Posted on 10/08/2014 11:39:09 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
I just wanted you to know that your replies to me are not going unnoticed and are read and appreciated. Particularly the charitable spirit in which they are given. Sometimes I'll have a reply and sometimes I won't. And if you will permit me I might even have the occasional question from time to time that can be grounds for further dialogue. But all is considered in good faith.
God Bless You.
In some instances heresy was a treasonous offense which was a capital crime necessitating execution. In other instances it was a casus belli for war.
Consider the treason of Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames. What is the primary issue here? That they revealed classified information to the Soviets that resulted in the disruption of US intelligence gathering operations or that they put society as a whole at risk?
Protestants can't help but employ the methods of revisionist historians to apply the modern understanding of things to the pre-modern world. which is fallacious on its face.
You are not going to convince anyone that you didnt mean it at this point and all the deflections you post, in apparent attempts to blame shift and accuse others, is not going to change anyones recollection or mind.
The phrasing of this paragraph is interesting. You know why? It assumes that certain individuals hold dominion over this virtual construct that is the FR Religion Forum. That there is structure, a hierarchy to it all and that they are the masters of it. Enthroned to speak for the "community".
And I'm not talking about site administration either.
So I ask you, why should any of this concern me? In order to avoid loss of face? Respect? Credibility? Threat of being ostracized or excommunication (and I don't mean banned)?
That sentence/paragraph makes makes so little sense -- is so vague as to what is being referred to, it is impossible to figure out. But it is a "making it personal" right off the bat in the sense that it appears to me to be part of the continuing efforts of more than a few here to raise accusations of many sorts against myself (in hope that other RC'ers will believe them?) in order to discredit myself personally.
That is in part--- coming from yet another thread too --isn't it? One were I had engaged with you concerning various layered claims to 'authority' which the Church of Rome boasts as prerogative belonging solely to themselves -- which there after you had left off discussion, one of your co-religionists then accused me of "conflating" and being confused, etc., even after I had shown him the plain wordings which supported my overall contentions.
And now here on this thread, as it comes out (again) the claims are off-handedly and casually extended to be even over the very lives of persons -- should any dare to disagree or disobey -- in this instance -- the "any" being the Waldenses of old.
The combination of these things more than justifies my own contentions -- both on this thread and the previous which you seemed to have been alluding to.
Meanwhile, one of your your own initial statements;
I very well DID provide evidence such did indeed occur.
This was and still is a central point in this ongoing discussion.
I've heard quite a lot from you --- but not much yet as for owning up to the ramifications of statements which you have made, such as the one highlighted above. .
"Removed from our midst". What a way to speak of wholesale murder!
As for the Waldenses being allegedly semi-pelagian (according to Lutz Kaelber) it stands to mention that he was writing of them in context of schools of asceticism in medieval religion. If the Waldenses are semi-pelagian there, then so would many Roman Catholic, monkish religious orders...
Regardless if there were something to be desired among Waldensian religious thought, that scarcely justifies what murdering papists did to them.
Somewhere along the line you told me to go look up the 'confession of Waldo'. I did so, finding on one RC apologetics webpage, where what they presented as alleged to be Waldo's confession was in their own opinion, Catholic to the core.
Of course, there on that page, they were of the polemic that the Waldenses were not 'proto-protestant' and attempting to make the case for that, even though it can be well enough established that the Waldenses did share much which is fundamental to Protestant differences in comparison to Roman Catholicism, when utilizing other sources, with myself having pointed out that their biggest theological "crime" as it were, was not bowing down to Romish sacerdotalism and further claims to authority... which is established well enough in the link for American Journal of Theology (1900) provided in this note [below].
But I find it interesting that among modern-day Catholics, on the one hand they (Waldenses) are described as heretics, and on another -- described as "Catholic to the core". Kind of reminds me of some of the Anglicans, a wee bit. :^')
As I had also said;
Which you had 'fixed', replacing work to earn it with -- "cooperate with it."
One subtle thing you may have overlooked -- I was not talking about what is taught (by some?) among the Roman Catholic church, but was speaking towards what many thought.
I don't know how many times I have seen the faith/works argument on these pages, with some FRoman or another woodenly reciting from the book of James. Faith without works being dead, and so on.
Then there are subtle things such as this from http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c3a2.htm;
"2010 Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life. ..."[underlining for emphasis added]
In that portion of the CCC, as far as I can determine, there is little to no difference between attitudes commonly found among the first couple of centuries of Waldenses as those can be found spoken about in detail, here, Origin and Early Teachings of the Waldenses, According to Roman Catholic Writers of the The Thirteeenth Century" American Journal of Theology, IV (1900) p. 465-489 for they did include speaking much towards reliance upon the Spirit, in conjunction with their daily lives and works.
Who's to say that they did not incorporate this "cooperate with it" aspect which you used as a 'fix' to one of my statements? That one researcher? Himself possibly following others who had came to those conclusions -- all of that sort of expressing opinions done while the material they relied upon in formation of those opinions is not brought into view.
Thus --your citing of that man twice now -- is what is called "appeal to authority" and thus can be something of a logical fallacy. He is by his own description a sociologist -- not necessarily a theologian. Briefly scanning to page 24 of his book which have cited as if it were authoritative, there is evidence that generally supports my own contentions -- with it becoming obvious that the small portion which you brought as if it were some sort of compelling evidence, was like near-meaningless "cherry picking", as that bears upon our conversation here, yet your having done so serves to show how accusations against the Waldenses are still be grasped at in order to justify past centuries Romish atrocities ---much more than actually providing the sought for justification.
There is still yet another thing ---
Nowhere in earliest of the past centuries in which the Waldenses were persecuted were they THEN -- during those earliest times accused of being "semi-pelagian". The wording of that charge itself -- was not concurrent with the first centuries of them being persecuted by papists.
Getting back to how grace itself is described to function;
There is little difference there in CCC page I quoted from, compared to Calvinism either --- for in that systematic description, cooperation with the Spirit of the Lord is said to be impossible but for the regenerated soul -- and it being only that portion, Him by way of His own Spirit within a person -- which can do any work which can be called "good".
That type of Calvinistic description also does not conflict with your attempted correction of what I spoke about in how people -- Roman Catholics in that instance, would often think (judging from how they would talk about such things) as if they had to be constantly earning or perhaps better put (?) meriting by their own "cooperation" ...graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life.
It stands to recall also our conversation on this thread in regards to past Roman Catholic persecution of Waldenses, included myself having said;
To which you replied;
Which leads us to Waldo and his merry band of outlaws damning souls to Hell with their dualist semi-pelagian heresy who had no authority from the bishops to preach. So they rebelled which protestants are wont to do. And so today we have protestant holding them up as some sort of shining example of proto-protestant. ..."
They were not "dualist" in the sense which Arians could be though to be so, so be careful with the terminology...
First -- many of the 'Waldenses' were driven out of cities. Some of them retreated to the mountains, though others were also were said to circulate into towns and villages, plying various trades -- even attending Roman Catholic masses, at times, although accused by Inquisitors and others of doing so mockingly.
What could be missed in theological considerations -- is that receptionist, 'low church' views towards what Roman Catholics call Eucharist, and Anglicans and Lutherans refer to as the Lord's Supper and/or Holy Communion, is that the low view can carry one through participation in even those places where others hold to sacerdotal view towards the taking of communion, although being present within RC settings when doing so would be generally, according to those of the RCC to be considered to be a trespass.
From those holding low church view --- there would be no trespass, that aspect being all in the minds of others (and an erroneous view --from low church, receptionist perspective) leaving themselves not in theological contradiction with themselves, despite not being in full accord with sacerdotal views.
I emphasis this -- for it becomes plain enough that quite early on, even with Waldo himself, there was rejection of the sacerdotal aspect, which could leave them able to say honestly enough, that they agreed with the proposition that the mass could be valid enough, including "sacraments which may be rightly administered by a sinful priest...."
Now, that above part did change, later -- according to the testimony of RC Inquisitors, with later Waldenses rejecting the Romish church more entirely.
I will add here that despite not bringing citation to these pages from the The American Journal of Theology, Volume 4, published in 1900, that source does appear scholarly enough, and I do much base my own understanding and possible further argument or discussion on such as that source, though there are yet more sources, including also the many I have already provided links to.
Take that slander (and all the rest which you regularly create) and shove it right back into whichever dark holes it came out of in the first place.
Obviously you didn’t get it.
I'm still waiting for you to post the MISSING SCRIPTURES that PROVE purgatory's existence...
We got us a HERETIC in our midst!
ouch!
How can we possibly trust what such heroes proclaim is the truth?
Since you've mentioned this...
Got a count of how many Martin killed?
But WAIT!!
there's MORE!
It has to be a confusing mental gymnastics nightmare being a Catholic. They have their hierarchy proclaiming no one outside the Catholic Church is saved to " of course they do". Of course those that get saved outside the Catholic Church aren't perfectly saved or something like that.
When I go; I'll be gathered to mine as well: in the GraveYard!
The Scriptures mention dead folks...
Daniel 12:2
Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.
Ecclesiastes 9:1-6
1 But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him.
2 It is the same for all, since the same event happens
to the righteous and the wicked,
to the good and the evil,
to the clean and the unclean,
to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice.
As the good one is, so is the sinner, and
he who swears is as he who shuns an oath.
3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. 4 But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.
Put me down as not much caring what Luther did. God used him to point out errors in the Catholic Church. God also used Judas. Following any man or organization other than Christ alone is not of God. The constant focus on man or an organization is idolitry.
Tease the dog all you want; but PLEASE!; do NOT complain if it gets off the chain and BITES YOU!
How many did Luther kill?
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