Jehovah’s Witness Convert

http://www.abouttherosary.com ^ | September 20, 2014 | Robbe Lyn Sebesta

[LurkingSince'98]

So all of our Catholic Curches for the last twenty centuries are invisible?

[LurkingSince'98]

That was a special and distinctly different answer.

Love it.

Ad Majoram Dei Gloriam

[LurkingSince'98]

To: Iscool The Ante-Nicene Fathers affirmed Christ’s deity and spoke of “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”, even though their language is not that of the traditional doctrine as formalised in the fourth century. Trinitarians view these as elements of the codified doctrine.[25] Ignatius of Antioch provides early support for the Trinity around 110,[26] exhorting obedience to “Christ, and to the Father, and to the Spirit”.[27] Justin Martyr (AD 100–c. 165) also writes, “in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit”.[28] The first of the early church fathers to be recorded using the word “Trinity” was Theophilus of Antioch writing in the late 2nd century. He defines the Trinity as God, His Word (Logos) and His Wisdom (Sophia)[29] in the context of a discussion of the first three days of creation. The first defence of the doctrine of the Trinity was in the early 3rd century by the early church father Tertullian. He explicitly defined the Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and defended the Trinitarian theology against the “Praxean” heresy.[30]

Another early, and already more philosophic, formulation of the Trinity (again without usage of that term) is attributed to the Gnostic teacher Valentinus (lived c.100 – c.160), who according to the fourth century theologian Marcellus of Ancyra, was “the first to devise the notion of three subsistent entities (hypostases), in a work that he entitled On the Three Natures”. The highly allegorical exegesis of the Valentinian school inclined it to interpret the relevant scriptural passages as affirming a Divinity that, in some manner, is threefold. The Valentinian Gospel of Phillip, which dates to approximately the time of Tertullian, upholds the Trinitarian formula. Whatever his influence on the later fully formed doctrine may have been, however, Valentinus’ school is rejected as heretical by orthodox Christians.

Although there is much debate as to whether the beliefs of the Apostles were merely articulated and explained in the Trinitarian Creeds,[31] or were corrupted and replaced with new beliefs,[32][33] all scholars recognize that the Creeds themselves were created in reaction to disagreements over the nature of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These controversies, however, were great and many, and took some centuries to be resolved.

Of these controversies, the most significant developments were articulated in the first four centuries by the Church Fathers[31] in reaction to Adoptionism, Sabellianism, and Arianism. Adoptionism was the belief that Jesus was an ordinary man, born of Joseph and Mary, who became the Christ and Son of God at his baptism. In 269, the Synods of Antioch condemned Paul of Samosata for his Adoptionist theology, and also condemned the term homoousios (ὁμοούσιος, “of the same being”) in the sense he used it.[34]

Sabellianism taught that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are essentially one and the same, the difference being simply verbal, describing different aspects or roles of a single being.[35] For this view Sabellius was excommunicated for heresy in Rome c. 220.

In the fourth century, Arianism, as traditionally understood,[note 1] taught that the Father existed prior to the Son who was not, by nature, God but rather a changeable creature who was granted the dignity of becoming “Son of God”.[36] In 325, the Council of Nicaea adopted the Nicene Creed which described Christ as “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father”.[37] [38] The creed used the term homoousios (of one substance) to define the relationship between the Father and the Son. After more than fifty years of debate, homoousios was recognised as the hallmark of orthodoxy, and was further developed into the formula of “three persons, one being”.

Athanasius, who was present at the Council as one of the Bishop of Alexandria’s assistants, stated that the bishops were forced to use this terminology, which is not found in Scripture, because the biblical phrases that they would have preferred to use were claimed by the Arians to be capable of being interpreted in what the bishops considered to be a heretical sense.[39] Moreover, the meanings of “ousia” and “hypostasis” overlapped then, so that “hypostasis” for some meant “essence” and for others “person”. Athanasius of Alexandria (293–373) helped to separate the terms.[40]

The Confession of the Council of Nicaea said little about the Holy Spirit.[41] The doctrine of the divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit was developed by Athanasius in the last decades of his life.[42] He defended and refined the Nicene formula.[41] By the end of the 4th century, under the leadership of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus (the Cappadocian Fathers), the doctrine had reached substantially its current form.[41]

For the Greater Glory of God

[LurkingSince'98]

You mean that for almost two thousand years the Catholic Church has been establishing Churches, baptizing pagans, hearing confessions, marrying couples, ordaining priests and anointing the sick and excocising demons without biblical authority??? Who knew?

Guy You really need to devote the rest of your life to convincing the two billion Catholics that they’ve got it all wrong.....

Remember it’s for the children.

AMDG

[caww]

...”convincing the two billion Catholics that they’ve got it all wrong.....

“Narrow is the gate”...not wide...”and “few” who find it”...... Should be enough to convince catholics take a second look at just exactly what they’re doing and practicing.

[caww]

...”Catholics claim that the God they worship is the same Christ-less God of the muzlims, Mormons and JWs”....

CCC 841, quoting the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium 16, from Vatican II, declared:

The plan of salvation also ‘includes’ those who acknowledge the Creator, in the ‘first place’ amongst whom are the Muslims;...... these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.

[caww]

Pope Francis said....”Whether we worship at a church, a synagogue, a mosque or a mandir, it does not matter. Whether we call God, Jesus, Adonai, Allah or Krishna, we all worship ‘the same God’.

....the Pope claimed .....”All religions are true, because they are true in the hearts of all those who believe in them.”

[caww]

and here was his address where he claimed Muslims worhip the same God.

http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-s-address-to-representatives-of-the-churches-ecclesial-communities-and-other-religions

[BlackElk]

I am a Roman Catholic and we are taught that God is omnipresent: i.e. He is everywhere. He is specially present, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist, however. John 6: 53. You are not insane nor are you mentally unbalanced. God bless you and yours!

[LurkingSince'98]

Christ said, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink Bis Blood you will not have life in you.

May you could explain how you protestants obey that very direct command of Christ.

Just maybe it you who have been looking for Christ in all the wrong places,

AMDG

[PieterCasparzen]

To say Christ’s sacrifice on the cross has to be repeated is nonsensical not to mention against Scripture.

Saying the bread and wine mystically become his actual flesh and blood worked well to keep superstitious peasants in the middle ages, who were not permitted to read the Bible, under control.

Superstition pervades RCC doctrine and practice.

[Not gonna take it anymore]

“Were I to disregard that inspired instruction, and abandon that practice, I’d be as guilty as those who substitute their own traditions for those found in the Bible. So as a member of a church following the example Jesus’ apostles set, I join in assembling on the first day of the week.”

So we get that you are not SDA. Which sect is it? We know it’s not biblical, nor apostolic, and we certainly know it’s not Catholic.

Would you give us a better hint?

[af_vet_1981]

And the conclusion is: "So there is no holy, visible, catholic Church in the Bible, or commended by it." Deal with that, eh? You need a mother.

Wendy: Where do you live? 
Peter: Second to the right, and then straight on till morning. 
Wendy: They put that on the letters? 
Peter: Don't get any letters. 
Wendy: But your mother gets letters. 
Peter: Don't have a mother. 
Wendy: No wonder you were crying. 
Peter: I wasn't crying about mothers. I was crying because I can't get this shadow to stick. And I wasn't crying. 

One need but be a disciple whom Jesus loves and obedient to have a mother. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! 27Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.

[imardmd1]

Jesus' Body of Believers is not His mother. You need to go bsck and unlearn the misuse of metaphors in forming Scriptural doctrine.

Try a valid hermeneutic, and you will do better. And quit giving me this "nyah, nyah" stuff. It doesn't improve your public image.

[caww]

.....” you could explain”.....

Just as Jesus said he was ‘the door’...did not mean he was literally a wooden door. He is called the ‘Lamb’ of God....does not mean he was an actual lamb. As so....the bread and blood ‘symbolize’ his body and blood he gave for us.

The Christian communion service is the Passover meal, which Jesus showed to be symbolic of him.

[caww]

....”Superstition pervades RCC doctrine and practice”....

Yes, and without it there would be no catholic church..

[Mrs. Don-o]

The question in the tagline is for you.

[LurkingSince'98]

For Christ there is no time, as He experiences everything in the perpetual NOW.

So for Christ His crucifixion is happening in his NOW which is our present time.

His sacrifice once and for all is eternally happening and is that which the Catholic Church celebrates in the Mass.

So to say it is repeated is plain wrong and not at all what Catholics believe.

We are not saying that bread and wine become Christs Body and Blood - He does in John 6.

Maybe that chapter is not in the prot bible so you can ignore it - who knew.

That would explain the difference.

For the Greater Glory of God and the faithful who do as He commands in John .

[LurkingSince'98]

Why is 2000 years of Catholic belief - superstition...

And 500 years of prot beliefs - truth?

AMDG

[Iscool]

You mean that for almost two thousand years the Catholic Church has been establishing Churches, baptizing pagans, hearing confessions, marrying couples, ordaining priests and anointing the sick and excocising demons without biblical authority??? Who knew?

When your pope says you don't even have to believe in Jesus to become a Catholic or that muzlims worship the same God as Catholics I'd say you've hit the nail on the head...

When you take a single phrase out of the bible, e.g. 'eat my flesh' and build your entire religion on it with out discerning the spiritual application, I'd say there's no doubt left that yours is a pagan religion...

1Co_2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg...