Posted on 07/29/2008 4:39:52 PM PDT by annalex
Evangelicals have been going through a major change of heart in their view of Catholicism over the past 15 years or so. In the 80’s when I was in college I lived in the Biblebelt and had plenty of experience with Evangelicals–much of it bad experience. The 80’s was the height of the “Are you saved?” question. In Virginia, the question often popped up in the first 10 minutes of getting to know someone. As I look back, Isurmise that this was coached from the pulpit or Sunday school as it was so well coordinated and almost universally applied. It was a good tactic for putting Catholics on the defensive even before it was known that they were Catholic—”ummmm, uhhh, well no, I’m not sure, I’m Catholic.” Then a conversation about works righteousness or saint statues would ensue. Yeah, nice to meet you, too.
Thankfully, those days are pretty much over. We now have formerly rabid anti-Catholics apologizing and even praising the pope. Catholics and Evangelicals have both learned that we have much in common and need each other to face the secular culture with a solid front. But, where did this detente come from? I think there is a real history to be told here and a book should be written. Let me give my perceptions of 7 major developments since 1993, which I regard as the the watershed year for the renewal of the Catholic Church in the United States.
1. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1993. When this document came out, it was uncertain that even Catholics would read it. We should have known that something was up when the French version hit the top of the bestsellers charts in France and stayed there for months. The English version did the same in the US. Catholics were reading the Catechism, forming study groups and challenging errant professors in the classroom.
2. World Youth Day, Denver 1993. Catholic youth and youth ministers woke up. Suddenly, Catholic youth ministers realized that the youth loved the pope. And they loved him all the more because he did not talk down to them or water down the faith. He challenged them. Gone now were the pizza and a video parish youth nights. Furthermore, youth and young adults took up the challenge to evangelize. One of those youth heard the message and started a website, New Advent. Catholic youth were now becoming zealous for the Catholic faith in its fullness and were not going to be swayed by an awkward conversation that began with “Are you saved?”
3. Scott Hahn. While the Catechism is great for expounding the Catholic faith, it is not a work of apologetics itself. It is not written to expose the flaws of Evangelical theology. It is not written to defend the Church against the attacks of Evangelicals per se. It just would not let them get away with misrepresenting the Catholic faith. But Scott Hahn hit the scene at about the same time with Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 1993). I first heard his testimony on cassette tape in 1996. It blew my mind. Suddenly, Catholic apologetics, which is as old as the Catholic Church itself, got a leg up and there was an explosion of books, magazines and websites that effectively undercut the arguments of the 5 Solas. For the first time, there was a cadre of Catholics well enough informed to defend their faith.
4. The Internet. The Net started exploding from 1993 to 1996. I had my first account in ‘94. Compuserve was horribly basic, but by ‘96 I had AOL and the religion debates raged instantly. Catholics who had just been given the most powerful weapon in the arsenal in the war against misinterpretation of their teaching were learning to type on a forum while balancing their catechisms on their laps. Of course, online versions came out, as well. But, no Evangelical bent on getting Catholics out of the arms of the Whore of Babylon could expect to do so without himself have a copy of the Catechism, knowing it inside out and pouring over it for the errors and horrors he would surely find. Evangelical apologists were confronted with a coherent and beautiful presentation of the Catholic faith that they were ill equipped to argue against. They learned that Catholics, too, loved Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The Catechism had arrived providentially just before the internet and had turned the tables in just a few short years. With the apologetic movement hitting at the same time, Evangelicals were also confronted with Catholics who could argue from the Bible defending their faith and demonstrating the weaknesses of Evangelical interpretations of scripture.
5. Early Church Fathers. One fruit of the Apologetics movement has been a flowering anew of Catholic interest in Patristics. This is happening at every level from armchair apologists to doctoral studies. It is suddenly all about Patristics, whereas in the 70’s-90’s the academic focus had been on Karl Rahner and Liberation Theology.
6. Evangelical Third World Experience. Evangelicals have had a field day in Latin America among the poor who are not part of the internet conversation and are distant from the study of apologetics. But, Evangelicals have learned from their experiences abroad an essential aspect of the Gospel they were missing: the Works of Mercy. Once haughty with their criticism of “works righteousness,” they have learned one cannot attend to the spiritual needs of the poor without attending to their bodily needs. Catholic have always understood this. Now, the Evangelicals are coming around. I haven’t heard an Evangelical Televangelist speak on works righteousness in many years.
7. Secularism. With the collapse of the Mainline churches as the backbone of American religion over the past thirty years (since about 1975), Catholics and Evangelicals are the only ones left standing in this country to present the Gospel. Secularism is on the rise and is ruthless. Evangelicals are now learning that only Catholicism has the intellectual resources to combat the present secular age. And, with the pope, we have a pretty effective means for communicating the faith and representing it to the world. There is nothing an Evangelical can do that will match the power of one World Youth Day.
With such an array of Providential developments, Evangelicals as well as Catholics have come to appreciate the depth and the breadth of the Catholic faith. It is far more difficult for them to honestly dismiss Catholicism as the work of Satan as once they did without qualm. There have been apologies and there have been calls for a new partnership. Let us hope these developments will bring about a new moment of understanding for the Glory of the Lord.
No I don't see. The scriptures describe God exactly like the Church knows Him.
Then how do you or the Church explain how an omnipotent God is not a failure for not getting what you say He wants?
FK: ... that presumes that a man has something within himself that allows him to be able to love God. The Bible argues against that.
The Bible doesn't. All these prooftexts refer to the fallen man apart from the grace. But the grace is given us. It is by grace alone that we can turn to God and many do. You don't seem to disagree with that, and your question is, "when do all humans receive that grace?" The answer is, at all times since conception, of course, although ordinarily the outpouring of sanctifying grace occurs with the participation in the sacraments of the Church. (emphasis added)
I don't understand. All the scripture quotes I copied were about walking talking people, well after conception. Therefore, all of these people HAD saving grace if that is given "at all times since conception", from what you said. That doesn't match these same scriptures. Do you mean that, aside from the sacraments, all other people are given saving grace at various specific times in their lives? If so, then this would clearly show favoritism since all men would not have an equal shot. Some would get it at conception, leaving a lifetime to make the right choice, and others would get it on their death beds, etc.
FK: I hope you realize that you are putting the free will of man above the power of God ... Man's will now trumps God's will.
Not at all; we only have free will because God gave it to us: "God created man to his own image" (Gen 1:27).
I agree that God's will is that we have a will, however, if you say that man decides whether he goes to Heaven, and God's will is that all go, and most decide not to go, THEN man's will has trumped God's will, perhaps you would say, BY GOD'S WILL. :) Even if you allege that man's will still is superior. This would have God relegated to sort of a subservient silent partner. God puts up the resources, but man does all the work and is in charge of the operation.
FK: Would you save your child from playing with matches against her will?
Because I can. God cannot "save" a reprobate by violating the reprobate's free will, because it is a logical impossibility: love cannot be forced.
So you can save the lives of your children, regardless of their wills, but God CAN'T save the lives of His children without their consent??? This makes God sound like a vampire, impotent unless invited in. :) Why don't your children have to love you first before you are able to save their lives? I'm trying to figure out where this rule of yours for God comes from.
CS Lewis addressed this in “The Great Divorce,” a fascinating little book about heaven and hell, and who goes where and why.
People who cling to sin, who will not turn away from their vices, who treasure their faults (this is easier to do than you might think) keep themselves out of heaven. It is not God’s will that anyone stay out of heaven, but He allows people to choose where they want to be.
The book is very perceptive about what constitutes sin...
To use the child with matches analogy, if the parent corrects the child, keeps all matches away from the child, sooner or later the child will be older and have more freedom, and if the child still has the desire to play with matches, see things burn, if the child will not accept the correction from earlier, if the child ignores willfully the father’s loving teaching, then that child will likely be burned someday in spite of all the father tried to do.
Unless he put the child in a cage and allowed no matches near her, if she wants to burn things and explore fire, she will do so. Does the loving father want his daughter in a cage all her life? No. He wants the best for her: a free, life filled with happiness and no pain....
WHAT? :) Here is the passage:
John 10:25-30 : 25 Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one."
Where do you see any of what you are saying in this whole passage? The way you describe it there are billions of sheep out there who wander around until they decide on a shepherd they like in whom to follow. Do you think THAT was the analogy Christ was making? Do sheep choose their shepherds? No, of course not, and the passage is clear about it. "[B]ut you do not believe because you are not my sheep." IOW, "I did not choose you to be my sheep. You were not given to me. That's why you do not recognize my voice and follow me."
And Christ never talks about anything gradual here, as opposed to what you were implying. Christ says flat out: "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." There is nothing about "coming to know His voice" or any other process over time. This is talking about salvation in absolute terms, not the "maybes and hopefullies" that are taught by the Church.
EUREKA!!! :) That is what we have been saying from the beginning. Many Catholics have defended to me the idea that God wills all to be saved, quoting scripture that appears to say that on the surface. I have countered that such verses are outward calls, but not decrees. So, I am glad that we can agree that God did not want to ensure that all are saved. The follow-up question for you would be do you think that God wanted to ensure that ANY are saved?
What He wants is for us to choose to love Him.
And I would say that an omnipotent Being always gets what He wants, so if the "us" is the elect then I agree with you.
God does not fail by creating us with the free will to choose Him or not choose Him. Quite the opposite! He succeeds in creating exactly what He wants.
But if He is omnipotent then He fails if He doesn't get what He wants. And IF what He wants is what you say, that men should decide for themselves, then by definition it means that God DOESN'T CARE who gets into Heaven, individually. If God cared and wanted YOU in Heaven then He could arrange for you to believe, that is, He could convince you. No gun to the head or anything. However, if God didn't care then He might leave that decision to you. I can't imagine my personal God not caring one way or the other if I, personally, wound up with Him in Heaven or not. If He left that decision to the sorry likes of me, under Catholic beliefs, then that's exactly what it would mean.
What is more valuable? A chat conversation with a loved one who truly loves you, or a pre-programmed text generator that states love for you because you built it to do that?
Well, the machine analogy doesn't apply to our thinking because we say up front that God gave us a will. From birth, that will can only go down one path. For the elect, God changes/replaces that will with something that will choose Him WILLINGLY. God gave me a will that was able to see the OBVIOUS truth, and so I made an OBVIOUS choice.
I do find it interesting that many here seem to worship at the altar of free will as if God never interferes with man's free will. If God did not possess both the power to interfere with our free will and the desire to overcome our free will and to make us willing, then NOBODY would ever seek after Christ.
The fact that anyone would ever seek after Christ is evidence that God has interfered with their free will and has in some way changed their will to conform to his.
If God will not interfere with our free will choices, then we are doomed by our nature to reject him and we are wholly incapable of being saved.
Carry on.
Gentiles who came to Christ had to recognize the distinction, and the special place given to that Nation (Israel), and they had to take their place as “dogs” in relation to the “children,” which is demonstrated by the Syrophonecian women in Matthew 15 (and she was blessed under that submission and had her petition granted).
The children of the Kingdom in the Gospel records are described descendent's of Abraham only, under specific OT covenant. Because of the rejection of the Davidic Kingdom by Israel, the “children” of the kingdom (Israel) would be cast out into outer darkness (Matthew 11,12), and many from the east and west would then be given the opportunity to sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven, then has something to do with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in a literal and specified kingdom arrangement promised to them. This is what Israel was looking for (and Messianic Jews still are today).
The strict nature of the Israelitish/Jewish commission of the Son of Man on earth is further evidenced by the fact that after Jesus Christ said “as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you,” the Apostles continued a ministry ONLY to Israel/Jews through the first third of the Book of Acts. Jews or proselytes to Judaism composed their target audiences, and their addresses (sermons) in those chapters all begin with “Ye men of Israel, . . . “ or some form of that. They were not addressing the Church which is the Body of Christ. The Apostles had no instruction or example from the ministry of the Messiah to begin going to the Gentiles.
And then John 20:23, was confirmed to go along with their Commission “as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” — the Father having sent Him NOT BUT to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. That commission followed in the first 1/3 of the Book of Acts precisely.
It was not until Acts chapter 10 that God had to, by special and particular revelation in Jopa, instruct Peter to go to a Gentile house (Cornelius). This was beyond Peter's conception of his calling and commission up to that point. He argued with God in Heaven about it, just as he had argued with Christ at times when the King/Messiah was on Earth.
And when Peter returned from Cornelius’ house, the brethren in Jerusalem disputed with him over it (Acts 11), indicating that they still believed their commission to be a to-the-Jews-only commission.
And it is interesting that Christ's disciples were not “called” Christians until this point - Acts ch. 11.
Subjection of the Gentiles to the MOSAIC LAW in the matter of circumcision was still an issue as late as Acts 15. The Jerusalem believers still saw Israel as the model nation religiously to the Gentiles. The Gentiles in their view up to that point was still OT in its order, where to sojourn among God's Covenant nation, Gentile males would have to be circumcised.
No, the “church” viewd in Matthew 16, because of its surrounding Davidic Kingdom context would be the Congregation of Israel (Psalm 22:22cp. Hebrews 2:12; 12:22,,23 cp. Exodus 4:22); the Great Congregation. Jesus Christ will still build that Church, but because of their rebellion and rejection of the King and the Kingdom, that building is in abeyance currently (Romans ch. 11; etc.)
I totally agree.
It is not God’s will that anyone stay out of heaven, but He allows people to choose where they want to be.
Given that God certainly has the power to choose for Himself who He wants to be with Him, if He passes that decision to man, doesn't that mean that God doesn't care which of us chooses Him SINCE He wipes His hands clean of any responsibility for the decision?
To use the child with matches analogy, if the parent corrects the child, keeps all matches away from the child, sooner or later the child will be older and have more freedom, and if the child still has the desire to play with matches, see things burn, if the child will not accept the correction from earlier, if the child ignores willfully the father’s loving teaching, then that child will likely be burned someday in spite of all the father tried to do.
But I thought that Catholics adhere to a strict non-interference policy on the part of God. If true, then if the child wanted to play with matches and start a fire, causing her to die, then God would just stand there and watch. If God corrected the child, then that would be interference, or "forcing" against the child's will. Catholics tell me that God NEVER forces.
Unless he put the child in a cage and allowed no matches near her, if she wants to burn things and explore fire, she will do so. Does the loving father want his daughter in a cage all her life? No. He wants the best for her: a free, life filled with happiness and no pain....
Yes, the child's will is superior to the will of the father, concerning herself. The father never wants harm to come to her, but her will trumps her father's will. When she acts in a self-destructive manner, the father just stands by and watches, doing nothing because he respects his daughter's free will. He doesn't like it, but he is powerless to do anything. This is the correct analogy that I see in Catholicism. Of course if I treated my own child like that I would be arrested. :)
NO.
Are you reading from a pamphlet?
Why did you think that? God is our Father, and speaks to us as a father speaks to his children. We do not remain 3 years old, do we?
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things."
Nowhere did I say God kept a hands-off policy. Neither does He put us in a cage. He gives us the information we need to decide to love Him or not: it is our choice. If we love our vaunted intellectual powers more than we love Him, we will get what we have chosen. If we love our feelings of moral superiority more than we love the humility of offering ourselves to His Will, then we will have chosen. If we love our "priesthood of the believer" more than we love Him, if we love our pet interpretations of scripture more than we love Him, if we love our children more than we love Him, if we love our Church more than Him, then we have chosen.
To love anything more than God is to chose something else more than God. And God will do anything, including death on the cross, for our love, except force it.
And I want to add this: in so many ways, He tells each of us that He wants our love, cares about us, wants our lives filled with joy. He tells us that He will be with us, and suffer with us, through our hard times, that He will be there at the end of our brief earthly life waiting to welcome us to His Forever Home in Heaven with all the extravagant and thrilling Glory He has prepared for those who love Him...
Amen. Likewise I find it interesting that many take actual offense at the idea of God doing His will by interfering. :) As you just said, nobody would be saved if He DIDN'T interfere.
Perhaps some have stared at the empty cross so long, they have forgotten that FOR US He died a horrible death on it. I would not call that "wiping His hands clean of any responsibility for the decision." But some may. A crucifix may very well remind people how far God went to persuade us of His eternal surpassing Love.
Good night, everyone.
My prayer tonight is that God, our loving Father, bless each of you, keep you close in His Hands, and bring you back to fuss another day.
NO. Are you reading from a pamphlet?
No pamphlet, just the Bible. :) What part or parts of what I said do you disagree with, and why?
God does not have power to contradict Himself. He already made animals that do not have free will. Man is no animal.
He does not want to place us in Paradise mechanically. He wants us to be saved; that is a condition of our souls. something is required of us to get there.
all men would not have an equal shot
Alll men do not have an equal shot because not all men are evangelized equally. For example, someone raised in Sweden would naturally be a Lutheran, and someone raised in a Baptist environment would naturally be a Baptist, or a Muslim would be a Muslim. All these are handicaps (of different severity, to be sure) that God takes into consideration when judging us. In other words, we are saved by our works and not by the perfection of our Catholic faith. This is how Baptists or Muslims, or any other faith that deprives itself from the sacraments of the Catohlici Church get saved.
God puts up the resources, but man does all the work and is in charge of the operation.
That is His will though. What you marvel about is no different than the pusslement of the apostles of how Christ will have to suffer and die for no fault of His own. In both cases, you expect God to exercize power, when God's love is self-emptying.
So you can save the lives of your children, regardless of their wills, but God CAN'T save the lives of His children without their consent???
Neither can I save my children from their free will. Your original question was about a child playing with matches. That, I can save them from, and likewise every time you breathe in another breath, God saved you in the same way. But I cannot save my daughter by marrying a jerk, or failing her future husband in some way. Those will be the adult decisions I will have to respect, even if they pain me.
If you go by this parable alone, we are all sheep (which still makes us rather stubborn animals). But there are also verses that urge us to, for example, "take up the cross". Have you ever seen a sheep taking up a cross by itself? John 10 is the scripture that illustrates the security of our election; it is not a scripture that teaches anything, pro or contra, about free will.
Nonsense. You spin the scripture at will. What about other references to confession in James 5:16 and 2 Corinthians 5:18? What about the commission to evangelize the world in the synoptic gospels?
So God has to respect YOUR decisions? That makes you more powerful than God. God somehow is impotent to protect you from your own stupidity, yet God somehow loves you so much that he is willing to let you go to hell because you are stupid.
And you claim God loves everyone the same.
Why didn't God let you wallow in your stupidity? Are you smart enough to save yourself, or did God somehow mold your will so that you were able to do something that others can't seem to be able to do?
The message of the Apostles and the Seventy (Luke 9, 10; Mathew 10) was “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This was a message for the repentance of that Nation consistent with the OT prophets (all the way to John the Baptists and the Messiah - Malachi chs. 3, 4).
National repentance was sought so that the Nation could once again be in fellowship with Jehovah, and that Nation be the Chief evangelical witness to the Gentile nations.
There is no message of the Death of Christ for the payment of sins in the Synoptics prior to the Resurrection of Christ, preached by the Apostles, as it is clear from Luke 18:31-34 - “ . . . they understood none of these things: and the saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.”
This is further enunciated in Matthew 16 itself, directly under the kingdom and keys reference, when Christ, “From that time forth BEGAN”(it was the first time He taught it) to teach them about His sufferings. “Peter took Him and began to REBUKE Him, saying, be it far from Thee, Lord: this thing shall not be unto Thee.” (Matthew 16:21-23).
They had already been out preaching a “gospel,” and therefore it must be considered that the “good news” they had been commissioned to preach in Matthew ch. 10, did not include any information about the sufferings of the Messiah. It was the “gospel” (”good news”) that the Messianic Kingdom promised through the Old Testament prophets was “at hand” and ready to be re-established on the earth under the Messiah.
The message of the Twelve and the Seventy in the Synoptics prior to Calvary had nothing at all to do with anything we see being carried out on Earth today. But it IS coming.
James 5:16 itself is post resurrection, and is itself written Twelve Tribes scattered abroad (1:1), and not to the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is not divided in to twelve, or in to any number of tribes. The Church is not a tribal people as Israel was.
2 Corinthians 5, the Ministry of Reconciliation, was revealed first to the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul, and was never a subject of teaching of the Twelve during our Lord's earthly ministry.
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