Posted on 10/31/2010 11:59:22 AM PDT by RnMomof7
In Christ Alone lyrics
Songwriters: Getty, Julian Keith; Townend, Stuart Richard;
In Christ alone my hope is found He is my light, my strength, my song This Cornerstone, this solid ground Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace When fears are stilled, when strivings cease My Comforter, my All in All Here in the love of Christ I stand
In Christ alone, who took on flesh Fullness of God in helpless Babe This gift of love and righteousness Scorned by the ones He came to save
?Til on that cross as Jesus died The wrath of God was satisfied For every sin on Him was laid Here in the death of Christ I live, I live
There in the ground His body lay Light of the world by darkness slain Then bursting forth in glorious Day Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory Sin?s curse has lost its grip on me For I am His and He is mine Bought with the precious blood of Christ
Many years ago my inexperienced wife, cooking her first turkey, left the package of giblets in the turkey. When I was about to make the gravy I asked her where the giblets were. She replied "what giblets"? In short, I found the giblets in the neck cavity and they were cooked perfectly for the gravy. I continued to "cook" the giblets this way and, if I do say so myself, I made excellent giblet gravy.
Then she dies in an accidental fire, and the "faith only" God sentences the little girl to suffer burning for eternity because she didn't believe in Jesus. That is evil. That is an evil God in my opinion. That is NOT love. That is NOT Christianity. That is a God that made a little girl he knew very well was going to follow the faith of her parents and then burns her forever for not believing in him.
There's no way anybody is ever going to convince me that that is not an evil God. That is why I want nothing to do with a "faith only" deity. I'd rather burn with that little girl that worship a God that evil.
I have a bunch of agnostic and atheist friends that don't worship Christ or God but they're very good people, and some of the most "Christian" people I have ever met. They are filled with compassion and love, and they do unto others as they would want done unto them. They just don't have the faith I was born with.
The "faith only" God condemns these friends of mine. Why make these wonderful and loving yet skeptical people only to later torture their souls for eternity because they happen to hold the same skepticism he gave them? Is that not evil? Again it's the little boy burning ants with a magnifying glass in the hot afternoon sun. I'm not worshiping that "kid" and he has nothing to do with a Christ that asks that his murderers be forgiven.A God that demands "faith" for salvation yet hides himself from so many that would gladly worship him if he weren't so remote to them is evil.
One of my favorite things about Orthodox Christianity is it's refusal to believe it knows where or how the Holy Spirit works outside Orthodox Christianity. That's an honesty few religions possess. That's a God with endless possibilities of love. That's a God I can, and do worship.
“Jesus because she she” should read “Jesus because she has a little friend that is a Christian.
(Google Books) The Problems of Philosophy By Bertrand Russell
Answering as you do that the principle is based on probabilities, not certainties and that reflects the real world, is also to miss the point because both Hume and Russell realized that we don't have certainty about all matters of science - in fact Russell explicitly discusses probabilities in the section referenced above. The point is that we have no logical right to affirm on the basis of our past experiences that even probability is true of the natural order. So the principle of induction is left without a foundation.
Russell was a much better writer than I am (a gross understatement, to be sure - he was an immensely talented writer) Maybe you will get the point if you read what he wrote about this particular philosophical problem.
There is a difference between confidence based on evidence and blind faith. Faith that is not based on verifiable, repeatable evidence is based on hope and nothing more. It's a shot in the dark.
I'm sure you must realize that all existence or factual questions are not established or disconfirmed in the same way in every case. It should be obvious that historians use methodologies different from those of biologists or philosophers, etc. The type of evidence in existence or factual claims is determined by the field of discussion and by the metaphysical nature of the entity in the claim under question. If "repeatable evidence" were always required to prove something you could never prove that George Washington crossed the Delaware river because historical events like that are not repeatable.
Again, my major point was that the principle of induction cannot be justified by induction, or pure reason, Reasoning itself rests upon presupposition of faith. Faith is not "blind". It is, as the Bible describes it, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen." or, "Faith is the title deed to things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen".
- Hupostasis} is a very common word from Aristotle on and comes from upisthmi (upo, under, isthmi, intransitive), what stands under anything (a building, a contract, a promise). See the philosophical use of it in 1:3, the sense of assurance (une assurance certaine, Menegoz) in 3:14, that steadiness of mind which holds one firm (2 Corinthians 9:4). It is common in the papyri in business documents as the basis or guarantee of transactions. "And as this is the essential meaning in Hebrews 11:1 we venture to suggest the translation 'Faith is the title-deed of things hoped for'" (Moulton and Milligan, Vocabulary, etc.). {The proving of things not seen (pragmatwn elegxov ou blepomenwn).
Robertson's Word Pictures - Hebrews 11:1
Cordially,
And rightly so. You can disagree with the fathers of the Church all you want, still they are evidence of the mind of the Church directly following the apostles' time. If you are interested in what Christ and the Apostles taught, you need to study the fathers of the Church reverently.
And if, conversely, you instead want to promulgate your own tradition, or that of someone else who emerged on the scene in 1500's, then indeed it becomes in your interest to whitewash, calumniate and hide from view the evidence of the patristic Church.
“Rome” believes what Christ taught, whether it is in the scripture or not.
We had bad popes before. We'll probably have a bad pope sometime again. We'll survive. Worry about your own ilk.
That passage does not say that the scripture teaches us all we need. It says that study of the scripture (including the books you guys threw out) produces a perfect man of God. But it does not say that the study of the scripture alone does that; in fact, the preceding verse says the opposite: "continue thou in those things which thou hast learned, and which have been committed to thee: knowing of whom thou hast learned them". In other words, learn the traditioon, then finish with the scripture.
Read the Bible with love and attention and you will become Catholic and abandon the Protestant nonsense.
No split followed from that.
Of course she is a different Mary since in a passage about death of Jesus it is impossible to characterize His mother as the mother of everybody but Jesus. Evangelist Mark does not describe Mary the Mother of God at the foot of the Cross at all. Evangelist John does (John 19), and unlike St. Mark, he was there. John also mentions the other Mary, and gives us her full name:
there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen. (John 19:25)
Note, once more, the use of "sister" to indicate a wider relationship than "daughter of the same parents", since obviously no one would give two daughters the same name.
God's Omnipresence and Omniscience
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.
1 O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.
2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising;
thou understandest my thought afar off.
3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down,
and art acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not a word in my tongue,
but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
5 Thou hast beset me behind and before,
and laid thine hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
7 Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:
if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning,
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10 even there shall thy hand lead me,
and thy right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me;
even the night shall be light about me.
12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee;
but the night shineth as the day:
the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
13 For thou hast possessed my reins:
thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:
marvelous are thy works;
and that my soul knoweth right well.
15 My substance was not hid from thee
when I was made in secret,
and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect;
and in thy book all my members were written,
which in continuance were fashioned,
when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand:
when I awake, I am still with thee.
19 Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God:
depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.
20 For they speak against thee wickedly,
and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
21 Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee?
And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred:
I count them mine enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart:
try me, and know my thoughts:
24 and see if there be any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
God knows all sees all and is everywhere present. We do not limit God. His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. Trust God. He is GOOD, MERCIFUL, RIGHTEOUS, FAITHFUL, FULL OF LOVINGKINDNESS,... Trust Him.
WE ALL WORRY ABOUT the world of the not having heard God's Word. I believe they will hear, and I trust God with the ones that have not heard.
Nor is everything that survived since the early Church considered patristic. Some stuff was indeed genuine forgery. To acquaint yourself with the fathers of the Church, see
Thank you.
The Church has the guidance of the Holy Ghost but yes, the Church consists of men. If you are wondering how the Church knows that Protestantism is heretical nonsense on sticks, that is easy: read the scripture and you won't find any Protestant distinctive there. Anyone can do it.
We know that Mary of Cleophas was the mother of James and Joses from John 19:25: "there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen". That proves that at least James and Joseph were not children of Mary the Mother of God, but raqther of that other Mary.
The other gospels indeed do not mention Mary the Mother of God at the cross. But note that St. John was there, and he mentions all three Marys.
Mary the Mother of God was not among the women bringing myrrh on the next day.
So the so-called “fathers” may be of interest as to what they believed, they are of little value in learning what the Scriptures teach, for that we must go to the Bible its self and not to those who oft times could not free themselves from Platonism.
The man of God will be complete if he learns the Holy Tradition (2 Tim 3:14) as well as Holy Scripture (2 Tim 3:15) which two together are sufficient, just as the Catholic Church teaches.
Read the scripture with love and attention and you, too, will become Catholic.
I thought you're supposed to believe only what's in the Bible, and not the traditions of men. As far as I know, the only martyr was Stephen, a deacon, who is mentioned in the Bible. As for the Apostles, if you have a source, then kindly share it with us. I know of none.
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