Posted on 08/17/2009 9:10:31 AM PDT by AnalogReigns
I doubt it.
If your understanding of Immaculate Conception is any guide, you probably have a very contorted understanding of it.
Read the article...as you might know, I'm arguing against Mary's assumption--as the idea dates from the late 400s, from herertical sources.
However, Heaven, in the biblical sense, is not a place of dreamy clouds, harps, wimpy angels and waif-like spirits.
Heaven is God's presence...and God is ultimate reality--hence it is the most real solid place there is. Enoch and Elijah in the Old Testament are recorded as to having been assumed up into heaven (with their bodies) and of course Jesus, after the resurrection went up to Heaven and is seated on His throne there....STILL in a human body.
Scriptural teaching speaks of the resurrection of the bodies of everyone at Jesus 2nd coming--and how Heaven will come down to earth--and this will be a tangible physical, bodily reality, again, not dreams and clouds.
You're correct. Not only would it not be right, it would be a lie.
I repeat what Paul wrote, and add this to your education:
Text, without Context is Pretext.
You wish to build a strawman, fine, follow through on your ignorance of logic. But the fact remains, that Paul states that ALL have sinned. His context is fallen humanity. Are you keeping up? The passage just prior (that means before in a linear sense) speaks of the non-Jesus people (meaning people who are NOT Jesus):
Rom 3:22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference...
The passage following (that means after in a linear sense) concludes the concept Paul is teaching:
Rom 3:24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Thus endeth the lesson.
I don’t understand the need or advantage, of having a body in heaven. Perhaps I’ll get to know someday.
All entirely true about those whom He was addressing.
Nothing in Catholic Holy Tradition nullifies the Word of God. The Catholic Church was founded by the Word of God, the Word Made Flesh, Jesus Christ.
Once again, point me to the chapter and verse in scripture that puts such a title on Mary. While we all wait, here is another tidbit for you to chew on:
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
This is true of Mary.
What do you think you're arguing against? You seem to know little or nothing accurate about the Immaculate Conception.
Mary was saved from Sin by God, just like the rest of us. In her case, it happened before she was made. Her creation was a very special event - completely and in every way as important as the creation of Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve also had sanctifying grace from the moment of their creation. They were saved by God. They chose to throw it all away. Their sin has traumatized our existence. We just don't know what we would have been like - what the world would have been like - without the fact of Original Sin.
Mary also could have sinned. She could have chosen to say no to Christ. And in her case, saying no would have meant no Incarnation, no Eucharist, no Crucifixion, no Resurrection.
If Mary had sinned by refusing Christ I can't even think how bad that would have been, nor how God would have worked out our salvation if Mary had failed us - it would have been at least as bad as a second Original Sin.
Therefore the only way to appreciate Mary's position in history is to regard her as the Second Eve, with all the extraordinary magnitude of such a title. There is simply no point in worriting about her sinlessness as if she were merely another historical figure like Margaret Thatcher or Boudica. She was sinless because she was vital to the central event of reality: God became Man.
Not, again, until you point me to the chapter and verse in Scripture that commands sola Scriptura.
“they will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears”
I always thought this referred to protestant ministers, who have not received any commission to preach the Gospel?
Unless one has received the laying-on-of-hands (aka Holy Orders) through apostolic succession, then one does not have any authority to preach the Gospel, it is that simple.
As a Catholic, I let my gift of Faith precede what I humanly interpret from the Sacred Scriptures. The Grace I have received in Baptism and Confirmation thus prevents me from falling into the many pits that await those who allow their human willfulness to interpret the Sacred Scriptures that the Church and Holy Spirit has preserved for us.
The Church has always held that Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven. If a pope finally said, in the 1950’s, “hey give it a rest, it’s a fact”, why would anyone fail to heed the authority of the See of Peter? Here is the infallible statement, for those who might have never seen one:
“We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”
Pope Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, 1950
To the outside world, Catholics may appear weird about their collection of first class relics of God’s friends. The fact that there are NONE of the Blessed Virgin Mary is quite remarkable if in actuality she did die and was not assumed.
Honoring Jesus Christ’s mother is a much better insurance policy than denigrating her. To say that love for one takes away from love for the other is childish logic. Love is a common good, the more one gives away, the more there is of it.
Doubt away, Thomas. It does not change the fact that the Roman Catholic Church is teaching heresy.
If your understanding of Immaculate Conception is any guide, you probably have a very contorted understanding of it
And you, I presume, are the arbiter for the Church in Rome?
I really don't know what part of,
"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them;" (Exodus 20:4,5 from the 10 Commandments)
Rome does not understand...
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
What Church in Rome?
The Catholic Church in based in Vatican City, not Rome.
I am not her arbiter, no. I simply compare what you claim she says to what she says and find you sorely wanting.
Just as those He was talking of were founded by God the Father who brought them out of slavery into the Promised Land and gave them the Law as inscribed by the Hand of God - yet they nullified it as He observed.
Luke 18:9-14 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Mary was saved from Sin by God, just like the rest of us. In her case, it happened before she was made. Her creation was a very special event - completely and in every way as important as the creation of Adam and Eve.
WHAT??????? I can’t even understand this where is this even scriptural int he slightest?
I didn’t do any mindreading. His understanding is reflected in what he posted.
Do I have to post “If your understanding as represented in this thread is any guide...” (because I can do that)?
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