Posted on 07/14/2013 3:02:43 PM PDT by NYer
Must a person be subject to the authority of the pope to be saved?
“I agree with you again. We can do nothing without His grace, but with it, everything is possible. And lives that honor God will be evident by their fruits. ;-)”
+1
“...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Galatians 5:22)
“May God bless you and yours aMorePerfectUnion...and may He bring all Christians to unity and ONENESS...as He and the Father are ONE.”
Back at you SumProVita!
. First, i did read it, and what is says is "we advise users to be cautious with the links and course material, which may be unorthodox." This utterly fails to prove he is fabricating his figures.
You are guilty of the genesis fallacy, which holds that if the source is suspect, all that it says must be wrong - or wrong when you find it impugns your vision of Rome.
And again, please remember, if you get all puffed up about your self-professed superior familiarity with the (sinfully truncated) Bible,
This ignores what i wrote, and if this is the manner of argumentation you must resort to then you had best quit before you lose even more credibility. Rome is the one who engages in self-professed superiority.
You also make outlandish claims about what most Evangelicals do, and about what most Catholics do.
Prove it. It is i who provide substantiation .
Do you see these kinds of grand pronouncements which you often make, but which you have no real way of knowing or checking the veracity of, as anything but extremely dishonest, and spurrious pronouncements?
Translated, faced with the testimony which impugns Rome, from many recognized sources, you must resort to simply dismissing them as extremely dishonest, and spurious.
You also try to equate the non-unity of personal beliefs and practices with diunity in the teachings of the Catholic Church. There is really only ONE set of real, true, official Catholic teachings. Not so, but the disagreements RCs can engage in extend to what Rc teachings mean. Now suppose you tell me if the CCC is an infallible document, and if the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat gives assurance a teaching is valid, and your understanding Lumen Gentium (how do you worship the same god as Islam, and can properly baptized Prots be saved without repenting from basic common Prot teaching. And provide a list of which of the 3 (or 4) levels of the magisterium each RC teaching falls into? Or at least a list of all infallible teachings, and if and how much dissent a RC can engage in regarding non-infallible teachings.
How individual Catholics relate to those official teachings is merely a reflection of their own choices, but does NOT reflect disunity in the Catholic teachings themselves. However, the Protestant denominations DO have major, irreconcilable differences in their actual, true, official teachings.
That is misleading, as for an RC, irreconcilable differences is defined by her, and popes can sanction torture in one century and another state it is intrinsically evil, and another can state formal submission to the pope is necessary for salvation, and another contradictions. See here .
placemarker
No, it's not WHAT it's WHO is that authority. Simple answer...GOD. Do you seriously think that He went to all the trouble to verbally inspired the writers of Scripture over thousands of years, ensuring that His word was established forever, and then leave it up to fallible, sinful men to decide what was and wasn't God's word? Here's what we are to consider about the sacred Scriptures:
The secret things belong to the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)
People of God received the word of God because it WAS the word of God. He didn't need our permission to preserve and protect it. Almighty God through Paul told the Corinthians:
Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.(I Cor. 4:18-20)
Those who speak the words of God have the power of God behind them. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe.
No, it's not WHAT it's WHO is that authority. Simple answer...GOD. Do you seriously think that He went to all the trouble to verbally inspired the writers of Scripture over thousands of years, ensuring that His word was established forever, and then leave it up to fallible, sinful men to decide what was and wasn't God's word? Here's what we are to consider about the sacred Scriptures:
The secret things belong to the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)
People of God received the word of God because it WAS the word of God. He didn't need our permission to preserve and protect it. Almighty God through Paul told the Corinthians:
Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.(I Cor. 4:18-20)
Those who speak the words of God have the power of God behind them. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe.
Not only that but I have asked Catholics here repeatedly what those books contain that makes them SO sure they are Divinely revealed and sacred Scripture. No replies. Do any of these books contain distinct and unique prophecies that Christians NEED to know about? Are there commandments of God not found anywhere else that Christians MUST obey to be Godly men and women? Just what is in these books that convinces a Catholic that they deserve the same recognition of authority as, say, Deuteronomy or Romans? I have yet to hear any answer other than "it's what we believe" and that's not good enough. It wasn't good enough for the Jews, unto whom were given the "Oracles of God", when these books were appended to the Old Testament. Shouldn't we at least honor something they contributed to our Judeo-Christian heritage?
So which canon of Scripture did God give us?
I contend that the canon of Scripture that God gave us is the Catholic Bible. God's infallible Church ("the pillar and foundation of truth") tells us so.
You contend that the abridged, Protestant canon of Scripture, is the Bible that God gave us. Your infallible authority for canonicity is... what?
And just what gives the Catholic church that authority?
Can you do that without circular argumentation?
LOL!
And you are free to do so but what doesn't work is to pretend that the Apocrypha was always considered Scripture or that it was considered Scripture by the Jews.
bb asks a good question.
Also, what about the books in the Apocrypha which contain that which has been shows to be in error?
That would mean that the Catholic church recognizes error as Scripture.
How does one reconcile that in their mind?
In light of all of those quotes, paragraph 841 of the catechism with regard to Muslims is interesting.
#841 “The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P29.HTM
Likewise:
Still no answer from any Catholic regarding the authority that acted infallibly in determining the canon of OLD TESTEMENT Scripture.
One doesn’t if one is truly saved and filled with the Holy Spirit.
The Nameless Coward!!
...“He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”
And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours?
Yup. Muslims get a pass that Protestants don’t.
Please show the world just WHY the counter reformation took place; THEN we can get down to the nitty-gritty of WHAT took place.
Some did - some didn't.
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
What about you? Can YOU tell us infallibly?
Of course not. Christ's Church alone can.
_________________________________________________
Let me try to speed this up a bit, rather than repeating the same points endlessly.
The next logical question is, How do we know that the Catholic Church is infallible?
The Bible tells us so. The Bible calls the Catholic Church, "the pillar and foundation of truth."
But, up to this point, I have created a circular argument.
There is a way out. I can begin my argument by simply considering the Bible as a historical document.
Even non-Christians can agree that the Bible is the best attested-to historical document of its era. If we begin by treating the New Testament as a historical document, we notice that Christ claimed divinity, claimed to establish a Church, and that He made several predictions, including the prediction that the "gates of hell" would not prevail against His Church.
Simply by examining history, we see in the Catholic Church an unparalleled earthly institution, in terms of organization and continuity of leadership. Moreover, the Church possesses an unparalleled, non-contradictory body of teaching, in keeping with It being "the pillar and foundation of truth."
Additionally, countless public miracles are associated with this same Church, including extant, persistent, public miracles, that can be subjected to scientific examination (Tilma of Juan Diego, Shroud of Turin, Eucharistic Mircacle of Lanciano).
These facts, and this simple argument, demonstrate, with extreme probability, that the Catholic Church is of divine origin.
This confirms Christ's prophecy, and thus, His divinity as well, again with extreme probability.
Since we now know, again, with high probability, that Christ is Who He claimed to be, and that the Catholic Church is His Church, we can be sure that the Catholic Church has the authority to determine the canon of Scripture.
And your alternative authority is... who? King James? Martin Luther?
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