the days of the Apostles, to enter the Church was to enter into communion with the Apostles and to submit to their leadership and authority, so today to enter the Church is to enter into communion with those bishops in succession from the Apostles and submit to their leadership and authority.
-A8
I didn't and don't see that humor as degrading.
I can accept that others differ on that score.
Maybe tomorrow.
Seems to me that those assertions have fallen in a huge logical and historical trap.
Fortunately, God has promised not to let this happen to His Church. The gates of hell shall not prevail against her, and He will guide her into all truth, and be with her always, even to the end of the age.
that HE WILL NOT TOLERATE ANY LEADER usurping HIS PLACE in my life.
Of course orthodox Catholics also believe the very same thing. The offices of pope and bishop do not "usurp" the place of Christ any more than the office of Apostle usurps the place of Christ.
Proposing that a hierarchical leadership take the role described is wellll . . . quite bluntly . . . taking Christ's metaphor . . . equal to placing an interloper between husband and wife in the wedding night bed.
No, because you as an individual are not the whole body of Christ. Each of us is a member, and together, we compose the body of Christ. And as St. Paul explains in 1 Cor 12, some members have greater talents and functions and honors than others. But each is important and necessary. So the existence of deacons, priests and bishops in the body of Christ should not be seen as placing a *separation* between Christ and the believer, but rather as providing a sacramental (incarnational) provision of Christ to the believer. As St. Paul explains, each part of the body Christ needs all the other parts. We need the bishops and priests and deacons. Christ has provided them (and the sacraments) to bring us closer to Himself.
-A8
The amazing thing about mathematics is that it is unreasonably effective with regard to natural systems (Wigner) and vice versa (Vafa). I have often used such (information theory and molecular biology, S dualities, mirror symmetries, Mandelbrot sets, etc.) to "rock the world" of atheists. LOL!
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