[PleaseReadBeforeJudging] Why Only Catholicism Can Make Protestantism Work: Bouyer on Reformation

Catholic Dossier/ CERC ^ | MARK BRUMLEY

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Why Only Catholicism Can Make Protestantism Work: Louis Bouyer on the Reformation    MARK BRUMLEY

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ABSTRACT: Louis Bouyer contends that the only way to safeguard the positive principles of the Reformation is through the Catholic Church. For only in the Catholic Church are the positive principles the Reformation affirmed found without the negative elements the Reformers mistakenly affixed to them.

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Martin Luther

Interpreting the Reformation is complicated business. But like many complicated things, it can be simplified sufficiently well that even non-experts can get the gist of it. Here's what seems a fairly accurate but simplified summary of the issue: The break between Catholics and Protestants was either a tragic necessity (to use Jaroslav Pelikan's expression) or it was tragic because unnecessary.

Many Protestants see the Catholic/Protestant split as a tragic necessity, although the staunchly anti-Catholic kind of Protestant often sees nothing tragic about it. Or if he does, the tragedy is that there ever was such a thing as the Roman Catholic Church that the Reformers had to separate from. His motto is "Come out from among them" and five centuries of Christian disunity has done nothing to cool his anti-Roman fervor.

Yet for most Protestants, even for most conservative Protestants, this is not so. They believe God "raised up" Luther and the other Reformers to restore the Gospel in its purity. They regret that this required a break with Roman Catholics (hence the tragedy) but fidelity to Christ, on their view, demanded it (hence the necessity).

Catholics agree with their more agreeable Protestant brethren that the sixteenth century division among Christians was tragic. But most Catholics who think about it also see it as unnecessary. At least unnecessary in the sense that what Catholics might regard as genuine issues raised by the Reformers could, on the Catholic view, have been addressed without the tragedy of dividing Christendom.

Yet we can go further than decrying the Reformation as unnecessary. In his ground-breaking work, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, Louis Bouyer argued that the Catholic Church herself is necessary for the full flowering of the Reformation principles. In other words, you need Catholicism to make Protestantism work - for Protestantism's principles fully to develop. Thus, the Reformation was not only unnecessary; it was impossible. What the Reformers sought, argues Bouyer, could not be achieved without the Catholic Church.

From Bouyer's conclusion we can infer at least two things. First, Protestantism can't be all wrong, otherwise how could the Catholic Church bring about the "full flowering of the principles of the Reformation"? Second, left to itself, Protestantism will go astray and be untrue to some of its central principles. It's these two points, as Bouyer articulates them, I would like to consider here. One thing should be said up-front: although a convert from French Protestantism, Bouyer is no anti-Protestant polemicist. His Spirit and Forms of Protestantism was written a half-century ago, a decade before Vatican II's decree on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, yet it avoids the bitter anti-Protestantism that sometimes afflicted pre-conciliar Catholic works on Protestantism. That's one reason the book remains useful, even after decades of post-conciliar ecumenism.

In that regard, Bouyer's brief introduction is worth quoting in full:

This book is a personal witness, a plain account of the way in which a Protestant came to feel himself obliged in conscience to give his adherence to the Catholic Church. No sentiment of revulsion turned him from the religion fostered in him by a Protestant upbringing followed by several years in the ministry. The fact is, he has never rejected it. It was his desire to explore its depths, its full scope, that led him, step by step, to a genuinely spiritual movement stemming from the teachings of the Gospel, and Protestantism as an institution, or rather complexus of institutions, hostile to one another as well as to the Catholic Church. The study of this conflict brought him to detect the fatal error which drove the spiritual movement of Protestantism out of the one Church. He saw the necessity of returning to that Church, not in order to reject any of the positive Christian elements of his religious life, but to enable them, at last, to develop without hindrance.

The writer, who carved out his way step by step, or rather, saw it opening before his eyes, hopes now to help along those who are still where he started. In addition, he would like to show those he has rejoined how a little more understanding of the others, above all a greater fidelity to their own gift, could help their 'separated brethren' to receive it in their turn. In this hope he offers his book to all who wish to be faithful to the truth, first, to the Word of God, but also to the truth of men as they are, not as our prejudices and habits impel us to see them.

Bouyer, then, addresses both Protestants and Catholics. To the Protestants, he says, in effect, "It is fidelity to our Protestant principles, properly understood, that has led me into the Catholic Church." To the Catholics, he says, "Protestantism isn't as antithetical to the Catholic Faith as you suppose. It has positive principles, as well as negative ones. Its positive principles, properly understood, belong to the Catholic Tradition, which we Catholics can see if we approach Protestantism with a bit of understanding and openness."

The Reformation was Right

Bouyer's argument is that the Reformation's main principle was essentially Catholic: "Luther's basic intuition, on which Protestantism continuously draws for its abiding vitality, so far from being hard to reconcile with Catholic tradition, or inconsistent with the teaching of the Apostles, was a return to the clearest elements of their teaching, and in the most direct line of that tradition."

1. Sola Gratia. What was the Reformation's main principle? Not, as many Catholics and even some Protestants think, "private judgment" in religion. According to Bouyer, "the true fundamental principle of Protestantism is the gratuitousness of salvation" - sola gratia. He writes, "In the view of Luther, as well as of all those faithful to his essential teaching, man without grace can, strictly speaking, do nothing of the slightest value for salvation. He can neither dispose himself for it, nor work for it in any independent fashion. Even his acceptance of grace is the work of grace. To Luther and his authentic followers, justifying faith . . . is quite certainly, the first and most fundamental grace."

Bouyer then shows how, contrary to what many Protestants and some Catholics think, salvation sola gratia is also Catholic teaching. He underscores the point to any Catholics who might think otherwise:

"If, then, any Catholic - and there would seem to be many such these days - whose first impulse is to reject the idea that man, without grace, can do nothing towards his salvation, that he cannot even accept the grace offered except by a previous grace, that the very faith which acknowledges the need of grace is a purely gratuitous gift, he would do well to attend closely to the texts we are about to quote."

In other words, "Listen up, Catholics!"

Bouyer quotes, at length, from the Second Council of Orange (529), the teaching of which was confirmed by Pope Boniface II as de fide or part of the Church's faith. The Council asserted that salvation is the work of God's grace and that even the beginning of faith or the consent to saving grace is itself the result of grace. By our natural powers, we can neither think as we ought nor choose any good pertaining to salvation. We can only do so by the illumination and impulse of the Holy Spirit.

Nor is it merely that man is limited in doing good. The Council affirmed that, as a result of the Fall, man is inclined to will evil. His freedom is gravely impaired and can only be repaired by God's grace. Following a number of biblical quotations, the Council states, "[W]e are obliged, in the mercy of God, to preach and believe that, through sin of the first man, the free will is so weakened and warped, that no one thereafter can either love God as he ought, or believe in God, or do good for the sake of God, unless moved, previously, by the grace of the divine mercy . . . . Our salvation requires that we assert and believe that, in every good work we do, it is not we who have the initiative, aided, subsequently, by the mercy of God, but that he begins by inspiring faith and love towards him, without any prior merit of ours."

The Council of Trent, writes Bouyer, repeated that teaching, ruling out "a parallel action on the part of God and man, a sort of 'synergism', where man contributes, in the work of salvation, something, however slight, independent of grace." Even where Trent insists that man is not saved passively, notes Bouyer, it doesn't assert some independent, human contribution to salvation. Man freely cooperates in salvation, but his free cooperation is itself the result of grace. Precisely how this is so is mysterious, and the Church has not settled on a particular theological explanation. But that it is so, insist Bouyer, is Catholic teaching. Thus, concludes Bouyer, "the Catholic not only may, but must in virtue of his own faith, give a full and unreserved adherence to the sola gratia, understood in the positive sense we have seen upheld by Protestants."

2. Sola Fide. So much for sola gratia. But what about the other half of the Reformation principle regarding salvation, the claim that justification by grace comes through faith alone (sola fide) ?

According to Bouyer, the main thrust of the doctrine of sola fide was to affirm that justification was wholly the work of God and to deny any positive human contribution apart from grace. Faith was understood as man's grace-enabled, grace-inspired, grace-completed response to God's saving initiative in Jesus Christ. What the Reformation initially sought to affirm, says Bouyer, was that such a response is purely God's gift to man, with man contributing nothing of his own to receive salvation.

In other words, it isn't as if God does his part and man cooperates by doing his part, even if that part is minuscule. The Reformation insisted that God does his part, which includes enabling and moving man to receive salvation in Christ. Man's "part" is to believe, properly understood, but faith too is the work of God, so man contributes nothing positively of his own. As Bouyer points out, this central concern of the Reformation also happened to be defined Catholic teaching, reaffirmed by the Council of Trent.

In a sense, the Reformation debate was over the nature of saving faith, not over whether faith saves. St. Thomas Aquinas, following St. Augustine and the patristic understanding of faith and salvation, said that saving faith was faith "formed by charity." In other words, saving faith involves at least the beginnings of the love of God. In this way, Catholics could speak of "justification by grace alone, through faith alone," if the "alone" was meant to distinguish the gift of God (faith) from any purely human contribution apart from grace; but not if "alone" was meant to offset faith from grace-enabled, grace-inspired, grace-accomplished love of God or charity.

For Catholic theologians of the time, the term "faith" was generally used in the highly refined sense of the gracious work of God in us by which we assent to God's Word on the authority of God who reveals. In this sense, faith is distinct from entrusting oneself to God in hope and love, though obviously faith is, in a way, naturally ordered to doing so: God gives man faith so that man can entrust himself to God in hope and love. But faith, understood as mere assent (albeit graced assent), is only the beginning of salvation. It needs to be "informed" or completed by charity, also the work of grace.

Luther and his followers, though, rejected the Catholic view that "saving faith" was "faith formed by charity" and therefore not "faith alone", where "faith" is understood as mere assent to God's Word, apart from trust and love. In large part, this was due to a misunderstanding by Luther. "We must not be misled on this point," writes Bouyer, "by Luther's later assertions opposed to the fides caritate formata [faith informed by charity]. His object in disowning this formula was to reject the idea that faith justified man only if there were added to it a love proceeding from a natural disposition, not coming as a gift of God, the whole being the gift of God." Yet Luther's view of faith, contents Bouyer, seems to imply an element of love, at least in the sense of a total self-commitment to God. And, of course, this love must be both the response to God's loving initiative and the effect of that initiative by which man is enabled and moved to respond. But once again, this is Catholic doctrine, for the charity that "informs" faith so that it becomes saving faith is not a natural disposition, but is as much the work of God as the assent of faith.

Thus, Bouyer's point is that the doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide) was initially seen by the Reformers as a way of upholding justification by grace alone (sola gratia), which is also a fundamental Catholic truth. Only later, as a result of controversy, did the Reformers insist on identifying justification by faith alone with a negative principle that denied any form of cooperation, even grace-enabled cooperation.

3. Sola Scriptura. Melanchthon, the colleague of Luther, called justification sola gratia, sola fide the "Material Principle" of the Reformation. But there was also the Formal Principle, the doctrine of sola Scriptura or what Bouyer calls the sovereign authority of Scripture. What of that?

Here, too, says Bouyer, the Reformation's core positive principle is correct. The Word of God, rather than a human word, must govern the life of the Christian and of the Church. And the Word of God is found in a unique and supreme form in the Bible, the inspired Word of God. The inspiration of the Bible means that God is the primary author of Scripture. Since we can say that about no other writing or formal expression of the Church's Faith, not even conciliar or papal definitions of faith, the Bible alone is the Word of God in this sense and therefore it possesses a unique authority.

Yet the supremacy of the Bible does not imply an opposition between it and the authority of the Church or Tradition, as certain negative principles adopted by the Reformers implied. Furthermore, the biblical spirituality of Protestantism, properly understood, is in keeping with the best traditions of Catholic spirituality, especially those of the Fathers and the great medieval theologians. Through Scripture, God speaks to us today, offering a living Word to guide our lives in Christ.

Thus, writes Bouyer, "the supreme authority of Scripture, taken in its positive sense, as gradually drawn out and systematized by Protestants themselves, far from setting the Church and Protestantism in opposition, should be the best possible warrant for their return to understanding and unity."

The Reformation was Wrong

Where does this leave us? If the Reformation was right about sola gratia and sola Scriptura, its two key principles, how was it wrong? Bouyer holds that only the positive elements of these Reformation principles are correct.

Unfortunately, these principles were unnecessarily linked by the Reformers to certain negative elements, which the Catholic Church had to reject. Here we consider two of those elements: 1) the doctrine of extrinsic justification and the nature of justifying faith and 2) the authority of the Bible.

1. Extrinsic Justification. Regarding justification by grace alone, it was the doctrine of extrinsic justification and the rejection of the Catholic view of faith formed by charity as "saving faith." Bouyer writes, "The further Luther advanced in his conflict with other theologians, then with Rome, then with the whole of contemporary Catholicism and finally with the Catholicism of every age, the more closely we see him identifying affirmation about sola gratia with a particular theory, known as extrinsic justification."

Extrinsic justification is the idea that justification occurs outside of man, rather than within him. Catholicism, as we have seen, holds that justification is by grace alone. In that sense, it originates outside of man, with God's grace. But, according to Catholic teaching, God justifies man by effecting a change within him, by making him just or righteous, not merely by saying he is just or righteous or treating him as if he were. Justification imparts the righteousness of Christ to man, transforming him by grace into a child of God.

The Reformation view was different. The Reformers, like the Catholic Church, insisted that justification is by grace and therefore originates outside of man, with God. But they also insisted that when God justifies man, man is not changed but merely declared just or righteous. God treats man as if he were just or righteous, imputing to man the righteousness of Christ, rather than imparting it to him.

The Reformers held this view for two reasons. First, because they came to think it necessary in order to uphold the gratuitousness of justification. Second, because they thought the Bible taught it. On both points, argues Bouyer, the Reformers were mistaken. There is neither a logical nor a biblical reason why God cannot effect a change in man without undercutting justification by grace alone. Whatever righteousness comes to be in man as a result of justification is a gift, as much any other gift God bestows on man. Nor does the Bible's treatment of "imputed" righteousness imply that justification is not imparted. On these points, the Reformers were simply wrong:

"Without the least doubt, grace, for St. Paul, however freely given, involves what he calls 'the new creation', the appearance in us of a 'new man', created in justice and holiness. So far from suppressing the efforts of man, or making them a matter of indifference, or at least irrelevant to salvation, he himself tells us to 'work out your salvation with fear and trembling', at the very moment when he affirms that '. . . knowing that it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish.' These two expressions say better than any other that all is grace in our salvation, but at the same time grace is not opposed to human acts and endeavor in order to attain salvation, but arouses them and exacts their performance."

Calvin, notes Bouyer, tried to circumvent the biblical problems of the extrinsic justification theory by positing a systematic distinction between justification, which puts us in right relation to God but which, on the Protestant view, doesn't involve a change in man; and sanctification, which transforms us. Yet, argues Bouyer, this systematic distinction isn't biblical. In the Bible, justification and sanctification - as many modern Protestant exegetes admit - are two different terms for the same process. Both occur by grace through faith and both involve a faith "informed by charity" or completed by love. As Bouyer contends, faith in the Pauline sense, "supposes the total abandonment of man to the gift of God" - which amounts to love of God. He argues that it is absurd to think that the man justified by faith, who calls God "Abba, Father," doesn't love God or doesn't have to love him in order to be justified.

2. Sola Scriptura vs. Church and Tradition. Bouyer also sees a negative principle that the Reformation unnecessarily associated with sola Scriptura or the sovereignty of the Bible. Yes, the Bible alone is the Word of God in the sense that only the Bible is divinely inspired. And yes the Bible's authority is supreme in the sense that neither the Church nor the Church's Tradition "trumps" Scripture. But that doesn't mean that the Word of God in an authoritative form is found only in the Bible, for the Word of God can be communicated in a non-inspired, yet authoritative form as well. Nor does it mean that there can be no authoritative interpreter of the Bible (the Magisterium) or authoritative interpretation of biblical doctrine (Tradition). Repudiation of the Church's authority and Tradition simply doesn't follow from the premise of Scripture's supremacy as the inspired Word of God. Furthermore, the Tradition and authority of the Church are required to determine the canon of the Bible.

Luther and Calvin did not follow the Radical Reformation in rejecting any role for Church authority or Tradition altogether. But they radically truncated such a role. Furthermore, they provided no means by which the Church, as a community of believers, could determine when the Bible was being authentically interpreted or who within the community had the right to make such a determination for the community. In this way, they ultimately undercut the supremacy of the Bible, for they provided no means by which the supreme authority of the Bible could, in fact, be exercised in the Church as a whole. The Bible's authority extended only so far as the individual believer's interpretation of it allowed.

The Catholic Church and Reformation Principles

As we have seen, Bouyer argues for the Reformation's "positive principles" and against its "negative principles." But how did what was right from one point of view in the Reformation go so wrong from another point of view? Bouyer argues that the under the influence of decadent scholasticism, mainly Nominalism, the Reformers unnecessarily inserted the negative elements into their ideas along with the positive principles. "Brought up on these lines of thought, identified with them so closely they could not see beyond them," he writes, "the Reformers could only systematize their very valuable insights in a vitiated framework."

The irony is profound. The Reformation sought to recover "genuine Christianity" by hacking through what it regarded as the vast overgrowth of medieval theology. Yet to do so, the Reformers wielded swords forged in the fires of the worst of medieval theology - the decadent scholasticism of Nominalism.

The negative principles of the Reformation necessarily led the Catholic Church to reject the movement - though not, in fact, its fundamental positive principles, which were essentially Catholic. Eventually, argues Bouyer, through a complex historical process, these negative elements ate away at the positive principles as well. The result was liberal Protestantism, which wound up affirming the very things Protestantism set out to deny (man's ability to save himself) and denying things Protestantism began by affirming (sola gratia).

Bouyer contends that the only way to safeguard the positive principles of the Reformation is through the Catholic Church. For only in the Catholic Church are the positive principles the Reformation affirmed found without the negative elements the Reformers mistakenly affixed to them. But how to bring this about?

Bouyer says that both Protestants and Catholics have responsibilities here. Protestants must investigate their roots and consider whether the negative elements of the Reformation, such as extrinsic justification and the rejection of a definitive Church teaching authority and Tradition, are necessary to uphold the positive principles of sola gratia and the supremacy of Scripture. If not, then how is continued separation from the Catholic Church justified? Furthermore, if, as Bouyer contends, the negative elements of the Reformation were drawn from a decadent theology and philosophy of the Middle Ages and not Christian antiquity, then it is the Catholic Church that has upheld the true faith and has maintained a balance regarding the positive principles of the Reformation that Protestantism lacks. In this way, the Catholic Church is needed for Protestantism to live up to its own positive principles.

Catholics have responsibilities as well. One major responsibility is to be sure they have fully embraced their own Church's teaching on the gratuitousness of salvation and the supremacy of the Bible. As Bouyer writes, "Catholics are in fact too prone to forget that, if the Church bears within herself, and cannot ever lose, the fullness of Gospel truth, its members, at any given time and place, are always in need of a renewed effort to apprehend this truth really and not just, as Newman would say, 'notionally'." "To Catholics, lukewarm and unaware of their responsibilities," he adds, the Reformation, properly understood, "recalls the existence of many of their own treasures which they overlook."

Only if Catholics are fully Catholic - which includes fully embracing the positive principles of the Reformation that Bouyer insists are essentially Catholic - can they "legitimately aspire to show and prepare their separated brethren the way to a return which would be for them not a denial but a fulfillment."

Today, as in the sixteenth century, the burden rests with us Catholics. We must live, by God's abundant grace, up to our high calling in Christ Jesus. And in this way, show our Protestant brethren that their own positive principles are properly expressed only in the Catholic Church.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Mark Brumley. "Why Only Catholicism Can Make Protestantism Work: Louis Bouyer on the Reformation." Catholic Dossier 7 no. 5 (September-October 2001): 30-35.

This article is reprinted with permission from Catholic Dossier. To subscribe to Catholic Dossier call 1-800-651-1531.

THE AUTHOR

Mark Brumley is managing editor of Catholic Dossier. A convert from Evangelical Protestantism, he was greatly influenced by Bouyer's book The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, when he first read it over twenty years ago. Recently, Scepter Books has republished The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, which can be obtained online at www.scepterpub.org or by calling 1-800-322-8773.

Copyright © 2001 Catholic Dossier

[GreaserX]

Oh, for the love of Saint Peter and all the Saints! Maybe you don't worship Mary, but there are millions who do! What is up with this "Mother of God" stuff? God the Father and the Holy Spirit were in Heaven while the son of man was incarnated in flesh through the Virgin Birth. God existed before Mary! Next, how about that Co-Reedemtrix stuff? She works with Jesus to save souls? Sez who? You also believe that Mary was sinless. I don't remember reading that in my King James! Your churches are full of her statues. Why? Why do you say Hail Mary's? Is this not a prayer? Why is the Virgin Mary the only human that is allowed to come back from the dead and appear to people? Why not Peter? Or David? Or John the Baptist? Why is onlyshe allowed to mediate between God and man? How could her hymen grow shut after giving birth? She sounds pretty much like a god to me! Only God and his angels can do what she can do! In fact she can do more than angels! Why don't you stop the double-speak and just admitt that you worship her and think she is the fourth person of the Godhead!?

[GreaserX]

I have to make a retraction. I am sorry for making the comment about the hymen. If God can ressurrect us from dust or scattered molecules he could restore a hymen. Out of respect for the real biblical Mary, I am sorry for making that rude comment. I meant to make a statement about the perpetual virginity of Mary that is not scriptural. Mariogy make me angry because it exalts Mary above Jesus, my God. Any being that is made to be above my Father that is in heaven will make me angry, if that being is Allah, Krishna, Vishnu, Budda, Satan, Mary or any other number of false dieties. Anyway, my grandmother was catholic and I pray that she is in heaven. I have a plate of Mary that belonged to her and I treasure it. I also have a Mary night light and two Jesus night lights-just to make sure that she knows who is boss! I love Catholic buildings, they are beautiful. We could all get along a lot better if Mary was erased from Catholic churches. Then all we would have to argue about would be purgatory and the infallibility of the Popes!

[Brian Kopp DPM]

How could her hymen grow shut after giving birth? She sounds pretty much like a god to me! Only God and his angels can do what she can do! In fact she can do more than angels! Why don't you stop the double-speak and just admitt that you worship her and think she is the fourth person of the Godhead!?

Despite your apologies to the contrary, you have revealed yourself for what you are. No true Christian trying to win my soul for Christ would say such vulgar and offensive things. I will not engage debate with such as you.

By the way, it is bigoted lies such as yours here that drive folks back to Rome. Your ignorance is astounding even given the track record of Catholic baiters here on FR. If you desire to win souls for Christ you must completely stop attacking and offending and insulting. That drives people away from God, not to your own personal interpretation of scripture.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Thank you. It has not been easy.

[George W. Bush]

Let's look at your words more closely since they demonstrate what you do believe in accordance with LDS theology:

WM to O.P.: MORMON School -- CHRISTIAN. These people are SAVED by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

You are saying that they are ultimately saved by their works. This is why Protestants would say that LDS is similar to Romanism. Again and again, you and the Romanists deny salvation by works. And, again and agina, you refute salvation by grace and ultimately turn to works in the final matter of salvation. Really, there are times when I think the concept of salvation by the pure grace completely eludes both you and the Romanists. There is no papering over of the differences between these basic theological views. You and the LDS stand with Rome in one camp. Protestants and their modern descendants stand in another camp. You should simply acknowledge this most basic difference instead of pretending that it is all really the same thing. It isn't, White Mountain.

These Christians have the Gospel. That's the truth.

Yes, they do have the Gospel. Unfortunately, they have elected to add the writings of Joseph Smith, dictated to his assistants while he had his head bowed and placed into his hat in which he held his "magic stone". The authenticated descriptions of Smith's personal associates is questioned nowhere outside LDS circles. Sometimes, I think that you really don't understand exactly how important the authority of the established canon of scripture is to Protestants and their modern descendants and counterparts. Again, you look to Smith and his authority and modern revelation just as RCs look to Rome, their pope and their Tradition and Magisterium. And again, the LDS and Rome are simply not compatible with Protestantism, a religion of the Word as established in the ancient Church.

The attempted addition of the Book of Mormon to the canon of sacred Christian scripture which has, in essence, persevered through 1700 years makes the Mormon religion, at best, a sort of second Reformation, one in which Smith considered both the Roman and Protestant traditions to be in grave and fatal error. It would seem to me that Smith must be considered as infallible as a pope on these matters, maybe more so, since he established the Mormon canon of literature.

Romanists and Protestants affirm the sacred canon established shortly after the apostolic period, a canon endorsed by those who personally knew the authors who were themselves the personal disciples of Christ. The writings of Joseph Smith stand outside this ancient tradition to which both RCs and Protestants lay claim. I don't especially enjoy saying these because I have a real regard for you as a decent and caring human being who makes a personally sincere claim upon the moral teachings of Jesus Christ. But there really are three "camps" in modern Christianity, more or less. Rome, Protestants, and Mormonism. There are distinctions between these three camps which do not allow us to simply label them all Christian without doing violence to each of the three and their individual merits, history and tradition.

They're simply not the same. And if you have any real regard for LDS teachings, you should acknowledge it. Frankly, I've never been able to determine if Mormonism is closer to Rome or to Protestant belief but, given the LDS teaching on virtual universal salvation, I tend to see the LDS churches as more basically compatible with Rome. (I began to examine this matter in more detail after a recent article which said that the future of evangelical Christianity was in the hands of Baptists and Mormons. Naturally, I could not disagree more, given my views.)

WM to O.P: You need to apologize.

No, he does not need to apologize to you or anyone else. I don't know what the point of having a consitutional forum is if you don't allow free speech. If you want to post on aggressive religious discussion threads, there is a certain amount of tough language you'd better expect.

I think you need to re-examine whether you're being honest when you seem to represent Mormonism as just another variety of Protestant. It is not. If you wish to claim a compatibility with Rome's beliefs and canon and theology, I would grant you that. But the RCs around here might have a different take on it. In fact, I'm sure they will.

Three camps. Not one, White Mountain. Let's not be making ecumenical happy-talk to paper over truly incompatible differences in basic belief.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

No, he does not need to apologize to you or anyone else. I don't know what the point of having a consitutional forum is if you don't allow free speech. If you want to post on aggressive religious discussion threads, there is a certain amount of tough language you'd better expect.

Thank you for the good words. Your tone with WM was conciliatory but frank, and I appreciate the favorable nod to my own position.

I've been too busy with work to FReep much of late (except to lurk a little here on my lunch hour), so several posts of WM's have thus gone unanswered (as the above). So I'm much obliged for your review of the debate.

[GreaserX]

Ah here we go again. You don't want to address all of the questions I have raised, so you say that I am a bigot and not a true Christian. Only a true RC Christian would bow down to Mary. Anyone that does not accept her as the pope sees her is a heritic. Once again, show me in the Bible where it clearly says that Mary is co-redeemer on an equal par with Jesus. Show me where ANY of the things you hold true about Mary are in the bible. You won't because you can't! Just because some popes said so is not enough. I did appologize and I think you should do so with me, since you have taken apon yourself to play God and tell me that I am not saved!

[George W. Bush]

Hebrews 10:14 KJV - For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

An extremely apt application of this scripture. And of course, the entire passage of Hebrews 10:1-14 when read in context. Calvin made a very strong argument with this scripture against Rome's return to sacerdotal practices, practices completely unknown in the early church to which both traditions lay their claim. Inasmuch as you are applying this in the context of a single and complete Atonement by Christ here, I am completely in agreement. A very orthodox Protestant reading.

Plainly stated, either Christ's sacrifice was sufficient or one requires additional works like Origen's Purgatory. A truly fundamental difference between those who actually believe in salvation only by pure grace and those who believe that some work of man, either in this life or the next, is actually necessary. And this is why we say that Rome offers a semi-Pelagian salvation of works, however often they deny it. I've often said that it sometimes seems beyond their comprehension that when we say sola gratia (and sola scriptura), we really mean exactly that and absolutely nothing else. They will claim they believe the same doctrine but then immediately start adding works which they believe are required to maintain or complete their salvation. We see it over and over.

As your scripture states repeatedly, one either believes in a one-time and complete Atonement by Christ or one refuses the scripture teaching. I think it is the radical simplicity of the basic Protestant belief which so confounds our RC and Mormon FRiends. They repeatedly claim to believe the same thing. But they always have to add works. And there is the real fundamental difference between the orthodox Protestant camp and the semi-Pelagian RCs and Mormons.

I do grasp and grant OP's debating points in the previous posts that a belief in purgatory is not an error fatal to salvation. But, being one of those uncouth fundamentalists so despised by the modern ecumenists of all stripes, I will stand upon the solid foundations of the pure Reformation teachings and merely observe that one heresy (unscriptural belief/practice) demands another. Those who stray from the steady light of the simple Gospel are generally compelled to stray further. This is, I think, the most fundamental objection we have as Protestants to unscriptural practices.

You haven't been cheating by reading Calvin, have you?

[RnMomof7]

I was thinking about this exchange OP.It occurred to me that this was exactly the issue that brought you and Squire together. "Sola Scripture"

It seems to me when we begin to wander away from that and use the work of man as a source ,be it Augustine ,Aquinas ,Calvin or Wesley,we are subject to their error.

Because you narrowed your discussion to a Roman Catholic Augustine you are now saddled with his error. Unlike Scripture he is not infallible or inherent (as his purgatory position shows).

When a church or belief system is built around the theology of man ,sin and deception enters.

We are all constrained by our education and experience,Augustine is a perfect example. He was correct on seeing God's Sovereignty, but he was blinded on some of the churches traditional errors (IMHO).

Only God stands outside time ,only God could give us His perfect word..suitable for doctrine..

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

[George W. Bush]

You have not succeeded in distracting from the basic question GreaserX posed. Precisely how do you explain the perpetual virginity of Mary? There are tremendous scriptural and practical flaws in such belief, argued many times here at FR. If you wish to rely strictly upon your Magisterium, Catechisms, and papal infallibiliyt, you can of course establish that Mary was a perpetual virgin. Or that the moon is made of green cheese.

But scripture does not support Rome's opinions and the financial and institutional utility of the notion of the perpetual virginity of Mary. We do, of course, call her blessed as scripture instructs all generations will. And there we stop, leaving it to Rome and others to tread beyond the safety of the Word.

Just admit that the only basis for believing that Mary was a perpetual virgin is because your popes said so and I am perfectly willing to agree that you have a right to believe it. But the belief is absolutely unscriptural and was unknown in the early church.

[RnMomof7]

Thanks for the flag GWB ,but I believe that WM hits the abuse button anytime you get a little too close. The light hurts his eyes..I will pass..

[Brian Kopp DPM]

show me in the Bible where it clearly says that Mary is co-redeemer on an equal par with Jesus

First show me where any Catholic document places Mary on an equal par with Jesus. None do. Thus your straw man falls.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

You have not succeeded in distracting from the basic question GreaserX posed.

That's fine. No one has yet answered my question, which predated yours and his by approximately 600 or 700 posts now, i.e.,

NO ONE has pointed out to me exactly where protestantism got the authority to change a continual teaching of Christian moral theology, a change that incidentally has lead directly to the acceptance of legalized abortion, and gutted the ability of protestant Christians to effectively preach against homosexuality.

Until someone shows me why or how protestantism can legitimately change a foundational teaching of Christian morality, I have no reason to answer any of these other questions that have been posted long after my own unanswered question (though if I feel like it, I might take a stab at it later).

[Brian Kopp DPM]

All early Christians believed in the perpetual virginity and sinlessness of Mary.

From THE PATRISTIC PRAISE OF MARY Mary, Ever Virgin

The virginal conception of Christ was upheld by the early Church. St. Ignatius (107 A.D.), bishop of Antioch and reputed hearer of the apostle John, wrote, "The virginity of Mary, her giving birth, and also the death of the Lord . . . three mysteries loudly proclaimed, but wrought in the silence of God." And again, "According to the flesh, Our Lord Jesus Christ was born from the stock of David; but if we look at the will and the power of God, He is the Son of God, truly born of a virgin." St. Justin the Martyr (165 A.D.) observed that the "power of God, coming upon the Virgin, overshadowed her, and caused her, while yet a Virgin, to conceive." St. Irenaeus (202 A.D.) referred to Jesus as "the Word Himself, born of Mary who was still a Virgin." He adds, "The belief in the Virgin Birth has been handed over to the Church by the Apostles and by their disciples, the same as the other truths of the Faith." St. Hippolytus (215 A.D.), in questioning candidates for baptism, inquired, "Do you believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was born of the Holy Spirit, of the Virgin Mary?"

St. Ephraem (373 A.D.) extols Mary as the Virgin who became a Mother "while preserving her virginity." And St. Ambrose (397 A.D.), bishop of Milan, proclaimed Christ who was "born of a virgin," and adds, "Mary was a Virgin not in body only, but mind also . . . so pure that she was chosen to be the Mother of the Lord. God made her whom He had chosen and chose her of whom He would be made." St. Augustine (430 A.D.) observed, "The nobility of the Child was in the virginity which brought him forth, and the nobility of the parent was in the Divinity of the Child."

The Patristic writers also had no difficulty in asserting Mary's perpetual virginity. For example, St. Athanasius (373 A.D.), bishop of Alexandria, who was, as a deacon, active at the First Council of Nicaea, stated that Jesus "took human flesh from the ever-virgin Mary." Didymus the Blind (380 A.D.), mentor of the great Jerome, wrote of Mary, "Even after childbirth, she remained always and forever an immaculate virgin." St. Epiphanius of Salamis (403 A.D.) commented that "to Holy Mary, Virgin is invariably added, for that Holy Woman remains undefiled." Against the heretic Helvidius, St. Jerome (420 A.D.) spoke, "You say that Mary did not remain a virgin? As for myself, I claim that Joseph himself was a virgin, through Mary, so that a Virgin son might be born of virginal wedlock."

St. Ambrose of Milan (397 A.D.) cites the beautiful prophecy of Ezekiel—"This gate is to remain closed; it is not to be opened for anyone to enter by it. Since the Lord, the God of Israel has entered by it, it shall remain closed (Ez 44:2)." He then comments, "Who is this gate, if not Mary?" Leporius (426 A.D.), monk and disciple of St. Augustine, in a credal statement refers to Christ as the Son of God "made man of the Holy Spirit and the Ever-Virgin Mary." St. Cyril of Alexandria (444 A.D.) remarked that the Word himself "kept his Mother a Virgin even after her child-bearing, which was done for none of the other saints." St. Peter Chrysologus (450 A.D.), archbishop of Ravenna, penned the beautiful words, "A Virgin conceived, a Virgin bore, and a Virgin she remains." St. John Damascene (749 A.D.), the last of the Fathers, is quaint in his vigorous defense of Mary's perpetual virginity—"Thus the Ever-Virgin remains after birth a Virgin still, never having consorted with man . . . For how were it possible that she, who had borne God . . . should ever receive the embrace of a man? Perish the thought!"

In subsequent centuries, Mary's perpetual virginity was defended in various councils, e.g., the fifth ecumenical council held in Constantinople (553 A.D.), and dogmatically defined by Pope St. Martin I at the Lateran Council of Rome (649 A.D.), whose decree was later upheld by the sixth ecumenical council at Constantinople (681 A.D.). This belief also meets the criterion of infallibility in that it has been the constant teaching of the Church.

Mary's Sinlessness

Early Christian belief always associated Mary with Jesus in the divine plan. The Patristic writers referred to Mary as the "new Eve," who cooperated with Christ, the "new Adam." In the writings of Justin the Martyr (165 A.D.), Irenaeus (202 A.D.), Ephraem of Syria (403 A.D.), Cyril of Jerusalem (348 A.D.), Jerome (420 A.D.), Augustine (430 A.D.), Epiphanius of Salamis (403 A.D.), and John Chrysostom (407 A.D.), Mary is portrayed as bringing life (Christ) into the world, whereas Eve brought death, and Mary's humility and obedience is contrasted with Eve's pride and disobedience.

Mary's sinlessness in general was undisputed by early Christian writers. St. Ambrose (430 A.D.) wrote, ". . . Mary, a Virgin not only undefiled but a virgin whom grace has made inviolate, free of every stain." Concerning Our Blessed Lady, St. Augustine declared, "I wish to have absolutely no question when treating of sin." St. Ephraem, in a poem addressed to Christ, penned "Thou and thy mother are alone in this—you are wholly beautiful in every respect. There is in thee, Lord, no stain, nor any spot in thy Mother." In praise of Mary, he wrote, "My Lady most holy, all-pure, all-immaculate, all-stainless, all-undefiled, all-incorrupt, all-inviolate . . . spotless robe of Him who clothes himself with light as with a garment . . . flower unfading, purple woven by God, alone most immaculate!"

St. Proclus (446 A.D.), Patriarch of Constantinople, wrote, "Mary is the heavenly orb of a new creation, in whom the Sun of justice, ever shining, has vanished from her soul all the night of sin." St. John Damascene spoke of Mary as "preserved without stain." Although agreeing that Mary was sinless in her behavior, the Church Fathers were divided on the question of her inheritance of original sin. Even the great Thomas Aquinas (1274 A.D.) could not resolve the issue; it remained for John Duns Scotus (1308 A.D.) to propose a "preservative redemption" rather than a "restorative redemption" for Mary. The Church took the decisive step on December 8, 1854, when Peter's successor, the venerable Pope Pius IX, infallibly defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. It was by this title that, four years later, Mary identified herself to St. Bernadette at Lourdes. And, in 1954, the first Marian Year was occasioned by the 100th anniversary of the proclamation of this beautiful truth.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
"And indeed it was a virgin, about to marry once for all after her delivery, who gave birth to Christ, in order that each title of sanctity might be fulfilled in Christ's parentage, by means of a mother who was both virgin, and wife of one husband. Again, when He is presented as an infant in the temple, who is it who receives Him into his hands? who is the first to recognise Him in spirit? A man just and circumspect,' and of course no digamist, (which is plain) even (from this consideration), lest (otherwise) Christ should presently be more worthily preached by a woman, an aged widow, and the wife of one man;' who, living devoted to the temple, was (already) giving in her own person a sufficient token what sort of persons ought to be the adherents to the spiritual temple,--that is, the Church. Such eye-witnesses the Lord in infancy found; no different ones had He in adult age."
Tertullian,On Monogamy,8(A.D. 213),in ANF,IV:65

"For if Mary, as those declare who with sound mind extol her, had no other son but Jesus, and yet Jesus says to His mother, Woman, behold thy son,' and not Behold you have this son also,' then He virtually said to her, Lo, this is Jesus, whom thou didst bear.' Is it not the case that every one who is perfect lives himself no longer, but Christ lives in him; and if Christ lives in him, then it is said of him to Mary, Behold thy son Christ.' What a mind, then, must we have to enable us to interpret in a worthy manner this work, though it be committed to the earthly treasure-house of common speech, of writing which any passer-by can read, and which can be heard when read aloud by any one who lends to it his bodily ears?"
Origen,Commentary on John,I:6(A.D. 232),in ANF,X:300

"Therefore let those who deny that the Son is from the Father by nature and proper to His Essence, deny also that He took true human flesh of Mary Ever-Virgin; for in neither case had it been of profit to us men, whether the Word were not true and naturally Son of God, or the flesh not true which He assumed."
Athanasius,Orations against the Arians,II:70(A.D. 362),in NPNF2,IV:386-387

"And when he had taken her, he knew her not, till she had brought forth her first-born Son.' He hath here used the word till,' not that thou shouldest suspect that afterwards he did know her, but to inform thee that before the birth the Virgin was wholly untouched by man. But why then, it may be said, hath he used the word, till'? Because it is usual in Scripture often to do this, and to use this expression without reference to limited times. For so with respect to the ark likewise, it is said, The raven returned not till the earth was dried up.' And yet it did not return even after that time. And when discoursing also of God, the Scripture saith, From age until age Thou art,' not as fixing limits in this case. And again when it is preaching the Gospel beforehand, and saying, In his days shall righteousness flourish, and abundance of peace, till the moon be taken away,' it doth not set a limit to this fair part of creation. So then here likewise, it uses the word "till," to make certain what was before the birth, but as to what follows, it leaves thee to make the inference. Thus, what it was necessary for thee to learn of Him, this He Himself hath said; that the Virgin was untouched by man until the birth; but that which both was seen to be a consequence of the former statement, and was acknowledged, this in its turn he leaves for thee to perceive; namely, that not even after this, she having so become a mother, and having been counted worthy of a new sort of travail, and a child-bearing so strange, could that righteous man ever have endured to know her. For if he had known her, and had kept her in the place of a wife, how is it that our Lord commits her, as unprotected, and having no one, to His disciple, and commands him to take her to his own home? How then, one may say, are James and the others called His brethren? In the same kind of way as Joseph himself was supposed to be husband of Mary. For many were the veils provided, that the birth, being such as it was, might be for a time screened. Wherefore even John so called them, saying, For neither did His brethren believe in Him.' "
John Chrysostom,Gospel of Matthew,V:5(A.D. 370),in NPNF1,X:33

"But those who by virginity have desisted from this process have drawn within themselves the boundary line of death, and by their own deed have checked his advance; they have made themselves, in fact, a frontier between life and death, and a barrier too, which thwarts him. If, then, death cannot pass beyond virginity, but finds his power checked and shattered there, it is demonstrated that virginity is a stronger thing than death; and that body is rightly named undying which does not lend its service to a dying world, nor brook to become the instrument of a succession of dying creatures. In such a body the long unbroken career of decay and death, which has intervened between the first man and the lives of virginity which have been led, is interrupted. It could not be indeed that death should cease working as long as the human race by marriage was working too; he walked the path of life with all preceding generations; he started with every new-born child and accompanied it to the end: but he found in virginity a barrier, to pass which was an impossible feat. Just as, in the age of Mary the mother of God, he who had reigned from Adam to her time found, when he came to her and dashed his forces against the fruit of her virginity as against a rock, that he was shattered to pieces upon her, so in every soul which passes through this life in the flesh under the protection of virginity, the strength of death is in a manner broken and annulled, for he does not find the places upon which he may fix his sting."
Gregory of Nyssa,On Virginity,13(A.D.371),in NPNF2,V:359-360

"[T]he Son of God...was born perfectly of the holy ever-virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit..."
Epiphanius,Well Anchored Man,120(A.D. 374),in JUR,II:70

" But as we do not deny what is written, so we do reject what is not written. We believe that God was born of the Virgin, because we read it. That Mary was married after she brought forth, we do not believe, because we do not read it. Nor do we say this to condemn marriage, for virginity itself is the fruit of marriage; but because when we are dealing with saints we must not judge rashly. If we adopt possibility as the standard of judgment, we might maintain that Joseph had several wives because Abraham had, and so had Jacob, and that the Lord's brethren were the issue of those wives, an invention which some hold with a rashness which springs from audacity not from piety. You say that Mary did not continue a virgin: I claim still more, that Joseph himself on account of Mary was a virgin, so that from a virgin wedlock a virgin son was born. For if as a holy man he does not come under the imputation of fornication, and it is nowhere written that he had another wife, but was the guardian of Mary whom he was supposed to have to wife rather than her husband, the conclusion is that he who was thought worthy to be called father of the Lord, remained a virgin."
Jerome,The Perpetual Virginity of Mary Against Helvedius,21(A.D. 383),in NPNF2,VI:344

"The friends of Christ do not tolerate hearing that the Mother of God ever ceased to be a virgin"
Basil,Hom. In Sanctum Christi generationem,5(ante A.D. 379),in OTT,207

" Imitate her, holy mothers, who in her only dearly beloved Son set forth so great an example of maternal virtue; for neither have you sweeter children, nor did the Virgin seek the consolation of being able to bear another son."
Ambrose,To the Christian at Vercellae,Letter 63:111(A.D. 396),in NPNF2,X:473

" Her virginity also itself was on this account more pleasing and accepted, in that it was not that Christ being conceived in her, rescued it beforehand from a husband who would violate it, Himself to preserve it; but, before He was conceived, chose it, already dedicated to God, as that from which to be born. This is shown by the words which Mary spake in answer to the Angel announcing to her her conception; How,' saith she, shall this be, seeing I know not a man?' Which assuredly she would not say, unless she had before vowed herself unto God as a virgin. But, because the habits of the Israelites as yet refused this, she was espoused to a just man, who would not take from her by violence, but rather guard against violent persons, what she had already vowed. Although, even if she had said this only, How shall this take place ?' and had not added, seeing I know not a man,' certainly she would not have asked, how, being a female, she should give birth to her promised Son, if she had married with purpose of sexual intercourse. She might have been bidden also to continue a virgin, that in her by fitting miracle the Son of God should receive the form of a servant, but, being to be a pattern to holy virgins, lest it should be thought that she alone needed to be a virgin, who had obtained to conceive a child even without sexual intercourse, she dedicated her virginity to God, when as yet she knew not what she should conceive, in order that the imitation of a heavenly life in an earthly and mortal body should take place of vow, not of command; through love of choosing, not through necessity of doing service. Thus Christ by being born of a virgin, who, before she knew Who was to be born of her, had determined to continue a virgin, chose rather to approve, than to command, holy virginity. And thus, even in the female herself, in whom He took the form of a servant, He willed that virginity should be free."
Augustine,Of Holy Virginity,4(A.D. 401),in NPNF1,III:418

"Where are they who think that the Virgin's conception and giving birth to her child are to be likened to those of other woman? For, this latter case is one of the earth, and the Virgin's is one from heaven. The one case is a case of divine power; the other of human weakness. The one case occurs in a body subject to passion; the other in the tranquility of the divine Spirit and peace of the human body. The blood was still, and the flesh astonished; her members were put at rest, and her entire womb was quiescent during the visit of the Holy One, until the Author of flesh could take on His garment of flesh, and until He, who was not merely to restore the earth to man but also to give him heaven, could become a heavenly Man. The virgin conceives, the Virgin brings forth her child, and she remains a virgin."
Peter Chrysoslogus,Sermon 117,(A.D. 432),in FC,XVII,200

"And by a new nativity He was begotten, conceived by a Virgin, born of a Virgin, without paternal desire, without injury to the mother's chastity: because such a birth as knew no taint of human flesh, became One who was to be the Saviour of men, while it possessed in itself the nature of human substance. For when God was born in the flesh, God Himself was the Father, as the archangel witnessed to the Blessed Virgin Mary: because the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee: and therefore, that which shall be born of thee shall be called holy, the Son of God.' The origin is different but the nature like: not by intercourse with man but by the power of God was it brought about: for a Virgin conceived, a Virgin bare, and a Virgin she remained."
Pope Leo the Great(regn. A.D. 440-461),On the Feast of the Nativity,Sermon 22:2(ante A.D. 461),in NPNF2,XII:130

"The ever-virgin One thus remains even after the birth still virgin, having never at any time up till death consorted with a man. For although it is written, And knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born Son, yet note that he who is first-begotten is first-born even if he is only-begotten. For the word first-born' means that he was born first but does not at all suggest the birth of others. And the word till' signifies the limit of the appointed time but does not exclude the time thereafter. For the Lord says, And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world, not meaning thereby that He will be separated from us after the completion of the age. The divine apostle, indeed, says, And so shall we ever be with the Lord, meaning after the general resurrection."
John of Damascus,Orthodox Faith,4:14(A.D. 743),in NPNF2,IX:86

[Brian Kopp DPM]

The early Christians do a better job defending purgatory than I. Read the beliefs of the early Christians here. If your 21st century beliefs contradict the early Christian beliefs, they're probably wrong:

PURGATORY

"Then we make mention also of those who have already fallen asleep: first, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that through their prayers and supplications God would receive our petition; next, we make mention also of the holy fathers and bishops who have already fallen asleep, and, to put it simply, of all among us who have already fallen asleep, for we believe that it will be of very great benefit to the souls of those for whom the petition is carried up, while this holy and most solemn sacrifice is laid out."  St. Cyril of Jerusalem ("Catechetical Lectures" c. 350 A.D.)

"Useful too is the prayer fashioned on their behalf, even if it does not force back the whole of guilty charges laid to them. And it is useful also, because in this world we often stumble either voluntarily or involuntarily, and thus it is a reminder to do better."  St. Epiphanius of Salamis ("Medicine Chest Against All Heresies" c. 375 A.D.)

"Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifice (Job 1:5), why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them."  St. John Chrysostom ("Homilies on 1 Corinthians" c. 392 A.D.)

"Weep for those who die in their wealth and who with all their wealth prepared no consolation for their own souls, who had the power to wash away their sins and did not will to do it. Let us weep for them, let us assist them to the extant of our ability, let us think of some assistance for them, small as it may be, yet let us somehow assist them. But how, and in what way? By praying for them and by entreating others to pray for them, by constantly giving alms to the poor on their behalf. Not in vain was it decreed by the apostles that in the awesome mysteries remembrance should be made of the departed. They knew that here there was much gain for them, much benefit. when the entire people stands with hands uplifted, a priestly assembly, and that awesome sacrificial Victim is laid out, how, when we are calling upon God, should we not succeed in their defense? But this is done for those who have departed in the faith, while even the catechumens are not reckoned as worthy of this consolation, but are deprived of every means of assistance except one. And what is that? We may give alms to the poor on their behalf." St. John Chrysostom ("Homilies on Philippians" c. 402 A.D.)

"There is an ecclesiastical discipline, as the faithful know, when the names of the martyrs are read aloud in that place at the altar of God, where prayer is not offered for them. Prayer, however, is offered for other dead who are remembered. It is wrong to pray for a martyr, to whose prayers we ought ourselves be commended.  But by the prayers of the Holy Church, and by the salvific sacrifice, and by the alms which are given for their spirits, there is no doubt that the dead are aided, that the Lord might deal more mercifully with them than their sins would deserve. The whole Church observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers: that it prays for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself; and the sacrifice is offered also in memory of them, on their behalf. If, then, works of mercy are celebrated for the sake of those who are being remembered, who would hesitate to recommend them, on whose behalf prayers to God are not offered in vain? It is not at all to be doubted that such prayers are of profit to the dead; but for such of them as lived before their death in a way that makes it possible for these things to be useful to them after death."  St. Augustine of Hippo ("Sermons" c. 411 A.D.)

"Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter, but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment."  St. Augustine of Hippo ("The City of God" c. 419 A.D.)

"That there should be some fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, through a certain purgatorial fire."   St. Augustine of Hippo ("Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Charity" c. 421 A.D.)

[Brian Kopp DPM]

You don't want to address all of the questions I have raised, so you say that I am a bigot and not a true Christian.

Turnabout is fair play. You betrayed yourself. I do not need to answer. The Holy Spirit already is, but you refuse to listen. "This saying is hard, who can bear it?"

[George W. Bush]

Until someone shows me why or how protestantism can legitimately change a foundational teaching of Christian morality, I have no reason to answer any of these other questions that have been posted long after my own unanswered question (though if I feel like it, I might take a stab at it later).

As I stated before in reply to you, opposition to modern notions of recreational sex is Rome's strongest point, currently and historically gong back the the old Roman empire. However, Rome is itself not as serious about abortion and contraception as few of the traditionalist bishops. Like my bishop, Bruskewitz, for instance. I personally suspect that Rome might not have liked what he did but I thought it was the action every ecclesial authority should take with regard to infanticide and sodomy.

I accept your tacit admission that Rome's teachings concerning Mary are scripturally unfounded. Just as GreaserX said. You can just take your pope's word for it. Me and Greaser are not compelled to do so and will not since the scripture does not make even the slightest claim for Mary in the roles Rome demands that all Christendom must accept.

[George W. Bush]

Note that you can find no source for this teaching in the earliest church. It took over a hundred years before the perpetual virginity myth became established. And many of the quotes you attempt to marshall to the defense of your pope's notions about Mary do not establish perpetual virginity.

Moreover, the idea of Mary as a woman who never knew the flesh of man puts a lie to scripture that says she would be the wife of one man. A wife receives her husband's seed as God intended. They cleave as one flesh, the most basic definition of marriage. Without sexual intercouse between Joseph and Mary (after Christ's birth), then the scripture is made a lie because they were not husband and wife if they were not one flesh.

Words do have meaning even if you try to deny them or explain them away.

Surely, you must know that all orthodox Protestants affirm the virginity of Mary prior to Jesus' birth. Please restrict any further cutting and pasting of patristic quotes from RC sites to those that bear directly on Mary's life after the birth of Jesus. We do not deny the virgin birth but we do deny perpetual virginity and any role for Mary as a Co-Redemptrix or one set apart from other saints now in heaven in any way. No honest reading of scripture will grant any other interpretation.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Note that you can find no source for this teaching in the earliest church. It took over a hundred years before

Hmmm, using this disingenuous criteria, the Trinity as you and I understand today is also a myth created later on by the Church.

For that matter, so is the canon of scripture. Doesn't cut it, GW.