Who are the Catholics: The Orthodox or The Romanists, or both?

Me

[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?

[RnMomof7]

Do you believe God God is omniscient ? All Knowing? Then He would have known that the angels He created were going to rebel, He would have known He was going to cast Satan to the earth, He would have known that Satan would tempt Adam and eve..

If this was outside His will He could have changed the nature or not made the creations.

We are not duelists believing that God can be surprised and one of His
creations could fool him

Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: (Isa 46:10)

God “works ALL things after the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11).

The problem is many Christians think creation is all about THEM, that God was lonely and wanted quality company.

God created man for HIS glory, to show His attributes.. without the fall we never would have known the holiness and mercy and grace and wrath of God.

All things from angels to the smallest ant were created for His glory

[Quix]

WELL PUT.

THANKS.

[Uri’el-2012]

It's somewhat even hard to impossible for us to agree on WHAT THE NATURE OF TRUTH IS from the founding of Christianity onward.

Very interesting turn of phrase indeed.

Did Yah'shua found "Christianity" ?

Did Yah'shua come to end the need for animal sacrifice ?

Thus ending the need for a priestly class ?

Or did Yah'shua send Rabbi Paul to share the "Good News"

Does Yah'shua recognize such a thing as "Christianity" ?

Did Yah'shua permit the grafting into the Olive Tree of selected gentiles ?
Gentiles who would call on YHvH for their salvation ?

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[wolfcreek]

Mary should be honored as all *mothers* should. Although, in ths particular case, she was the human vessel to bring Christ into the Earthly realm.

I believe this was by design because Christ could just as easily of appeared on Earth without being born at all.

JMHO

[Petronski]

Did Yah'shua found "Christianity" ?

Of course He did: He is Jesus Christ.

Does Yah'shua recognize such a thing as "Christianity" ?

Of course He does: He is Jesus Christ.

[Quix]

Thanks.

Would love to read your elaborated answers to those.

[Quix]

Honored is one thing . . .

Remember in C De Mille’s THE TEN COMMANDMENTS . . . Charleston Heston as Moses puts the brick on the scales against Yul Brynner’s bits of gold . . . . tipping the scale wholesale in the brick’s direction to the table?

That’s the level of ‘honoring’ Mary gets compared to Jesus in many Vatican contexts. It’s off the scale and off the wall and still justified up one wall and down the other. It really has been shocking, to me. I was unprepared to REALLY be immersed in that level of “honoring.”

And they are blind to it. Some cannot see it. Some will not see it.

[wolfcreek]

Then they get all pissed off by Dan Brown novels. LOL!

[Quix]

I’m not familiar with those novels.

Watch your language . . . on the Rel Forum!

[daniel1212]

While the Bible does particularly emphasize Jesus His human aspect sometimes, (the man Christ Jesus), your words could be seen as advocating Nestorianism. But the real objection to “Mother of God” is what it conveys. We are not “to think of men above that which is written” (1Cor. 4:6) and what is written in Scripture, the ultimate judge, is that Jesus as God actually created Mary, and that she provided the vessel thru which Jesus would come, (a body hast thou prepared me: Hewb. 10:4) but it is misleading to refer to her as God’s mother, which conveys more than her being that vessel. As the Bible indicates that Mary had other children (Ps. 69:8), they could be called God’s brothers, but this also would be misleading.

Like many other things that Catholicism ascribes to Mary, (”Hail, Mary! Six Thousand Titles and Praises of Our Lady”) “mother of God” has led to Mary’s exaltation as a demi-goddess, to which i am sure she would object to.

One aspect of this is the idea that we are to pray to her or any departed believer, which is utterly without Scriptural warrant, and is contrary to the Holy Spirit’s words on prayer, and the revelation of who is alone is declared to be our exalted and worthy heavenly intercessor, to whom we may directly come. (Heb. 4:14-16; 7:25) There is simply no need for any other heavenly object of prayer but God, and praying to humans there, who are expected to hear billions of prayers attributes powers of Deity to them. Nor is what is ordained for relations btwn humans in the physical realm necessarily applicable to the spiritual realm. (Mt. 22:29,30)

[Cronos]

Mary is the Mother of God. Simply proven:

1. Christ is God, of one substance with the Father, true God from True God, begotten not made, of one being with the FAther, through whom all things were made.
2. Christ is also man made incarnate
3. Christ is 100% and 100% man

Do you agree with these 3 points?

4. Christ was born on this earth to Mary,

Do you agree with THAT?

If yes, then Mary was the Mother of Christ and since there is no separation between Christ - MAN and Christ - GOD, Mary was the Mother of God.

This glorifies God because it points out that Christ was purely Man and purely God.

Do you deny any of these points

[Cronos]

Professor Higgins to call Liza Doolittle the mother of Professor Higgins?

That's not a comparison -- unless you deny that Christ was born of Mary. Do you?

[wolfcreek]

Pardon.

Dan Brown's novels offer an alternative view of Catholicism, I suppose. Even though they are basically fictional thrillers. Great reads. Lots of symbolism and mystery.

[Cronos]

THAT CALLING THE LESSER MOTHER OF THE GREATER IS A WAY TO BRING GLORY TO THE GREATER.

Let's see what we DO agree on:
1. Mary was created by God
2. Mary was lesser than God (naturally due to statement 1)
3. Mary gave birth to Christ who WAS God

So you have the piquant situation where Mary gave birth to Her creator. Our God, Jesus Christ, was carried in Mary’s womb. He was from the seed of David, it is true, but by the Holy SpiritSince we believe that Christ was completely man and completely God, calling His Mother, the Mother of God emphasises that Christ WAS GOD -- we do NOT believe that Christ was JUST a Man or a Man who had the spirit of God posses Him. Christ WAS God. CAlling His Mother, Mother of God reiterates, reinforces that. Calling His Mother anything else denies the Godhood of Christ

And this term is aimed at glorifying Christ.

• Mary is truly a mother. She contributed everything to the formation of the human nature of Christ, that every other mother constitutes to the formation of the child to which she gives birth. There never was, and there could not be any question of Mary being the mother of Christ’s Divine nature. As God, Christ was generated from all eternity by the Father. Unlike the gods of paganism, the one true God has no goddess mother from whom He came.
  
  
• Mary is, therefore, truly the Mother of God. Why? Because she conceived and bore the Second Person of the Trinity; not, of course, according to the Divine Nature but according to the human nature that the Son of God freely assumed in order to freely offer Himself on the Cross for our Redemption.

Mary, God's creature, became in His mysterious designs the Creator's mother.

[Cronos]

And I would remind you that you said you said IF A PANEL OF HIGH QUALITY, FAIR-MINDED, SKILLFUL, BEST INFORMED SCHOLARS

were to program a computer with all the available knowledge weighted fair-mindedly in a way that both sides agreed was honorable and fitting

And then set on the task of arriving at the best summaries of the linguistic etc. meanings and evidences,

that the computer would arrive at the same conclusions

as the Councils did when setting the doctrine of The Church

That panel of High-quality, FAIR-MINDED, SKILLFUL, BEST INFORMED SCHOLARS was the various Councils of The Church.

[Cronos]

No, this is what Scripture tells me, otherwise, do you not believe that Christ was/is wholly man and wholly God?

[Cvengr]

I agree, although discern Nestorianism from the doctrine of the hypostatic union, kenosis, and Trinity, with the later three being sound Bible doctrine.

[Cronos]

Since Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega,

Yes

it is deceptive to refer to Mary as the Mother of God.

no (and I'll explain below again, though it's covered in my replies to Quix

She indeed is the mother of our Lord Christ Jesus, and in His humanity, she bore Him as her son, but He is the Son of God and the son of man, albeit the second Adam.

We do then agree that she is the mother of our Lord Christ Jesus.

I will assume that you believe that Jesus was wholly man and wholly God

If Jesus has both the human and divine natures intertwined in ONE person such that you cannot separate them and Mary gave birth to him, then yes, she gave birth to her creator, her God.

If you acknowledge the term "Mother of God" or "Theotokos", you CANNOT say that Christ was only a man or Christ was wholly God and not human or that Christ was a spirit.

The term very cleverly stops you from falling into any of the three heresies (of adoptionism or Nestorianism or Arianism), but reiterates, re-emphasises and underlines that God was gracious enough to send His Only Son Jesus to be born like one of us, so that God Jesus was a man, and yet also God, both "natures" in ONE.

[Quix]

It's interesting . . . from this website was scanning through quickly, I noticed:

http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/columns/edwardpsri/knowingmary/09.asp

Practically every time the narrative of 1 and 2 Kings introduces a new king in Judah, the king’s mother is mentioned. The queen mother was a member of the royal court, wore a crown, sat on a throne, and shared in the king’s reign (2 Kings 24:12, 15; Jer. 13:18–20). She served as a counselor to her son (Prov. 31) and as an advocate for the people, acting as an intercessor who brought petitions from the citizens of the kingdom to her royal son (1 Kings 2:17–20).

Yet we see in 1 Kings 2:23 that King Solomon did not take the mother's advice at all. He did the opposite. . "May God deal with me, beit ever so severely, if Adonijah does not pay with his life for this request!" . Seems like an odd reference to use in behalf of Jesus Obeying Mother Mary. LOL!

[Cronos]

As well as the Woman in Revelation!

What's your interpretation of that, then?