Posted on 04/08/2010 11:36:45 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg
I ask for one example, and you post a link to all my posts. *sigh* Better it would be to post a link to any preaching of the gospel by any Presbyterian (hint: GOSPEL, NOT EPISTLE) that I stated was "belittling others."
Actually, I won't wait around, because it's not possible. I never did that. Thus, another anti-Catholic bigoted falsehood bites the dust.
Scripture is clear, but miniscule snippets of it can be taken out of context, and often are by those unwilling to accept the Gospel message. That is why I would invite you to read Scripture where it tells you to jettison your own interpretation and instead go to the authority Created by Jesus which is to intepret Scripture - the Catholic Church.
The Gospel truth terrifies Presbyterians. They have no knowledge of it, no belief in it, and no taste for the Truth.
you rock Judith
Hey, wouldn’t you be amazed if the secular press, so very very concerned about children, gave the same amount of attention to the protestant child molesters? I mean, don’t the journalists CARE about the children who are not Catholic?
Negative. If they are molested by antiCatholics, then all is right with the world. Homosexual rape is rife in our prisons and youth homes, for instance, but the secular press has no problem with that whatsoever.
lol. The Roman Catholic apologist has no defense for their faith so they simply trash Christians and hope it looks like they're making a point.
They're not.
Nope. Just trashing presbyterians, of which you are the chief spokesperson. (Hah! I said "spokesperson"!)
Calvin was hatched, not born. No wonder he was such a vicious, demented idiot. Amazing he has followers, but it takes all kinds. LOL!
lol. Name-calling is no substitute for a sound defense of your faith, J.A.
Hold it — “spokesperson” is name-calling?
Why are you still kicking against the pricks over here? I felt bad when your feelings were hurt and can not figure out why you are still subjecting yourself to this ignorance. Come join the land of the living in other parts of Free Republic. We need your quick wit in our discussions.
Love,
Sara
Thanks, Sara. But over here, on the RF, is where people are trashing the Church. As Christ is my life, so the Church is how I live it.
Sorry, but your misunderstanding of the status of dead saints does not trump the Second Commandment.
1. We may ask others to pray for us.
I Thes 5:25 and II Thes 3:1, cited in post 264, make this point, and while you do object in 266 to asking those who are no longer united to their bodies to pray for us on the grounds that according to your theological understanding, you in no way show that asking others to pray for us is idolatry.
2. Those who are theologically alive can pray without aggregating to themselves the status of God.
Christ commands us to pray many times. St. Paul accepts this point in the verses that I cited in the first point of this argument. St. John bears witness to this truth in his vision which is part of the liturgy the Church uses for those who keep vigil for the third Sunday of Easter: When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voicce, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?” (Rev. 6:9-10) The prophet Jeremiah is recorded as praying much in II Maccabees 15:15-16 (I doubt you will give much weight to this text—but I venerate it none the less, and does indicate that the belief is compatible with the form of Judaism rejected by the Sadducees).
3. According to Christ, at least if St. Matthew reports His words accurately, on which I trust we can agree, categorizing those who are no longer united to their bodies as dead is theologically incorrect.
I noted this in post 378 through introducing Christ’s commentary on Exodus 3:6—referenced in an oblique way. Post 379 dismissed the commentary as “the flimisiest argument in favour of praying to dead people that you have ever read”—well, I will grant you that in its original context, which I hinted at more blatantly in post 386, it is not specifically an argument regarding prayer to such people, but does address the question as to whether or not they are dead. The precise verse that I cited and which you dismissed is Matthew 22:32—cited in conjunction with 22:29, which seemed apropos. My understanding of this verse as stating that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as living—and Christ says he is not dead—is then dismissed in the post to which I am replying as somehow being a violation of the Second Commandment, as you understand it. I do not see how understanding somebody to be alive means that I am worshipping them. I understand your to be alive, do you think that I am worshipping you? For that matter, I trust that you think that I am alive, are you worshipping me? James 2:26 makes it clear that the body without the spirit is dead, but it seems that the spirit without the body can be quite alive.
4. Those who are separated from their bodies are capable of hearing those who are not separated from their bodies, and so can receive requests for intercession.
Our Lord speaks to dead people in Mark 5:35, John 11:43, and Matthew 17:3; indeed, for Him to speak with those whom you consider theologically dead seemed so in keeping with his character and so feasible that they misunderstand an utterance on the cross as speaking to Elijah and do not rule out the possibility that in response Elijah may appear to save him (Matthew 27:46-49). In Hebrews, the righteous whom you consider dead are not treated as distant examples, but as people who “surround” us(Heb. 12:1) and as part of an assembly to which we are joined (12:22-24). The point of an assembly is to bring people together in a coordinated way for common action. Our Lord, in the story of Abraham, Lazarus, and the rich man, (Luke 16:19-31) does not record Abraham as rejecting the rich man’s request on grounds that he is committing idolatry by asking something of some one whom Dr. Eckleburg considers dead, but on the grounds that their is no point. Moreover, if the rich man’s spiritual eyes (Lk. 16:22) can see Abraham though he is far off—the distance between heaven and hell—and the richman and Abraham are capable of spiritually speaking and hearing over such a great distance, would they not be capable of hearing and speaking that which is said and heard in a place that lies between?
In summation, we can ask others who are theologically alive to pray for us without committing idolatry; they may pray for us without posing as objeccts of idolatry; being separated from one’s body is not an obstacle to being theologically alive; and in ways that we do not understand, the lack of a body does not pose an obstacle to the communication involved.
Somehow, this is in conflict with your understanding of the second commandment, but there are no second commandment problems with the first and second points if one accepts the teachings of Christ. The third point, the status of those who are away from the body and alive in the Lord does not seem to concern idolatry, though I am willing to entertain an argument to the contrary in defense of the post to which I am presently responding. Even if the fourth point were incorrect, talking to some one who cannot hear does not seem idolatry—otherwise anyone who had a bad phone connection would be guilty of idolatry.
I will await your comment, and look forward to responding to it or one of your other posts while keeping vigil next
Sunday.
Nowhere in Scripture are we told to pray to anyone but God who alone hears and answers our prayers.
Repent of the blasphemy that makes idols of dead men and fools of living ones, and in so doing, seeks to obscure the clear word of God and His Second Commandment which Rome regularly breaks with brazen hubris.
From Vatican.va...
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death: By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the "Mother of Mercy," the All-Holy One. We give ourselves over to her now, in the Today of our lives. And our trust broadens further, already at the present moment, to surrender "the hour of our death" wholly to her care. May she be there as she was at her son's death on the cross. May she welcome us as our mother at the hour of our passing38 to lead us to her son, Jesus, in paradise. 2677 - Holy Mary, Mother of God: With Elizabeth we marvel, "And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"36 Because she gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother; we can entrust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself: "Let it be to me according to your word."37 By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her: "Thy will be done."
How blind does a person have to be to not understand the complete perversion of Christianity that lies at the heart of this nonsense?
Roman Catholics give themselves over to Mary at the hour of their death???
Roman Catholics entrust all their prayers and concerns to Mary???
God help all RCs to know the truth of God's word and will.
Jesus Christ, our only Mediator, Intercessor, Lord, King, Savior and God.
"For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." -- Matthew 12:37
Repent of the blasphemy that makes idols of dead men and fools of living ones
Nowhere in Scripture are we told to pray to anyone but God who alone hears and answers our prayers.
1. Concerning that ‘God alone hears’
In Revelation 8:3-4 an angel is given incense to mingle with the prayers of the saints and ‘the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God.’
The angel is aware of the prayers of the Saints, and is allowed to present them before God. This is not to say that God was not aware of the prayers before and needed the angel to enlighten Him—He has been aware of the prayers from all eternity—but He allows creatures to partake in His Divine governance. Indeed, it is Catholic teaching that even our own prayers are not done for the sake of enlightening God, who is aware of what we need before we need it, and aware of what we will pray before we pray it—not only because He is omnicient but also because we cannot truly pray without first being prompted by His grace—but because God has ordered that certain things be caused through prayer so that we will be more fully aware of the supernatural order in general, and our dependence upon it in particular. Having others pray for us helps us to realize that we are one body in Christ.
2. “God alone answers”
In a certain fundamental sense yes, just as God alone is the author of life. But again, God allows creatures to participate in His governance, and so allows them to be part of answering prayer. In Luke 22:43 the Father answers Our Lord’s prayer by sending an angel to strengthen Him. God chooses to answer even His own prayer through a creature.
We are commanded to pray for our fellow man and to the Triune God alone.
Other people might be more inclined to direct our requests to their own end—indeed we ourselves are often inclined to pray for our own will to be accomplished rather than the will of God. By having Mary pray with us, God’s grace reminds us that prayer is about creatures conforming their wills to God, not having God conform His will to theirs.
Such trust in the Will of God is especially necessary at the hour of death—only a fool would want to go before God clinging to having things done his way rather than God’s way. God gave Mary the grace to conform to His will, and she did not reject it, which is why Gabriel said ‘hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you (Luke 1:28), and because she continued to cooperate with God in Luke 1:38, the Holy Spirit says of her, through Elizabeth in Luke 1:41-42 ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’
I am inclined to trust the judgment of the Holy Spirit and of Gabriel concerning Mary and her character. I would like to have my will conform to God’s will as perfectly as her will conforms, and so I ask her to pray with me.
Of course, for you, there is the obstacle that you think she is dead.
Which brings me back to the statement of yours in post 266 which is what I have been interested in having you defend for some time, asserting that people such as Our Lady are dead. I have put forward arguments to the contrary, summarized in my third point in post 436. Your response to the third point in 437 consists in using the word dead again. This is not a reply, it is repeating.
Are you going to deal with Matthew 22:32 beyond calling Our Lord’s arguments flimsy? In point 3 of post 436, I think I do a reasonable job of showing that scripture supports Him.
If you don’t care to defend and discuss this point, I would be happy to discuss your charge of idolatry if you would do me the favour of precisely defining what you understand the word idol to mean.
However, if you are not interested in having a dialogue on
a fixed topic, but merely wish to diverge onto some other track and ignore what I say, I do not see much point in saying any more.
Ora pro nobis.
(For the moderator—that is: pray for us)
Mary is dead. She is in heaven. She was a simple Jewish girl who was graced by God to carry the Christ child to term.
She was a sinner, just like you and me, born in sin and dead in sin, forgiven those sins by Christ's work on the cross.
The blasphemy that Rome has surrounded her with is ungodly. Repent of it.
Excellent posts. Extremely well done, grounded in Scripture, and closely reasoned.
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