Posted on 01/05/2010 9:46:47 PM PST by the_conscience
Protestant wasn’t a slur. It meant to publicly assert something, to proclaim. I don’t think it originally meant to be in opposition, or to suggest that X was believed in opposition to not-X.
Could be wrong...I read something a while back, and can’t find it now. A dynamic equivalence translation might be Preacher.
The Reformers called themselves Evangelicals.
I think you will find most RC's are pretty good people. However, the RCC has always been hegemonic and considers Christian Churches that refuse to submit to it as defective. It's important to not confuse the difference.
The Baptist Church I’m currently a member of (http://www.vailvalleybaptistchurch.org/) is uncommonly Calvinist, but it also gave me a half hour to explain the Arminian side to our Systematic Theology class, and hand our an 8 page summary. It uses the SBC Faith & Message, which allows for both sides. In arguing for the Arminian side, I do not violate agreed Southern Baptist Convention teaching.
The idea that liking the word “Eucharist” over “The Lord’s Supper” means I’ve adopted Catholic dogma and doctrine should be laughable. I would raise far more consternation in my church by arguing for using real wine in it than for using “Eucharist”.
I think some don’t realize that Baptists aren’t ‘in opposition to’ something, but are ‘for’ something - following what scripture lays out as God’s will. That is why I started studying predestination by making scripture lists of pertinent words, reading them, and then going back and reading the verses in context. I didn’t want to read too much Piper or Calvin before reading Jesus and Peter and Paul.
And that is why I don’t freak out if I agree with Catholics on a subject. I view myself as Christian, not “Not Catholic”. I’m pro-scripture, not anti-pope...although I’ve spent ample posts here over the last rejecting the idea that the Vicar of Christ is anyone other than the Holy Spirit.
For any interested in a quick review of Baptist history, from a Particular Baptist side but fairly presented, see;
http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/trail.htm
I haven't been able to follow the whole discussion because of time constraints. In my experience it's pretty common to have all sides of an issue discussed.
I think some don’t realize that Baptists aren’t ‘in opposition to’ something, but are ‘for’ something - following what scripture lays out as God’s will.
Great point.
I’m pro-scripture, not anti-pope...although I’ve spent ample posts here over the last rejecting the idea that the Vicar of Christ is anyone other than the Holy Spirit.
The opposition is not to an individual. The opposition is to the unscriptural claims of dominance and status over all Christians. Rather than being unified by our common faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior the RCC claims a pecking order with them at the top.
As a Born Again Christian I am in opposition to any assembly of Christians that make those claims.
>the clear witness of Genesis that creation is good.<
Right, and heavenly angels don’t sin that is why i do not think that is a strong argument.
But (for the atheist objections) “good” as regards Adam and Eve did not meant robots, but good as beings who could make moral choices, nor did it mean perfect in the sense of having been tested and passed, as Jesus was, who was not simply innocent, but righteous, if we can make that distinctive, being “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb. 4:15) This is part of what qualifies Him to be the heavenly intercessor, directly accessed in the spiritual realm, and to suppose the infallible Scriptures would be silent as to revealing another moral agent who was sinless, albeit by way of preservation, presumes much, while again, to hold that she was to be a heavenly object of prayer is Scripturally baseless, both on evidential grounds and that of warrant.
>So the existence of conflicting witnesses is not to us a problem to deal with in talking about the handing down of doctrine.<
It is understood that there can be some dissent, and no one should reject that nor the need and authority of a teaching office. But the issue was the use of unanimous consent, and what it conveyed, in the light of even quite significant dissent. “The ‘unanimous consent of the fathers’ is a mere illusion, except on the most fundamental articles of the general Christianity” (Schaff: Chp 13.159)
But as raised before, the larger issue issue is the authority of of an entity to infallibly declare itself (conditionally) infallible, and by such to infallibly sanction traditions which fail of Biblical warrant (as did at least one attempt by the Jewish magisterium: (Mk. 7:10-13) but depend on the infallibility of the magisterium, which itself cannot be established Biblically, as other major doctrines can.
>”It takes a lot of manure to grow roses.” <
Well, God can make good come out of bad, but whether the latter is really necessary is deep.
A good review of Calvin/Arminius controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention can be found here:
Doctrines Lead to `Dunghill’ Prof Warns can be found here:
http://www.founders.org/journal/fj29/article1.html
I think not, but that the Scriptural arguments effectively exhibit the difference between an approach to Scripture which was manifested in the believing community of the Scriptures, and an approach which arises when the community exalts itself, and effectively operates too independently of the Scriptures, and more autocratically, like the empire it was founded in.
Exactly, to me it is a badge worth wearing , and I resent when one of the pretenders to the reformation wear it :)
That is SINLESS , Keeping the law perfectly means having no personal sin (breaking the law)
So how exactly is that different than Jesus not breaking the law (having personal sin) ????
In order to be sinless one must keep the whole law perfectly..
This is a serious problem for the Catholic church..of course the obvious fix is just to remove the statement that Jesus was the only one to keep the law perfectly as we would not want to tamper with the eternal sinless virgin Mary.
Maybe they can work up another means of salvation :)
I do not see it as a different question..if salvation was accomplished by a man innocent of all, 100% , sin dying in the place of those who do sin..the innocent for the guilty, then a sinless Mary could have done the same thing with the same results
BTW snowshoeing was such fun today but lad to be home
>I think the constant you will find with any Baptist is when they realize how much RC dogma has “evolved” they will turn their back to those beliefs pretty quickly.<
True, and it is also true that while many Catholics leave their church after becoming born again, yet they and such believers become the, or among the, staunches defenders of foundational doctrines, affirmed by Rome also, against those who deny them, such as so-called Jehovah’s witnesses, Mormonism, etc., which are a result of allegiance to a supreme magisterium over the Bible.
Is not the teaching of the Pope infallible in matters of faith and doctrine?
Does the catechism bear the approval of the magistrum and the pope? Would you say that there are theological or doctrinal errors in the official teaching standard of the church?
My limit for digs has just been reached.
In one post you suggest that you don't know the history and then in another imply or suggest that the Catholic church was infected with imperial lust because it became legal to be Christian.
I think the size and age of the Church and the diversity of her culture make it hard for anyone but especially for Protestants and other non-Catholics (am I religiously correct or what?) to understand her accurately.
It is sometimes good for some clerics to have the trappings of power and high status. I think it was the Bishop (arch bishop? Cardinal?) of some Polish city who invited the Nazis who were running the joint to dinner. He served them the same food that the poor were eating under the exigencies of Nazi rationing. Not bad.
But in general, they do their thing and I do my thing. I'm happy when a Dominican is made an archbishop and gets up in the hierarchy because interesting and good stuff like the outreach to the disaffected Anglicans can happen. But, again, day to day, I don't care. They can inflict their ferociously awful hymnals on us and their clunky translations of the Bible. I don't care.
I have my field of action and responsibility, my studies, my prayers, my community, my sacramental life. If they really want to wear gold lamé, well, it's not to my taste, but I'm tolerant.
We are portrayed as somehow slavishly looking to our clergy for guidance in personal hygiene. In what universe does that happen?
On Christmas morning I came into town to take the sacrament to Catholics in the hospital. I left a bottle of Maker's Mark on the doorstep of the house into which four Dominicans are crammed. On it was the following label.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Buy bus ticket to Duluth.
Feed this to Father Scordo.
Put Father Scordo on bus.
Problem Solved!
And a day is not complete if Father Scordo (who calls me "Dawg boy") and I have not traded insults on Facebook.
Anyway, I would even question "the believing community of the Scriptures" as a substantiatable description of the early Church.I think it assumes what is to be proved or is, at best, another likely story. Do we KNOW when they rejected the "Shepherd of Hermas" or how Revelation made it into the canon?
And as to the "unanimous consensus of the Fathers," or whatever the phrase is, it's not like they missed that Tertullian went off the rails or that there was disagreement. I read
When the Fathers of the Church are morally unanimous in their teaching that a certain doctrine is a part of revelation, or is received by the universal Church, or that the opposite of a doctrine is heretical, then their united testimony is a certain criterion of divine revelation. As the Fathers are not personally infallible, the counter testimony of one or two would not be destructive of the value of the collective testimony; so a moral unanimity only is required.and
To illustrate, I cite the following excerpt from Pope Leo XIII ("The Study of Holy Scripture", from the encyclical Providentissimus Deus, Nov. 1893) where the pope admits that there are varying ideas among the Fathers and that not everything they write is a matter of dogma. He could not say this if he understood "unanimous consent" as having to agree on every detail:Especially since one would have to keep his eyes firmly shut not to know that there were differences of opinion early on, as in Acts -- and that differences persisted and have continued through the millennia, it doesn't seem too much to consider that when the Church says "unanimous" it doesn't mean the term as used by the Lady's Flower Club of East Keokuk in the minutes of their annual meeting.Because the defense of Holy Scripture must be carried on vigorously, all the opinions which the individual Fathers or the recent interpreters have set forth in explaining it need not be maintained equally. For they, in interpreting passages where physical matters are concerned have made judgments according to the opinions of the age, and thus not always according to truth, so that they have made statements which today are not approved. Therefore, we must carefully discern what they hand down which really pertains to faith or is intimately connected with it, and what they hand down with unanimous consent; for "in those matters which are not under the obligation of faith, the saints were free to have different opinions, just as we are," according to the opinion of St. Thomas. In another passage he most prudently holds: "It seems to me to be safer that such opinions as the philosophers have expressed in common and are not repugnant to our faith should not be asserted as dogmas of the faith, even if they are introduced some times under the names of philosophers, nor should they thus be denied as contrary to faith, lest an opportunity be afforded to the philosophers of this world to belittle the teachings of the faith" Henry Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma [London: B. Herder Book Co., 1954], 491-492).
Sorry. It's the snow making me grumpy.
The first proposition again is or seems to be "a sinless human is God or a god and not human."
There may be other good arguments about Mary but it's not a discussion if one point is raised and and then abandoned for another when the first point is questioned. If ALL the arguments you have cannot bear scrutiny, then is any of them any good? And if none of them is any good, how can they be good in the aggregate?
If you are going to say that if Mary is sinless then she is God or a god (and I could use help on knowing which you are maintaining) that is not self-evident. There must be some thought behind it. I disagree with the proposition, so I'd like to know the thought behind it.
So if it is so absurd why did you not answer it instead of insulting me.... dont like the message, shoot the messenger right ?
What greater example of the "elect" is there than Mary?
She is indeed a good biblical example of election along with the likes of our Old Testament heros and those in the line of Jesus, and the apostles and Paul etc
Who on earth did Jesus love more than His own mother?
Mark 3:32 And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. 33 And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? 34 And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! 35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.
Luke 11:27 And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. 28 But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.
Is impeccability ..an attribute of God that He transfer to men? If God can do that why bother with the cross? He could have simply made all men after the fall sinless
Does the catechism bear the approval of the magistrium and the pope?
Are you sure you were Catholic? I am reasonably certain that JPII approved the catechism. There was a revision, which would suggest that there were some problems with the first version.Would you say that there are theological or doctrinal errors in the official teaching standard of the church?
I would say that there might be errors of phrasing which might subsequently need revision. Clearly that happened once (though I think the problems were with the translation from the standard which was in Latin,) and it could happen again. In later years we might find better ways to say the things said in this Catechism.
The question you failed to ask is, "Is the catechism one of those papal statements which can lay claim to infallibility?" The answer is "Clearly not."
And I guess the answer to my question about who said the Catechism was infallible is "No one. Not understanding the teaching about infallibility or the nature of the Magisterium, I mistakenly assumed that the Catholic Church claimed infallibility for this document."
Among polite people, both parties to a conversation answer questions. Generally the rhetoric and demeanor of the examination of a hostile witness is not considered genial and is not likely to generate good feeling if persisted in. I hope you will understand and forgive my saying so.
That is redundant. They are one in the same.
Okay so far.
...are you assigning an attribute of God to Mary...
No, we're not assigning that attribute, God is.
...in doing so do you not make her a god?
No:
The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.
Were Adam and Eve sinners at their creation? Were they gods at their creation?
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