Posted on 09/06/2007 3:27:02 PM PDT by annalex
Thank you for your comments on this series and your company.
It really comes down to what the Bible says.
The Catholic church does not have the corner on the truth.
Sure she does, she is the pillar and foundation of it.
Bookmark. Thanks for posting.
“Sure she does, she is the pillar and foundation of it.”
Ummmm, I do believe that would be JESUS CHRIST as the foundation of the church.
Truth exists elsewhere, but the fullness of truth that God has revealed to man is found within the teachings of the Catholic Church. Vatican 2 stated that in Lumen Gentium.
Regards
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part VI: The Biblical Reality (Al Kresta)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part V: The Catholics and the Pope(Al Kresta)
The Hail Mary of a Protestant (A true story)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part IV: Crucifix and Altar(Al Kresta)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part III: Tradition and Church (Al Kresta)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part II: Doubts (Al Kresta)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part I: Darkness(Al Kresta)
Conversion Story - Matt Enloe (former Baptist) [prepare to be amazed!]
THE ORTHODOX REVIVAL IN RUSSIA
Conversion Story - David Finkelstein (former Jew)
Conversion Story - John Weidner (former Evangelical)
12 Reasons I Joined the Catholic Church
Conversion Story - Tom Hunt
The Tide Is Turning Toward Catholicism: The Converts
John Calvin Made Me Catholic
Journey Home - May 21 - Neil Babcox (former Presbyterian) - A minister encounters Mary
Going Catholic - Six journeys to Rome
My (Imminent) Reception into the Roman Catholic Church
From Calvinist to Catholic
A Convert's Pilgrimage [Christopher Cuddy]
From Pastor to Parishioner: My Love for Christ Led Me Home (to the Catholic Church) [Drake McCalister]
Lutheran professor of philosophy prepares to enter Catholic Church
Patty Bonds (former Baptist and sister of Dr. James White) to appear on The Journey Home - May 7
Pastor and Flock Become Catholics
Famous Homosexual Italian Author Returned to the Church Before Dying of AIDS
Dr. Francis Beckwith Returns To Full Communion With The Church
Catholic Converts - Stephen K. Ray (former Evangelical)
Catholic Converts - Malcolm Muggeridge
Catholic Converts - Richard John Neuhaus
Catholic Converts - Avery Cardinal Dulles
Catholic Converts - Israel (Eugenio) Zolli - Chief Rabbi of Rome
Catholic Converts - Robert H. Bork , American Jurist (Catholic Caucus)
Catholic Converts - Marcus Grodi
Why Converts Choose Catholicism
Journey Home - May 21 - Neil Babcox (former Presbyterian) - A minister encounters Mary
Going Catholic - Six journeys to Rome
My (Imminent) Reception into the Roman Catholic Church
From Calvinist to Catholic
A Convert's Pilgrimage [Christopher Cuddy]
From Pastor to Parishioner: My Love for Christ Led Me Home (to the Catholic Church) [Drake McCalister]
Lutheran professor of philosophy prepares to enter Catholic Church
Patty Bonds (former Baptist and sister of Dr. James White) to appear on The Journey Home - May 7
Pastor and Flock Become Catholics
The journey back - Dr. Beckwith explains his reasons for returning to the Catholic Church
Famous Homosexual Italian Author Returned to the Church Before Dying of AIDS
Dr. Francis Beckwith Returns To Full Communion With The Church
Catholic Converts - Stephen K. Ray (former Evangelical)
Catholic Converts - Malcolm Muggeridge
Catholic Converts - Richard John Neuhaus
Catholic Converts - Avery Cardinal Dulles
Catholic Converts - Israel (Eugenio) Zolli - Chief Rabbi of Rome
Catholic Converts - Robert H. Bork , American Jurist (Catholic Caucus)
Catholic Converts - Marcus Grodi
Why Converts Choose Catholicism
How I led Catholics Out of the Church [Steve Wood]
The Scott Hahn Conversion Story
FORMER PENTECOSTAL RELATES MIRACLE THAT OCCURRED WITH THE PRECIOUS BLOOD
The original question is concerning the truth in relation to the Church, and I was quoting 1 Timothy 3:15.
In some sense, I would entertain (B)(2). We do not have a corner on Jesus, we think Jesus has a corner on us. But maybe I don't know what you mean by having a corner. It's not that the other groups of professing Christians don't know anything at all. It's not that a two seed in the spirit baptized by fire, foot-washin', snake-handlin', poison drinkin' person is never going to receive the grace to repent and to believe the Gospel or that if he should do so Jesus will ignore him. We're not saying that. God is very generous with ALL of us.
But I do think that those who have preserved that pesky apostolic succession and intend the sacraments as they semper, ubique, et ab omnibus have been intended have what Benedict XVI calls "the means of grace".
I think anyone who witnessed the backing and forthing here on FR about what the Scriptures say would be hard pressed to say that without an authoritative "school", as you might say, of interpretation, the scriptures may be what it all comes down to, but agreement about what they say is hard to come by.
“If the point is that you need a visible display of unity for the work of evangelism to have lasting success, how can you have the Russians and the Greeks fighting with one another all the time?”
Huh? There is far far less theological disagreement between Russian and Greek Orthodox (in fact there is none)than between say Irish and French Roman Catholics, let alone between say Belgian and Polish ones. What is this person talking about?
“The laxity on divorce . . . I heard a saying recently that “your doctrine of ecclesiology will affect your doctrine of marriage, or vice versa.” If you believe in divorce, then you believe in the Reformation, because you believe that Christ will divorce part of His Body. If you believe that the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church, is indivisible, then you will believe that (among Christians, anyway) marriage is indivisible. There should be no divorce. And I think that the Orthodox are lax in that area.”
Well, the author is entitled to his own beliefs about Orthodoxy and the permissability of divorce. He is not entitled to his own version of history. The exercise of economia by hierarchs in allowing remarriage after divorce precedes the Reformation by at least 800 years. Similarly, he is not entitled to impose on Orthodoxy a distinctly Western and Roman understanding of the sacraments, marriage in particular. If he wants to say that he dismisses Orthodoxy because it doesn’t hold to Roman notions about the nature of marriage, he should simply say so.
“I think that they’re too ethnic - that’s probably due to a type of caesaropapism, and that their views of culture don’t seem to work out very well.”
What a thoroughly white bread remark this one is! Its pretty clear to me that the author didn’t grow up around immigrant Catholic communities, where the Irish, Polish, Italian, French, etc ethnicity of the parish counted for just as much as the “Greek” or “Russian” did in the Orthodox ones, maybe more!
Pretty sorry piece, Alex!
That is circular reasoning...the Catholic Church proclaims it is the only one who has the truth!
Regarding divorce, -- more accurately, he should be talking about remarriage after divorce and not divorce itself, -- he is coming from a Sola Scriptura worldview, and therefore the economia considerations, or historical considerations, would not be acceptable to him, while literal reading of Christ's teaching on remarriage would be very appealing.
I am sure one can defend the Orthodox positions on each count, but this is a personal conversion story, and these things were a factor for him.
The pillar and foundation of truth does not build mosques and kiss the Koran.
Build mosques?
And you would be right also. The Catholic Church, who canonized the Bible, is the pillar and foundation for the Body of Christ on Earth made up of His believers.
“And you would be right also. The Catholic Church, who canonized the Bible, is the pillar and foundation for the Body of Christ on Earth made up of His believers.”
So why are some believers excluded?
They are only excluded by their own choice. There is only one church, it is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. Non-Catholic Christians aren’t considered to have an inferior faith but they join themselves to organizations which cannot be Church because there is only one, established by Christ and protected by the Holy Spirit and it will prevail until the end of time.
Key elements of this for me include the attributing of Godly attributes and titles to the Pope, Marian dogmas, veneration of Saints, and the creation of a priesthood standing between God and man.
From a kind of distant, unattached perspective, two comments, the less important first:
(1)AS I think the article said, when a "protestant" (speaking loosely) group decides that this or that is a superstition, they fissiparate. Where there was one group, now there are two, each claiming the archaic mojo (if you'll excuse the technical language ...). In the Catholic Church, when somebody rubs the hierarchy's face in some superstition (as THEY, rather than somebody not a member of the this group, think) they rear back and inhibit or prohibit or suspend, or something.
As an example, there is currently in vogue a notion called "Fundamental Option" (developed, I think, to assuage the guilt of those who use artificial birth control despite the clear teaching not to do so) which states, more or less, that if you really intend by your act to show love for God and your neighbor, why then it's okay! This has been explicitly declared a no-no in Veritatis Splendor.
(I'm trying to ignore the uncomfortable reality that the proclaimers of this teaching went merrily on proclaiming it after that encyclical was published. At least in the case in which I was involved I could speak up and cite the encyclical and could sort of clean up after this particular heterodox but well-meaning deacon and 'splain to the victims of his teaching that it wasn't true.)
(2) Of course members of different groups will differ on what is superstition and what is orthodoxy. Basing my guess on your inclusion of "and the creation of a priesthood standing between God and man," in your list of superstitions, that you may not quite understand what we think of priests. And if that's so, maybe what you think we think about the others may also be a tad uncertain. I mean no offense.
But I think the writers point was not meant to go where you're taking it. Rather he was talking about what bodies do when members of those bodies believe things which the body itself, rather than some other body, think is unorthodox.
I agree the term "Protestant" is vague and equivocal. Unfortunately "Protestant" ecclesiology means that there can be no body to say authoritatively what the term means.
...human tradition ...
Just as a place marker, I want to note that "tradition" and "human tradition" do not certainly mean the same thing, or we would just say "tradition". There are, we think, some traditions which are not merely human.
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