Posted on 05/18/2015 6:05:47 PM PDT by Old Yeller
For years, growing up as a Roman Catholic, we were taught that we were members of the one true church. It was impressed upon us regularly by the parish priest during Mass while giving his homily; by the nuns all throughout my Catholic parochial school years of second through seventh grade.
It was impressed upon us during our preparation to receive for the first time the sacraments of Penance, Communion and Confirmation. And while attending CCD classes all the way through high school. (CCD is the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, an association established at Rome in 1562 for the purpose of giving religious education, normally designed for children.)
It was an established fact that we understood and we never questioned the validity of it. And to be honest, it was a matter of pride, that we were privileged enough to be members of the correct church, while all others had belonged to something else that didn’t quite measure up to the status of the Roman Catholic Church.
After all, how could it be possible that Roman Catholicism is not the one true church?
Look at what Rome has to offer: It has the priests, the nuns; the bishops; the cardinals; and of course, the Pope. They have the Sacraments; the statues; the holy water; the incense; the Stations of the Cross; the Eucharist - in which Chris supposedly physically manifests Himself into the wafer after the consecration by the priest during the Mass; the Marian apparitions—which appear mainly to Roman Catholics.
And they have the Vatican, where the Vicar of Christ (who they believe is Christ’s representative on earth), governs the faithful and makes infallible proclamations and doctrine. How can this not be the one true church? No other organization on the face of the earth comes close to offering to its flock what Rome provides for its faithful.
But, of course, to be true, one must adhere to what has been established as truth and not teach or practice what is contrary to the truth. We read in Scripture a few passages that declare what is truth and what is not. Jesus proclaimed in John 14:6:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me.”
Welcome the Moonies, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the 30,000 different sects and sub-sects of Bible Christianity.
I think CB filtered them out (as well as Catholics) with the phrase "a gospel other than the one we preached to you". But nice try. Real subtle.
Exactly. Thanks for showing everyone that the context fits perfectly.
Once again you lie about me by saying: "Deprogramliberalism insists we respond to something he’s written in his book". Of course, I did no such thing. But you know that. I call this playing stupid - in this instance, when someone deliberately plays the innocent fool, pretending that they did not notice that they were lying and contorting what another says, in order to attack them. Congratulations - you have illustrated one aspect of playing stupid with a textbook example. And you have convinced me that you actually enjoy twisting other people's words to use against them. It is what cultists do to their opponents.
I also see through your link (http://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/Epistle-of-Saint-James) that you are also not above copying and pasting other's work, but omitting any credit so as to leave the reader with the impression that the quote is of your own creation (even changing a handful of words, to justify the deception in your own mind, I suspect - more playing stupid, I presume). I refer to your "quick snapshot" in post #865. Indeed, your cut and paste quote and the text above it even proves that the approval of the canonicity of James was not universally handed down from the apostles (the epistle of James is generally considered to be the first contemporary NT document created and widely distributed), which makes for an interesting principle - the closer to the apostles, the more the doubt in its canonicity.
You will not even offer me the respect of addressing me to my face, instead speaking of me as if I am some sort of disembodied spirit out there somewhere, and certainly not in your mind worthy of a direct first-person discussion. But fear not, I will not return to you the disrespect that you have shown me by lying about me, twisting my words, smearing me and refusing to engage me directly - in effect, treating me as a cultist would. It is not within my ethics to treat anyone so. But of course, I am not a Roman Catholic, which if your example is typical, illustrates that RC ethicism blesses this sort of behavior - indeed, will probably win you more accolades from your sycophants on this thread.
But do not feel singled out, Steelfish. I have been blessed?? with this uncanny ability that brings out the true beast within my opponents. It is as if I am a mirror that sees deep into their souls. The more an opponent contends with me, the deeper they reveal who they really are. We have now learned about you a great many unpleasant things. Hopefully you can now face up to this ugliness and stop playing stupid with yourself (but I doubt that you can - again, you seem to enjoy what you do). Your next post to me, if you even dare to make one, will tell the tale about the depth of your humility.
Of course, if it was only your desire to tire out your opponents with the same old blather over and over, it seems you have won, because almost everyone on this thread seems to have given up waiting on you for direct answers to their questions. But if you think that this means that you have somehow won the argument, think again. I suspect most lurkers have been more put off by your repetitive lecturing and rude behavior rather than coming over to your side.
I too grow weary, but don't get me wrong. I never expected any real dialogue about the issues I have raised with you. I know that you have no substantive evidence to stand on - as do you (that playing stupid thing again). While completely on topic, I have simply used your repetitive lectures as a platform to present some of my scriptural discoveries - like the non-canonicity of James, the nonsense of the Gnostic eternal-now-god, and the Church not being the bride of Christ. Thanks for providing the opportunities to share...
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You continue to attempt to garner support for your contra-scriptural mixing of paganism with the gospel from well known protestant nicolaitans, as if they had any better connection with the true godpel than Rome.
“The whore and her daughters” definitely includes them, so what is the supposed benefit to your false arguments?
Strength in numbers?
The wide path certainly has the numbers; that is strong evidence against your pagan pablum. Yeshua assured us that his path is narrow, and not attractively adorned with that which pleases the mind of man.
Numbers is clearly a losing argument.
That you would rail against the scriptures is certainly no surprise. Any interpretation of scripture is personal.
We were never told to seek interpretations; Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Those that have the Holy Spirit have never sought “interpretation” of the word.
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>> “I think CB filtered them out (as well as Catholics) with the phrase “a gospel other than the one we preached to you”. But nice try. Real subtle.” <<
The one thing CB left out is possibly the most important:
The gospel that they preached has been in written form for 3.5 millennia in the books of Moses, and in the prophets.
Paul’s clear statement to that effect in Hebrews 3 and 4 adds much power to his rejection of “other gospels.”
We are not wandering in the wilderness of man made tradition.
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“aMorePerfectunion union incredulously keeps insisting on a “list” of traditions, the kind of query, that would provoke howls of derision from even Protestant theologians whether asked seven or seven times seventy. We must wish him peace as he requests leave of this thread. The frustration has worn him out.”
Any Protestant would howl at your false claim that we have the traditions of Paul to follow!
I am not frustrated by your failures to post a shred of evidence. I expected exactly that - to see your false claim exposed as false.
In other words, as a shallow truth claim, attractive to the fish that swim in shallow waters of tradition, instead of the deep waters of truth.
Done.
bump
DeprogramLiberalism’s response has many parts to it. He tells us he has been “blessed” because of his “uncanny ability” in scriptural interpretation that would somehow bring out the “beasts.” Those who agree with the traditional Catholic response are “sycophants.” He expects us to continue a running, voluminous, exegetical discourse with him on matter of James’ canonicity- an issue as old as the hills and one long since settled in the Council of Trent. When offered a link to the Catholic Encylopaedia that explains this in some depth, he bemoans this as a cut and paste effort rather than addressing its substantive merits. Previously, he took umbrage for lumping him with Protestants. In short, he is a dissenter unto himself.
And this of course brings us to the very Catholic point. Interpretation must be authoritative because Christ established this authority. To be sure, it was not an authority given to the Moonies, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, to Joel Osteen, or Billy Graham, or to DeprogamLiberalism. It is the same authority given by Christ that informed the selection of the canonical texts. It is the same authority with the power to bind and the power to loosen.
This indeed is the very paradox of the Cross. We have a Christ nailed to a cross saturated with blood, his own body drenched in Divine blood, the weight of his emasculated skin and bones, his battered body and hands and feet tearing up against the crude nails that were spiked into his hands and feet, his glory mocked with a crown of thorns that presses into his head with blood dripping over his sweet and compassionate eyes. His honor mocked with his clothes stripped of his body in public gaze. He empties Himself. Then bestows to the world His last remaining earthly “possession,” His beloved precious Mother. Mary gifted at the Annunciation with the Holy Spirit as “full of grace,” now in the words of St. Bernard becomes the “Mediatrix of all Graces.”
It is this Christ, depicted powerlessly, now as Son of God pronounces the most powerful plea to His Father. That is, the power to forgive sins, by Him, with Him, and through Him. This is the same powerful authority given to His Church.
It is this sacred imagery that captures the heart and binds the mind when we venerate in all our Churches. Not some wooden cross in front of podium where someone strums a guitar, and at times accompanied with a foot-stomping dance labeled as “Sunday Services” that take place in whatever local First___Church that functions as substitute. If so, it would be better have a hollowed out piece of rock signifying the empty tomb thrown in as the functional equivalent of an open and empty casket. A New Orleans Jazz funeral band would complete the picture.
While DeprogramLiberalism keeps chiding us for reprising our Catholic exegetical belief, he keeps repeating himself in saying that the canonicity of James was “not universally handed down from apostles.” So what? This is old hat. To be sure there was dissent on several matters among the early Church Fathers. It took 300 years to assemble the canonical texts. This is how God works by trial and tribulation. This process of authenticating the written Word was by Divine Revelation just as it was in the fullness of time that God revealed His Son. This flows from same revelation by which Peter recognized that Christ is the Son of the Living God.
But DeprogramLiberalism would like us to unsettle settled controversies and have us up end Petrine authority. We must thus ask of him to pray tell us by what authority is “your” interpretation definitive? And, may we inquire by what and by whose revelation? It won’t do to simply say: “I have been blessed.” Nor would it do to offer us the constant refrain that his positions are being misrepresented.
And yet it does not prevent him from calling those who agree with the Catholic Credo and Catechism as expostulated on this tread as “sycophants.” This is a not too distant an echo from what KWKayaker, who has since hightailed from this thread, calling Catholics- saints, martyrs, theologians and converts included, all as “cultists.”
DeprogramLiberlaism’s “sychopant” comment needs a footnote. It’s directed one-way only even while he has invited us to try saving his soul.
Editor-Surveyor joins the pack with this gem. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Those that have the Holy Spirit have never sought interpretation of the word.”
For him, the word of God is up there in the ether. The Moonies, Rev. Sharpton, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright could not agree more. It allows them license to “hear” God’s Word from the clouds up above and give it their “own” freewheeling interpretation. For Editor-Surveyor to sort out and assemble the written Word of God was a pointless exercise by the early Church fathers. And for him, all of God’s unwritten Word as stated in John 21:25 got lost to the desert air. To follow traditions is his version of “wandering in the wilderness.” This owl of Minnerva truly takes flight at dusk.
Seriously, is this the kind of infantile mishmash logic we Catholics are expected to respond to?
BipolarBob is joined at the hip with CommerceComet into thinking that the veneration of saints, the offering of incense, and the lighting of candles is a form of idolatry and that Catholic rituals are “ripped off from pagans.” Recall CommerceComet who previously wrote that we all have a “giant blind spot when it comes to Catholicism.”
The giant blind spot may actually reside in BipolarBob’s own head since these folks can’t seem to grasp the concept of veneration such as when we would place flowers over a beloved’s grave, or plant a flag on it. Indeed, the Byzantine traditions to this day are rich in imagery and iconography as way to glorify God and honor His saints and martyrs.
For example, from the end of the second century, we have artistic renditions in catacombs that are part narrative, part symbolic, and part venerative. These are reflected in paintings, mosaics, reliefs on the sarcophaguses, in fresco and sculpture, as well as in gold and glass medallions. In the catacomb of Callixtus, we have the famous fresco of the celebration of the Eucharist.
The crucial distinction between veneration and worship is too much to occupy the minds of shallow Bible Christians. That’s an intellectual hurdle too high to jump over. Apparently, all the Catholic saints, martyrs, theologians, and converts have been fooled into the worship of idols.
Never mind that in Exodus 20, God commanded Moses to build the Ark of the Covenant, which would reflect the presence of God and was to be venerated as the holiest place in all of Israel. Perhaps some elemental Biblical schooling here is in order.
Here is what God commanded Moses concerning the statues on it:
“And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends.” (Ex. 25:18–19.)
We are minded in 1 Kings 6, that Solomon built a temple for the glory of God. This is described as follows:
“In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olivewood, each ten cubits high. . . . He put the cherubim in the innermost part of the house. . . . He carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubim and palm trees, and open flowers, in the inner and outer rooms. . . . For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors of olivewood. . . . He covered the two doors of olivewood with carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers; he overlaid them with gold.” (1 Kings. 6:23, 27, 29, 31, 32.)
King Solomon ordered the construction of multiple images of things both “in heaven above” (angels) and “in the earth beneath” (palm trees and open flowers). And then, after the completion of the temple, God declared he was pleased with its construction (1 Kings. 9:3).
Didn’t God know what King Solomon had done?
In the fourth century the great biblical scholar, Jerome, declared, “We do not worship, we do not adore, for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the creator, but we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore him whose martyrs they are” (Ad Riparium, i, P.L., XXII, 907).
When Jesus healed the blind man in John 9:1-7, did the Lord use magic mud and spittle? Was it actually a magic potion he mixed in the clay, or was it simply that Jesus saw fit to use matter in association with the conferral of his grace? The Lord is no dualist.
He made matter, he loves matter, and he had no qualms about becoming matter himself to accomplish our redemption.
The use of the bones of Elisha brought a dead man to life: “So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. And as a man was being buried, lo, a marauding band was seen and the man was cast into the grave of Elisha; and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood on his feet.” (2 Kings. 13:20-21.) This is an unequivocal biblical example of a miracle being performed by God through contact with the relics of a saint!
Similar are the cases of the woman cured of a hemorrhage by touching the hem of Christ’s cloak (Matt. 9:20-22) and the sick that were healed when Peter’s shadow passed over them (Acts 5:14-16). “And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.” (Acts 19:11-12).
If these aren’t examples of the use of relics, what are? In the case of Elisha, a Lazarus-like return from the dead was brought about through the prophet’s bones. In the New Testament cases, physical things (the cloak, the shadow, handkerchiefs and aprons) were used to effect cures. There is a perfect congruity between present-day Catholic practice and ancient practice. If you reject all Catholic relics today as frauds, you should also reject these biblical accounts as frauds.
Perhaps Jews ought to toss out their temple menorahs and await the awakening from the Holy Spirit. Jehovah’s Witnesses think they have already been awakened. Editor-Surveyor needs to meet Pastor Oral Roberts who claimed to hear the Holy Spirit as he climbed atop his scandal-plagued university prayer tower begging for donations.
Catholics on the other hand are supposed to extend credence to a variety of cockamamie theories on rapture that keep spinning out like cartwheels of the minds of Bible Christians based on isolated texts in Revelation.
This then is the plague of all Bible Christians when they come unmoored from scripture, sacred tradition, revelation and ritual, and they find their scriptural understandings reduced to ashes under the intense light of historical and theological scholarship.
Finally, having decamped from this thread, aMorePerfectunion makes a cameo appearance to toss out this line that Catholics swim in the “shallow waters of tradition, instead of the deep waters of truth.”
To the credit of Paul’s listeners, they never had that blinding ignorance to inquire from him “what” those traditions were, or to demand of him that he provide them a “list” of such traditions or insist that he “write” down these traditions. Most definitely, they had the good sense to not display to him, as aMorePerfection has done here before, a “Where’s the Beef?” cartoon.
From time to time we have seen in the various Catholic threads on FR referencing Catholic news stories, beliefs, and practices, not otherwise labeled as “Catholic Caucus,” where Bible Christians interject their snide comments dripping with sarcasm accompanied with a tsunami of scriptural quotes or a random quote from here and there masquerading as thinly veiled mockery and getting away with it. The posters of these Catholic stories perhaps felt it was not worth the trouble to deal with this idiocy.
Not this time. It has come time to pull the tarp over the rot known as Bible Christianity, or what convert to Catholicism, Dr. David Anders has after a lifetime of scholarship politely labeled it to be a “confused mass of inconsistencies and tortured logic.”
Dr. Anders is not alone.
Dr. Jay Richards is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. He holds a Master of Divinity degree, a Master of Theology degree and a Ph.D. in philosophy and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. He never ever dreamt as a Calvinist he would ever accept all of Catholic teachings. He studied deep and ever deeper with assiduous search and discovery for the truth. And then he did.
WVKayaker, response seems typical of Bible Christians to all of this: “blah, blah, blah ad infinitum!”
Longwinded post with nothing but blah, blah, blah... and then some more blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, from Steelfish.
Steelfish then says blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah.
Then Steelfish says more blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah.
Yet Steelfish continues to post nothings over again... but more blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah!
God's Plan beat you to it.
A system of reasoning is rationalism. Rationalism is the system of perception used by the soul. Faith is the system of perception used by the human spirit.
The indwelling of God the Holy Spirit provides us the faith to identify His Word as we intake it into our soul in His work to sanctify us further.
This is why human interpretation independent of God is not a problem in some Protestant Churches, because any group of believers remaining in fellowship with Him, allow God the Holy Spirit to interpret the Word and remain obedient to His work in us.
I wonder how well versed THESE guys were in the religion THEY chose???
Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.[1]
Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.
Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy
Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy
Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.[2]
Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.[3]
Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony[4]
Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.
ELSIE; after a few years on FR, has seen amateur apologists for Roman Catholicism try to gather opinions from far and wide. He has (Impolitely at times) called it as he sees it:
A confused mass of inconsistencies and tortured logic; cobbled together from snippets of Scripture, gobs of tradition; plethora of quotes and a sea of imagings.
Your pagan screeds with accolades to intelligentsia don’t impress me Steelfish. You can make fun of “Bible Christianity” like the rest of the pagans and atheists do but it only reinforces, in my mind at least, that Catholics have little regard for God’s word.
When my last post ended with a quote from that towering theologian who converted to Catholicism, Cardinal Henry Newman who wrote that “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant” that this would end the streaming shallow ripostes of Bible Christians But they show an uncanny ability to pull themselves deeper into the quicksand
You are rapidly revealing yourself to be one of the most ignorant or insolent RC sophists on FR! You continue to post refuted polemics, and do not interact with what i said, but resort to potshots and scornful spitballs that simply reveal your desperation.
To assert that quoting Newman would end the streaming shallow ripostes of Bible Christians is insolent, since not only did I post what Newman confessed which is contrary to Rome being the historical NT church, but your constant appeal to scholasticism has been shown to be specious time and time again, as it is contrary to how the church began while most of Rome's sanctioned scholarship is liberal. As seen in your own NAB study Bibles . Meanwhile, as shown, at least one of your own cited converts commends scholarly quality in evangelicalism. Give it up!
And then you come with this:
DANIEL 1212 apparently pulls off stuff from anti-Catholic “Sola Scriptura” blog sites to make such stunningly conclusions that the Assumption of Mary was a doctrine in dispute
The fact is that that it does not even matter what secondary source it came from, but whether it is true, and in reality it comes from no less than your esteemed intellectual Ratzinger. Since you disagree with him, you must be confronted with it again:
Before Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven was defined, all theological faculties in the world were consulted for their opinion. Our teachers' answer was emphatically negative . What here became evident was the one-sidedness, not only of the historical, but of the historicist method in theology. “Tradition” was identified with what could be proved on the basis of texts. Altaner, the patrologist from Wurzburg…had proven in a scientifically persuasive manner that the doctrine of Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven was unknown before the 5C; this doctrine, therefore, he argued, could not belong to the “apostolic tradition. And this was his conclusion, which my teachers at Munich shared .
>But,
subsequent “remembering” (cf. Jn 16:4, for instance) can come to recognize what it has not caught sight of previously [because the needed evidence was absent] and was already handed down in the original Word” [via invisible, amorphous oral tradition] - J. Ratzinger, Milestones (Ignatius, n.d.), 58-59 .
All theological faculties in the world being consulted and answering emphatically negative certainly sounds like a doctrine in dispute.
The famous Protestant historian Philip Schaff also writes,
"It [the Assumption of Mary] rests, however, on a purely apocryphal foundation. The entire silence of the apostles and the primitive church teachers respecting the departure of Mary stirred idle curiosity to all sorts of inventions, until a translation like Enoch's and Elijah's was attributed to her. In the time of Origen some were inferring from Luke ii. 35, that she had suffered martyrdom. Epiphanius will not decide whether she died and was buried, or not. Two apocryphal Greek writings de transitu Mariae, of the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century, and afterward pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Gregory of Tours († 595), for the first time contain the legend that the soul of the mother of God was transported to the heavenly paradise by Christ and His angels in presence of all the apostles, and on the following morning her body also was translated thither on a cloud and there united with the soul. Subsequently the legend was still further embellished, and, besides the apostles, the angels and patriarchs also, even Adam and Eve, were made witnesses of the wonderful spectacle" (section 83).
Roman Catholic scholar Michael O'Carroll explains that Epiphanius, a church father of the fourth century, lived near where Mary had lived, yet he denies that anybody has any apostolic tradition regarding the end of Mary's life:
"In a later passage, he [Epiphanius] says that she [Mary] may have died and been buried, or been killed - as a martyr. 'Or she remained alive, since nothing is impossible with God [by which logic Mormonism can claim validity for its traditions] and he can do whatever he desires; for her end no one knows." (Theotokos [Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1988], p. 135)
He forgets that like the early Church fathers, the successors to Peter forensically examined the theological evidence for dogmas.
Actually, you seem to remember what history must have "forgotten." Here is another of your intellectuals
"Furthermore, the notion of Mary's assumption into heaven has left no trace in the literature of the third, much less of the second century. M. Jugie, the foremost authority on this question, concluded in his monumental study: 'The patristic tradition prior to the Council of Nicaea does not furnish us with any witness about the Assumption.'" (Raymond Brown (twice appointed to the Pontifical Biblical Commission), Mary In The New Testament [Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1978], p. 266 )
In this process contrapuntal are addressed. These “disputes” are part of serious inquiry. Faith, Revelation, Scripture does not fall from the skies.
Yet it is just that that is missing in the writings we have from early church "fathers. It is absurd to argue that for hundreds of years Christians knew about the bodily assumption of Mary yet have no real evidence they ever said anything about, even when they're commenting on Mary, or Enoch and Elijah as examples of people who did not die.
Of course, you also parroted RC propaganda about the canon even after you were reproved. It is you who need to read some pro-Truth anti-Catholic sites, as this page on the canon.
her Immaculate Conception and bodily Assumption into heavenly glory complement the original faith in Christ as true God and true man: two natures in a single Person. This makes Mary’s Assumption as the immortal destiny that awaits all humanity.
Which is so much bombastic propaganda, which verbiage is a poor excuse for actual warrant from evidence.
This is no different from the process that led to the establishment of the canonical texts in the fourth century under Petrine authority after 300 years of discussion and debate infused by Divine Revelation.
Yikes! I did not even read this line when I wrote the above, and which confirms that you seem to be programmed to parrot propaganda regardless at the cost to intellectual credibility, despite your esteem of scholarship, which (you could read if you dared to follow the supplied links ) substantiates that "establishment of the canonical texts" meant that scholarly disagreement continued down thru the centuries and right into Trent, which supplied the first indisputable definition of the canon, after the death of Luther. Likewise, regarding Petrine authority after 300 years establishing canonical texts in the fourth century, which depends upon the Decretum Gelasianum, scholarship states,
According to v. Dobschütz all five chapters belong to the same original work, which is no genuine decree or letter either of Damasus or Gelasius, but a pseudonymous literary production of the first half of the sixth century (between 519 and 553).
There can, I think, be little doubt that v. Dobschütz has made out his case. The really decisive point is that in I 3, in the part most directly associated with Damasus, there is a quotation of some length from Augustine in Joh. ix 7 (Migne, xxxv 146l).1 As Augustine was writing about 416, it is evident that the Title Incipit Concilium Vrbis Romae sub Damaso Papa de Explanatione Fidei is of no historical value.
The proof that the document is not a real Decretal of Gelasius or any other Pope is almost as decisive, if not quite so startling. In the first place v. Dobschütz makes it clear (p. 213) that the shorter form I-III implies the longer form,2 and therefore is derived from it. Further, the short form III-V, which was supposed to contain the genuine decree of Gelasius, turns out to be a recension of the whole work, in which the phrases which refer back to I and II have been carefully suppressed or altered (p. 214). This recension appears to |471 have been made in Gaul in the seventh century (p. 399) : that known as Hormisdas, containing II-V, is a Spanish recension, but the Spaniard Isidor used chap. I, in fact he is the earliest witness to the work. Had it been an official decree of Gelasius it would have been known and used by Dionysius Exiguus and Cassiodorus.
Thus these famous Lists represent no Papal ordinance, but are the production of an anonymous scholar of the sixth century. He must have been a fairly well-read man for that time and shews a good acquaintance with the writings of St Jerome, but v. Dobschütz does not believe that he had read, or even seen, most of. the 'Apocryphal' books which he condemns (pp. 333-334). For various reasons the work can hardly have been compiled in Africa or Spain, and Gaul is on the whole unlikely : 'es bleibt für den Ursprung des Dokuments nur Italien übrig' (p. 350). Certainly the description of the last book in the N. T. as Iudae Zelotis apostoli epistula una makes for N. Italy or Gaul, the only evidence for the apostle Judas Zelotes coming from those regions. In Matt. x 3, in the place of Thaddaeus, Judas Zelotes is found in a b g h q gatcorr mm, and the Mosaics of the great Baptistery at Ravenna (fifth century).3 So far as I know there is no evidence for this name from Africa, Spain, or the British Isles.
A word should be said in conclusion upon the amazing mass of detail collected by Prof. v. Dobschütz and the clearness with which he has presented it. He has used eighty-six manuscripts, besides six (class D') which contain the text in a second recension. To make this vast quantity of material intelligible he has first printed the full original text with only the real variants of the 'Gelasian' recension at the foot of the page. This leaves room for a clear indication of Biblical references and for the incipits and explicits of the several recensions. After this he repeats the text line for line with full apparatus, excluding only the spelling of the Proper Names, which are given separately in alphabetical order. Praise is often bestowed on our German fellow-workers for industry and fault found with their style, but very few Frenchmen or Englishmen would have marshalled the vast and unwieldy army of authorities so skilfully as is done in this book. It is a work that should be studied by all editors of much-copied texts. http://www.tertullian.org/articles/burkitt_gelasianum.htm
Having abandoned Sola Scriptura in spades, DANIEL 1212 writes that because “the word of God was orally preached should not be the issue. Instead, he continues: “the issue is that this does not translate into Rome speaking the word of God as is described in Scripture. This train of logic goes off the rails. So he concedes the early Church authoritatively “preached” the unwritten Word of God, authoritatively assembled the “written” Word of God, but somehow now loses that authority to continue to declare the Word of God.
Rather, the abandonment of SS is in your own mind, due to your unlearned strawman of SS, while my logic is entirely sound, for once again, despite your esteem of intellectual prowess you example cognitive dissonance in failing to understand the argument.
First, consistent with your lack of learning, SS does not, cannot, and need not hold that it was operative before and during the period of inscripturation. Anymore than Rome can hold that its alternative, that of sola ecclesia, was operative before the church began. But "to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required." (Lk. 12:48)
A little education:
Before Scripture began to be written, express Divine revelation did operate under the exalted Catholic means of oral tradition, except that it was very limited and to a very limited amount of people. But when God began to address and entire nation, and by them to speak to the world, then as is abundantly evidenced the word of God/the Lord was normally written, even if subsequently, and and that as written, Scripture became the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God.
Scripture first began to be written by Moses, whose veracity was based upon his holiness and constant unmistakable supernatural attestation, such as Rome, which presumes to be as Moses, can only wish for. And evidence testifies to additional complementary conflative writings of God being recognized and established as being so, essentially due to their unique and enduring heavenly qualities and attestation, as were men of God. And thus they materially provide for a canon of Scripture (as well as for reason, the church, etc.)
But the RC idea of an infallible magisterium being essential for this is totally foreign to Scripture, and is power play by Rome which effectively exalts her above Scripture.
Yet the church actually began in dissent from those who sat in the seat of Moses over Israel, (Mt. 23:2) who were the historical instruments and stewards of Scripture, "because that unto them were committed the oracles of God," (Rm. 3:2) to whom pertaineth" the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises" (Rm. 9:4) of Divine guidance, presence and perpetuation as they believed, (Gn. 12:2,3; 17:4,7,8; Ex. 19:5; Lv. 10:11; Dt. 4:31; 17:8-13; Ps, 11:4,9; Is. 41:10, Ps. 89:33,34; Jer. 7:23)
And instead they followed an itinerant Preacher whom the magisterium rejected, and whom the Messiah reproved them Scripture as being supreme, (Mk. 7:2-16) and established His Truth claims upon scriptural substantiation in word and in power, as did the early church as it began upon this basis. (Mt. 22:23-45; Lk. 24:27,44; Jn. 5:36,39; Acts 2:14-35; 4:33; 5:12; 15:6-21;17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23; Rm. 15:19; 2Cor. 12:12, etc.)
While the sufficiency aspect of SS (which holds that it is sufficient to provide all that the Christians needs to know for salvation and growth in grace, under its formal and material aspects) was not fully realized until after all Scripture was written, yet the primacy of Scripture incontestable, and the supremacy of its words as being the wholly inspired and assured word of alone refutes the presumptuous premise of Catholicism to be the supreme authority.
And note that the RC recourse to Mt. 18:15-17 has already been refuted. Even the OT magisterium had binding and loosing judicial powers, (Dt. 17:8-13) as do civil powers, while the spiritual aspects of binding and loosing (Mt. 18:18-20) apply to all believers who fulfill the conditions, as Elijah did, who James sets forth as an example for all believers to be like. Ja. 5:16-18) \
Second, the sufficiency of Scripture does not wholly subside in its formal aspect, under which a person may read and believe such a text as Acts 10:36-43 and be born again, nor does it mean doctrine must be based on direct explicit statements, or that Scripture is all that the believer is to use (which strawmen RCs often assert), but it also pertains to its material aspect, that of sanctioning such things as reason, the light of nature, the Spirit's illumination of revelation, the expounding of Scripture by teachers, the Lord's leading, and the ecclesiastical magisterial authority.
No less than the Westminster Confession states
“all things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all, what is necessary is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture, and Scripture is such that “not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means [in which the church is a part], may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.”
..we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word; and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and the government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.”
, “It belongs to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions...”- http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/creeds/wcf.htm and general obedience to such is enjoined, as it is to the civil powers that be. (Rm. 13:1-7)
And SS does not exclude traditions, such as wedding ceremonies if consistent with Scripture, but not as binding doctrines. And as one that also allows for the "sign gifts" of 1Cor. 12, i would also argue do continuationist SS Christians (such asJohn Piper Phd.), that this is not inconsistent with SS, all being subject to Scripture as supreme.
Thus the RC must not only rightly understand and refute SS, but the primacy of Scripture, which they cannot legitimately do.
So he concedes the early Church authoritatively “preached” the unwritten Word of God, authoritatively assembled the “written” Word of God, but somehow now loses that authority to continue to declare the Word of God.
Once again you example your superficial reading and or understanding of what I wrote. Just where did I affirm that the early church authoritatively assembled the “written” Word? Where do we see this even settled in the church of Rome until Trent? Where does we even see the OT texts upon which the NT church established its Truth claims being authoritatively assembled by the magisterium, or an infallible one, which RCs argue is essential for them to have authority?
The fact is that, contrary to the RC model for determination of Truth, under which the historical magisterium as the steward of Scripture is the authority which settles matters, invalidating valid dissent, the church began because common people ascertained both men and writings as being of God. Which status the magisterium is also to affirm, yet they are what they are regardless.
As for losing the authority to continue to declare the Word of God, this presupposes that such texts as 1Ths. 3:15 does not simply refer to the oral preaching of Scriptural Truths, and as said, SS preachers can also enjoin the hearers to obey, but that it refers to wholly inspired revelation that only exists as such in oral form, which is the RC position.
But where is the evidence for that, versus men of God preaching under the inspiration of the Spirit Divinely revealed Truths, which Rome cannot and does not claim to do? Perhaps if you were more learned in RC theology, you would know that, and that "God is not the author of a merely infallible, as He is of an inspired, utterance; the former remains a merely human document." (Catholic Encyclopedia>Infallibility)
Since Rome is not preaching under Divine inspiration, under which Moses apparently wrote Genesis, but is only claiming to be preserved from error when declaring binding doctrines it channels out her amorphous tradition, even "remembering" what is missing in evidence for hundreds of years, then she cannot claim to be doing as Paul, that of formally preaching the express Divinely inspired word of God which is uniquely powerful, (Heb. 4:12) but at best when speaking of extraScriptural traditions she can only claim to be merely telling the truth under the premise that she cannot err, Heliocentrism is held as true based upon the evidence we have (though some RCs contend for geocentrism as being what Rome believes), but for RCs the veracity her claims rests upon the premise of Rome's ensured veracity, not Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, under which the church began. As Keating stated,
“the mere fact that the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as definitely true is a guarantee that it is true.” — Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), p. 275.
And thus a faithful RC is not to ascertain the veracity of RC teaching by examination of evidences (for that reason). For to do so would be to doubt the claims of Rome to be the assuredly infallible magisterium by which a RC obtains assurance of Truth.
“All that we do [as must be patent enough now] is to submit our judgment and conform our beliefs to the authority Almighty God has set up on earth to teach us; this, and nothing else.” “He is as sure of a truth when declared by the Catholic Church as he would be if he saw Jesus Christ standing before him and heard Him declaring it with His Own Divine lips.” - Henry G. Graham, "What Faith Really Means", (Nihil Obstat:C. SCHUT, S. T.D., Censor Deputatus, Imprimatur: EDM. CANONICUS SURMONT, D.D.,Vicarius Generalis. WESTMONASTERII, Die 30 Septembris, 1914 )
At which point the question is what is the basis for the veracity of these Catholic claims . For Rome can not claim Divine inspiration for decrees on binding traditions, and Rome certainly fails of both the qualifications and credentials of manifest apostles of God, (Acts 1:21,22; 1Cor. 9:1; Gal. 1:11,12; 2Cor. 6:1-0; 12:12)
..in all cases the immediate motive in the mind of a Catholic for his reception of them is, not that they are proved to him by Reason or by History, but because Revelation has declared them by means of that high ecclesiastical Magisterium which is their legitimate exponent.” — John Henry Newman, “A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation.” 8. The Vatican Council lhttp://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section8.html
Moreover, but making Catholic doctrine, as "authoritatively" proposed by the Church, the supreme law, which Leo XIII affirmed it is, versus what wholly inspired Scripture says, then she is invalidated from having the authority she claims. The veracity of which claim itself is based upon the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility . For as said, Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares.
The Word of God is a divine imperative. An imperative (like a law) without authority is the stuff decried by pagan gods or today’s autocrats. And the exercise of legitimate authority without obedience dissolves into an embarrassing farce.
Which premise was also refuted, as the fact is that under SS the magisterial office is upheld, for ensured infallibility never was and is not necessary for authority, else the OT magisterium, dissent from which, as said, was a capital crime, (Dt. 17:8-13) would have no authority, never do civil authorities. Ecclesiastical authorities can discipline members (and liberals find a home in Rome far more than in evangelical churches), but unlike the state, punishment can only be by spiritual means as said and seen in the NT, and not the power of the sword of men in order to enforce theological conformity. Which is what Rome relied on so much, and traditional RCs advocate it, as lacking it Rome keeps going South.
The real issue remains to be the basis for the veracity of Truth claims, that of the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility as per Rome (and basically in primary cults), or Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, under which the church began. .
He overlooks the obvious. It is precisely this derailment, this indefensible uncoupling of authority that has led to a mudslide of heresies, the prophesied false prophets unleashed by Bible Christianity. Enter into this breach Jim Jones, Rev. Jeremiah Wright...
Once again you resort to this favorite of logical fallacies which like the rest of your Roman reasoning, was also refuted but ignored, as it not only lumps together men that actually effectively operated under the Roman model for the veracity of truth claims, while it presupposes that if something can result in aberrations than it must be invalid as opposed to the alternative. Yet under both SS and sola ecclesia we see both unity as well as bad fruit and divisions, depending on how that is practiced, while the issue is what kind of unity is Scriptural and how was it attained.
Under the Roman model for determination of Truth, in which the church is supreme and the laity are to be like docile sheep, and simply follow the pastors according to Pope Pius X, or at least they are not publicly dissent according to RC teaching (however, what she really believes is shown by her attitude and actions toward dissenters). For a faithful RC is not to ascertain the veracity of RC teaching by examination of evidences, for to do so would be to doubt the claims of Rome to be the infallible magisterium by which a RC obtains assurance of Truth.
And Rome saw its greatest unity when and after Rome dealt with dissent by the use of the sword of men. Yet neither her use of the sword or her premise of ensured veracity is Scriptural, while under that model you have numerous examples of bad fruit, as well as her various doctrinal novelties not seen in the NT church.
And medieval Rome reached such a condition that as Cardinal Bellarmine described:
"Some years before the rise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresy, according to the testimony of those who were then alive, there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments; in morals, no discipline; in sacred literature, no erudition; in divine things, no reverence; religion was almost extinct. (Concio XXVIII. Opp. Vi. 296- Colon 1617, in “A History of the Articles of Religion,” by Charles Hardwick, Cp. 1, p. 10,)
Ratzinger also stated,
"For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196).
And in modern times Rome abounds with bad fruit and aberrant (from historical RC teaching) teachers (many RCs even hold V2 was aberrant in part), and liberal scholarship, yet all can easily coexist in Rome under her implicit sanction.
Meanwhile Biblical unity was under manifest man of God who established their claims upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, not the premise of a chrism of ensured infallibility as per Rome. Under which Scripture, tradition and history only mean what she says in any conflict with challengers.
Lack of the degree of obtainable limited Biblical unity today is a judgment due to lacking such leaders, and a centralized magisterium (which is indeed the ideal, but Rome is a even qualified to be in the running based on her basis for doctrinal veracity alone).
In addition, simply holding to SS or professing to does not make one a Protestant based on that which Reformers commonly held to, while if using the like basic measure for unity under the Roman model are seen the most grievous serious heresies, as groups like the so-called JWs to Mormon to men like Jim Jone effectively operated under the premise of what leadership says being supreme.
Yet for every Jim Jones there are far more sound preachers who contend for the basic manifestly Scriptural Truths we concur with Caths on, and which cults deny, as well as for other commonly held salvific Truths and against the traditions of men. And such testify to more unity in conservative beliefs than the fruit of Rome, whose limited unity is largely on paper. And Scripturally, the evidence of what a teacher believes is that which one does and effects, which for Rome is overall liberalism (your brethren) and dead religion, based on their own admissions and evidence.
In addition to numerous conflative surveys on the US , see here on Latin America. Beneath the veneer of Roman unity, her body actually consists of a vast disparity of beliefs, which Rome implicitly sanctions, showing what she really believes in this matter, all "unified" under the deception that Rome is the giant insurance company, that basically ensures that all who die as RC will eventually make it into glory, from Teddy K to Hugo Chavez. Your brethren as per Rome's treatment, unless you go into sects or schism.
And then we have the testimony of RC Alexis de Tocqueville on how "all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same."
Rev. Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, First AME, First Calvary, First Baptist, and First Whatever.
Which are judged by Rome as heretics (some are) based upon her heretical premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility as per Rome, while she herself and teaches various unScriptural traditions of Rome that the NT church manifestly did not teach .
This is what lends credence to the observation of Evangelical theologian turned Catholic Dr. David Anders’ that Protestantism is in the end “a confused mass of inconsistencies and tortured logic.”
Yet another one to your apostate converts disagrees with your pre V2 sentiment, and which repeated rant actually applies to Rome, as while his broadbrush of Protestantism disallows meaningful comparison, the fact is that it is easily seen that RCs are a confused mass of inconsistencies and tortured logic, with Rome itself being inconsistent with her teaching (though she seeks to escape that charge by autocratically defining what a contradiction is), while her argument for the premise of her ensured infallibility is tortured logic. Tell me how you know, consistent with RC teaching, she possesses this and see why.
And unity under Rome means as one poster wryly commented,
The last time the church imposed its judgment in an authoritative manner on "areas of legitimate disagreement," the conservative Catholics became the Sedevacantists and the Society of St. Pius X, the moderate Catholics became the conservatives, the liberal Catholics became the moderates, and the folks who were excommunicated, silenced, refused Catholic burial, etc. became the liberals. The event that brought this shift was Vatican II; conservatives then couldn't handle having to actually obey the church on matters they were uncomfortable with, so they left. — Nathan, http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/blog/2005/05/fr-michael-orsi-on-different-levels-of.html
That the strong Catholic intellectual tradition has brought in converts of every religion, atheists and agnostics included
And atheists claim intellectualism is shown leading Caths and others into atheism, while your constant and desperate appeal to the learned remains contrary to Scripture, as the church began with common souls believing itinerant preachers, who were rejected by the strong intellectual tradition.
give the lie to DANIEL 1212’s prior post that Catholics are “docile sheep.” Some sheep.
Lie? I actually said they were not docile sheep, while it was one of your own popes, which RCs tell us we need, that stated that,
"It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock...the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors." (VEHEMENTER NOS, an Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906),
And as reported by one of your own,
...obedience must not limit itself to matters which touch the faith: its sphere is much more vast: it extends to all matters which the episcopal power embraces ...
when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed ; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents ; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey – that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority ; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope. (Pope Saint Pius X, Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union, November 18, 1912, as found at: (“Love the Pope! ” - http://christorchaos.com/?q=content/choosing-ignore-pope-leo-xiii-and-pope-saint-pius-x
Meanwhile, the reality is that what level teachings fall under as well as their meaning to varying degrees are subject to interpretation, and in which your reliance upon theologians and scholastics is contrary to your argument. For rather than the certainty RCs argue Rome provides them, theologians and scholastic very often disagree, as they did for centuries about the canon, and rather than heeding them, Rome decreed the Assumption despite the weight of the scholarly judgment being against it. And today Catholic scholarship provides testimony against RC propaganda .
The Catholic Church is indeed steeped in liturgical traditions that complement scripture especially of John in 21: 25
Which is more specious reasoning, as the simple fact that there is more than may be known, which under SS is acknowledged, in no way sanctions whatever is claimed to be part of this unwritten record.
Moreover, we know there is unrecorded info because of the written record, while the argument ignores the fact that John did not say or infer that amorphous oral tradition would supply this info, but to the contrary he directs us to the verifiable form of writing for salvific Truth.
And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. (John 20:30-31)
In reality, Catholicism is steeped in traditions of men not seen in Scripture, except sometimes by lost Jews or pagans.
From the color of vestments our priests wear during the liturgical year
Which is contrary to the Lord's admonition against ostentatious clothing used to bring esteem from the people, and love of titles ("reverend" itself is also wrong), as is distinctively giving presbuteros the title hiereus .
to the veneration of Mary, as the “full of grace,” the Mother of God;
Which means exalting the Mary of Catholicism as a demigoddess , thinking of mortals above that which is a written, (1Co. 4:6) and the the Holy Spirit does not write much about Mary (Paul and his labor of love gets the most press), nor is "full of grace" ever attributed here, but only to the Lord Jesus in Scripture , nor is Mary described as being uniquely holy, while the title "Mother of God" is never given her, and is misleading due to its unqualified use which naturally conveys ontological oneness of nature.
have found out after a lifetime of study and scholarship. Its heresy has been exposed long enough that there is nothing more to discuss.
What bloviating bombast, as the reality is that this is akin to the sneer of the blind learned chief priests and Pharisees in response to the judgment of common folk to the preaching of a certain itinerant Preacher:
Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him? But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed. (John 7:47-49)
If Bible Christians really, really want to save their souls, then follow the example of Ulf Ekman,
Who, contrary to your traditionalist V2 dissident RC sect, said, "We have tried to explain to our friends that we are not rejecting that which God gave us in our Evangelical and Charismatic environment" (http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2014/08/13/how-i-moved-from-my-megachurch-to-catholicism) but seeks to adds to it the bloat of Catholicism not seen and contrary to Scripture. Which requires believers to come out from such an unholy amalgam as Catholicism and liberal Protestantism. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14) Why follow a minor multitude on the broad road that leads to damnation? "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil," (Exodus 23:2) Meanwhile, "The church, known for advocating unity, replaced Ulf Ekman with Joakim Lundqvist and saw attendance increase by 20 percent." "We're an evangelical charismatic church, we have always been and we will stay that way." http://www.charismanews.com/world/48734-the-surprising-truth-of-where-ulf-ekman-s-former-church-is-now
Indeed "there is nothing more to discuss" for you and which you avoid, since for the record, polemical attempts to promote your fantasy of Rome, on this thread alone, continue to result, again and again and again and again and again in the specious sophistical nature of them being exposed by the grace of God, for multitudes to see . Want more?
Indeed the confusion of the early church with pagan religion is a work of Rome.
As Newman, one of the vaunted intellects that sees history as making one a Cath (if one exclude Scripture as being what all history must be judged by) admitted:
In a later age the worship of images was introduced [Note 11]. {371} 4. The principle of the distinction, by which these observances were pious in Christianity and superstitious in paganism, is implied in such passages of Tertullian, Lactantius, and others, as speak of evil spirits lurking under the pagan statues. It is intimated also by Origen, who, after saying that Scripture so strongly "forbids temples, altars, and images," that Christians are "ready to go to death, if necessary, rather than pollute their notion of the God of all by any such transgression," assigns as a reason "that, as far as possible, they might not fall into the notion that images were gods."
...the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of the educated class...
In the course of the fourth century two movements or developments spread over the face of Christendom, with a rapidity characteristic of the Church; the one ascetic, the other ritual or ceremonial. We are told in various ways by Eusebius [Note 16], that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made familiar to most of us.
The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison [Note 17], are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church. {374}
The introduction of Images was still later, and met with more opposition in the West than in the East. John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 8. Application of the Third Note of a True Development—Assimilative Power; http://www.newmanreader.org/works/development/chapter8.html
The practice of praying to departed saints and Mary was one that developed, helped by pagan influences, for Scripture provides no example of any believer praying to anyone in Heaven by the Lord, and reveals that doing otherwise was a practice of pagans, including to the “Queen of Heaven.” (Jer. 44:17,18,19,25). The Catholic Encyclopedia speculates that a further reinforcement of Marian devotion, “was derived from the cult of the angels, which, while pre-Christian in its origin, was heartily embraced by the faithful of the sub-Apostolic age. It seems to have been only as a sequel of some such development that men turned to implore the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. This at least is the common opinion among scholars, though it would perhaps be dangerous to speak too positively. Evidence regarding the popular practice of the early centuries is almost entirely lacking...,” (Catholic Encyclopedia > Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary) Yet, as expected, it imagines this practice came from the apostles and NT church, but which never exampled or instructed it, and instead showed that the believer has immediate access to God in the Divine Christ, (Heb. 10:19), who is the all sufficient and immediate intercessor between God (the Father) and man. (Heb. 2:17,18; 4:15,16) To the glory of God
Absolutely. Anyone with a modicum of respect for God’s word would not mock those who adhere to it.
I forgot the question
Might as well tell it like it is, huh CB? I know when I was in the RCC, I didn't either. I was more into tradition.
“
To the credit of Paul’s listeners, they never had that blinding ignorance to inquire from him “what” those traditions were, or to demand of him that he provide them a “list” of such traditions or insist that he “write” down these traditions.”
Obviously, they knew what the traditions were that Paul referred to.
YOU DON’T, or you would prove it.
YOU DIDN’T, so you don’t.
Why would someone appeal to the traditions of Paul when they know they have no idea what they were?
“Most definitely, they had the good sense to not display to him, as aMorePerfection has done here before, a “Where’s the Beef?” cartoon.”
YOU are not Paul. Paul didn’t misrepresent the truth.
As for you...
WHERE’S THE BEEF STEELFISH???
Why can’t you show a single piece of evidence???
Instead of bloviating endlessly, just post evidence... but of course, there is no evidence to support a falsehood.
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