Replies

***The layman is taught that the Holy Spirit only discerns to the Magisterium on all matters of faith and morals. The layman is locked out. You seem to be describing some sort of conscientious objector status that would allow the layman to know he is OK even if his priest says he wasn’t. I see no evidence of that ever happening. How could it? Are those wacky Catholic nuns who are ordaining themselves as priests seen as conscientious objectors in good standing? No way. ***

The Church is the teaching institution for the Holy Spirit to use on earth. We defer to Him. There is no teaching that the HS does not inspire individuals; as a matter of fact, we teach that the HS comes into the individual through the process of baptism.

***They KNEW they could trust their priests. If the Holy Spirit would have clued in the hypothetical guy above, then certainly He would have done so for those parents. But it doesn’t work like that. The average Catholic layman is taught to trust the clergy without question. Proof is that it took more than 30 years to flush out the well known scandal.***

This is not proof, since the victims’ groups are nowing targeting the Southern Baptists, unless you are labeling the Baptists with also trusting the clergy without question.

***God promised that I need to confess my sins to one of your priests to have them forgiven? ***

Firstly, they are not my priests, they are God’s. Secondly, we have Jesus instructing the Apostles.

John 20:
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(Jesus) said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
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And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit.
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Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

Matt 16:
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And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, 13 and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
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I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 14 Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Matt 18:
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Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Seems pretty Scriptural to me.

***If free will didn’t matter, why did Jesus spend so much time telling us what to do?

Sanctification and perseverance.**

I’m not sure what you’re saying here. If all we need comes to us from the indwelling Holy Spirit, then none of Scripture is worth anything, since the HS will inform the Reformed elect perfectly of anything that they need to know and there will be no mistake or translational error.

***God could have snatched us all away at the point of belief if He wanted to, but He obviously had different plans. Those include sanctification and spreading His word to others as His instruments.***

If one does not already have the Reformed Holy Spirit causing one to believe, then of what use is it to tell anyone of the Good News? It will only be a seed thrown onto rocky ground, right? God does not ‘plan’ anyway. He exists always and everywhen.

***Man does not have to have ULTIMATE controlling power to be responsible for his own sin.***

How can you be responsible for something that you have no power over?

***I think the Catholic view is that UNLESS man has the ultimate controlling power over events, then the only one left to blame is God. ***

Man is to walk the Way, not get elected to the limo ride.

***What seems a little funny is that you’re OK on putting responsibility on people for their own sins, but you give God a total pass on His responsibility for His own creation BASED ON SCRIPTURE. That is, you say that God created all men, and then you say that scripture says that God loves all men, and that all men are God’s children. Yet, under the Catholic view what did God do? He took a vacation and let man run loose to do whatever he wanted. If some decided to do enough works to be saved then good for them, but God doesn’t interfere.***

Works don’t get you to heaven, but evil works without repentence get you to hell. God is hardly on vacation. He is constantly, either through the Church or not, working to get us to want to be saved. God desires that no man shall perish.

***We are often accused of being the arrogant ones because we do not submit to your men. Yet, you believe that you and they are better compared to adult children of God who are old and wise enough to know what’s best for you (AND EVERYONE ELSE! :). ***

Running around saying that you have the indwelling Spirit and therefore know better than any other man who doesn’t seems pretty arrogant to me, especially when no evidence is required other than one’s say so. That by itself seems a little odd, but when you combine with that the fact that nearly everyone who has this Reformed indwelling Spirit belongs to different groups (or is a loner) that believe different things.

***I am not smart or wise enough to make the right decisions on my own, using my free will. I just hope that you will try to rely on God for at least some things and that your Church will allow you to have a child-like faith. That is the kind of faith that is dependent on God. ***

Nobody gets to heaven with Jesus and the Grace of God. That is the whole idea of the Footprints poem. He helps, supports and sometimes carries us, but it’s us that has to walk there. God provides no limos.

***The grown-up, Apostolic faith is apparently a faith of a different sort.***

It is the faith of the Apostles, the ones who walked with Jesus. It should be the only sort.

FK: ***They KNEW they could trust their priests. If the Holy Spirit would have clued in the hypothetical guy above, then certainly He would have done so for those parents. But it doesn’t work like that. The average Catholic layman is taught to trust the clergy without question. Proof is that it took more than 30 years to flush out the well known scandal.***

This is not proof, since the victims’ groups are nowing targeting the Southern Baptists, unless you are labeling the Baptists with also trusting the clergy without question.

It IS proof that the institution is very powerful over its laity. ....... I have no doubt that there are Southern Baptist preachers out there who are pedophiles. However, I am totally unaware of any allegations on an institutional level. If you have such information I would very much like to know about it. I doubt that you could though, since we are autonomous bodies. The larger crime of the recent scandal was that it was supported institutionally. That's why the payouts crossed the billion-dollar threshold.

FK: ***God promised that I need to confess my sins to one of your priests to have them forgiven? ***

Firstly, they are not my priests, they are God’s. Secondly, we have Jesus instructing the Apostles. John 20: [23, and other passages].

I did not know it was improper to refer to Catholic priests as having anything to do with specific laity. I am very happy to talk about MY pastor anytime. :) He was called by God to serve, and I know he would want me to refer to him as MY pastor.

I know you have a few verses that grant powers to the Apostles, but I don't see any from you that lay down the principle that the authority and power that was uniquely held by the Apostles was transferable. Sure, authority to lead and teach is commonly transferred by the wise to the next generation. That only makes sense, and all Christian faiths practice that. But your particular faith claims SO MUCH MORE. However it is NOT scriptural. It requires a faith in men to believe.

Mark: ***If free will didn’t matter, why did Jesus spend so much time telling us what to do?

FK: Sanctification and perseverance.**

Mark: I’m not sure what you’re saying here. If all we need comes to us from the indwelling Holy Spirit, then none of Scripture is worth anything, since the HS will inform the Reformed elect perfectly of anything that they need to know and there will be no mistake or translational error.

You are presuming mysticism when none is indicated. The Holy Spirit uses tools to give us what we need. The scriptures are a major tool that He uses. Since God has preserved the truth of the scriptures, despite additions attempted by certain Roman Catholic faiths, there is no worry that the Holy Spirit's leadings will be off. The scriptures are reliable and dependable for His actual children.

It is of use to reach a true elect if God has ordained it. There can be no doubt that God has used the as yet unsaved (or even the non-elect) to preach the word to the elect. That has simply happened, so it is of use. The efficaciousness of the seed is solely determined by God. It is not determined by man. While God certainly does not plan as He goes along, He DOES have a plan formed before the foundations that He is executing flawlessly as we experience time.

FK: ***Man does not have to have ULTIMATE controlling power to be responsible for his own sin.***

How can you be responsible for something that you have no power over?

Man has the full power to sin, and he exercises it. God allows that for the lost, and sometimes with the saved. Since God does not force anyone to sin, man is responsible.

Works don’t get you to heaven, but evil works without repentance get you to hell.

With all due respect, that is NOT the testimony of Apostolics on this thread. :) Perhaps you are parsing what "get you to heaven" means. What you all have told me is that a man must decide, using his own free will, to do enough good works so as to make himself acceptable to God. You will say that God will help you the whole way, but the ultimate decision to do the works (hopefully) sufficient to enter Heaven is up to the man himself.

Well, I think that all believers know some things better than non-believers, and I hope you would agree with that. So, I don't understand your claim. I do run around and say that I have the indwelling Spirit. Don't you? As far as evidence is concerned, I understand that the truth of your claim of Apostolic succession is based on the say so of those who profess to have that power. The Bible certainly says nothing about it. Only the most tortured interpretation could find a case for it. So, I don't see your claims as being any more evidence-based than mine. I mean, you don't have to sell me that men who wanted power long ago claimed power in the name of the Lord. That is nothing new. It's not proof either.

That's amazing. The first time I heard that poem was long before I became a Reformer and I understood it then to relate to our utter dependence on God. IOW, the exact opposite of your interpretation. :)

Now, I fully agree with you that your Church's position is that no one gets to Heaven with Jesus and grace, but earlier in this same post you just said that "Works don’t get you to heaven". I challenged that on behalf of the view of your Church, so I would ask you for a clarification on what you think. If it's not works and it's not faith then what do you say it is?