Posted on 04/30/2010 8:03:48 AM PDT by Quix
How could anyone ever tell . . .
whatever truth there might ever be to such a quality . . . ‘Tis well hidden amongst all the pomp and circumstance gilded robes and Prada shoes.
Nice. Kiss your mother with that mouth? We Christians had better start thinking about repudiating those Pentecostals that do not believe in Christianity - wait - the Oneness Pentecostals have already removed themselves from Christianity. How many does that leave, Quix?
"Immeasurably more???" Thus the church in Rome displays its arrogant myopia regarding God's word.
I must thank you Dr. E. for the very clear illumination of the difference between the Reformation and Christianity. We believe that the words of Christ - God Almighty - are more important than anything else in the world. We believe that the words of men are less important.
The Reformed believe that the words of men are as or more important than the words of God. Have at it and good luck to you. Should you ever wish to become Christian, we would only ask that you repent of your Reformed sins.
Who has gilded robes and Prada shoes. I am not aware of any gilded robes in Catholicism, and as for Prada, well, there are none that I am aware of in the Catholic Church. Do you have knowledge of any that you would share with us?
“We Christians..”
LOL.
Who do you think you are fooling?
more important
You said "immeasurably more"
Roman Catholic apologists apparently do not know that God was the author of ALL of Scripture.
Read your Bible, Mark. I don't think Rome has excised those passages...yet.
So I learned that it was simply a falsehood to present indulgences as being about the purchasing of forgiveness. Anyone who says that simply does not "know what the Catholic church teaches and what it's about."
Hello Mad Dawg, I only know you from what a friend of mine said about you (truthdefender). These remarks about indulgences need some re-thinking by you, IMHO!
The issue came up in 1516 when Pope Leo X granted an indulgence to the dead which could be earned by those who contributed to the completion of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. This was a big part of Luther's posting his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenburg and the Protestant revolt was underway!
"An indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due for sins already forgiven as far as their guilt is concerned. It can be full or partial, accordingly as it removes all or a part of the temporal punishment due for sin....The church's tradition pastoral practice and teaching on indulgences was summed up in a decree of the Council of Trent, dated January 26, 1564. It reads: 'Whereas the power of conferring indulgences was granted by Christ to the church, and she has, even in the most ancient times, used the said power given to here by God; the sacred adn holy synod teaches and enjoins that the use of indulgences, most salutary for Christian people and approved by the authority of sacred councils, is to be retained in the church; and it condemns with anathema those who either assert that they are useless, or who deny that there is in the church the power of granting them.'"
What is meant by "temporal punishment"? Simple. As Pope Paul VI said in his Constitution on Indulgences: "These punishments are imposed by the just and merciful judgment of God for the purification of souls, the defense of the sanctity of the moral order and the retoration of the glory of God to its full majesty." (Indulgentiarum Doctrina, January 1, 1967).
The "punishments" are not defined, and will never be defined! However, sins forgiven do not forgive the "punishment" due, that must be forgiven in Purgatory, which almost all Catholics go to be "purged" of the temporal punishment before they can enter into the gate of heaven. Thusly, indulgences were created!
Seeing as how no one, not even the pope, knows how long the punishments may take, indulgences earned deduct from the time the soul stays in Purgatory. Each indulgence forgives some of the punishment due to ones sins.
I speak of this as one who was once a Roman Catholic. I remember vividly a little contest the Nuns started when I was in the 8th grade at St. Michael's Grade School in St. Paul, MN. The contest was to see how many days or plenary indulgences we could get over a three month period - there was a prize to the one with the most. I was far from winning :-)
A person can win a plenary indulgence only once per day. A plenary indulgence gets a soul out of Purgatory, so, we gathered indulgences to get a dead person's soul out of Purgatory, for the benefits of indulgences are not for the living. I must have released many "souls" from there over that three months because I received many plenary indulgences according to the Roman Catholic Church :-)
Catholics love to bring up Augustine when he said, "Every sin, whether great or small, must be punished either by man himself doing penance, or by God chastising him." In speaking to this, the Catholic church says, "All sin is to some degree the rejection of the friendship of God and makes necessary some type of reparation to the majesty of the Creator." (Fr. Albert J. Nevins M.M., Life After Death, 1983, published by Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., Huntington, Indiana.)
I have a rather long list of things to do to receive plenary indulgences. If you want to get a list of everything that earns indulgence one can find them in the Catholic bookstores (one may have to order though). It's titled Enchiridion of Indulgences.
Now have fun with it...
Obviously not anyone who inhabits an outership. Tell me, when the greys come, what will be your role?
The Reformation began with those Catholics that thought reform of the corrupt and greedy clergy was possible.
For hundreds of years the clergy as a group was a moral sink hole of concubinage, whore mongering and the selling of their offices.
As long as they could engage in simony on a wide scale all the half hearted edicts and councils were worthless since the hierarchy loved the income they could skim off the top.
If you wish to talk about motives in the Reformation first spend some quality time with the history books.
The only hole that I am aware of is the grave of the Reformed in the world. Have you enough Reformed to dig the holes for those left?
more important
You said "immeasurably more"
So, immeasureably more in one post, is not more important in another? Interesting. Oh, yes, you learned English in an unelectrified valley in the hills whar dey nebber larned dat English real well.
Read your Bible, Mark. I don't think Rome has excised those passages...yet.
I know, I know, it just ruins your digestion every time you think about how the Catholic Church has written, selected translated and preserved Scripture for the heretic, apostate and the heathen. Tough buns, cookie. Read 'em and weep.
Thanks for the friendly intro.
I don't see how a single part of this long (and good) post requires rethinking on my part. Not a single part.
Work with me here:
When I break your window we have (at least) two problems.
(1) I'm a jerk.
(2)you need a window and/or I'm the kind of guy who breaks windows.
If you are a mellow D00d, you forgive me. That's what God did in Christ.
But I'm still a jerk and you still need a window.
The "temporal punishment" that you mention is about those aspects.
Think of you as some crazy gangster. Imagine I come to you with the money for the window and say "When I broke your window I realized that I am a careless and uncaring person. So I am doing everything I know how to do AND taking advice on how to be more caring and to assess where I hit baseballs BEFORE I hit them."
Now you CAN say, "I don't care. You broke my window. You're a jerk. Drop dead. I don't care. Luigi here will now break your kneecaps."
OR you could say; "Hey, good apology. You did wrong but it's okay. Fix the window, take the psychology therapy stuff; we're good."
OR you could say, "You know, if you were to volunteer to manage the little league team AND to pick up litter along route 626, that would mean just as much to me as if you did the therapy and the window thing -- and I think it would be just as good for you."
That's indulgences.
The MAIN forgiveness issue, the whether you're good with God stuff, that's all IHS. The details, the purgatory -- remember: everyone in purgatory is saved. Though they are suffering, it's a happy place; it's the suburbs of heaven! -- that's the indulgences stuff.
So indulgences to not get you forgiveness. They get you remission of the temporal penalty of sin. IHS and only IHS gets you in the front door.
Well...re: the New Testament....if you are willing to include the entire, complete, TRUE body of Christ - as ALL who trust in Jesus Christ as savior in that we...I will agree. If you want to imply that the Catholic Church under the Bishop of Rome - or Roman Catholic Church for us less sensitive - is the "we", you already know that is not really a true statement of fact.
Whom, dammit, whom.
"you" subject, gets nominative case.
"are fooling" Transitive verbal phrase.
Who(m) direct object of 'are fooling' gets objective case.
Grrrr.
:-)
I'm guessing MarkBsnr knows he was speaking loosely.
INDEED.
THX FOR THE FREEPMAIL BTW.
Slow getting to it all.
More than anything else said on this thread, this to me proves conclusively, some folks have NO idea what they are really saying, but only THINK they do.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear Ken4TA!
What I posted is what the Catholic church teaches about indulgences, that's all. The re-thinking thing is that indulgences are actually a form of forgiveness - watch...
The MAIN forgiveness issue, the whether you're good with God stuff, that's all IHS. The details, the purgatory -- remember: everyone in purgatory is saved. Though they are suffering, it's a happy place; it's the suburbs of heaven! -- that's the indulgences stuff.
Now you hit it! "Purgatory is the place to purge your soul from the punishments due to the sins you committed while living on earth" - right? Wrong! Somehow, it boils down to a teaching that one can help a "soul" shorten time in Purgatory, right? That's where indulgences come in.
So indulgences do not get you forgiveness. They get you remission of the temporal penalty of sin. IHS and only IHS gets you in the front door.
Sorry, you're absolutely wrong in your statement above. Let's cut to the core - a "soul" in Purgatory can't help one's self (soul?) to get out except by fulfilling the time it takes to be punished for the sins once done. The sin is forgiven, but the punishment remains. However, a living person can earn indulgences which, when applied to a dead "soul" in Purgatory, can forgive "blank days and/or years" of punishment. You disagree with that? Probably not...so you should re-think it! I've talked to too many Catholics and priests who say the same thing you said above...they need to be taught what they are supposed to believe and teach.
Thusly, your little exercise you asked me to "work" with is way out of the ballpark. The one earning the indulgences cannot apply them to the temporal punishment deserved - they are for the dead "souls" only. I leave it to you to figure out what I mean in rejecting your little exercise and not addressing it. :-)
Indulgences are not a teaching that came from Jesus or the Apostles. They are a late addition to the Good News of our salvation through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus the Christ of God. Either our sins are completely forgiven and forgotten by Jesus' sacrifice or they are not. There is no such a place as "Purgatory". It is a made-up place (for whatever reason you want to apply to it).
Enough for tonight - time for a hot chocolate and then bedtime. Tomorrow's approaching pretty fast...
“I’m guessing MarkBsnr knows he was speaking loosely.”
He sure was speaking loosely. Vaticanians and Maryians are not Christians. I couldn’t believe he actually said it. Who in the world could possibly be fooled by such a statement?
It's mind-boggling. Here Peter himself says that God gave wisdom to Paul and that Paul's writings are scripture. Can we surmise that Catholics don't have much use for Paul and pretty much we know why, and interesting, Peter says really, that if they don't understand Paul, neither do they understand the other scriptures and that would of course include anything that Jesus (and Mary) said
2 Peter 3:15
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
16As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction
Post 2145, don’t go in the wrong door example very helpful.
= = =
Quix said,
WONDERFUL. I WHOLESALE AGREE.
Pastor related a Sunday or so ago . . . how we sometimes end up in the wrong restroom in public.
How Holy Spirit noted to her one day—to tell the people . . . avoiding sin is like
DON’T GO IN THE WRONG DOOR.
Holy Spirit can make that clear if it’s fuzzed out for some reason—for those focusing on JESUS.
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