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?
I’m not even sure what that’s supposed to mean. I always thought the atonement was Christ dying on the cross for our sins, you know, the redemption. Gee, do you anti-Catholics believe something differently?
One aspect of the atonement is called by some "exemplary". At the most insipid level (but still of some merit) is the idea that IHS shows teaches us the real moral deal. At a more interesting level it comes to an appreciation of what it means that IHS is the perfect revelation of God. So, if you want to know what divine bliss and power are like, look at a baby in swaddling clothes or a man on a cross.
Certainly both in theory and in practice, knowing more about what God wants and what He's like is helpful in enjoying and deepening one's relationship with Him.
However to pretend that the Church which articulated in Anselm, the idea of a sacrificial atonement doesn't believe it is crazy, ignorant, or malicious.
Were the perpetrators of the statue vandalism caught? Who were they? (JL 1789)
They were not. (nina0113)
Let me refer you to post 6,010 on this thread. Are you quite as certain of that statement?
Interesting
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
I particularly like Van Til's conduct in his quarrel with Gordon Clark and in the very unChristian manner with which it was pursued. I understand that Van Til was an OPC minister and, with Machen, either quit or was fired by Princeton and was incompatible with Presbyterian thought and helped form a splinter group called (after several splinters) the OPC.
Nifty. I do agree with him in one area, though. He argued that there is no neutral ground between Christians and non Christians. In our discourse, I have not discovered any common ground between the Christian point of view and your position, Dr. E. Thank you for pointing me in this direction so that I might discover for myself the increasingly pagan and apostate roots and position of the OPC.
“At the very beginning the Holy Spirit can “touch” us to deliver saving grace (baptism of the Spirit, or regeneration), but at that point He does not indwell. Holy Spirit only indwells upon belief, which comes later.”
So...we are born again without having the Spirit indwelling?
“9You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” - Romans 8
“But He would rather have His children be slaves to righteousness with “A” will.”
I don’t think slave is ever how God wants to describe his sons. Paul uses it as an analogy to help make a point - like a parable. Notice he says he is “speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations”...
“Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?
By no means! 16Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.” - Romans 6
He is encouraging us to obey - yet that assumes we have the ability to disobey. But God is sovereign? How can any man thwart his will?
Of course, we do that all the time at the individual level. We are encouraged to obey as if we were slaves...but to CHOOSE to do so.
Consider Galatians 4:
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. 8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?”
“The Bible teaches that all are without excuse, but it also teaches that God’s teachings are nonsense to the unbeliever:”
Not quite. It teaches that APART FROM GOD’S REVELATION, we cannot understand spiritual matters. Arminius agreed.
And if we don’t use what God has given us, we lose even that - which describes many of the ‘wise folks’ I’ve met, who are very smart about engineering or science but give not thought to spiritual matters. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools...Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!” - Romans 1
Part of the problem is that over the millennia Catholics have learned to place our confidence in God. So our separated brethren, whose chief objection to the myths of the Inquisition is that THEY weren't in charge of the cigarette lighter and the charcoal lighter fluid, secretly WANT us to have the Vatican KGB breaking into homes of heterodox bloggers and disappearing them. That way they can enjoy thinking about how evil we are.
In the meantime, we kind of trust that if some of us are speaking the truth and most of us are living sacramental lives, things will settle out okay.
When I find I'm "damned if I do, and damned if I don't," I stop listening to the people doing the damning.
We go back and forth on this, but my belief is they have separated from Biblical Christianity because of their structure. Their church is a centralized command and control structure, those at the very top dictate to everyone below and they are expected to follow those commands or they are not in good standing. The power to enforce these commands rests in their teachings that all of God's graces bestowed on Christians is first filtered through the church.
In this environment that does not promote independent thought is it surprising that RC's wouldn't question the obvious inconsistencies? I think the RCC is never going to reform and that as Christians all we can do is preach The Gospel on a one on one basis and pray for God to give them ears to hear.
Wonderful point, but after eating from the tree didn't we become slaves to sin in our fallen state?
It is Providential that I make my argument and then wmfights proves it.
Here the dictates from the top stifle creativity. There the absence of dictates from the top permit heterodoxy. Fabulous!
“If we are sons of God, do we really want to be disobedient to God?”
Well, according to scripture, we ARE sons of God, yet we DO disobey...so either we disobey because we can, or God in his sovereign will requires us to disobey.
“Our will should be to do the will of the Father. Our failings to do His will only illustrates to us the mercy and grace of our God to pick us up and keep us going.”
Agreed.
“People look at the redemption process as a one point in time experience. I would suggest it is actually a gradual experience.”
I agree. And I think God is more concerned with bringing it to completion than in following a checklist. That is why I don’t worry if someone claims their baptism as an infant is good enough. I think they would do better to be baptized AFTER believing, but God doesn’t always follow the steps we expect. He does, however, finish what he starts.
However, I can find no scriptural basis for thinking we are born again by act of God prior to believing. Nor can I find an account of God giving belief as a gift to someone against their will.
I have to go, but will respond more later.
You're church and it's followers don't want accountability for what you do.
Hmmmmm . . .
Will have to ponder that a bit.
Thx.
BTW, I also received the
TEN SERIES OF MEDITATIONS ON THE MYSTERIES OF THE ROSARY.
Am about 20 pages into it.
Regardless of the specific dogmatic, doctrinal content . . .
it’s a whole ‘nother world, universe, something.
Certainly a whole very different culture.
Ted Kennedy sure seemed to bank on that wholesale.
. . . along with Puhlousey et al.
No. Ou're church just thinks its a little silly for someone to say,"Your church exercises too much, no, not enough, no, too much, no, insufficient but excessive, yeah, that's it, insufficient but excessive control over it's members and message."
Okay. A LOT silly. Not to mention the grammar part.
Had I strayed too far the RM would have intervened and didn't. If any FReeper doesn't want their activities identified as lies and insults they shouldn't tell lies and insults. Some rules like bearing false witness come from a higher authority than the RM.
The Lord’s scrutiny slices
ALL WAYS.
. . . all sides of all the issues on the part of all the parties.
That is a family-size, industrial strength 10-4.
May I send you a sort of glib smart alecky article I wrote about the rosary for our RCIA class last year? I think the "luminous" mysteries are a wonderful development, myself.
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