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Catholics Don't Believe You Can Earn Your Way to Heaven
Tradition | 03-06-2022 | CharlesOconnell

Posted on 03/06/2022 11:16:06 AM PST by CharlesOConnell

A man commits a serious crime, then he gets released. He has "paid his debt to society". But wait a minute, he's only ready for the half-way house. He's unlikely to get a prestigious job in his new prison suit coat, or any job at all; he has civil impediments, he can't vote or hold certain offices. His crime was serious enough that he won't be presumed to have been completely rehabilitated until he performs a notable service to society, or at least spends many years on the straight and narrow, so that his crime can be truly overlooked or forgotten.

In Catholic faith, your "debt to society" is paid by Jesus Christ on Calvary. It's called "eternal punishment", without Christ it keeps you from going to heaven. Supposing that you do take advantage of His sacrifice, you're truly sorry, have a firm purpose of amendment, if you relapse, you go again for forgiveness (to the Sacrament of Confession).

But your sin leaves a strong trace at another layer of impurity called "temporal punishment due to sin", like the civil impediments facing the half-way house prisoner. Because "nothing impure can enter heaven", there is a place or a state, a condition of purification to render you fit for heaven after Christ has finally saved you from hell. The Catholic Church calls it purgatory.

(Where is it in the bible? Where is the word Trinity in the bible? Where does it say that you only need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Many valid principles aren't stated explicitly in the bible, but it does say to "hold fast to the traditions you have learned, whether by word or by letter", because much of the Gospel wasn't written down, as Jesus only wrote in the sand, the majority of the Gospel was taught from word to ear to people who couldn't afford expensive books, the exceptions were what tended to get written down. But the implication that there is a purgatory, is contained in the bible--see the comments.)

The ex-con can receive a pardon or commutation of his probation from a Governor, if he performs some heroic deed, saving numerous lives, or, like Chuck Colson, performs a long-lasting, valuable community service helping numerous people who can't help themselves.

In the Catholic Church there are 2 ways for the residual, temporal effects due to sin to be expiated: suffering in this life, or after life, undergoing purifying suffering along with other people who will finally be saved, but have to suffer for long without the vision of God--that is what causes them their pain.

Their suffering isn't meritorious enough to grant their release, the saints in heaven and those on earth suffering and practicing virtue can pray for the suffering souls in purgatory. In no way is their release by slow transfer of suffering or practice of virtue, "buying heaven". It's a long, excruciating process.

How the misunderstanding arose that Catholics think they can buy their way into heaven, is involved with history more than 500 years old. For a millennium of Christendom between roughly 410 and 1410, there was a Medieval civilization with harmony between faith and government.

Many small farmers would cluster around the manor house of a military lord who would protect them, in exchange for a certain fixed obligation of labor and agricultural produce. In most cases, those "serfs" had much more leisure than factory workers of the industrial revolution; there were a large number of holy days without work, and except for planting and harvesting, there were long stretches of idle time.

Another large sector of the economy surrounded monasteries, where the monks developed most of the farming practices that stabilized the serfs and their manorial lords. The monks who worked those monastic lands were sworn to poverty, so that monasteries built up large accumulations of economic value over decades and centuries of labor.

At the beginning, when lands were being cleared and put into production there weren't prominent town fairs ruled by merchants and bankers. Money wasn't used for sustenance, not even much barter occurred, life was mostly agrarian.

Charity was woven into the economy of monasteries. It was estimated that you only need travel 12 miles in medieval England between monasteries, where you could get a meal and minimal lodging for free, based on need. And the charity was also spiritual, including the ancient Catholic principle of prayer for the dead, which is biblical. (See "prayer for the dead" in the original King James Bible in the comment.)

There were foundations and benefices for praying for the dead, that allowed a person of means to support monasteries' charitable works, and in proportional response the monks would pray for the souls of the donors.

It happened at the close of the middle ages, that militarily strong nobles cast their eyes on the labor value accumulated by the poverty-sworn monks of the monasteries, which those nobles perceived as monetary wealth, especially where gold and jewels had been donated by the devout to adorn churches.

(Protestant writer William Cobbett wrote in his 1824 "A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland", an anecdote, that an incredibly valuable, hand illustrated bible was stripped of it's bejeweled, gold cover, the much more valuable hand-illumined manuscript, thrown in the mud and trampled by horses hooves by raiders suppressing the monasteries in Henry VIII's England.)

A new religion growing up around this seizure of monastic lands and valuables, that sought to discredit the Catholic Church, spread the black legend that the "sale of indulgences" was abusive. But this was very exceptional. Today the stipend of a Mass said for the dead is $10.


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Religion & Culture; Theology
KEYWORDS: catholic; catholicbashing; cult; dontbelieve; indulgences; praytomary
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To: Luircin; imardmd1; metmom; MHGinTN; aMorePerfectUnion; boatbums

——>So in other words, we answered your questions, and you’re complaining that because it’s not the answer you wanted, we didn’t answer your question.

Again, no. I asked for the PENALTY for unrepentant, willful sin, NOT consequences. Why can’t you guys get your stories straight? Is it so difficult to point out what the PENALTY is for UNREPENTANT, WILLFUL SIN?

Bible College graduate BoatBums, metmom, mhgintn, ampu, and many others, CLEARLY say that there is/are PENALTIES for unrepentant, willful sin, and they do not include CONSEQUESCES. Imardmd1 should certainly be able to tell me, with his expertise in hermeneutics and all. He’s very eloquent in speech. You, not so much. Regardless, stop giving me excuses. What’s the answer? Biblically, what is the PENALTY for unrepentant sin? Go.


1,441 posted on 04/02/2022 11:40:10 AM PDT by Philsworld
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To: Luircin

——>Because it’s fun, mostly.

I know something that isn’t fun, and that is losing one’s salvation for believing Satan’s lies. You should look into that.


1,442 posted on 04/02/2022 11:42:19 AM PDT by Philsworld
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To: Philsworld

You losing your salvation if you ever had it should be YOUR worry.

But considering how eagerly you seem to be embracing hypocrisy, it apparently isn’t!


1,443 posted on 04/02/2022 11:44:39 AM PDT by Luircin
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To: Philsworld

Tl;dr: Hypocrisy at its finest, for free!


1,444 posted on 04/02/2022 11:45:43 AM PDT by Luircin
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To: metmom; Luircin; MHGinTN; aMorePerfectUnion; Elsie; Mark17

John 5:
16And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.

17But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.


1,445 posted on 04/02/2022 11:48:18 AM PDT by Philsworld
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To: Philsworld

Mmm, yum yum yum, tasty SDA hypocrisy with a delightful garnish of salty tears!


1,446 posted on 04/02/2022 11:54:45 AM PDT by Luircin
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To: Luircin; metmom; MHGinTN; aMorePerfectUnion; Elsie; Mark17

This is a clear as it gets. Absolute biblical proof that OSAS is false doctrine.

https://youtu.be/YERXa7KFjz4

https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/book/e/17/t/can-a-saved-man-choose-to-be-lost-


1,447 posted on 04/02/2022 12:28:54 PM PDT by Philsworld
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To: Philsworld; metmom; Mark17; MHGinTN; aMorePerfectUnion; Elsie

What d’you think are the odds on a hypocrisy meltdown by the end of the day?

Who brought the popcorn?


1,448 posted on 04/02/2022 12:37:42 PM PDT by Luircin
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To: Luircin; metmom; Mark17; MHGinTN; aMorePerfectUnion; Elsie

...then you are a believer in Gnosticism

But as to themselves, they hold that they shall be entirely and undoubtedly saved, not by means of conduct, but because they are spiritual by nature. For, just as it is impossible that material substance should partake of salvation (since, indeed, they maintain that it is incapable of receiving it), so again it is impossible that spiritual substance (by which they mean themselves) should ever come under the power of corruption, whatever the sort of actions in which they indulged. For even as gold, when submersed in filth, loses not on that account its beauty, but retains its own native qualities, the filth having no power to injure the gold, so they affirm that they cannot in any measure suffer hurt, or lose their spiritual substance, whatever the material actions in which they may be involved.

Wherefore also it comes to pass, that the “most perfect” among them addict themselves without fear to all those kinds of forbidden deeds of which the Scriptures assure us that “they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

And committing many other abominations and impieties, they run us down (who from the fear of God guard against sinning even in thought or word) as utterly contemptible and ignorant persons, while they highly exalt themselves, and claim to be perfect, and the elect seed. For they declare that we simply receive grace for use, wherefore also it will again be taken away from us; but that they themselves have grace as their own special possession, which has descended from above by means of an unspeakable and indescribable conjunction; and on this account more will be given them.

https://gewatkins.net/the-ancient-doctrine-of-once-saved-always-saved/


1,449 posted on 04/02/2022 1:03:08 PM PDT by Philsworld
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To: Luircin; metmom; Mark17; MHGinTN; aMorePerfectUnion; Elsie

https://gewatkins.net/the-ancient-doctrine-of-once-saved-always-saved/

Interestingly enough, this false doctrine has been around for quite a long time. In fact, early Christians had to deal with it in the 1st and 2nd centuries. During that period of time, there was a false doctrine known as Gnosticism. Of the Gnostics, one sect taught the doctrine of once saved, always saved. A Christian named Irenaeus lived during the 2nd century A.D. (130-202). He wrote a book titled, “Against Heresies” in which he called attention to this particular fact. In this work (Book I Chapter 6) he said the following regarding Gnostic teaching...


1,450 posted on 04/02/2022 1:06:52 PM PDT by Philsworld
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To: Luircin

Notice how the cultistt keeps putting my name in the ping? I do appreciate that since it saves me from accidentally reading into the heresies and effluent it posts. I just zip on past the cultist’s posts. Easy peasy.


1,451 posted on 04/02/2022 1:09:05 PM PDT by MHGinTN (A dispensation perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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To: Luircin

If the number of run-on sentences and rapid posting numbers is any indications, I’d say we are close to it. LOL Just lauch at it and move on, brother, it won’t be a pretty ‘pitcher’ as it pours forth the SDA spittlegeist.


1,452 posted on 04/02/2022 1:11:30 PM PDT by MHGinTN (A dispensation perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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To: MHGinTN

Just laugh at it and move on; works for me.


1,453 posted on 04/02/2022 1:12:55 PM PDT by MHGinTN (A dispensation perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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To: MHGinTN

That’s the plan.

I really should have known that this was all about the SDA ‘church services on Saturday’ obsession, not about any kind of actual attempts to preach the Gospel.


1,454 posted on 04/02/2022 1:27:47 PM PDT by Luircin
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To: Luircin

Cults do not preach the gospel because they a) don’t believe it, or b) don’t know it. In the case of our SDA representative the gospel has been twisted to include earning Grace after it is given.


1,455 posted on 04/02/2022 2:07:25 PM PDT by MHGinTN (A dispensation perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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To: Luircin

—> Mmm, yum yum yum, tasty SDA hypocrisy with a delightful garnish of salty tears!

Yet with a garnish of rage posting an angry obsession!


1,456 posted on 04/02/2022 2:17:07 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion (Fraud vitiates everything.)
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To: Luircin
I really should have known that this was all about the SDA ‘church services on Saturday’ obsession, not about any kind of actual attempts to preach the Gospel.

Why preach the gospel when your salvation doesn’t depend on it?

Cultists always focus on what their salvation depends on, be it Saturday worship, baptism, church membership, or eating Jesus.

1,457 posted on 04/02/2022 2:27:29 PM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith….)
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To: Philsworld
You don't need anyone else at all but yourself. Go the Hebrews 12:5-11, read it, and apply it as intended.

Acts 5:1-11 example.

1 Cor. 11:27-32 another.

1,458 posted on 04/02/2022 2:29:25 PM PDT by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux)
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To: metmom; aMorePerfectUnion; MHGinTN
It’s like blood in the water to them.

Maybe they see themselves in this. I don’t know what motivates cultists, but I think I see a lot of casting pearls before swine. After a cultist has been corrected about 47 times on one issue, one more correction won’t matter.
Several years ago, I went to Davao Adventist hospital, because of a dog bite. While getting treatment, one of the nurses asked if I wanted to attend services. I said no thanks, but I thought to myself, that I went there for medical treat. I wasn’t interested in hearing SDA propaganda. I never went back there again.

1,459 posted on 04/02/2022 2:52:57 PM PDT by Mark17 (Retired USAF air traffic controller. Father of a USAF pilot. USAF aviation runs in the family )
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To: MHGinTN; metmom; aMorePerfectUnion
Notice how the cultist keeps putting my name in the ping?

Same here bro. I don’t care if I get pinged or not, since I generally don’t read the cultist’s posts anyway, He rarely says anything I agree with. As I said in a previous post, I am not even remotely interested in SDA propaganda. 😀😃😊🤗😂👍

1,460 posted on 04/02/2022 3:15:50 PM PDT by Mark17 (Retired USAF air traffic controller. Father of a USAF pilot. USAF aviation runs in the family )
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