Posted on 05/30/2008 10:21:34 AM PDT by Ultra Sonic 007
Some of you will remember my recent decision to become a Catholic. I suppose I should be surprised it ended getting derailed into a 'Catholic vs. Protestant' thread, but after going further into the Religion forum, I suppose it's par for the course.
There seems to be a bit of big issue concerning Mary. I wanted to share an observation of sorts.
Now...although I was formerly going by 'Sola Scriptura', my father was born and raised Catholic, so I do have some knowledge of Catholic doctrine (not enough, at any rate...so consider all observations thusly).
Mary as a 'co-redeemer', Mary as someone to intercede for us with regards to our Lord Jesus.
Now...I can definitely see how this would raise some hairs. After all, Jesus Himself said that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that none come to the Father but through Him. I completely agree.
I do notice a bit of a fundamental difference in perception though. Call it a conflict of POV. Do Catholics worship Mary (as I've seen a number of Protestants proclaim), or do they rather respect and venerate her (as I've seen Catholics claim)? Note that it's one thing to regard someone with reverence; I revere President Bush as the noted leader of the free world. I revere my father. I revere Dr. O'Neil, a humorous and brilliant math teacher at my university. It's an act of respect.
But do I WORSHIP them?
No. Big difference between respecting/revering and worshiping. At least, that's how I view it.
I suppose it's also a foible to ask Mary to pray for us, on our behalf...but don't we tend to also ask other people to pray for us? Doesn't President Bush ask for people to pray for him? Don't we ask our family members to pray for us for protection while on a trip? I don't see quite a big disconnect between that and asking Mary to help pray for our wellbeing.
There is some question to the fact that she is physically dead. Though it stands to consider that she is still alive, in Heaven. Is it not common practice to not just regard our physical life, but to regard most of all our spirit, our soul? That which survives the flesh before ascending to Heaven or descending to Hell after God's judgment?
I don't think it's that big of a deal. I could change my mind after reading more in-depth, but I don't think that the Catholic Church has decreed via papal infallibility that Mary is to be placed on a higher pedestal than Jesus, or even to be His equal.
Do I think she is someone to be revered and respected? Certainly. She is the mother of Jesus, who knew Him for His entire life as a human on Earth. Given that He respected her (for He came to fulfill the old laws; including 'Honor Thy Father and Mother'), I don't think it's unnatural for other humans to do the same. I think it's somewhat presumptuous to regard it on the same level as idolatry or supplanting Jesus with another.
In a way, I guess the way Catholics treat Mary and the saints is similar to how the masses treated the Apostles following the Resurrection and Jesus's Ascension: people who are considered holy in that they have a deep connection with Jesus and His Word, His Teachings, His Message. As the Apostles spread the Good News and are remembered and revered to this day for their work, so to are the works of those sainted remembered and revered. Likewise with Mary. Are the Apostles worshiped? No. That's how it holds with Mary and the saints.
At least, that's how my initial thoughts on the subject are. I'll have to do more reading.
Here we come, down to the nitty=gritty. Protestants think they are the judges of who is "saved" and who will "go to heaven." They claim the right to ask Catholics (and any other person with whom they disagree theologically) to ask those questions.
I am not judging anything, I asked a simple question to make a judgement on yourself.
God will judge the protestants who set themselves up as judges of how others love and serve Him. Of that, I am certain. God will NOT ask me if I love Him the way some heretic says I should, according to a sola formula. Protestants should be careful that they don't end up condemned by their own words.
If you were saved you would know it.
Douay-Rheims Bible
1Jn.5 13 These things I write to you that you may know that you have eternal life: you who believe in the name of the Son of God.
vs
The Council of Trent CANON XIV.-If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema. http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/trentall.html
Your choice.
Bold words for the man depending on the infallibility of the KJV translators.
I don't depend on the infalliability of the King James translators, I depend on the infalliability of the work they produced from the pure Received texts they were provided.
So what part of 1Jn.5:13 don't you understand, even in the Douay-Rheims version?
13 These things I write to you that you may know that you have eternal life: you who believe in the name of the Son of God.
How about 1Cor.1:18, 18 For the word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness: but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God.
Are you saved as Paul said he was?
Or was Paul's confidence in his salvation anathema as Trent said it was?
CANON XIV.-If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema. http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/trentall.html
Jn. 15:8 In this is my Father glorified: that you bring forth very much fruit and become my disciples.
CANON XV.-If any one saith, that a man, who is born again and justified, is bound of faith to believe that he is assuredly in the number of the predestinate; let him be anathema.
Rom 8: 28 And we know that to them that love God all things work together unto good: to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints. 29 For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son: that he might be the Firstborn amongst many brethren. He also predestinated, etc... That is, God hath preordained that all his elect should be conformable to the image of his Son. We must not here offer to pry into the secrets of God's eternal election; only firmly believe that all our good, in time and eternity, flows originally from God's free goodness; and all our evil from man's free will. 30
http://www.newadvent.org/bible/rom008.htm
The above comment from the Douay-Rheims Bible is one that I believe most Protestants on these threads would agree with.
Amen and amen!
Amen.
It seems that Roman Catholics get upset if you ask them if they are saved, even though Paul describes himself as such in 1Cor.1:18 and John states we ought to know we have eternal life (1Jn.5:13)
An inquiry from a Catholic, personally interested in the eternal safety and well being of the soul of another, would be very encouraging to me. I would be most interested to know how a Catholic would approach a soul, and what message they deliver in the limited time to which most encounters are subject.
As I have stated in earlier posts, in 52 years on this decaying planet, I've been approached by dozens of people with a “Gospel” presentation, but never once by a Catholic.
I'm not saying that such a Catholic “personal evangelist” doesn't exist. I'm stating only that I've never been approached by a Catholic in any city or state where I've lived or spent a great deal of time (California, Texas, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, Philippines, Russia, China, elsewhere).
So, for example, if "the Roman Catholic" rejects what the sola scriptura crowd says, according to the grace of God, the sola scriptura crowd gets to judge the RC? I'm just trying to figure out what you're saying. That GOD is going to have the sola scriptura crowd judge the RCs that do not reject their own church?
God will do the judging of those who have rejected His words for the traditions of men (Mk.7:7-9) and they will be judged at the Great White Throne Judgement. (Rev.20)
You and your Roman Catholic friends have been informed of the truth, what you do with it is between you and the Lord. (Acts.13:51, Titus 3:10)
God isn't going to ask you anything, if your name isn't in the Book of Life you will be cast into the Lake of Fire (Rev.20:15).
For by grace are ye are saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. (Eph.2:8-9)
Amen! 1Jn.5:13!
Exactly correct and exactly what I was saying about there being two different Gospels and you can't be saved if you are mixing faith and works.
So, if you are not saved you are not a Christian, no matter what you call yourself.
It is a great prayer because Mary is talking about God and not herself.
Thank you for your own personal interpretation of poorly translated Scripture. Romans 11:6 And if by grace, it is not now by works: otherwise grace is no more grace. KJV sure stuffed that verse up like a polska kielbasa. LOL
Really?
That is how the Douay-Rheims translated it as well.
6 And if by grace, it is not now by works: otherwise grace is no more grace.
You are confusing a interpretation of the verse with the translation of the verse.
Matthew 23: 15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
That is the Douay-Rheims translation, not the King James.
Below is the King James
6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
Amen.
These people were saved, they did not have to produce good works along with their faith, to be saved.
Was somebody actually trying to claim that the KJB translators were “stuffing up” Romans 11:6? Why, using the Minority Text (Douey; etc.) is not even good “democracy,” eh? That stuff out of Alexandria, Egypt won't ride a horse.
The testimony of Scripture is that God's people shouldn't go to Egypt for horses or anything else, for that matter. Why would anyone go to the seminary perverters of Scripture in Egypt, which kept that text in their studies for 350 years changing verse-after-verse to their own idolatrous, Pagan, Gnostic likings (Origin, e.g., had himself emasculated thinking he was making himself a eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake — who would trust him to comment on any verse in the Bible!). It's a MINORITY critical (meaning, under higher criticism) text.
I'll stay with the products of the text out of Antioch of Syria and the Byzantine Empire, used by early church personal evangelists, a text that got copied and copied and copied and copied with the intention of getting it out (not hid in seminary libraries) and using it to win people to Jesus Christ.
I'll stay with the product of the MAJORITY text that was the unifying Bible of the “Philadelphian Church Period,” the church of the “Open Door” (Revelation ch. 3) (1650 to 1900 or so), the greatest period of genuine revival, evangelism, and Biblicist missionary endeavor in the history of the Body of Christ. By their fruits ye shall know them.
CAN'T MIX GRACE AND WORKS FOR THE SALVATION OF THE SOUL!
Thank you, fortheDeclaration, for your excellent posts.
his whole business of a pretended unchanging homogeneous dogma from 400 years before the RC edifice began until this momentJust when I think the conversation has finally gotten sane, along comes this nonsense. It's like an alcoholic who tries sobriety for a minute and then goes back to his cups!
I’m 100% against false fantasies blamed on God.
Whose false fantasy is it and upon whom shall we blame the saying, the repetition, the perseverative insistence, that the Church claims there has been no development of doctrine since Easter and the Pentecost?
Do you not understand that such obvious and, to judge by the repetition, unashamed falsehoods and misrepresentations of what we teach and think only alienate us from one another and strengthen our commitment to our faith?
As a principle, when I am accused of something I know I did not do, it just alienates me from the accuser. When I am repeatedly accused of something I know I never did and which a secon'ds investigation would show I never did, I come to think that the accuser has issues, and that an abiding commitment to the Truth is not high on my accuser's list. And this attack falls in something like that category.
I suppose that you are referring to the Vincentian "canon" of quod semper, ubique, et ab omnibus. Clearly, no one thinks that John Damascene,Augustine, Aquinas, JP2, or Benedict XVI were or are recording or providing a synopsis of the theology of the Apostles or that Paul was a secret Aristotelian who packed the Metaphysics along with his OT megillot, and if he'd had a chance to settle down would have written the Summa by himself.
As I say, it's comforting in a weird way when those who seek to mock the Church mock phantoms and shadows instead.
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