Posted on 12/04/2006 7:52:47 PM PST by Pyro7480
It is a different "dimension;" it's called God. The saints in heaven share in His divinity (by grace), but outside of that we have no clue what it is, or what it means.
Physical space as such is irrelevant when it comes to God, as we would surely say that God is present in all parts of the Creation, immensly vast and it is, and all at the same time. This is a highly transcendental concept which we know of but cannot comprehend.
The scripture tells us that unless you are baptised and take the Eucharist, you are damned (John 3:5, John 6:54). We understand that the reality is a bit less harsh, and one who does not partake of the sacraments through no personal fault of his own is judged according to his works based on the light that he has been given. To put it a bit differently, mortal sin is rejection of God that is wilful. When a Muslim or a Protestant rejects the sacraments of the Church because this is how he was brought up to believe, there is no wilful personal rejection of the will of God, and hence no sin. This doctrine is called invincible ignorance.
Invincible ignorance, whether of the law or of the fact, is always a valid excuse and excludes sin. The evident reason is that neither this state nor the act resulting therefrom is voluntary. It is undeniable that a man cannot be invincibly ignorant of the natural law, so far as its first principles are concerned, and the inferences easily drawn therefrom. This, however, according to the teaching of St. Thomas, is not true of those remoter conclusions, which are deducible only by a process of laborious and sometimes intricate reasoning. Of these a person may be invincibly ignorant. Even when the invincible ignorance is concomitant, it prevents the act which it accompanies from being regarded as sinful. The perverse temper of soul, which in this case is supposed, retains, of course, such malice as it had. Vincible ignorance, being in some way voluntary, does not permit a man to escape responsibility for the moral deformity of his deeds; he is held to be guilty and in general the more guilty in proportion as his ignorance is more voluntary. Hence, the essential thing to remember is that the guilt of an act performed or omitted in vincible ignorance is not to be measured by the intrinsic malice of the thing done or omitted so much as by the degree of negligence discernible in the act.
The Hebrew canon, which was settled by 100 AD, didn’t contain the deutero-canonical texts.
Christ is risen, alleluia!
God bless you.
Personal expression of devotion is one thing. Liturgically, Mary does not "rate" the same honor as God. My specific example was concerning people in church performing metania by touching the ground at the mention "Remembering our Most Blessed..." and not when we sing "Come, let us bow and fall before Christ..."
The Orthodox Church doesn't have the uniformity we observe on the Latin Catholic side. This makes us more vulnerable to individual zealots who introduce something that is theologically incorrect, even inappropriate, and before you know it it becomes a routine as others copy them.
Orthodoxy also distinguishes little bows (a tad bit more than nods)from the neck in response to priest bowing to the congregation, incensing, blessing, Saints, and a deep (30-45%) bow from the waist (30 or more degrees) at the mention of the Holy Trinity.
Some Orthodox books do say "Theotokos save us" but this is an abbreviation (again by some zealot) of the "Theotokos, through your prayers to Christ, save us." Serbian Orthodox typikon (which is Mt. Athos monastic typikon) does not have an abbreviated version.
Воистину вокресе! Аллилуия! Господи, слава Тебе!
Indeed, He's Risen! Alliluia! GLord, Glory to Thee!
Excellent point and reference.
Simply because he himself uses it earlier in the passage, along with "justified". Indeed, for the Catholic church, and for James, justification/salvation is a lifelong process, although "salvation" can also be referring to the sacrifice of Christ that made it all possible.
I know that the RCC has a TON invested in those 7 pages, (and doesn't "like" much of Paul's writings)
Sez who? We love St. Paul and all he wrote. You read St. Paul incorrectly: you ginore the context, so you come out with short prooftexts: "not of works". But the context always explains what kind of works he is talking about. This is why all his epistles end with exhortations for works of love and charity. St. Paul never taught Sola Fide. It is not that we disagree with him or that we use other sources, -- one cannot get Sola Fide from St. Paul ALONE.
believe God gave the Bible to His children across time, and NOT, at key point, to only the self-elected few. God disapproved of man-led kingdoms. Why would He section off major parts of His Holy Book to speak only to Kings?
For one thing, St. Paul did not disapprove of kings at all; read Romans 13. On your larger point, the Scripture is indeed given to all faithful, as long as they read it faithfully. In order to understand it, note that Christ sent specific people as himself and told them to teach others. That is this Church. The Scripture is given all as a part of that comission, to teach.
Christ's Gospel is readily understandable and believable to the elect at the proper time.
So much for your populism expressed earlier. Specific warnings I had in mind is the warning at the end of 2 Peter about the difficulty in understanding the Pauline epistles, and another, also in Peter, against private interpretations. The fact that you see Sola fide in the scripture when the opposite is asserted in it, is proof enough that the essentials of faith are not clear to you.
I don't see what you are disagreeing with. Yes, the circumcision of Abraham was not salvific, but was a covenantal sign of faith.
It seems problematic to say Abraham was saved based upon the work of sacrificing Issac. In my mind that isn't what James is saying at all given the chonology
With respect, what seems to you in your mind has little bearing on the conversation does it?
14 What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but hath not works? Shall faith be able to save him? 15 And if a brother or sister be naked, and want daily food: 16 And one of you say to them: Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; yet give them not those things that are necessary for the body, what shall it profit? 17 So faith also, if it have not works, is dead in itself. 18 But some man will say: Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without works; and I will shew thee, by works, my faith. 19 Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well: the devils also believe and tremble. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, offering up Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou, that faith did co-operate with his works; and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled, saying: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him to justice, and he was called the friend of God. 24 Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by faith only? 25 And in like manner also Rahab the harlot, was not she justified by works, receiving the messengers, and sending them out another way? 26 For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also faith without works is dead.The question is put regarding salvation; the discourse proceeds about justification. The segue about "showing faith through works" is rhetorical; St. James considers it (v.18) and rejects it (v. 20). The context does not warrant the distinction between justification and salvation you are trying to make. The conclusion is blunt; "faith without works is dead"; this means that the final product of that faith is death.
It does not necessarily connote equality. Mary was indeed important in the Incarnation and in fact throughout Jesus's childhood, and that is her role in the Redemption.
this is tied to the generally admitted Catholic belief that Persons are necessary co-pilots to their own salvations.
Well put. We are co-pilots of our salvation indeed (Romans 2:6-10, James 2:15-26, 2 Peter 1:2-11). Mary is not distinct from us in that sense. She is, after all, our mother too (John 19:27).
Can you give an example of where Jesus rebukes someone for potentially venerating Mary improperly?
I just did in the post you are responding to.
27 ... a certain woman from the crowd, lifting up her voice, said to him: Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. 28 But he said: Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it. (Luke 11).
Воистину вокресе! Аллилуия! Господи, слава Тебе!
Indeed, He's Risen! Alliluia! GLord, Glory to Thee!"
ΑΛΗΘΩΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΙ! ΑΛΛΗΛΟΥΙΑ! ΔΟΞΑ ΣΟΙ ΚΥΡΙΕ, ΔΟΞΑ ΣΟΙ!
No -- why? The gospels are filled with things that we are to do, whereas we are also free to not do them.
These are actual words from John 6. What is the mistranslation?
"flesh accounts for nothing" is a mistranslation. It actually says "flesh profits nothing", and therefore refers not to the flesh of Christ, but to the flesh of the eater, which indeed gains nothing from the communion bread gastronomically speaking.
God is a runner of slaves to righteousness
Both 1 Cor 7:21-23 and Romans 6:17-18 speak of liberation from sin and "slavery of righteousness" is not an indication of lack of an ability to choose wrong, but rather lack of desire to choose wrong. The context of 1 Corinthians 7 is general obedience to the "calling", thus it exhorts our free will; likewise Romans 6: "yield your members to serve justice, unto sanctification". If it is "slavery" it is a voluntary form of it.
From the flow of the passage, this certainly seems like a works-based salvation model. I.e. "16 If thou wilt keep the commandments and perform acceptable fidelity for ever, ..." How do you analyze them, as against the OT or the NT? I ask because we have been dealing with the NT.
This passage form Ecclesiasticus is not in contradiction to any other scripture, either Old or New Testament.
Of course! The scripture can be fully understood only in the Eucharistic context, as the Word is properly Christ Himself. Good point.
This is debatable, to say the least. "they knew him in the breaking of the bread", the same gospel says.
A: “I mean, you turn a blind eye to aspects of the scripture your pastors tell you to be blind to. Faulty mariology is faulty Christology.”
WF: “Our churches are not autocratic hierarchies.”
I agree with everything Alex wrote and my hierarchs aren’t generally autocratic at all and when one popps up, we get rid of him.
Nor did it contain the Gospels...
If you consider the Jews an authority on the Scripture content, why does your bible still contain the Gospels???
Regards
One thing 1 Timothy 2:1-5 unequivocally proves is that the fact that Christ is the only mediator to the Father does not prohibit intercession.
As to the separation between the living and the dead, Christ erased it, at least as concerns His saints:
Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting (Mt. 19:29)
Are we separated from the saints? If so, we would be separated from Christ also, as He is with them in the everlasting life. But no, death does not separate us from either Christ or His angels or saints:
35 Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? 36 (As it is written: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.) 37 But in all these things we overcome, because of him that hath loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8)God hath set forth us apostles, the last, as it were men appointed to death: we are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men. (1 Cor 4:9)
Thnak you for doing so; I was thinking of looking for the same scriptures, as clearly Kosta is reachign with hsi assertions.
the Church made an error on classifying "saints" as those who are not living.
Well, on the basis of the scripture alone I have to agree with you, but the Church had to distinguish between cases when sanctification could be ascertained objectively and the rest. The former category has to be people who went to sleep in the Lord, as we believe that it is the totality of one's life and not a single act of faith, that gives us clues into the final justification. We certainly would not want veneration of living people to be the norm.
Yes.
if we don't worship Mary we don't understand our Saviour?
If we don't venerate Mary we do not have a complete understanding of Christ, correct.
True. The deuterocanonical books were rejected by the Jews at the same council of Jamnia which rejected Christianity. So?
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