Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
Of course. I could sign it. But this is not what Sola Scriptura is, as your statement does not exclude apostolic guidance received from the Church and not contradicted by the scripture.
It doesn't follow from the scriptures you cite. Are the goats in Matthew 25 send to Heaven without crowns for insufficient service, or are they send to Hell? Check the scripture please.
What confused Arminius and Wesley was Luther. Neither has any authority.
I read the Gospel in the Greek original whenever controvercy of its meaning arises.
All I go by is the New Advent article which paraphrases it. Do you have an online link for the proceedings? I don't, at the moment, so I asked.
"tortured mistranslations your magestrium has told you to believe.'
I read the Gospel in the Greek original whenever controvercy of its meaning arises."
A practice I heartily endorse!
You might need Greek and Hebrew fonts.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3816.htm
You'll note the "suspect" source. :) At least it is honest enough to say there are a couple of translations. This one is from the Latin transcript apparently.
An indulgence is a remission of the temporal penalty (penance) imposed by a priest on a penitent as a work of satisfaction for a mortal sin. Such works of satisfaction include prayers, fasting, almsgiving, retreats, pilgrimages. A penitent who defaults on these prescribed works of satifaction can expect to suffer for them in purgatory after death, as well as for any unrepented sins.
Indulgences were given to Crusaders who did not complete their penance before they were killed in battle. They didn't have to suffer in purgatory for these omissions, but went directly to heaven. In 1343, Pope Clement VI proclained the existence of a "treasury of merit", an infinite reservoir of good works in the church's possession that could be dispensed at the pope's discretion. On the basis of this declared treasury, the church sold "letters of indulgence" which covered the works of satisfaction owed by penitents. In 1476, Pope Sixtus IV extended indulgences to cover purgatory for the laity in general.
Originally indulgences were given for the self-sacrifice of going on Crusade to the Holy Land. By the 16th century they were dispensed regularly for small cash payments as a from of almsgiving. They were presented to the laity as remitting not only their own future punishments, but also those of their dead relatives presumed to be sufering in purgatory.
The Council of Trent (1545-1563) re-affirmed the granting of letters of indulgence, but not their sale.
Good summary, except I doubt that the treasury of merit was merely proclaimed out of the blue in the 14 century.
Thanks.
You have that reversed. Tradition came before the books of the Bible were identified as Christian Scripture. You are fooling yourself if you believe non-Catholics don't follow traditon. For example, show us where Scripture itself identifies which books belong.
The first declaration of a treasury of merit in a papal bull didn't come right out of the blue. It was preceeded by several centuries of granting indulgences.
"I rather rely on the "GOD-BREATHED" inerrant WORD of GOD than fallible human beings."
There's that Protestant version of Mohammadenism again!
"However, the Latin Church has noted the "bridge" between the West and the Eastern Orthodox - the Eastern Catholics. They still continue their particular cultural practices and celebrate the Liturgy in the same way as they have for over a thousand years. They are, however, in union with the Pope. This can be a lesson on how unification can take place, since the Eastern Catholics have a similar background that the Eastern Orthodox do."
Umm, Jo, that's Uniatism. That's caused quite enough trouble already and, I think, Rome has rejected it, at a minimum in public.
"As usual that is an excellent analysis. I have always placed the decline around 600AD but on reflecting on your statement, I believe you're right that it started with the death of Paul. The freedom was lost to organizationalism."
Well, that would certainly dispense with the necessity of dealing with the inconvenient likes of +Clement, +Polycarp and +Ignatius. :)
"So does communion come before or after an Ecumenical Council?"
Likely after, at least de jure. As one of us points out elsewhere, de facto its already going on in the Middle East.
He’s good at exhorting the faithful to stick with their bishops, but since he was a bishop (is that correct?) I find that neither remarkable nor problematic, but very, very predictable instead. I don’t see how he leads me to a truth that St. Paul didn’t already lead me to, except that I don’t think I remember St. Paul using the term bishop. I do think St. Paul calls Christians to unity, but I don’t hear imposition in his tone of voice. Though to be fair, I don’t think I hear it in St. Ignatius’s voice either.
I never knew one of my bishops, not one. When I was confirmed, it was somewhat like an out-of-body experience. It was more like a conscription, as compared to St. Paul’s exhortation to join, to love. There sat this portly bishop at the bottom of the altar stairs, in full regalia ready to take me in to the army of Christ. I was way ahead of him: I had already enlisted at the age of 10, in Christ‘s Army, out of a spontaneous Love, because he showed me a place where it could be just me and Him.
This bishop had never taught me a thing, he was a complete and utter stranger to me, he was governor, not a teacher, distant in every way imaginable. Is that the same kind of bishop St. Ignatius was?
If I am to believe, because Tradition holds that I must believe, that St. Ignatius expanded upon what St. Paul could not or did not fully make known, because to call this Tradition into question traduces the Christian bonds St. Ignatius and his contemporaries established, that’s a judgment that I will leave to those who feel competent and just enough to make it.
I stand by what I said, when St. Paul died, a certain something died with him, that something being freedom, that he brought specifically to Christ’s Church by dint of his extraordinary experience of Conversion. Freedom from being the theological pack-mules that his former Pharisees in arms had the tendency to make of their followers.
"Now, look up "bible"! You know what I mean. The concept is there in both Testaments."
Actually, the first word in the NT is "Biblos." :-) Not that it is used in the same way that we think of the word "Bible..."
And then there is Acts 17 with the "politarchii", or rulers of the city. Put that together with the fact that in verse 5 of that chapter we have "certain lewd fellows of the baser sort" being used to stir up the city and its rulers, and I'd say that's a slam dunk for politics being in the Bible -- both in letter and spirit! :-)
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