Posted on 11/09/2006 8:44:45 AM PST by policyforever867
The Holy Trinity
I'm not referring to the Old Testament.
You just stated the false dilemma yourself!
The "binding and loosing power of the church" is declared, taught, and defined ... where ... in Scripture! You're apparently trying to claim that the application of an authority given the apostles and their successors by Christ himself which grant is itself recorded in the Bible !!! is unbiblical !?!?
Is the book of Deuteronomy Biblical? I ask because most of it is legislation defined by Moses (who isn't God, remember) for the children of Israel, wherein Moses acts by authority delegated him by God. What is the difference between that, and the Apostles legislating for the church of God according to the authority given them in Christ?
Let me ask you a question. Do you keep kosher? Why not? Who told you that you didn't need to? "It's in the Bible, in Acts," you respond. Very well, do you believe it because it's written down in Acts, or do you believe it because the Apostolic church did it, whether or not it's in Acts? And if you believe it only because it's written down in Acts, then who told you that Acts belongs in the Bible?
We know when this "apostasy" was decreed because we have the testimony of a man who himself knew the Apostles as personal friends, and who died the arena in AD 110, that Sunday worship was generally accepted Christian practice in his day.
We also have a number of other patristic sources which testify to Sunday worship, centuries before Constantine.
Christianity was illegal, you'll recall, before Constantine. There could be no civil law to enforce any aspect of Christian observance before Constantine, so the enactment of a civil law during his reign proves nothing about Christian practice before him.
That is an ad hominem.
This is what I mean with the word "maleable".
Oh, ok. I thought you meant that the dogmas of the Church change. If you only meant that you can't refute Catholic theology, than I don't disagree.
This is also why the statements on sins like homosexuality by the pontiff are so incredibly long and in need of interpretation. The system is self propagating so that it can mean many things - thus "universal".
That's not true. The statements are the length they are in order to be thorough and careful, not to mean anything to anybody.
When was it deemed appropriate to sell indulgences?
If I'm understanding the sense of your use of "deemed", then the answer is never; the selling of indulgences was never a dogma of the Church.
When was it deemed sacramental to confess one's sins to a clergyman?
That was taught by the Apostles.
When was it decreed that the clergy be celibate?
At the First Council of Nicea.
When was the first "holy day of obligation" kept?
Probably on the Easter the year after Jesus rose from the dead.
When was the first Christmas?
The first Christmas was the day Jesus was born. But surely Christmas was celebrated every year thereafter by Mary and Joseph, until their deaths.
When was it OK to bow and pray to a statue and when was it not?
Never. Catholics don't pray to statues.
All of these things have a starting point long after the close of scripture.
The Church is a living organism. It grows not only in size, but in understanding. The Church is not a static, dead, frozen object. As she grows in her understanding, she clarifies and brings forth new understanding of received doctrine. The bishops have the authority to set forth further dogma, but never to remove existing dogma. But certain practices are not dogma. And these can be added or removed at the behest of the bishops.
There have been many changes in your system of worship, of this there is no doubt.
Many changes, but also much continuity.
Since it was proven in my last post that the Catholic church willfully breaks a commandment of God, I can only deduce that scripture has no value to you.
I missed where you *proved" that. Jesus, being God, instituted a New Covenant. The New Covenant supercedes the Old Covenant. Saturday worship was superceded in the New Covenant, and transformed into Sunday worship. Superceding a command is not equivalent to "breaking" a command.
What is the deal with you and three co-equal brances? This is a religion thread with absolutes, not a constitutional thread. If you guys have no standard and just go with what the guy at the top says, then why don't you just say that?
Sorry to disappoint you, but I will only say what I believe to be true. They are three equal authorities, but each in a different mode that complements the other two.
In what year was it deemed by the chuch at Rome that Mary had ascended?
From what I remember, the church at Rome learned of this from the bishop of Jerusalem in the fourth or fifth century. I'd have to look it up.
At what point in history was it deemed appropriate, or even sacramental, for Mary to be prayed to?
I'm not sure what you mean by "sacramental" here. Praying to Mary has never been one of the seven sacraments. It has been deemed appropriate to pray to Mary since as early in Mary's childhood as she could understand prayer requests.
Did the apostles do this?
I don't know.
Which ECF insituted this practice?
From what I understand, the practice preceded any formal "institution" of the practice.
-A8
See #118. Sorry about the spelling. lol. A person is identified by their self. The self is singular and is common to all 3. A body itself is not an individual w/o the self. It is simply a body, a machine that supports and enables the functions and holdings of self. The self of God is called the Holy Spirit, common to both the Father and Son. The body is the machine that supports the self in this world. The soul is what supports the self elsewhere. The Father is the Soul of Jesus. It is the same with man, as it is with God, as per Gen 1.
"You must be God too then since Jesus prayed that all beleivers would become one with him and the father."
The oneness is that every individual self would have the understanding, wisdom and values of God, and that there decisions would be the same as if God made them. That is the what God's intent was when He came to teach. Jesus Himself had to learn and make decisions as a man to create a subset of self, that was identical to the Holy Spirit. Some things were never taught and given to Him, as He said. What was given, enabled His decisions and values to be the same. God's teaching enables one to approach that. What an individual does is up to him.
The right hand man
The only one that can truly be your right hand man is yourself. The self of Jesus was that subset of the self of the Father, that fully lived and developed from scratch as a man. It is the same with your self. You are the right hand man of your soul. The self you develop is the self of your soul and you decide where that soul will reside as an eternal life. Your self developed here will be a subset of the self developed after passing from this world.
It would probably save a lot of time if we left behind the pretense of discussion and just started hurling veiled insults at each other. It's not that I've got a problem with what you said and what I quoted above. (If I said I understood ANY of this, the angels would laugh at me.) It's just that these conversations on FR so often start as gratuitously adversarial and end up as simply gratuitous. I'm as guilty as any and worse than many.
I think nibbling at the edges of Trinitarian theology has to take place while one also tries to take bites out of Christology (One person? Two natures? Can I take "huh?" for $500 Alec?). If, as seems almost impossible here, one stipulates, for the sake of polite conversation and broadening of the intellect, that the "Fathers" were sincere, pious, thoughtful guys trying to find a way to articulate the mystery which they thought was worth dying for, one appreciates the problem and their efforts, at least a little.
I find it helpful to look at what one has to say if one does NOT say "Trinity". If Jesus is God, somehow, but He is NOT the Father, and the Father is God, then does God come in chunks, is He crunchy, not smooth? Was the Creation without a helmsman on Holy Saturday, and the angels looking at their watches and wondering when He was coming back? Was the Father crucified? Like that. Amd, incomprehensible as it is, they concluded (and I agree, as if that mattered) that you get in worse trouble if you don't say "Trinity".
And if a Non-Christian says,"You silly (catholic) Christians: look at the contortions you put yourselves in because of your bizarre religion," I think we have to smile ruefully and say, "Well, yeah, but I still believe what I do not understand. I never expected to understand God anyway." I don't understand my wife, and will I think I'm going to understand God? I may be stupid, most certainly AM stupid, but I'm not totally wacked out, not yet.
As I failed to say before, the first thing to say, I think, is that God is WAY more unlike anything else than He is Like it. Consequently every proposition one makes about Him is wronger than it is right. This is not a linguistic proposition. Whatever language - Adoshem ehad or Unum Deum makes no difference.
What this means to me is that if I say, as would seem uncontroverial, "God is Love", I have to say immediately, "Of course, I have only the tiniest clue what Love is, and even then, MY human, creaturely experience of Love is so limited and provisional, (and besides, my wife says I don't understand it anyway, and she's the expert ...) that I only dare make the proposition because St. John made it first."
So, as I say, if one can say, "God is One," I think we can expect that He's not going to be "one" like anything else that we ever called "one" was "one", and even so seemingly simple a propostiion will be full of surprises.
What does "one" mean anyway? Ever read Euclid's definition? If you understand it, get back to me, okay?
My observation was not linguistic. It's about the epistemological problem (I think that's where I'd put it) of talking about God, when God is moee UNLIKE anything else than LIKE anything else. Even to say "God exists" is problematic, because being the source of all existence, His existence is unlike any other kind of existence.
I trust I make myself obscure.
Yes, you simply say scripture is __________ to me.
In other words, I think a beginning to an answer was offered and your rejection of it was, well, hard to understand. Or maybe I didn't understand it.
This is a discussion where precision will matter, I think. Maybe it would help if you said what you meant by the value of Scripture. What sorts of value might it have? Of course, if the real purpose of the question is so that you can pounce on something or somebody and say, "See THERE? They ARE vicious apostates!" why don't you just go on ahead without me, okay?
It's also interesting and a matter of concern to me that the thread was started with a query about what the doctrine of the Trinity is. Whether it's a good doctrine, whether it's scripturally based, whether Catholics are a bunch of self-deluding and apostatic idolaters --- all these are different questions. I wonder if the original poster thinks the question was addressed. So much easier and more efficient to condemn something without taking the time to understand it.
It's like talking to atheists. They almost always start out by saying that they just want to understand and then end up by saying the If there is a God he's a jerk and they hate him and all those who believe in HIM are stupid, but I never feel like we agreed on who or what it is I so stupidly worship.
Similarly, some guy asks a question about the Trinity and, look out, here comes a bunch of people to say that Catholics and anybody who thinks for more than 5 seconds in a row about the doctrine, whatever it is, are just plain old doody-heads.
Whose mind will be changed, or even informed, by that kind of thing, I wonder. Excuse me, I have to go back to worshiping idols, burning heretics, selling indulgences and making up new burdens to bind on the people's backs now.
John 17:
11 And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
20 "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word,
21 that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
The original poster is a troll.
My original post mentions nothing about Catholicism.
Catholicism wasn't brought up in my conversation until A8 mentioned it at 102.
My questioning about the value of scripture was obscured by the respondents, not me. None of these respondents will answer the question, so I re-worded it. Still nothing.
This is a discussion where precision will matter, I think. Maybe it would help if you said what you meant by the value of Scripture. What sorts of value might it have? Of course, if the real purpose of the question is so that you can pounce on something or somebody and say, "See THERE? They ARE vicious apostates!" why don't you just go on ahead without me, okay?
Yes, precision matters, but it is a two way street. Until A8 or Campion tell me what the basis of their faith is, then I am at a loss to be able to debate them. My query on the origin of Sunday worship is a direct indicator of what the basis is for one's faith. I hold to the Biblical standard for doctrine as outlined in Deut 13:1, Isa 8:20, and 2 Ti 3:16. Those who believe that Mat 16:18 grants unmitigated power to one man whom they believe founded the Church at Rome and has passed this power down through the ages and all doctrine flows from this power should be proud to say so. To debate the scriptural validity of a doctrine with those who hold to this belief is an exercise in futility. I have no compunction publishing what I believe here for all the world to believe. If my opponents would oblige and reciprocate, then there would be a basis for debate. Until then, it is just an exercise to get me to type a lot to placate the literary sensibilities of a few.
I have a lot going on here at home and won't have a lot of time to dedicate to the thread, so take your time in responding.
FRegards, Chris
Maybe we don't want to debate you. I didn't come here to win or lose an argument, did you? I came here to take another look at the problem of expressing the doctrine. Why should your agenda triumph (and how do you KNOW the poster is a troll?)
Can you see how some of us might think (rightly or wrongly) that was a tendentious and needlessly confrontative over-simplification of the question which would lead to a false oppostion?
Somebody asks me, "Do you love or hate your teenager?" I want to say, "Well, it's not so simple ......"
If you add to yhour discourse suggestions about whether I worship idols or St Augustine or things of that kind, I'm going to be tempted to think that EITHER you are tyring to provoke a fight OR you don't know much about Catholicism.
If I subconsciously believe something, why then it's NOT conscious (tautology alert!) and you are going to have to get me to where I can see that that's what I believe before your objections to it will make sense to me.
Do you have a point?
I don't understand your question about the value of Scripture, in part because I don't know what kind of answer you are looking for. I already told you that Scriptural is "immensely valuable", but you didn't like that. Do you want a number between 1 and 10? A dollar amount?
Until A8 or Campion tell me what the basis of their faith is,
I already told you in #102.
-A8
I am here to debate the scriptural validity of doctrine, not people. This is very hard to do if you don't know upon what your opponent's doctrine is based. If someone wants to defend the Trinity from scripture, but they don't hold scripture to be the final arbiter of doctrine, then what's the point?
Where in Scripture is 'sola scriptura' taught?
-A8
From 102 - I don't have to, because I do not hold to 'sola scriptura'.
As St. Augustine said, "For my part, I would not believe the Gospel except on the authority of the Catholic Church."
Are you saying the authority of the church at Rome trumps the Word of God? Because here you say they are equal:
From 109 - You are viewing the three-fold authority (Magisterium, Scripture, Tradition) as if they are necessarily *hierarchically* related. But they are not hierarchically related. They are three equal authorities, but each in a different mode that complements the other two.
And here you say scripture is the Word of God:
From 105 - I don't *put* any value on Scripture. It already *has* value, being the Word of God.
But the word of God says the 7th day is the Sabbath, and Rome abolished that and moved it to the first day without a shred of scripture to base it upon. So does the church at Rome trump scripture, thus trumping the Word of God?
It was never a dogma of the Church that Sunday was not to be sanctified, or that some day instead of Sunday was to be sanctified. So the claim about Sunday worship is not an instance of the Church changing a dogma.
This is precisely my point. The church at Rome did not have primacy for hundreds of years after the close of scipture. Jesus, the author of the Law, sanctifies the Sabbath, but Rome sanctifies Sunday in direct contradiction of the Law of God. So, if you believe that Rome has this power, then it simply does not matter if the doctrine of the trinity is scriptural or not.
I do wish you would quit using the language of those who crucified Christ.
Scripture only isn't what the Bible says. The Bible says that new ideas cannot contradict scripture.
Isa 8:20 To the Law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this Word, it is because no light is in them.
Deu 13:1 If a prophet rises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder, Deu 13:2 and the sign or the wonder which he foretold to you occurs, saying, Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them, Deu 13:3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For Jehovah your God is testing you to know whether you love Jehovah your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Deu 13:4 You shall walk after Jehovah your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments, and obey His voice, and you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. Deu 13:5 And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken to turn you away from Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slaves, to thrust you out of the way in which Jehovah your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put the evil away from the midst of you.
2Ti 3:14 But continue in the things that you have learned and have been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 2Ti 3:15 and that from a babe you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 2Ti 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 2Ti 3:17 that the man of God may be perfected, thoroughly furnished to every good work.
Act 17:11 And these were more noble than those of Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily to see if those things were so.
Mat 15:9 But in vain they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."
No. But the authority of the Sacred Magisterium entails that the Sacred Magisterium's interpretation of Scripture trump's your interpretation of Scripture everytime.
And here you say scripture is the Word of God:
Yes.
But the word of God says the 7th day is the Sabbath, and Rome abolished that and moved it to the first day without a shred of scripture to base it upon. So does the church at Rome trump scripture, thus trumping the Word of God?
First, see above. Second, I already explained this with respect to the "New Covenant" in post #124.
This is precisely my point. The church at Rome did not have primacy for hundreds of years after the close of scipture.
False. Read the fathers.
Jesus, the author of the Law, sanctifies the Sabbath, but Rome sanctifies Sunday in direct contradiction of the Law of God.
See above.
So, if you believe that Rome has this power, then it simply does not matter if the doctrine of the trinity is scriptural or not.
If Rome has this authority and power, and if Rome says that Sunday is the holy day, then Sunday is the holy day.
-A8
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