[RobbyS]

This is part of the subtle way that Catholicism teaches that God is a capricious, demanding, judgmental and harsh taskmaster. It teaches that we need to go through someone else because it's going to be easier for us to get what we want from Mary, for example, than if we went to the Father Himself.

This is a caricature of Catholic teaching, although not of the way some Catholics think. It seems to have been the way that Luther thought, and why despite his gifts he was a bad monk. He should have listened to his dad and become a lawyer. No, Catholics think in more communitarian terms than some protestants, except for those sects who form communities, such as the Amish. or the Pilgrims. In many respects these are much like the monastic communities, except they embrace a wider segment of society. Anyway, Catholics believe in what Chesterton called “the democracy of the dead.” It is not only we who matter, but all Christians living and dead. The dead wait for us at the end of time, waiting for the resurrection, joined with us by the law of Charity.

[metmom]

But there’s no Scriptural support for that theology or philosophy.

[aruanan]

This is part of the subtle way that Catholicism teaches that God is a capricious, demanding, judgmental and harsh taskmaster.

Sounds sort of like this:

"The devil and wicked men are so held in on every side with the hand of God, that they cannot conceive, or contrive, or execute any mischief, any farther than God himself doth not permit only, but command. Nor are they only held in fetters, but compelled also, as with a bridle, to perform obedience to those commands." (Calv. Inst., b. 1, c. 17, s. 11.)

"...when God makes angels or men sin, he does not sin himself, because he does not break any law. For God is under no law, and therefore cannot sin." (Zwingli in Serm. de Provid., c. 5, 6.)

[smvoice]

"The dead wait for us at the end of time, waiting for the resurrection, joined with us by the law of Charity."

I've been following your posts with mm, and would like to ask one question here. Are you saying it is the "law of Charity" that unites believers? Whether living or dead, the "law of Charity" is the unifier?