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Can you show me from Scripture that the People of God split? What does Numbers 16 tell you about such matters? The precedents clearly tell us that reform is part of the Church, but not divisiveness, discord, and certainly not schism.

Well, I certainly have no interest in saying that you folks "left Christianity" like some groups have actually done over time. (I hope that's not what you mean about us.) However, neither would I say that about our Orthodox friends. That's probably as far as I'd like to go on schism. :) All of us are still Christians. We just now have some radically different ways of getting to similar places.

God certainly took care of the Korah problem. If the earth opens up and swallows all Reformers, then I will admit that you were right. :)

Luther would have been a great reformer if he could have stayed within the Church's teachings and not refute her authority given by God.

I have no idea how any one individual could possibly be an effective reformer in the Catholic Church. Everything I know about says that would be impossible. How can someone reform anything "within the Church's teachings"? Isn't that like saying: "As long as you agree with me, you can disagree all you like"? Maybe if one was the pope, he could do some things, but short of that, it seems to me any attempt would be clerical suicide. I don't see how Luther had any real choice.

Many Catholic saints have argued with Popes and the hierarchy to correct abuses.

And 99% of the time they were either ignored, or thrown out of the Church, or flat out killed, I'm guessing. :) I thought popes were officially incapable of "abuses". I've never heard a Catholic say that the pope bore any responsibility for the abuses concerning indulgences, for example. Those abuses were certainly front and center during the Reformation, but what really needed to be changed was so much bigger than that, IMO.

The Supreme Court is NOT guided by the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Supreme Court does not claim infallibility for its decisions, unlike the Church.

I would certainly agree that I think the hierarchy of the RCC is guided by the Holy Spirit to a SIGNIFICANTLY higher degree than our Supreme Court. :)

You are kidding yourself if you think Reformers agree as much as Catholics. I go to other forums and there is a wide disparity of beliefs on even whether God is a Trinity or not...

I've never been to any other forums, and I've never heard of a Reformer who denied the Trinity. I would say that is impossible, so it depends on your definition of Reformer. I was thinking more along the lines of the Reformers on the L&E thread, all from different churches and backgrounds, and all the different Catholics. I really don't think you all were any more unified than we were.

Where EXACTLY does this speak about righteous men who sinned occasionally? You sure you have the same bible? The entire section has NOTHING to say about righteous men, but wicked ones. Where do we see righteous men spoken of in this manner in the Psalms?

You were the one making the relation to Psalms exclusively, not me. Before I can even begin to address your comment I have to know what you think a Biblically righteous man was. I have no idea now. :)

On the surface, you may say it has little difference. But it makes ALL the difference whether we say a man is totally corrupt or man is wounded.

I fully agree that it makes a big difference. It is the difference between cooperation and God choosing whom He will save through His own will.

A totally corrupt man has NOTHING to give, not even if it is something given to him by God.

That is not the Reformed view. We would say that a totally corrupt man has nothing to give of his own, and that all people have "something to give" if it was given by God. We would say that for the important matter here, salvation, that God gives some totally corrupt men grace, and that ALL of those men "give" back their belief of their own free will. IOW, if God gives one grace, it never gets wasted.

A wounded man can, with aid, become righteous as a result of God's work.

And that would be thanks to the goodness that is within him that he has so wisely chosen to use. Other people were not so wise to use their respective inner goodness(es), and so they are lost. That is a very different view from ours. :)

This is where one must invent ~~imputed~~; "infused" righteousness. This idea effects our ideas of salvation - to include sanctification...

Or something like that.... :)

Why do you separate the faith of the man from the man??? The fact of the matter remains that SIMON is now called KEPHAS. Not Simon's faith! Paul doesn't refer to Simon's "faith" as Kephas, but his person. WHAT was called Kephas in the Scriptures?

I'm not making that separation because I'm not talking about Peter's own exclusive faith. I'm saying that God's Church is built on "true faith" itself, and Peter was one among many who had it.

We were talking about Matt. 16:18. There, the Strong's number for Peter is 4074 (Petros). It refers to Peter as a name (male person). The number for "rock" is 4073 (petra), which is a feminine use of the word. If Jesus really meant Peter, then He would be calling him a woman. Since that is unlikely, Jesus is using a play on words.

Why are you so uptight about giving honor to a person?

Because people are never deserving in comparison to what God has done for us, IMO. It is very humbling to me that I have to keep reminding myself of that. :)

But God is love. Love shares itself. God GLADLY draws men into His salvation plan. Perhaps you have detected this in Scriptures?

One thing I have detected in scripture is that our loving God is also a jealous God, and generally doesn't like it when men raise themselves up over where they belong. I have found that even with the way I look at things, God has given me more of His love than I can possibly deal with. :)

God GLADLY draws men into His salvation plan. Perhaps you have detected this in Scriptures? God didn't have to use men, you know. But He did.

I don't think we'd be thinking of the same scriptures on this statement. :)

I suppose this "need" to give God "ALL" the credit is a result of how you look at God - a jealous and envious Being who creates things for the specific purpose of destroying it and causes men to do EVERYTHING. As I have said before, this is a caricature of the Christian God of Love Whom I am familiar with.

Well, this is certainly a caricature of the Reformed view. I don't even know what you're talking about.

Why WOULDN'T He desire to share the "credit", as you say???

Because He is the God of truth, and men could not possible merit any "credit". I don't understand any human mindset that "needs" to have any credit. God is fully love and I don't need any credit for my salvation. I think I appreciate Him more because I don't get any credit. It makes me more dependent on Him. If I thought I deserved a pat on the back for being smarter than the next guy for choosing God, then I would feel like I needed Him less. That's just me.