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?
Well put. Thanks.
I also explores the Illuminati vs The CC, Knights Templar, search for the Holy Grail, Solomon’s temple etc. (fiction)
The "Angels and Demons" speaks of a plot to destroy the Vatican with anti-matter created at CERN. The death and choosing of a Pope and the underlying story of betrayal within the Church. (fiction)
You can find many threads in FR on both novels and movies. (there's a new on on the way)
Please don't base any friendships on my suggestions or reviews. That would be silly.
Free will as we have been discussing it does NOT require full knowledge. You make choices every day without full knowledge, but they are real choices with real consequences.
Nor is anyone on this thread suggesting that man sits there and envisions God. We are ALL saying God must reveal himself to us, and that he does so in varying degrees. But ALL men have enough for them to be responsible for their choice, for Paul says, “because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”
Joh 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
True words. No one seeks God, but God seeks us. The debate is if God seeks a few irresistibly, because he loves them, and irresistibly damns all the others, because he hates them, all to show off his power to his glory.
And Jesus said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him.”
Also true words.
Of course in the old days, if Aristotle is anything to go by, the idea of the function of the mother was to supply the stuff, while the father supplies the "form". Mom supplies what it's made of, Dad supplies what it is.
But now that we understand a little more, we get that the mother, even in the normal case contributes SOME of the "what" and of the "how" it is.
In NO case is the mother the source of ALL that her offspring is. My mother, though she supplied virtually all the "stuff" of the newborn me, supplied only half of the genes. Yet we do not say she is the "Mother of HALF of Dawg," or any other such phrase. She is the mother of Dawg, the kynotokos.
As I say in addition to the genetic material there is the "stuff." She bore me and Mary bore Jesus, for 9 months. There is a certain awareness, an aching of the back, the need to have the tootsies rubbed, and so forth, all of which is work for the mother, whether she chooses it or not. And whether parturition is miraculous or less spectacular, still the mother is forever changed. A primapara dam is just different after parturition.
So mothering is more than being a source. it is being a shelter, a sacrificer, a participant (as I say, willingly or not) in the formation of the child.
We get that. We do not make more of motherhood than it is.
Of course there are differences in this motherhood, which our friends seem to want to minimize. Mary was in the most intimate and the longest contact with Him the mere thouch of whose garments healed an intractable haemorrhage, and whose hands healed many. I do not think the burden is on us to show that made no difference to her who first believed.
Please do not put inaccurate notions of motherhood in our minds and in our mouths. They do not fit there. We revere mothers, but we do not think they do more than they do. What they do is quite enough.
I Timothy 6:15 - Jesus is Lord of Lords
Romans 8:9-11 Spirit of God, Christ
Romans 14:8-9 We are the Lord's, Christ is the Lord
Romans 15:16, 19, 29 Paul interchanges the gospel of God and gospel of Christ
I Corinthians 1:24 Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God
II Corinthians 4:3,4 Christ who is the image of God
II Corinthians 4:6 Knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ
II Corinthians 5:19 God was in Christ
II Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, [be] with you all. Amen.
Lets also not forget Matthew 1:23 where the name Immanuel means "God with us". Also see Isaiah 7:14 and Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
I would bet Catholicism isn't the only religion to embellish or spice up it's contents/dogma for whatever reason. Pure marketing.
I deny the absurdity of Mary the lesser bringing glory to God the greater by her innate wonderfulness or any other quality of her being what she simply was, Jesus’ earthly mother.
WE say repeatedly, and the promulgation on the Immaculate conception makes clear, that anything good that Mary had came from God. "Innate" seems a vague and inapplicable term.
Now I think you are just being facetious....Matthew 26:64 - Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
If you have a problem with scripture, don't take it up with me.
But still, yeah, deipara = theotokos seems a little less troubling. But we ain't re-writing our Hail Mary's at this point.
Your scriptures states EXACTLY what I am stating....Jesus is OF GOD.....NOT God.
Jesus is Lord, the Son of God, NOT God.
Again, the real objection is to what mother of God conveys, that of God having a mother.
MoG is not like the Ark of the Covenant, for while vessel would equate to ark, and so “vessel of God” would be correct, “mother of” denotes an ontological oneness with that which she is the mother of, but to which aspect she contributed nothing. Even though in the incarnation the two natures are co-mingled, Jesus was God before He took upon flesh, thus “mother of God incarnate” might be somewhat more acceptable. If her biological contribution makes her the MoG, so can Eve be called such, except for another Scripturally unwarranted tradition. While it can be said believers are redeemed by God’s own blood, (Acts 20:28) the ownership is His, and the efficacy of it is due to His sinless and righteous nature.
While MoG can be properly understood, when the Bible declares just whose Son Christ is, is, then it emphasizes His essential nature. Thus Jesus Himself objected to the use of the term “son of David” as denoting His real ontological father, and the Son of God was the real revelation. (Matthew 16:13-16; 22:42-45)
This said, the real issue is that of MoG being part of a larger exaltation of Mary, as in making her a prime heavenly object of prayer, due to the exaltation of tradition, which is even more the foundational issue.
John 10:30-33 (King James Version)
I and my Father are one.
Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?
The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
Sometimes more than others the breath of G-d
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
guides my finger on the keys.
Sure, it seems to be human nature to attempt to distill the essence of the relationship between God and man into words, AND to have those words make sense. When I read a short trilogy by Francis Schaeffer I found that he had an amazing and simple insight into this. The whole ball of wax, he said, comes down to where we start. The Renaissance thinkers and their progeny all tried to start with man and then build God around that. They all miserably failed, naturally.
According to Schaeffer, and I agree, the only ones to find an answer that made sense started with God through His word, and then saw how man fit in with that. So, the search itself for the answers to the REALLY BIG questions is not at all misguided IMO. Whether or not that search results in satisfaction and peace (glory to God) or a maddening, hair-pulling, tearing of clothes, futile mind screw will depend on the presuppositions we start with. Do we take as given absolutes, antithesis, etc., and what do we say about the nature of God and His word? That brings us to:
SO, back to Scripture. I'm mulling over the dynamic and fluid situation, from the Ascension and Pentecost, through the writing of Paul's stuff, through the setting down of Mt. Mk., Lk.,and Jn and the exquisite Heb. and the wild and crazy Rev. What were they all doing and thinking before there was a Scriptura to be all Sola about? Why did they want or why were they moved to set things down and say "This is the REAL DEAL?" We know it was, in part, a reaction to Marcion, but what was Marcion thinking, what did HE say about his version of Luke and Paul that resonated with the people he ensnared?
I suppose when I consider what they were thinking it is that they were not the ones doing the thinking. :) The presupposition I start with is that God is the author of His word and it came to both be written and organized solely because God ordained that it would be so. The only decider concerning the content of God's word was God. The Bible is Holy because it is from God, and no decisions of men changed what the Bible would be. So, it would seem that our starting points are a bit different, and this might go far in explaining how we arrive at different views about the scriptures and Sola Scriptura.
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WHAT was Jerome thinking when he said ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. To whom was he speaking? Did he think only the literate could know Christ?
I have no idea what Jerome was thinking, but I can totally relate to what this says. Sola Scriptura does not lock God's word onto the printed page. It's the contents that matter, regardless of transmission. Sola Scriptura is just fine with illiteracy, in terms of it being no barrier to knowledge of the truth. God's words, in whatever form, are Spirit and they are life.
“If you have a problem with scripture, don’t take it up with me.”
I think it is safe to assume I won’t take up any scripture problems with someone who says Jesus isn’t God.
25Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.
26But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
27My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
28And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
29My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
If Jesus is in fact God, why does He refer to Himself as a "3rd person"?
So be it.
“27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and see my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. 28 Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. 29 Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” - John 20
Exodus 33:20 - 20And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
I don’t think anybody wants to play dueling scriptures. I know God is the source of all scripture and will not contradict himself. Do you think that these verses contradict each other? Do you believe there are three Gods or only one? It would help to know what you do believe and why.
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