Posted on 06/17/2009 9:48:34 AM PDT by NYer
Let’s make it clear - if you’re not part of the Apostolic Church, and protest against it, you’re a Protestant.
Well, you have at least one good point here.
The “BElieers” (whoever those are) are all connected to the Vatican and those other cultish groups.
The believers in Christ, on the other hand, are everywhere, worshipping in spirit and in truth, known by Christ, held by Christ, and clothed in His righteousness alone. If you are allowed, come away from that freakish pomposity of Rome. Step out into the light of Christ, if He permits.
Believers in Christ are in The Church. Outside, you have groups like Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses etc. who say they believe in Christ, but they don’t. Are you one of them?
There we have the poisonous rot of Calvinism, captured in one sentence (three words, actually).
You're suggesting Christ might not permit some to step into His light, that He might turn some away from salvation.
That's not Christ you're describing, that's some dark reflection of Christ conjured up by a twisted, very sick mind (that of Jean Cauvin).
Who put you in charge?
Predestination of the elect is a Catholic teaching (Rm 8:29f, Eph 1:4, Mt 25:34) and it does not contradict free will. Mt 25, in fact, makes it clear that the predestination is based on the good works that the elect choose to do and the reprobate choose not to do.
How?
Man uses free will to make a moral choice, that could be good or bad. For example, one might choose to give food to the hungry and the other might choose not to. That is the operation of the free will: people respond to the grace of God differently.
Man does not know what moral choice he or someone else might make, before he makes that choice. So, if predestination of the elect were a job for a man to do, he would not be able to do it without violating the free will of those he is tasked to predestine. This is where those who deny free will see the Catholic faith as a paradox. God, however, foreknows the free choice before the man makes it, because God exists outside of time. Thus the divine foreknowledge and with foreknowledge, divine predestination, operate with free will without any contradiction.
Is it becoming clearer?
At least Mormons have an excuse - they are told that even visiting another church or asking questions is very dangerous and could jeopardize their "salvation". They are afraid.
Catholics are free to do so but don't bother.
They use tactics of fear and control on their members. They both are political organizations. And they both have untold billions of dollars.
They both have a hirarchy of men in more layers of management and authority than the army.
At least the Mormons don't seem to require bowing to their clergy and kissing ther rings. I don't think they wear costumes either - maybe in the temple. Although there is that underwear thing.
Oh, and both offer a second chance at heaven if you miss the boat before you die.
My wife of 15 years was a practicing Baptist till the Easter before last. I visited her church with regularity, befriended her pastors, followed the Bible study courses she would purchase, and participated in group Bible studies with her. I know the bulk of the Protestant theology well. I discovered that the plain and natural reading of the entirety of the New Testament makes one Catholic, while in order to accomodate Protestant error isolated verses are pulled out of context, and inconvenient to Protestantism passages are ignored or contorted away.
Catholics have nothing to fear in the Protestant environment. If the Catholic knows the Holy Scripture and knows what his Church teaches, he will see through the Protestant obfuscation clearly.
Should we bother? We live in a majority Protestant (soon, and for that very reason, majority pagan) country. A cursory knowledge of Protestant beliefs should satisfy the curiosity and prepare one for the arrogant, semi-literate anti-Catholic proselytizing that is an unfortunate American staple. A few Protestant practices, however, we should be in a hurry to adopt, chief among them the love and the rigorous study of the Holy Scripture, and also the vibrant sense of community of believers often to be found in larger Protestant churches.
I've never heard anything so backward and turned around in my life. Catholics are the ones who pass around the set of biblical cliff notes called a misslette. Do you know that the bible is NOT one of the three approved things you may hold in your hands while receiving communion?
And I'm a pagan now? That's amusing to me because five or six posts ago I was informed that I was trapped in catholicism whether I wanted to be or not. I'm a pagan catholic?
misslette
I dont know that much about Catholic practice but most educated people know that a missal or missalette is a prayer book for their liturgy.
well, the Catholics educated me for 12 years. so go figure.
Catholics taught you, you claim, but it doesn't seem you learned very well.
The “look down the corridor of time” theory is not exclusively Catholic and has been used for centuries in an attempt to reconcile that troubling matter: Either God moves things toward a fixed end or there is genuine free will.
It seems this “corridor” concept allows for God actually knowing everything that will happen yet doesn’t fashion the “decision” for the persons in play. The great problem with this view is that it teaches precisely the same thing those outside of the Catholic view hold: God has to be controlling everything for the end to occur as He originally viewed it.
For example, if He looked down the corridor of time from 10 million years and saw that this morning you by your own free will chose green sox, you are saying this solves the dilemma of your free choice and his foreknowledge. But, if that 10 million years transpires and we got to this morning, for you to still be “free” you would have to be able to choose blue sox right at the last moment. If you couldn’t, then your choice would be fixed. If you could, then God’s foreknowledge is “contingent” upon you actually choosing what He saw.
Herein is the problem that the “corridor” view teaches the same thing as traditional predestination. However He accomplishes it, God would have to have the circumstance bring you to absolutely choose green or His foreknowledge might be errant. Since you don’t want that, it would require the choice “viewed” to be the only outcome possible. But, that implies an active management of all matters between then and now. Whether it feels good or not, whether you were “free” or not, the outcome is fixed.
We just don’t have a problem with God directing all things to bring you to choose green. We don’t find anything close to “free” will described in the Bible. On the contrary, we find it describe God as that sovereign, transcendent, manipulative God of love, power and control. Proverbs 21:1 1 The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD;
He (A)turns it wherever He wishes.
Catholics (and many Evangelicals) have a problem with this thinking it makes God the author of evil. Well, we are not sure whom you folks think “made” evil, but if anything exists in the universe, it has to have been made by God. Ex Nihilo creation doesn’t start with raw material and “re fashion” it into a universe.
But,we face right into it and say, “That’s what the Scripture teaches.” He causes all things good and evil, right & wrong. It’s ours to deal with.
But, thank you for at least dealing with the topic rather than running off and hollering, “We are right because we are right.” the way some do. And, you didn’t berate certain men that provided good scolastic information about this topic.
well, the Catholics educated me for 12 years. so go figure.
Didn’t take? Or did you not ever open up the book in question?
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