Posted on 01/05/2010 9:46:47 PM PST by the_conscience
I just witnessed a couple of Orthodox posters get kicked off a "Catholic Caucus" thread. I thought, despite their differences, they had a mutual understanding that each sect was considered "Catholic". Are not the Orthodox considered Catholic? Why do the Romanists get to monopolize the term "Catholic"?
I consider myself to be Catholic being a part of the universal church of Christ. Why should one sect be able to use a universal concept to identify themselves in a caucus thread while other Christian denominations need to use specific qualifiers to identify themselves in a caucus thread?
Don't you ever get tired of being so haplessly relentlessly wrong?
Interesting that you should ask, since my answer will take me on to themes I’ve been thinking about all day - and maybe thinking wrong, since I’m very new to the subject & ideas.
Dr E links sovereignty with predestination...if no predestination, no sovereignty. However, that assumes predestination - saving people on a predetermined list, which is not how scripture seems to use predestination - is God’s chief will.
If God’s chief will is to have sons, not slaves, then he MUST give the potential sons the option of disobeying. Indeed, if he wanted slaves, he could have skipped the Garden of Eden and the Fall altogether.
“If that is so, then how can it be argued that God is showing love to us by submitting that good, pleasing and perfect will under the will of man? It would be like loving a two-year-old by submitting to his will to play in traffic. Is that love?”
God’s grace to every man - whether it is ‘common grace’ or some sort of ‘prevenient grace’ (a term I hadn’t heard of until today) - via natural revelation is sufficient to show we are evil, there is a creator, and we need to repent.
“8For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” - Romans 1, and “28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”
Thus, an analogy of a little kid who doesn’t know to avoid traffic isn’t appropriate.
In the parable of the talents (14-30, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matt%2025&version=ESV), those who have some will be given more, while those who do nothing lose what they have. I think that applies to grace, among other things. Those who respond to grace will receive more, while those who do not will lose what they have - their hearts will be hardened, calloused, and their foolish hearts darkened.
I don’t think scripture fully teaches common grace, prevenient grace, or special or saving grace. I think it teaches God’s grace, given unequally IAW God’s will, but all of it capable of getting a response. And that response or lack thereof results in God giving more or less revelation, either clarifying or obscuring the Gospel.
None of us seek God, but He seeks us. And his...initial grace?...is sufficient that none of us have an excuse for not repenting and turning to God. At a minimum, we ought to agree scripture teaches that!
Here is a passage I hadn’t thought much about:
“1 At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, 2 a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. 3 About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.” 4 And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. 5 And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.”
This is before he heard the Gospel. It is before he received the Holy Spirit. Yet what does it say?
“A devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God...”Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.”
Kind of hard to argue that Cornelius did nothing approved of by God until AFTER conversion. God’s grace had sufficiently warned Cornelius that he was prepared to be saved. I suppose a PD would say that God had given Cornelius ‘saving grace’ already, or some such thing. But I think grace is grace.
Why Cornelius? Don’t know...but it sure looks like the soil was ready for the seed!
And why do some resist the Holy Spirit and God’s grace, and harden (or have hardened) their hearts? Don’t know. Maybe Satan fills their heart (Acts 5). We know it is possible to grieve the Holy Spirit (Eph 4). 1 Thess 4 says, “7For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. 8Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.” - so yes, even Christians can disregard God.
Hebrews 3 has, “7Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice, 8do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
9where your fathers put me to the test
and saw my works for forty years.” - so both the fathers hardened their hearts, and now we COULD be like them, if we fight the Spirit.
Yes, my thoughts are in jello, and perhaps they are deservedly about to slide off the plate. But we are not like 2 year olds left next to a busy street. We have no excuse for not apprehending the danger.He has revealed enough that WE have no excuse.
How many other viciously anti-Catholic anti-Semitic websites do you presume are not off-limits?
I don't think anyone really contends that Catholics do not bow to statues of saints.
Are you sure you understood that poster correctly? Would you ping him, please?
To the statues of saints and other Holy Images, we don't bow enough.
For the record: 3,623
“It’s nonsensical. If God is sovereign, nothing can thwart His divine, perfect and just will, ordained from before the foundation of the world.”
If God is sovereign, and He gives us choice, then nothing can stop us from receiving that choice, and exercising it for our good or ill.
To say this is about the sovereignty of God is to be ignorant of what we disagree on.
Think what you want. I had never heard of that site until today and I’ve never been on that site.
Type in “Roman Catholic bowing to statue” in Google Images and you’ll get that photo on the first page (followed by thousands of others.)
Denials should be plausible.
Your posts exhibit a pattern.
Man, you made my day. May the Lord bless you richly and may this blessing stay with you forever.
All I ask is precisely that.
Why would I want to make it easy on you? What have you ever done in any of these exchanges that would lead me to think that making it easy on you would serve anybody's purpose?
I already said your words had cast doubt on your intention to believe the truth. If you really want to know what we teach, you can find out.
And if you cant to play games instead, WE can find out.
Life is too short to spend casting pearls before swine. Let me know what you want to interact like adults.
“He should seek sacramental confession at his earlier convenience”
Why? Why not confess our sins to God?
“The cleansing there is for sins that the person was not aware of, so he did not confess them, for sins that are minor, or for sins that the person had a desire to confess but he did not have a chance because he died suddenly.”
Sure won’t find THAT in scripture! Guess Paul left that out of the full counsel of God...
“What happens at baptism is that a new creation is made out of the person.”
Magic! Cool! Been watching some Harry Potter films?
Paul wrote, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” - Galatians 3 If only Paul had known...it was thru water!
“A non-Catholic who is near death can obtain the last rites and die in a state of grace, provided he is sincere in his deathbed conversion and can get a hold of a priest.”
What do soldiers do in Afghanistan, when there are no priests in the firefights? Is it too late for them?
Dutch young person of the male persuasion 88:
I surely am enjoying these exchanges bunches more than our clashes a few weeks ago. Thanks to you and thanks to God.
Would you be so kind as to gimme some words on "Dialectic?" I'd like to get a more precise sense of what you mean.
Really? Tell that to Arthur Pink who wrote the book, "The Sovereignty of God" which is primarily about predestination and election.
If a person understands that God is sovereign over whom He calls to be numbered among His family then life becomes much clearer and Scripture more knowable.
If God merely waits around to see whether or not men accept Him, do you not wonder why He gave you a life that brought you to Him and yet deprived others of that same kind of life?
The argument a Calvinist has with an Arminian is the same argument a Christian has with an atheist --
I've given you lots of links, but I'm not sure you've ever read any of them. Maybe you could find some time to read this one.
God willing.
WELL SAID, imho.
Thx.
One common source.....Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal." Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own "always, to the close of the age".
. . . two distinct modes of transmission
81 "Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit."
"And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching."
As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence."
In reference to that post you’re referencing....#3623
You state, “We believe in redeeming God”
This statement puts man above God...who does not need redeeming...He is the Great I Am.
Seems to a common tactic amongst most of you guys...Tell someone they are wrong about your religion but won't (or can't) define or explain your position...Whatever floats your boat, I guess...
Seems to a common tactic amongst most of you guys...Tell someone they are wrong about your religion but won't (or can't) define or explain your position...Whatever floats your boat, I guess...
I thought that, too, but it's much worse...
"...Simply stated, the Catholic priest is another Christ. Through his ordination he has been granted the amazing gift of being a channel of divine grace for the eternal salvation of those he come into contact with — both in his official ministry and in his personal life..."
Explains a lot, doesn't it? Especially how all the pederast priests can get away with so much.
I like the bible way better... Thank you Jesus for giving me the grace, freely, to believe in you...
Amen!
As a Catholic, I also believe omissions are made while typing, such as leaving out the single-lettered word "a" to wit:
We believe in a redeeming God.
Those exact words were used by a Roman Catholic on this forum. My post with the photo in response to that comment was removed due to the website it was on, so I don't know who it was addressed to and I'm not about to wade through the past 1,000 posts to find it.
They said it. Believe it or not.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.