Sadly,
more unmitigated
Vatican Cult
UNHISTORICAL
UNBIBLICAL
NONSENSE.
Posted on 10/31/2010 11:59:22 AM PDT by RnMomof7
Have gone through many periods where both sides of that have been by turns, right for me according to God’s leading.
I do think that as the END TIMES progress . . .
most authentic believers will end up in Holy Spirit arranged, associated groups, home groups primarily, imho, as authentic believers are driven underground in most areas.
I agree. As I watch most every organized church move towards accepting the “many ways to” attitude and mantra it’s becoming obvious to me that the personal relationship with Jesus is lacking in most organized religions.
Yup.
Thanks for the ping!
So we can assume you think you HAVE evolved to extraordinary maturity and honesty? There is plenty of objective truth concerning the reliability of the Bible, ignoring or minimizing it is hardly honest to me or mature.
Yes, I realize that different cultures created different deities and that each claims to be the "true one". I do think it takes certain amount of maturity and honesty to realize and admit that this is something man-made, and not made in heaven.
There is plenty of objective truth concerning the reliability of the Bible
Only on faith, and that's not objective, but subjective.
ignoring or minimizing it is hardly honest to me or mature.
It's not minimizing anything, but recognizing that man created his own religions.
Wow! Great testimony! Thanks for posting & pinging!
Wow! Great testimony! Thanks for posting & pinging!
Before they had the indwelling Holy Spirit.. that was a decision of the flesh not God..
There is never another mention of Matthias again in the NT.. instead we have a NT that is filled with the writings of the man GOD chose as an apostle..
The scripture you quote (acts 6) was one where the new church was seeking to quiet a complaint by the greek believers that there was a favoritism in the distribution of goods to the elderly and needy. This is not about selecting PASTORS but deacons
I much agree.
Thanks, RnMomof7. Your knowledge of the Scriptures is most helpful.
Not sure what you mean by "this" being man-made, but I will absolutely agree that ALL religions ARE man-made. The very word means to bind back, man's attempt to bind himself back. However, there is a creator, a first cause, and being that we are "intelligent" ourselves, we can conclude that this "creator" also is intelligent, none of the complexity we see around us came out of chaos, but was designed. I won't go into all the stuff I know you have probably already heard, but suffice it to say, greater minds than ours have delved into the great beyond and come back with a surety. This surety is that this intelligent creator did not just create and then vanish to other universes but created with purpose and created us with purpose and an intellect to seek out answers to why and who and what.
There is objective truth in the midst of subjective, but wisdom allows one to see it clearly. There is a God-way and it's NOT man-made. I sure hope you haven't decided you have reached the epitome of intellect and stop looking for the truth, because it IS there, waiting for you. Real honesty also includes the ability to recognize a wrong path may have been taken and that the road to true honesty was where you were already traveling. Don't rule it out. I wish you Godspeed.
The first cause argument is self-defeating, at least logically speaking.
and being that we are "intelligent" ourselves, we can conclude that this "creator" also is intelligent
That is a pure conjecture.
none of the complexity we see around us came out of chaos, but was designed.
The Big Bang would have been pretty chaotic.
greater minds than ours have delved into the great beyond and come back with a surety
No mind is perfect and no man can claim to know everything. Appeal to (select) authority does not prove a conjecture. Surety can go both ways, pro and con. Either way, one's own surety is still not a proof.
This surety is that this intelligent creator did not just create and then vanish to other universes but created with purpose and created us with purpose and an intellect to seek out answers to why and who and what.
Man-made religions have created many "sureties" including those that claim there is no purpose at all.
There is objective truth in the midst of subjective
Depends how you define them.
but wisdom allows one to see it clearly
Every sect or cult uses the same stupid argument.
There is a God-way and it's NOT man-made
As a matter of one's belief.
I sure hope you haven't decided you have reached the epitome of intellect
I can say the same about you.
and stop looking for the truth, because it IS there, waiting for you
In order for man to know the whole truth man would have to know everything there is to know.
Real honesty also includes the ability to recognize a wrong path may have been taken
Equally applicable to me and you. I do recognize that I can be wrong, but I am not sure you do. That's why I am an agnostic and you are a believer.
Don't rule it out
Ditto.
You are a serious poster, so it is a pleasure. But yes, I agree that a post in the beginning of a thread is worth much more in terms of its readership than when it is one of 7 thousand other posts. I will, in the spirit of letting this thread go, not dwell on your statements that repeat points already made and commented upon by me.
but extrapolating a perpetuated Petrine papacy and formulaic assured infallibility to that office is Rome's interpretation of [Matthew 16:18 and Luke 22:31-32.]
I would say it is the Church’s explanation. Catholics do not interpret, they explain. You are correct, however, in that the scripture rarely explains itself, especially on controversies brought up by the likes of Luther, the Anabaptists et al 1500 years later. The scripture is not the catechism; it is one job of the Church to provide the latter. Regarding the perpetuation of papacy, we have a scriptural evidence and a logical evidence. The scriptural evidence is the oft-repeated promise of Christ that He will not “leave us orphans” and that Divine advice will remain with the Church for ever (John 14:26); further it is precisely the Church built on Peter (in whatever precise allegorical sense) that shall prevail against “gates of hell”. Moreover, Peter himself promised to perpetuate his office:
[11] For so an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. [12] For which cause I will begin to put you always in remembrance of these things: though indeed you know them, and are confirmed in the present truth. [13] But I think it meet as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. [14] Being assured that the laying away of this my tabernacle is at hand, according as our Lord Jesus Christ also hath signified to me. [15] And I will endeavour, that you frequently have after my decease, whereby you may keep a memory of these things. [16] For we have not by following artificial fables, made known to you the power, and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ; but we were eyewitnesses of his greatness.Some here insisted that the use of “σκηνωμα” (“tent or “tabernacle”) somehow is a reference to St Peter’s body. I don’t know if you see through the absurdity of this interpretation, but in any event it is clear that St. Peter intended to perpetuate his role as a witness of Christ’s greatness through generations.(2 Peter 1)
The logical argument is twofold. First, it should be the guiding principle of the Church to use the Early Church such as the Holy Apostles set it up, as a model. So if the Early Church had St. Peter as prince of the Apostles, modern bishops should likewise have such prince. Hence the papacy at least in some form, -- and I will easily acknowledge that the precise nature of the papacy can be productively debated with the Orthodox who insist on a less centralized model. It is also consistent with the top-down social organization evedent in the ordination process that we glean form the letters to Timothy and Tutus.
Secondly, since Jesus wanted to “build the Church” somehow “on the rock of Peter”, it would be prudent for us of Christian faith to believe that He succeeded. While it is logically possible that in Christ’s physical absence the Catholic Church went into heresy or even apostasy, and the Protestant (or Mormon) successor did not emerge till centuries later, such hypothesis would have to postulate that in fact the promise of divine guidance failed to materialize for many generations of Christians.
Instead, the plain evidence of scripture suggests that the Church was meant to be hierarchical, of single doctrine, and sacramental, and to persist all the way to the Second Coming in unity across time and geography. It was meant to be the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
the stewardship=infallibility principle would require submission to the Jews
It is a matter of faith. For a Jew it would be logical to consider only the Old testament infallible as explained by the Rabbis, and for a Christian it would be logical to consider the Old Testament and the New Testament both infallible with the latter fulfilling the typology of the former and the Catholic Church explaining both.
Rome had no infallible canon until over 1400 years after the last book was penned
The so-called African Councils defined the scripture in that local late 4c council as Trent defined it a thousand years later; there was no Bible ever produced without the Deuterocanonical books till the Reformation. It is true that debate preceded the formation of the canon, but so is with any other doctrine of the Church: debate leads to consensus, and if the debate is no longer challenging the faith, no council determination is made, and the issue is considered settled. It is only when debate does not seem to naturally lead to consensus that a council is convened, and at times even an ecumenical Council. The issue of the canon was not debated after the African local councils, and so there was no need for an ecumenical council to fix things. Thus, a de-facto knowledge of the proper canon of scripture existed in the Church since early 4c, but since the Reformers decided to protest everything, Trent had to formulate things for the faithful Catholics. It is a frequent misunderstanding of the Protestants to equate conciliar or papal pronouncements as the beginning of a new doctrine, when the practice of the Church is to so fix a doctrine already fully understood on the grass roots level.
you deny that only the Scriptures are assuredly the word of God (which of course, is meant the formal sense)?
Yes, I do deny it. “he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever.” (John 14:16). That means that even after the Scripture is written and the canon is formed, the divine guidance continues, assuredly, in the Church. The magisterial teaching has disadvantages compared to the Holy Scripture as its origin is not from the immediate circle of the Apostles, but it has the advantage also, and that is that the Magisterium can speak on the issues of the day directly.
refusal of the Orthodox to ascribe the full primacy of the Pope in the Roman sense (despite their present degree of concession), as well as papal infallibility, Mary's IM, etc. is a problem with Rome.
It is a problem but it is not a doctrinal problem. With the Protestants we have a case of heresy: salvation by faith alone, authority of the written word alone, denial of the fullness of the sacraments, absence of valid priesthood or consecrated life. With the Orthodox we have issues of church administration such as papacy or universal validity of dogmas proclaimed in councils the Orthodox don’t consider ecumenical. Debate on theological issues is of course possible with the Orthodox (for example, our Thomism versus their Palamism), but it does not exceed the breadth of the debates inside the Western Church. It is, shall we say, a happy and sisterly debate.
[In response that were john Kerry to become a Baptist that would be for him a step toward spiritual death, the same step former Catholics who are now Protestants have made] :you sound increasingly like a sedevacantist, who reject post Vatican Two changes (and i think they have some historical warrant), in which baptized Prots are overall regarded a separated brethren,
A sedevacantist is someone who does not think we have a valid pope in the person of the present Pope, and I am of course no sedevacantist. I am especially fond of the Holy Father Benedict, who I think is among this century greatest. I am critical of the Vatican II as are very many conservative and faithful to the Pope Catholics. However, you are reading the “separated brethren” language too self-servingly. The distinction needs to be made, and is invariably made, also after Vatican II, between the incomplete faith of the Protestant who grew up in the Protestant environment absorbing its limitations, and the grave error of the Catholics who fall away. The latter is a step toward a spiritual suicide which they should hurry to reverse.
loyalty to a particular church
It is loyalty to Christ, Who built just one Church, mine.
A group of men in dresses sitting in Jerusalem would differ from you:
Are you saying that Scriptures show that the appointing of an Apostle is incorrect? What about doubting Thomas? He disappears, right? However, it turns out that he evangelized much of the east coast of India? Should we dismiss him because he does not appear in the Bible after the Gospels?
The scripture you quote (acts 6) was one where the new church was seeking to quiet a complaint by the greek believers that there was a favoritism in the distribution of goods to the elderly and needy. This is not about selecting PASTORS but deacons
I thought that I quoted a whole lot more than Acts 6. And it was about priests, not just deacons.
Yes, and it also described what a condemned person doesn’t do, just like Matthew 25:31-46. In other words, we are saved or condemned by what we do. Your grasp of this issue is actually close to Catholic, or possible entirely Catholic, but your reading of the Scripture is infected by typical Protestant exegesis, necessary to cram the silly slogan of “faith alone” into your sound belief.
when Rm. 4 contrasts Abraham being justified by works before he was circumcised or under the law, you insist this only means works of the law being disallowed, such as circumcision and works done for social recognition, when again, in reality it is part of his contrast between works morally meriting justification, as under the law, versus faith procuring it, in which he clearly states the latter is counted for righteousness.
When you say “works morally meriting justification” is it necessary to point out which works. But the context shows only works of circumcision, a ritualistic work bringing no one any good. So it is I who reads Romans 4 in its proper context.
if you have man doing works meriting justification which he could boast of but does not, and if your criteria (as stated in other responses) for such salvific works are works of love by one who imitates Christ, then you have souls doing Christian works of love in imitation of Christ before they are justified, in order to be justified!
Justification is a process, not a single event. If a Pagan does works in imitation of Christ without a formal faith in Christ then that is the salvific work of Christ done in him, -- his justification has begun.
That Clement exhorts them to works, just as those who hold to sola fide do
Yes, the Protestant communities of faith do exhort their flock to good works. The difference is that authentic churches do so without telling them at the same time that they are not saved by them.
no man has the ability to do works which would morally merit justification
Of course one can. Matthews 25:31-46 say so. The rub is that the meriting is according to the sovereign will of Christ Who gave us the grace to be saved by out works.
It’s standard for him — he will never answer a straight question. It’s what the PCA/OPC guys are taught to do,
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.