Posted on 11/23/2011 11:11:08 AM PST by marshmallow
A notoriously 'gay-friendly' parish in San Francisco has invited an openly homosexual Episcopalian cleric to lead an Advent Vespers service.
Most Holy Redeemer parish asked Bishop Otis Charles, a retired Episcopalian prelate, to lead the November 30 service. After serving as the Bishop of Utah from 1971 to 1993, he publicly announced that he is homosexual. Divorced from the mother of his 5 children, he solemnized a same-sex union in 2004.
The central tenets of the Christian faith can be found in scripture, but they aren’t explicit.
Nowhere in scripture explicitly condemns abortion for example. Nor is the Trinity or the Divinity of Christ. Otherwise the Church fathers wouldn’t have spent 500 years after Jesus’s ascension defending these basic teachings.
My church, which represents half of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch reunited with Rome in 1724.
http://www.melkite.org
The East is somewhat platonic in a Hellenistic Jewish sense, so we don’t engage in speculative theology.
But we agree in matters of core dogma if not in the exact details. The schism between Rome and the East has been mostly political and not entirely irreconcilable.
I consider myself and Eastern Orthodox Christian in union with the See of Rome.
But in the end anytime you deal with the Bible it comes down to interpretation.
I reject Protestant scriptural interpretation and cultural assumptions, not the Bible itself.
Don’t you mean there are a lot of fictions in the cult you belong to?
Why do you fear mystery and uncertainty? God is a mystery.
If God and the things of God can be explained then God is an idol of Man’s creation and not the Lord of the Universe.
Oddly enough, I prefer the Eastern viewpoint as well. Particularly, as you mentioned early, as opposed to the more judicial view. And, if I could have only one book of theology, it would be St. John Damascene’s Exact Exposition. Usually the book by my bed has an Eastern author. The Prayer of the Heart has drawn me for many years. However..
:)
There is also a Western contemplative tradition that resembles the East, though I’ll be the first to admit it is not nearly as lucid.
And, to my surprise, I got fairly heavily into St. Acquinas last year and greatly appreciated him for what he accomplished, though I believe it would not offend him to say he was more a logician than a theologian and even he saw the limits of this approach. It’s timeless value in arguing against the twin philosophies of Scientism and Materialism in the West is immense, IMHO.
I’ve linked a few times on here to Pope John Paul II’s “Faith and Reason,” and Pope Benedict has written on the differences yet complementariness of scholasticism and monasticism. There is a strong and growing appreciation in the West for the East, that I think was lacking for a long time.
People and cultures are different in general and in particular; I believe the best of both, East and West, is the ideal to strive for, as I said earlier.
I do agree that the early church and the foundations of the Christian faith are very obviously more Greek and Eastern, and that it is not coincidental that the Reformation and Atheism are Western phenomena.
Finally, I think these times are similar to those when the miscommunication (I think it is largely this) between East and West first came to a head. I mean this in terms of the dangers of not being more unified against common threats; these are similar times. I’m very encouraged at the rapprochement begun in the 1960s, and believe the greatest thing that could happen in my lifetime would be full reconciliation.
thanks for your posts here..
There’s not much difference between a Protestant and an atheist because both start from the same propositions.
Take a look at the Melkite Church’s critique of Vatican II and scholasticism. http://www.melkite.org/xCouncil/CouncilIntro.htm
The Western arrogance that the human mind can understand and know all things is the source of the narrow-mindedness that exists today regarding God.
Fundamentalism and atheism are two sides of the same coin.
Like I said, I am not a Calvinist, so if any out there would care to explain this theology better to our FRiend, please do.
Here's my understanding of the point. When you say, "if one is not elect, salvation does not happen", is true because he did not exhibit saving faith. For one to be of the elect, he WILL exhibit saving faith because of God's irresistible grace. In either case, faith is STILL what saves. No one will be saved who does not have faith. No one who is of the elect will not have faith and no one who is condemned will have faith. If you are elect, you will have saving faith. If you are not of the elect, you will not have saving faith.
Psalm 119:89 Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens.
Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Psalm 119:130 The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.
Psalm 119:161-162 Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words. I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil.
Proverbs 30:5-6 5 Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. 6 Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.
Well, of course, he would probably want to wait to "come clean" until his death bed when he gets last rites and also he knows his sainted muddah and grandmuddahs will be saying prayers for him and paying for masses to be said for him as well. Plus, the dough he's made sure the local parrish gets on a regualr basis - all those pews with the family name on the plaques. I goon's gotta cover all his bases, ya know. ;o)
Listen. Greek Orthodox.
http://www.saintnicodemos.org/media/audio/apocalypse/A10B%20The%20Church%20of%20Ephesus.mp3
Not even the Catholic Church believes that anymore. Didn't you read any of the Vat II pronouncements?
Here's how it really should be said: All those who are saved are saved through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. When they believe, they BECOME part of the universal church, the Body of Christ. So, no, no one is saved through the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church cannot save anyone, only Christ can do so, and he saves by grace through faith in him.
The Body of Christ and the Catholic Church are the same thing.
So Catholics like Kennedy, Kerry, Pelosi, pedophile priests, etc, are part of the body of Christ?
I don’t think so.
The body of Christ is all TRUE believers, no matter what denomination.
"Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."
John 3:20 - For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
The True Church includes saints and sinners. It includes all who have been baptized.
CHAPTER VII.
That in the Church there are good and bad, predestinate and reprobate.
To prove the invisibility of the Church each one brings forward his reason; but the most feeble of all is that derived from eternal predestination. Certainly it is with no little artfulness that they turn the spiritual eyes of the militant Church upon eternal predestination, in order that, dazzled by the lightnings of this inscrutable mystery, we may not perceive what lies before us. They say that there are two Churches, one visible and imperfect, the other invisible and perfect, and that the visible can err and can be blown by the wind of errors and idolatries, the invisible not. And f one ask what is the visible Church, they answer that it is the assemblage of those persons who profess the same faith and sacraments, which contains bad and good, and is a Church only in name; and that the invisible Church is that which contains only the elect, who are not in the knowledge of men, but are only recognized and seen by God.
But we will clearly show that the true Church contains the good and the bad, the reprobate and the elect; - and here are the proofs.
(1.) Was no the true Church which S. Paul called the pillar and ground of truth and the house of the living God (I Tim 3:15)? Certainly; - for to be a pillar of truth cannot pertain to an erring and straying Church. Now the Apostle witnesses of this true Church, the house of God, that there are in it vessels unto honour and unto dishonour (2 Tim. 2:20), that is, good and bad.
(2.) Is not that Church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail (Matt. 16:18) the true Church? Nevertheless there are therein men who have to be loosed from their sins, and others whose sins have to be retained, as Our Lord shows us in the promise and the power He gave to S. Peter in this matter. Those whose sins are retained - are they not wicked and reprobate? Indeed, the reprobate are precisely those whose sins are retained, and by the elect we ordinarily mean those whose sins are pardoned. Now, that those whose sins S. Peter had power to forgive or to retain were in the Church is evident; for them that are outside the Church only God will judge (I Cor. 5:13). Those therefore of whom S. Peter was to judge were not outside the Church but within, though amongst them there were some reprobate.
(3.) And dos not Our Lord teach us that we are offended by some one of our brethren, after having reprehended and correcting him twice, in two different fashions, we should take him to the Church? Tell the Church; and if he will not hear the Church let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican (Matt. 18:17). Here one cannot escape – the consequence is inevitable. There is question of one of our brethren who is neither heathen nor publican, but under the discipline and correction of the Church, and consequently member of the Church, and yet there is no inconsistency in his being reprobate, perverse, and obstinate. Not only then do the good belong to the true Church, but the wicked also, until such time as they are cast out from it, unless one would say that the Church to which Our Lord sends us is an erring, sinful, and antichristian Church. This would be too open a blasphemy.
(4.) When Our Lord says The servant abideth not in the house for ever; but the Son abideth for ever (John 8:35); - is it not the same as if he had said that in the house of the Church the elect and the reprobate are for a time? Who can this servant be who abideth not in the house forever except the one who shall be cast into exterior darkness. And in fact Christ clearly shows that he so understands it when he says immediately before, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. Now this man, though he abide not forever, yet abideth during such time as he is required for service. S. Paul writes to the Church of God which was at Corinth (I Cor. 1:2), and yet he wishes them to drive out a certain incestuous man (ibid. 5). If he be driven out he was there, and if he were there and the Church is the assemblage of the elect, how could they drive him out? The elect cannot be reprobate.
But why may we not lay down that the reprobate and the wicked are of the true Church, when they can even be pastors and bishops therein? That is certain: is not Judas reprobate? And yet he was Apostle and bishop; according to the Psalmist (cviii. 8), and according to S. Peter (Acts i. 17), who says that he had obtained part of the ministry of the apostolate, and according to the whole Gospel, which ever places him in the number of the college of the Apostles. Was not Nicholas of Antioch a deacon like S. Stephen? -and yet many ancient Fathers make no difficulty on that account of considering him an heresiarch; witness, amongst others, Epiphanius, Philostratus, Jerome. And in fact the Nicolaites took occasion from him to recommend their abominations, of whom S. John makes mention in the Apocalypse (ii. 6), as of real heretics. S. Paul declares to the priests of Ephesus that the Holy Ghost had made them bishops to rule the Church of God (Acts xx. 28), but he assures them also that some of their own selves would rise up speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. He speaks to all when he says that the Holy Spirit has made them bishops, and speaks of those very same persons when he says that from amongst them shall schismatics arise. But when should I have finished if I would here heap up the names of all those bishops and prelates who, after having been lawfully placed in this office and dignity, have fallen from their first grace and have died heretics.
Who, for a simple priest, ever said anything so holy, so wise, so chaste, so charitable as Origen? No one could read what is written of him by Vincent of Lerins, one of the most judicious and learned of Church writers, no one could ponder over his accursed old age, after a life so admirable and holy, without being filled with compassion, to see this grand and brave Pilot, - after so many storms weathered, after so many and such lucrative voyages to Hebrews, Arabs, Chaldieans, Greeks, and Latins, -on his return, full of honour and of spiritual riches, suffer shipwreck and perish in port, an the edge of the tomb! Who would dare to say that he had not been of the true Church, he who had always fought for the Church, and whom the whole Church honoured and hold as one of its grandest Doctors? And yet behold him at last a heretic, excommunicate outside the Ark, perishing in the deluge of his own conceit!
All this corresponds with the holy word of Our Lord (Matt. xxiii. 2), who considered the Scribes and Pharisees as the true pastors of the true Church of that time, since He commands that they should be obeyed, and yet considered them not as elect but rather as reprobate. Now what an absurdity would it be, I ask you, if the elect alone were of the Church? That would follow which is said of the Donatists, that we could not know our prelates, and consequently could not pay them obedience. For how should we know whether those who were called prelates and pastors were of the Church, since we cannot know who of the living is predestinate and who is not, as will be said elsewhere? - and if they are not of the Church, how can they hold the place of elect there? It would indeed be one of the strangest monsters that could be seen-if the head of the Church were not of the Church. Not only then can one who is reprobate be of the Church but even pastor in the Church. The Church then cannot be called invisible an the ground that it is composed of the predestinate alone.
I conclude all this discourse by the Gospel comparisons which show this truth clearly and completely.
S. John likens the Church to the threshing-floor of a farm, on which is not only the wheat for the barn, but also the chaff to be burnt with unquenchable fire(Matt. iii. 12); are these not the elect and the reprobate? Our Lord compares it to a net cast into the sea, and gathering together of all kind of fishes good and bad (ibid. xiii. 47) to ten virgins, five of them foolish, and five wise (ibid. xxv. 2); to three servants, one of whom is slothful, and therefore cast into the exterior darkness (ibid.14); finally, to a marriage feast, unto which have entered both good and bad, and the bad, not having on the nuptial garment, are cast into exterior darkness (ibid. xxii.) Are not all these so many sufficient proofs that not only the elect but also the reprobate are in the Church? We must therefore close the door of our judgment to all sorts of notions of this kind, and to this one amongst them, by means of that never-enough-pondered proposition: Many are called, but few are chosen(ibid.) All those who are in the Church are called, but all who are therein are not elect; and indeed Church does not mean election but convocation.
CHAPTER VIII.
Answer to the objections of those who would have the Church to consist of the predestinate alone.
WHERE will they find the Scripture passage which can furnish them any excuse for so many absurdities, and against proofs so clear as those we have given? Yet counter-reasons are not wanting in this matter: never does obstinacy leave its followers without them.
Will they then bring forward what is written in the Canticles (iv.) concerning the Spouse; how she is a garden enclosed, a fountain or spring sealed up, a well of living waters, how she is all fair, and there is not a spot in her; or, as the Apostle says, how she is glorious, not having spot or wrinkle, holy, without blemish (Eph. v. 27)? I earnestly beg them to consider the conclusion they wish to draw, namely, that there can be in the Church none but saints, immaculate, faultless, glorious. I will, with the same passages, show them that in the Church there are neither elect nor reprobate. For is it not the humble but truthful saying, as the great Council of Trent declares, of all the just and elect, Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. I suppose S. James was elect, and yet he confesses (iii. 2), In many things we all offend. S. John closes our mouth and the mouth of all the elect, so that no one may boast of being without sin; on the contrary, he will have each one know and confess that he sins (1 John i.) I believe that David in his rapture and ecstasy knew what the elect are, and yet he considered every man to be a liar (Ps. cxv. 11). If then these holy qualities given to the Spouse, the Church, are to be taken precisely, and if there is to be no spot or wrinkle anywhere in it, we must go out of this world to find the verification of these fair titles, the elect of this world will not be able to claim them. Let us then make the truth clear.
(1.) The Church as a whole is entirely fair, holy, glorious, both as to morals and as to doctrine. Morals depend on the will, doctrine an the understanding. Into the understanding of the Church there never entered falseness, nor wickedness into her will. By the grace of her Spouse she can say with him, Which of you, O sworn enemies, shall convince me of sin? (John viii. 46.) And yet it does not follow that in the Church there are no sinners. Remember what I have said to you elsewhere: the Spouse has hair, and nails, which are not living though she is living; the senate is sovereign, but not each senator; the army is victorious, but not each soldier - it wins the battle while many of its soldiers are killed. In this way is the militant Church always glorious, ever victorious over the gates and powers of hell, although many of her members, either straying and thrown into disorder like yourselves, are cut to pieces and destroyed, or by other mishaps are wounded and die within her. Take then one after another the grand praises of the Church which are scattered throughout the Scriptures and make her a crown out of them, for they are richly due to her; just as maledictions are due to those who being in so excellent a way are lost. She is an army set in array (Cant. vi. 9), though some fall out of her ranks.
(2.) But who knows not how often that is attributed to a whole body which belongs only to one of the parts? The Spouse calls her beloved white and ruddy but immediately she says his locks are black (ibid. v. 10, 11). S. Matthew says (xxvii. 44) that the thieves who were crucified with Our Saviour blasphemed him, whereas it was only one of them who did so, as S. Luke relates (xxiii. 39). We say that lilies are white, but there are yellow and there are green. He who speaks the language of love readily uses such expressions, and the Canticles are the chaste expressions of love. All these qualities then are justly attributed to the Church an account of the many holy souls therein who most exactly observe the holy Commandments of God, and are perfect-with the perfection that may be had in this pilgrimage, not with that which we hope for in our blessed fatherland.
(3.) Moreover, though there were no other reason for thus describing the Church than the hope she has of ascending, all pure, all beautiful, to heaven above, the fact that this is the sole term towards which she aspires and runs, would suffice to let her be called glorious and perfect, especially while she has so many fair pledges of this holy hope.
He would never end who should take notice of all the trifles which they stay examining here, and on which they raise a thousand false alarms amongst the poor common people. They bring forward that of S. John (x.); I know my sheep, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand : and they say that those sheep are the predestinate, who alone belong to the fold of the Lord. They bring forward what S. Paul says to Timothy (2 Tim. ii. 19) The Lord knows who are his; and what S. John has Said to apostates: they went out from us, but they were not of us (1 John ii. 19). But what difficulty is there in all this? We admit that the predestinate sheep hear the voice of their pastor, and have sooner or later all the qualities which are described in S. John but he also maintains that in the Church, which is the fold of Our Lord, there are not only sheep but also goats. Otherwise, why should it be said that at the end of the world, in the Judgment, the sheep shall be separated, unless because, until the Judgment, whilst the Church is in this world, she has within herself goats with the sheep? Certainly if they had never been together they would never be separated. And in the last instance, if the predestinate are called sheep, so also are the reprobate.
Witness David: Why is thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of thy pasture? (Ps. lxxiii. 1) . I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost (cxviii. ult.). And elsewhere, where he says: Give ear, O thou that rulest Israel; thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep(lxxix. 1): -where he says Joseph, he means those of Joseph, and the Israelitish people, because to Joseph was given the primogeniture, and the eldest gives the name to the race. But who known not that among the people of Israel every one was not predestinate or elect, and yet they are called sheep, and all are together under one shepherd. We confess then that there are sheep saved and predestinated, of whom it is spoken in S. John: there are others damned, of whom it is spoken elsewhere, and all are in the same flock.
Isaias (liii. 6) compares all men, both the reprobate and the elect, to sheep: All we like sheep have gone astray; and in verse 7 he similarly compares Our Saviour: He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter. And so throughout the whole of chapter xxxiv. of Ezechiel, where there is no doubt but that the whole people of Israel are called sheep (John vi. 67) on account of the doctrine of the real eating of his flesh, and yet he received them as people over which David has to reign (v. 23).
And in the same way, - who denies that Our Lord known those who are his? He knew certainly what would become of Judas, yet Judas was not therefore not one of his Apostles. He knew what would become of those disciples who went back. It is a quite different thing to belong to God according to the eternal foreknowledge, as regards the Church Triumphant, and to belong to God according to the present communion of Saints for the Church Militant. The first are known only to God, the latter are known to God and to men. “According to the eternal foreknowledge,” says S. Augustine, “how many wolves are within; how many sheep without! “ Our Lord then known those who are his for his Triumphant Church, but besides these there are many others in the Militant Church whose end will be perdition, as the same Apostle shows where he says that in a great house there are all sorts of vessels and utensils, some indeed unto honour, but some unto dishonour (2 Tim. ii. 20).
So, what S. John says: They have gone out from amongst us, but they were not of us is nothing to the purpose. For I will say, as S. Augustine said: They were with us numero, but they were not with us merito : that is, as the same Doctor says (In Joh. lxv.) “they were with us and were ours by the Communion of the Sacraments, but according to their own individual vices they were not so.” They were already heretics in their soul and will, though they were not so after the external appearance. And this is not to say that the good are not with the bad in the Church: an the contrary indeed, how could they go out of the company of the Church if they were not in it? They were doubtless in it actually, but in will they were already without.
Finally, here is an argument which seems to be complete in form and in figure. “He has not God for Father who has not the Church for mother” (Cyp. de unit. Ecel. v.); that is certain: similarly he who has not God for Father has not the Church for mother; most certainly: now the reprobate have not God for Father, therefore they have not the Church for mother; and consequently the reprobate are not in the Church. But the answer is this. We accept the first foundation of this reason; but the second - that the reprobate are not children of God - requires to be well sifted. All the faithful baptized can be called sons of God, so long as they are faithful, unless one would take away from Baptism the narre of regeneration or spiritual nativity which Our Lord has given it. If thus understood there are many of the reprobate who are children of God, for how many persons are there, faithful and baptized, who will be damned, men who as the Truth says, believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away (Luke viii. 13). So that we totally deny this second proposition, that the reprobate are not children of God. For being in the Church they can be called children of God by Creation, Redemption, Regeneration, Doctrine, Profession of faith; although our Lord laments over them in this sort by Isaias (i. 2): I have brought up my children…and they have despised me. But if one say that the reprobate have not God for their Father because they will not be heirs, according to the word of the Apostle, if a son an heir also (Gal. iv. 7)-we shall deny the consequence: for not only are the children within the Church, but so are the servants too, with this difference, that the children will abide there for ever as heirs; the servants shall not, but shall be turned out when it seems good to the master.
Witness the Master himself in S. John (viii. 35), and the penitent son who knew well and acknowledged that many hired servants in his father’s house abounded in bread, while he, true and lawful son, was amongst the swine, perishing with hunger, a proof of the Catholic faith in this point. O how many princes are walking on the ground as servants (Eccles. x. 7)! How many unclean animals and ravens in the Ark of the Church! O how many fair and sweet-smelling apples are an the tree cankered within yet attached to the tree, and drawing good sap from the trunk! He who had eyes clear-seeing enough to see the issue of the career of men, would see in the Church reason indeed to cry: many are called and few are chosen; that is, many are in the Militant Church who will never be in the Triumphant. How many are within who shall be without; as S. Anthony foresaw of Arius, and S. Fulbert of Berengarius. It is then a certain thing that not only the elect but also the reprobate can be and are of the Church. And he who to make it invisible would place only the elect therein, acts like the wicked scholar who excused himself for not going to the assistance of his master, an the ground that he had learnt nothing about his body but only about his soul.
http://www.goodcatholicbooks.org/francis/catholic-controversy/church-mission.html#CHAPTER_VII
CHAPTER VI.
Answer to the objections made against the visibility of the Church.
SUCH are our reasons, sound under every test. But they have some counter-reasons, which, as they fancy, they draw from the Scriptures, but which are very easy of refutation to any one who will consider what follows.
(1.) Our Lord had in his humanity two parts, body and soul; so the Church his spouse has two parts, the one interior, which is as her soul, invisible-Faith, Hope, Charity, Grace, - the other exterior, as her body, and visible - the Confession of Faith, Praises and Canticles, Preaching, Sacraments, Sacrifices. Yea, all that is done in the Church has its exterior and interior. Prayer is interior and exterior; Faith fills the heart with assurance and the mouth with confession; Preaching is made exteriorly by men, but the secret light of the Heavenly Father is required in it, for we must always hear him and learn from him before coming to the Son; and as to the Sacraments, the sign is exterior but the grace is interior, as every one knows. Thus then we have the interior of the Church and the exterior. Its greatest beauty is within, the outside is not so excellent, as says the Spouse in the Canticles (iv.): Thy eyes are doves’ eyes besides what is hid within…Honey and milk are under thy tongue, that is, in thy heart; - behold the interior. And the smell of thy garments as the odour of frankincense;- behold the exterior service. And the Psalmist (xliv.): All the glory of the King’s daughter is within:- there is the interior. Clothed round in golden borders with varieties; - there is the exterior.
(2.) We must consider that as well the interior as the exterior of the Church may be called spiritual, but differently. For the interior is spiritual purely and of its own nature; the exterior of its own nature is corporeal, but because it has a reference and tendency to the spiritual, the interior, we call it spiritual, as S. Paul calls those who made the flesh subject to the spirit, although they were corporeal; and although each person be particular, of his own nature, still when he serves the public he is called a public man. Now, if one say that the Evangelical law was given on the hearts interiorly, not on tablets of stone exteriorly, as Jeremias says (xxxi. 33), the answer is: that in the interior of the Church and in its heart is all the chief of its glory, but this fails not to shine out over the exterior, by which it is known and recognized. So when it is said in the Gospel (John iv. 23) that the hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorer shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth, - we are taught that the interior is the chief thing, and that the exterior is vain if it do not tend and flow towards the interior to spiritualise itself therein. In the same way, when S. Peter calls the Church a spiritual house (! Pet. ii. 5), it is because all that proceeds from the Church tends to the spiritual life, and because its greatest glory is interior; or again because it is not a house made with lime and sand, but a mystical house of living stones, to which charity serves as cement.
The holy Word says (Luke xvii. 20), The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: but the kingdom of God is the church, therefore the Church is no visible; Answer: the kingdom of God in this place is Our Lord with His grace, or, if you will, the company of Our Lord while He was in this world; whence it continues: for behold the kingdom of God is within you; and this kingdom did not come with the surroundings and glory of a worldly magnificence, as the Jews expected; besides, as we have said, the fairest jewel of this King’s daughter is hidden within, and cannot be seen. As to what S. Paul says to the Hebrews (xii. 18), that we are not come to the mountain that might be handled , like Mount Sina, but to the heavenly Jerusalem- he s not proposing to show that the Church is invisible: for S. Paul shows in this place that the Church is more magnificent and richly endowed than the Synagogue, and that she is not a natural mountain like that of Sina, but a mystical; from which it does not follow that it is in any way invisible. Indeed, it may reasonably be said that he is actually speaking of the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, the triumphant Church; wherefore he adds the company of angels, as if to say that in the Old Law God was seen on the mountain after a terrible manner, and that the New leads us to see Him in His glory there in Paradise above.
Finally, here is the argument which everybody loudly asserts to be the strongest, - I believe in the Holy Catholic Church: if I believe in it, I do not see it, therefore it is invisible. Is there anything feebler in the world than this phantom of a reason? Did the Apostles not believe that Our Lord was risen again, and did they not see him? Because thou hast seen me, He says himself to S. Thomas (John xx. 27): thou hast believed; and to make him believing He says to him, See my hands, and bring hither thy hand, and put it into my side, and be not faithless but believing. See how sight hinders not faith but produces it. Now Thomas saw one thing and believed another; he saw the body and he believed the spirit and the divinity; for it was not his seeing which led him to say, My Lord and my God! - but his faith. So do we believe one Baptism for the remission of sins; we see the Baptism, but not the remission of sins. Similarly, we see the Church, but not its interior sanctity; we see its eyes as of a dove, but we believe what is hidden within: we see its richly broidered garments, in beautiful variety, with golden borders, but the brightest splendour of its glory is within, which we believe. In this royal Spouse there is wherewith to feed the interior and the exterior eye, faith and sense, and all for the greater glory of her Spouse.
When you say, "if one is not elect, salvation does not happen", is true because he did not exhibit saving faith.
According to Calvinism the election came first. Without it there *will not* be any saving faith.
Here's the way you expressed your belief:
"I would say I am saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and that made me part of "The Elect"."
In Calvinist Predestination, the cause and effect are reversed: Because one is born elect, he/she will therefore have saving faith. Or saved by grace through faith through election.
Remember, in this theology, elect/reprobate is determined before birth. And all the rest is determined by, dependent upon this.
For one to be of the elect, he WILL exhibit saving faith because of God's irresistible grace.
Not "for" but if and only if one is born elect. Your if/then here is backwards from Calvinist Predestination. There are very clear independent and subordinate cause relationships. Faith is subordinate to and dependent upon election; salvation is dependent faith which is dependent upon election. Faith is a conduit but not the cause.
It is quite different than what you and I believe and the cause of the incredible disagreement between Calvinists and Arminians (and others.)
In either case, faith is STILL what saves.
The means by which, but not the reason or true cause.
A somewhat poor analogy: If, say, a decision was made by firemen that they only had time to save the humans, not the pets, in a burning building, and you were thus saved. You could say you were saved by firemen, but the reason you were saved was you were born human.
Similarly, the non elect cannot have the means of saving faith because they were not born elect. Salvation is (determined) by election, not faith.
It is, again, quite different from yours and other theologies and Holy Scripture.
ROTFLMAO ...
Straight from the "I interpret Me" school of thought that lapped up the "prophecy" of an occult fascinated child and changed their understanding of the "clear meaning of Scripture", who have named everyone from the original "revelation" about a socialist named Owen to Ronald Reagan the antiChrist, and who to this very day pretend that a rock is not a rock, flesh is not flesh, and blood is not blood. Oh, and can't stand to be reminded of Christ crucified, refuse to believe Christ would obey the Ten Commandments and honor his mother, and deny that Christ is capable of doing exactly what He said He would do, present the flesh and blood from His sacrifice of Himself to us whenever we come to Him to remember His dying for us.
"a lot of fiction"
ROTFL
Eph 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
2Co 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:
Col 1:10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
Tit 1:16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.
But the, "I interpret Me" folks say, WORKS! AWK!! WORKS !! OOOOHHHH, NOOOOOO, and accuse others of including fiction in their teaching.
Regards
Protestants seem to eagerly take God’s seat and pronounce judgment in God’s name.
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