annalex wrote:
“No it is not ‘necessary for salvation’ in the same sense as ‘I believe in God’ is. But this part, ‘I believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church’ is in the Creed, and comes without a disclaimer about ‘unless it is a historically known fact.’”
Here is your standard answer to all questions: ‘The Catholic Church is right in all things. The Catholic Church says this or that. Therefore it is so, and must be believed.’
It is interesting that you say the perpetual virginity of Mary (which as you know I have no problem with, but do not consider or believe to be Scriptural doctrine) is not ‘necessary for salvation’ in the same sense as ‘I believe in God.’ This is, of course, a dodge. You can never let words simply mean what they mean. You do insist that believing Mary to have been perpetually virgin is necessary for salvation, because the Catholic Church says she was, and the Catholic Church cannot be disbelieved on pain of damnation. So, your phrase ‘in the same sense’ is in effect a distinction without a difference.
Now, when it comes to your phrase, ‘I believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church,’ which is from the Nicene rather than the Apostles’ Creed, you mean to say that you believe in the Church similarly to the way you believe in God. That is what you are saying. Because every time you make this assertion it has to do with the authority, power, and prerogatives of the Catholic Church, what it can and cannot do, what does and does not teach.
But, you know, the Creed doesn’t say that. It doesn’t mean that. It doesn’t hold anyone to that. Now, of course, you are going to disagree because you have been taught by holy mother Church that it does too mean that. But look at the Creed, whether Apostles’ or Nicene (there is no mention of the church in the Athanasian) carefully. When it says I believe in God, it attributes real authority, power, prerogatives, and works accomplished and being accomplished to each of the persons of the Trinity. It attributes no such things to the church. None.
You see the Catholic Church as a visible entity whose authority and power you are supposed to fear, love, and trust. But the Creed does not say that. It attributes nothing to the Church except existence. It exists. This has to be confessed for one simple reason. No one can see it. I believe in the holy Christian/Catholic Church just as I believe in the Communion of Saints, just as I believe in the forgiveness of sins, just as I believe in the resurrection of the body, just as I believe in the life everlasting. I can see none of them. They are not tangible, subject to discovery by my natural senses. I can only believe them to be, to exist. They are real to be sure. I know that because God says so. But I can only take Him at His word.
No, annalex, you attribute things to the Church that are not to be found in the Creed. The things you believe are accretions and suppositions that were attached to the “Catholic” understanding of the Creed. But such things were not written into the Creed for the very good reason that they are not only not necessary for salvation (AT ALL, not just in some sense), but also because many are simply not true. The men of Nicaea were not fools. They were serious men who took the Word of God seriously, and who feared, loved, and trusted God above all things, and Him alone.
The belief in God spoken of in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds is a belief in the very things about God that are plainly stated in the Creed. To say otherwise is simply disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. When the Creed says, “I believe in God the Father,” it immediately adds, “Almighty.” It says nothing of the kind about the church. It goes on to add that the “Father” we are here talking about is the “Maker of heaven and earth.” It attributes no such deeds, in fact, no deeds of any kind to the church, for the simple reason that the church has no deeds. She is the recipient of the grace of God. She is God’s creation. She is the bride of the Lamb. Even the good that the church does is attributable to the causation of God, who alone is to be praised. You know, “Soli Deo Gloria,” DEO!
The really sad thing is that Romanists like you have so twisted the meaning of the Creed, been so successful in foisting your propaganda about it and its meaning, that you have gotten much of the rest of Christendom to look at it with not belief but disbelief, to stop using it, and even to sneer at those who do still confess it publicly, fervently, trustingly. You have, in effect, driven millions away from the Creed in your arrogance. In this you have done not evangelism, but anti-evangelism. And anti-evangelism is not the modus operandi of the Church of the Christ. It is the modus operandi of the Church of the ...
I will let the discerning reader fill in the blank.
Fortunately - or I should say - by the grace and providence of God, many in the church of the pope still simply believe what the Creed plainly says, hearing there not his voice, but the voice of the real Christ. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4) I have met some of them.
SOLI DEO GLORIA
But you, annalex, know the Creed about as well as the clergy of Jesus’ day knew the Old Testament. They stood before the Lord and argued meaning, that it meant what they said, not what He said. (John 5:31-47) Moses stood as their judge. His Antitype will stand as yours.
ph
Excellent....
"Necessary for salvation" is itself a sleazy Protestant "dodge" invented in order to remove faith from people's lives. A Catholic believer would never ask that. According to Catholic belief, one can live a life of dissipation, wake up, confess it, take the Holy Eucharist and die a saved man. That one did "everything necessary" for salvation. According to Protestant belief, even less, he only has to walk up to a minister no one appointed sqeeze out a tear and profess something with Jesus Christ personal Lord and savior in it, and bingo, done, and he does not even have to stay away from sin afterwards. Mind you, I am not diparaging late life conversions, but I am disparaging that idea of minimalism. The Protestant project has always been, -- "what part of the Body of Christ can we amputate and still call ourselves Christians?"
A Catholic believer believes the entire faith, Christ, and Mary, and the saints, and everything. He knows the faith from the source of that knowledge, the Church that preserved it. That doesn't mean there are no degrees of importance, but the desire is to get it in full as best is possible, not to get something easy, preferably in a pill form and rush off to work. Our faith is a building with interlocking parts. Your faith is a stake in the ground where the building is supposed to stand. The building itself is never there.
when it comes to your phrase, ‘I believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church,’ which is from the Nicene rather than the Apostles’ Creed, you mean to say that you believe in the Church similarly to the way you believe in God. [...] But the Creed does not say that. [...] I believe in the holy Christian/Catholic Church just as I believe in the Communion of Saints, just as I believe in the forgiveness of sins, just as I believe in the resurrection of the body, just as I believe in the life everlasting. I can see none of them. They are not tangible, subject to discovery by my natural senses.
And God is (now that Christ is in Heaven) tangible to our senses? The Church is not God. It is someone who preserved for me the knowledge of God. The Church, moreover, is the visible Church it has books open to my senses, buildings, clergy, bells and smells, all these are visibly present to give me Christianity. God became tangible, vulnerable flesh because He wanted to. God gave us a visible Church because He wanted to. I take her and I believe her witness. You can take her too.
You have, in effect, driven millions away from the Creed in your arrogance
The Western Church does bear the blame for the scandal and the tragedy of Protestantism, but believing the Holy Scripture as written and the Creed as formulated is not part of the blame. Also, we allowed Protestantism to happen and we shall heal it, glory be to God.