Posted on 03/07/2007 9:10:18 AM PST by Salvation
elaborate at will. the fact is protestants profess 'scripture! scripture! scripture!" but eagerly denounce scripture as relativistic and outdated the moment it mandates something they would hate to do since it defies cultural norms made up by their ancestors.
the disconnect is plain. protestants postulate that something is untrue i post the scripture reference and protestants refute scripture with 'personal stances'.
how many protestants does it take to dance around the truth? just one but all are equally prone.
But we Orthodox do not consider the Church Fathers to be infallible and untainted. No one is untainted. Even the Apostles were sinners.
The basis for our trust is known as the consensus patrum, that on which the Church as a whole agreed, based on the the Scripture and what the Church practices and believed since the beginning.
For example, St. Gregory of Nyssa was a student of Origen and shared with Origen the universal salvation belief (i.e. that all, including the damned, will eventually be saved), but the Church never consented to that. However, St. Gregory of Nyssa is one of the top Cappadocian Fathers of the early Church in other teachings to which the Church as a whole did consent.
The same is true of St. Augustine, whose works were practically unknown to the Greek-speaking Church in the East until the 15th century. When his works were finally translated the Orthodox Church rejected many of his teachings (the so-called "original sin" and total depravity for example), but still considers him a saint because of his other superb work and life, and because no matter what he wrote he always deferred to the Church and its collective understanding of the Scriptures.
The only way anything God gives us remains pristine is if we have no will of our own, bus simply act as God dictates.
Certainly, God gives each and every one of us a pristine soul. That soul, through our own defective will and fallen nature, becomes tainted. God certainly doesn't give us a defective soul.
In Hebrews 8, the New Testament writer reminds us that the First Covenant was made imperfect by idolatrous Jews. God's covenant with His people was perfect when it was given to Moses.
We are the source of corruption and change. God is perfect and unchanging. The Spirit moves us and leads us but He does not make us perfect.
"Most of us Pentecostal Armenians do the same thing good Calvinists do on that score."
Yeah, but you have to have lots of pictures in your bibles and different colored print to show who is speaking, otherwise your mind wanders.
Oh, I'll disagree with it myself, if only for clarification. You'll have to define at a minimum what these doctrines are that you claim incompatibly divide these hypothetically still-Protestant denominations, before I'll even entertain accepting your premise.
And this is really the point: Did God ever intend such confusion, such heights of discord and disunity, in His Church, even if we allow for the possibility of an "invisible church"? IOW, even if the number of doctrinally divided denominations was only TWO, isn't that enough to make the point that there CAN'T be an "invisible church"?
Speaking for myself, I cannot see God, who is NOT the author of confusion, allowing members of His Church to wonder whether or not His Son is God, much less all the other doctrines that clearly divide at LEAST 10 Protestant denominations from another.
And while you're having trouble imagining it, try to imagine why He permitted the Catholics and the Orthodox to fall out of communion with each other as well...
Sounds good, but the "ideal" state so many of us hope to attain is to become completely transparent, so as not to be even noticed, in order for God's light to shine through us unimpeded. In other words, we become invisible. So, it really will not matter what color He assigned us to begin with. We will be indistinguishable from the air (our egos will cease to exist, and with them our personalities too).
OH BBBBBTTTTTT with lots of slobbers and spit!
Actually, my MESSAGE !TRANSLATION! VERSION doesn't have such. LOL.
Read Hebrews 8. Sufficiently protected for fruitful edification...yeah right. What a crock.
AAAH-HAH!
I knew we'd get you to that point if we were patient. 8~)
A lot of my closer friends have been good Calvinists for decades!
I've always thought of Calvinists in good terms and mostly as good . . . welll . . . except when I haven't.
Just as the First (Old) Covenant was not protected from corruption, nothing else that deals with us is. God knew that mankind would become awful and that He would have to bring His people back on track through select individuals. By allowing evil, He allows corruption by definition.
Even if we are acceptable to God (made righteous) we are not made perfect. We are simply forgiven.
Spirit moves (motivates) us. Leaders motivate people, but they don't do their homework.
The Protestant bible doesn't say that Mary is able to hear prayers, that she is the Mother of God, that she is the mother of the church, that she is the Queen of Heaven, that she was immaculately conceived, that she was ever virgin, or that she is our co-redeemer.
I think you got that right, k. :)
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AND PRAISE GOD FOR THAT!
BUT, ACTUALLY
THEIR'S DOES NOT SAY THAT EITHER! LOL.
They just manufactured it out of polluted political air.
See, I told you they shouldn't shave their heads. ;-0
See, I told you they shouldn't shave their heads. ;-0
See, I told you they shouldn't shave their heads. ;-0
So, the theology doesn't matter! I guess that makes Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites, Moromons and Jeohva's Witnesses, Bogomils and Ebionites all part of one happy "church' and family. They all, one way or another, call on Christ.
Doesn't the NT say that the devils believe and tremble as well? What does that make them?
8~)
I know what you mean. Here is an example:
From #327 "ROTFLOL BLTTM [Belly Laugh To The Max] FOMCLOL [Falling Off My Chair Laughing Out Loud] ROTFLMHO [Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Head Off] ITTM [Incredulous To The Max] GTTM [Guffaws To The Max] SHSMEACAB [Shaking Head So Much Ears Are Creating A Breeze] SHSMIHCBFMLN [Shaking Head So Much I Have Cheek Bruises From My Long Nose]"
Priceless. :)
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