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?
...the scriptures tell us that we are born again not by our will but by the Father (John 1:12-13). The scriptures tell us God has a plan that He is inacting (Acts 2:23, Eph 1:10). The scriptures also tell us that man is bound to sin, a automated slave to it (Rom 1)
Amen! Harley, your responses are razor-sharp and perfectly aligned to Scripture.
"O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." -- Jeremiah 10:23
An oldie from the great Italian reformer, but it hardly gets any better...
Again, if faith or works were the cause of election, God could not be said to choose us, but we to choose Him, contrary to the whole tenor of Scripture "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you" (John xv. 16). "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us. We love Him because He first loved us" (1 John iv. 10, 19). Election is everywhere asserted to be God's act, and not man's (Mark xiii. 20; Rom. ix. 17; Eph. i. 4; 1 Thess. v.9; 2 Thess. ii. 13). Once more, we are chosen that we might be holy, not because it was foreseen we would be so (Eph. i. 4), therefore to represent holiness as the reason why we were elected is to make the effect antecedent to the cause. The apostle adds (ver. 5), "having predestinated us according to the good pleasure of His will," most evidently implying that God saw nothing extra se, had no motive from without, why He should either choose any at all or this man before another. In a word, the elect were freely loved (Hosea xiv. 4), freely chosen (Rom. xi. 5, 6), and freely redeemed (Isa. iii. 3), they are freely called (2 Tim. i. 9), freely justified (Rom. iii. 24), and shall be freely glorified (Rom. vi. 23). The great Augustine, in his book of Retractations, ingenuously acknowledges his error in having once thought that faith foreseen was a condition of election; he owns that that opinion is equally impious and absurd, and proves that faith is one of the fruits of election, and consequently could not be, in any sense, a cause of it. "I could never have asserted," says he, "that God in choosing men to life had any respect to their faith, had I duly considered that faith itself is His own gift." And, in another treatise of his, he has these words: Since Christ says, 'Ye have not chosen Me,' etc., I would fain ask whether it be Scriptural to say we must have faith before we are elected, and not, rather, that we are elected in order to our having faith?"..."...Those who are ordained unto eternal life were not so ordained on account of any worthiness foreseen in them, or of any good works to be wrought by them, nor yet for their future faith, but purely and solely of free, sovereign grace, and according to the mere pleasure of God. This is evident, among other considerations, from this: that faith, repentance and holiness are no less the free gifts of God than eternal life itself. "Faith is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Eph. ii 8). "Unto you it is given to believe" (Phil. i. 29). "Him hath God exalted with His right hand for to give repentance" (Acts v.31). "Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life" (Acts xi. 18). In like manner holiness is called the sanctification of the Spirit (2 Thess. ii. 13), because the Divine Spirit is the efficient of it in the soul, and, of unholy, makes us holy. Now, if repentance and faith are the gifts, and sanctification is the work of God, then these are not the fruits of man's free-will, nor what he acquires of himself, and so can neither be motives to, nor conditions of his election, which is an act of the Divine mind, antecedent to, and irrespective of all qualities whatever in the persons elected. Besides, the apostle asserts expressly that election is not of works, but of Him that calleth, and that it passed before the persons concerned had done either good or evil (Rom. ix. 11).
Who can read these words and not see the Scriptures in them and His merciful assurance that He will never leave us because our faith comes from Him and not from our own corrupted desires?
Those who call us "God's automatons" should realize what an unearned privilege that title really is. Please, God, continue to guide our every move and thank you for never letting us go. For outside of you we are lost; we cease to breath.
I traveled cross-country along Rte 40 five years ago in the summer, and last month I drove the same pedal-sticking elderly Toyota through Rte 80 from Sac to Kansas.
Wow. That was a gorgeous trip.
You can find blogs on Orthodox Presbyterian Cult too that talk about their salvation through Machen, their God.
“”Actually Scripture clearly says that the earth is flat...So, flat earth. Go for it.””
There actually is a protestant group who believes this still
http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm
From Their mission statement...
“”Then, in the year of our Lord fourteen-hundred and ninety-two, it all changed. For decades a small band of self-proclaimed “enlightened” individuals had been spouting their heretical nonsense that the Earth was in fact round.””
Or is this related to the view of the OPC or APC or BPC whatever cult is the latest in Fashion
Now, if repentance and faith are the gifts, and sanctification is the work of God, then these are not the fruits of man's free-will
This is the only part that is not Catholic and quite false.
This is a logical non-sequitiur. Faith is a gift but you don't have it? Rependance is a gift but you don't do it?
Faith and repentance are things that I do. They are predicated on the gift of free will or else they are not what is on the gift label.
Amen!
My husband says he became aware of the accurate presupposition of the Calvinist perspective on Scripture when he held our first child in the delivery room only to realize nothing he had ever done in his entire life merited the unearned gift of our son. At that moment he understood merciful and free grace.
It's all a gift. Everything. And none of it comes from us. It's all by Christ, through Christ, for Christ. "And by Him all things consist."
"All things."
Surgeon was a dear.
Met me at his office at 17:00 [closed at 12:00] as seemed like the last tea bag was soaked in blood, some newish.
Turned out he didn’t want to mess with the sutures already done and it has worked out.
He was happy to give me a scrip for hydrocodone. Working much better.
Leaves me drowsy which is good. Hurts like the dickens to swallow . . . movement of denture against shredded cheek and gums when I swallow. UNfun.
Thanks tons for your prayers.
Silly BB, my head already hurts sufficiently without trying to think about that sort of thing! LOL.
Yes, and you are right that my question had nothing whatsoever to do with purgatory.
Any penitential action one can do does not add to the atonement worked by Christ. That includes simple inward sorrow for a sin, outward sorrow expressed to others in words, restitution of material harm done, physical self-punishment or self-humiliation, prayers, pilgrimages and Bible studies, sacramental confession, reception of absolution, purgatorial cleansing, -- none of that makes the sin in question any better atoned for than it was atoned at Golgotha near 2,000 years ago. What these acts of penance do is apply the atonement to your soul.
That would appear to mean that Christ's atonement attaches on a step by step basis as mortal sins occur throughout life. Is there any scriptural basis for this? We would call this justification by faith, a one time event. How would you interpret these scriptures which we think support this view:
If one act brings life then how could attachment be a partial and repeated process? Wouldn't you really have to say that it was the penance that brings life because THAT is what makes the atonement of any value to the individual? The passage shows a match but there is no match with the process view. Jesus' saving sacrifice was a one time event, not a process.
FK: why in the normal course is someone required to confess a mortal sin and then be absolved by a priest in order to get into Heaven?
For the same reason a Christian would nevertheless do the penitential works enumerated above: sorrow for the sin and love for Christ. If you convinced yourself that since Christ has atoned for whatever you do, you can let your conscience atrophy, -- then you eliminated yourself from the Elect, not because Christ did not give you the atonement, but because you did not take it. Christ gave you Heaven and you chose Hell.
Do you see a grammatical problem with the idea of election being on again, off again, and on again, etc.? If election means chosen by God then how can it go back and forth since God doesn't change His mind?
It is by what you do that you will be saved; not alone for what Christ did.
I suppose in the overall scheme of things there's something more I do not understand. In the OT the focus was on the physical (physical deeds), many of which were only symbolic, like the sacrifices. With the coming of Christ the focus shifted to the spiritual, we were no longer under the Law. Why then, would Catholicism refocus the attention back to the physical both in this life with the sacraments being salvific, and at the end times at judgment? This seems like a reversion to me. The bigger problem is that we know that the physical in the OT was symbolic, but here the physical is taken in the literal sense.
Kansas=corn...corn...corn...corn...corn...corn...corn...corn...milo!...corn...corn...corn...corn... But the biggest two-handed beefsteak tomatoes in the road-side stands... that and a saltshaker make a meal...
Been through Iowa a bunch of times too... Good folks all over the plains... While I once was a flatlander (Chicago, Illinois, Olathe/KC, Kansas), I wouldn't go back for a million bucks now.
Next time, you are on 80, head north from Missoula MT up 93... When you hit Flathead Lake, you're in my back yard... Glacier National Park is worth a peek...
I agree. Without the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit to guide our understanding, the Bible is just words on a page.
We must be born again by God's free gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit in order to know the things of God.
Faith and repentance are things that I do.
And you do them because God has given you eyes to see and ears to hear and a renewed mind and a heart of flesh in place of your heart of stone which was alien to God until you were born again not by blood, but by the will and purpose of God alone.
They are predicated on the gift of free will
"Free will" is an oxymoron. Our will is not "free." Our will is either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. Everything in life is dependent on the God which created it and continues to animate it, by His will, for His glory. .
So glad to hear you got something better. NOW GO TO SLEEP YOUNG MAN!!!
I can’t believe you have the dentures IN right after the pulling??? Do they not let that area heal first? Sounds very ouchy.
Amen, preach it brother!!!
When you think about it, why would the word or concept used be "gift" if it could not be accepted? I have given a gift that was rejected in the past, didn't make me feel very good, but it was given freely and could be accepted freely, or not. I can't MAKE someone take a gift.
Yup. IMMEDIATELY after the last suture was tied.
To keep swelling in check and help make better fit, as I understood it.
Course trying to stem the blood flow . . . had me take them out at home on a phone call and put tea bag over troublesome spot . . . tanin in the tea helps clot the blood.
So then swelling worsened.
When went back at 1700 . . . he put them back in. owwweeeyyyy big time.
AM SLEEPING in this LazYBoy frequently. Meds help a lot and need to keep head elevated anyway.
Sure appreciate your caring.
God be with you and yours.
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.