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To: smvoice
You correctly point out that the deposit of faith we received was complete with the closing of the Book of Revelation.

But that doesn't mean we aren't sifting through an awful lot of information that doesn't become clearer over time, or that we don't need help understanding it. (The early Church believed that the return of the Messiah was imminent, for example. 2,000 years later, we know that this isn't so.). More importantly, it doesn't trump the two pillars of authority that existed for some time before the Bible even came about.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, for example, is not specifically stated in the Bible. However, for centuries Catholics believed this to be true simply because Mary was to carry God Himself in her womb, and because God Who made everything could easily do this.

So in 1854, Peter's successor Pope Pius IX declares the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; we are required under pain of sin to believe this teaching.

Fast forward 4 years to 1858, and a peasant girl in France gets a visit from a beautiful woman who appears to her in a nearby grotto and who asks her to have the parish priest build a chapel at that location; Bernadette Soubirous, however, does not know the woman's name. When pressed by the priest for an answer, she finally comes back with the answer that the woman identified herself as the "Immaculate Conception". (Bernadette didn't know what the words meant.). And then the miracles began, with people healed in the waters of the grotto.

Fast forward to the Second World War and a German Jew named Franz Werfel who escaped to France and who spent several weeks at Lourdes while awaiting passage to America became quite familiar with the story of young Bernadette; he made a vow that if he ever escaped the Nazis, he would tell the story of the visit of Mary to young Bernadette, and the miracles that followed. (Das Lied der Bernadette was translated into "The Song of Bernadette" and made into an award-winning movie in 1943.

So miracles aren't limited to the time of the early Church.

88 posted on 12/28/2019 7:15:53 PM PST by Captain Walker
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To: Captain Walker

And herein lies the problem, Captain. Each and every example you gave was extra-biblical. Created by men. And made into traditions and doctrines of men. And given as NECESSARY to believe. As if God said these things happened and were necessary for man to believe. How do you prove that these were given by God? It’s just man’s word saying that is so. We cannot go to God’s word for confirmation on ANY of these things. Because they aren’t IN God’s word. So that leaves you having faith in man’s word. Not God’s word. And that, my friend, is the height of arrogance and APOSTASY.


89 posted on 12/28/2019 7:33:24 PM PST by smvoice (I WILL NOT WEAR THE RIBBON.)
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