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Paulie079
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I don't believe that the Gospel writers were infallible, but that Scripture, as it is inspired by the Holy Spirit, is infallible.Infallible does not mean sinless, it means free from error, and our view of the Papacy does not mean that every utterance is free from error, but only very specific cases, in the history of the Catholic Church, there have only been a handful of things counted as infallible, the Ecumenical Councils and a few authoritative statements by Popes.
you said that no one but Christ is infallible, lets use define it really quickly "protected by God from error"
so if no man has ever been infallible, then Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (and all the other people who wrote the Bible) may have written things that are wrong?
I do not think this, but I am not the one saying that infallibility is impossible.
the basic idea is the same, God protects His Church. the idea is that God would not let the Gospel writer say something untrue, and as a Catholic, I do not believe God would allow the Church to teach error.
The idea that God would not allow the Church to teach error is so dangerous. It seems to like the door wide open to naively accepting whatever the priest says. Does this mean that you have never heard anything erroneous taught within your Catholic church? Because I have heard things said in sermons that I disagreed with in just about every church I've regularly attended even though I very much respected and admired the pastors preaching.
James 5:15-16
14Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
it is not "oh your sins are forgiven no matter what"
it is, do this, and if you have sinned you will be forgiven.
You see right in verse 14 that it is talking about sick people. The forgiveness of their sin is not contingent upon them being prayed over.
This is seen in verses like 1 John 1:9:
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
John 20:23
If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven
that last part in John 20:23 seems odd, if confession to a priest was not part of the Christian religion, then why would Jesus add the part about not forgiving?
Because priests do not have the authority that the Apostles had. That may be a fundamental difference in belief, but it is what I believe. I have not seen any reason within Scripture to believe that Apostolic authority is possessed by today's priests.
oh so much to deal with here like there are a million things I have to say and I am not sure where to start
why do you view these books as "extra" books?
you have to have a standard to judge from before you say if something has extra or not enough.
that is a serious problem I see with Sola Scripture, the books of the Bible do not contain within themselves a list of what books are to be counted as Cannon.
if Sola Scripture says that all doctrines are to be found directly in the Bible, then either the cannon of scripture is not important or you are using an authority other then the Bible for doctrine
not even all the books of the Old Testament are quoted in the New Testament.
and what right do we have to say that a letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians is on the same level as the book of Genesis?
most people have heard of the Gnostic Gospels like the Gospel of Thomas, how can we say that is NOT scripture?
I have no problem with this, I believe in a Church that God has given authority to. That is protected from teaching error, so when they say "these books are all scripture" I just say ok.
as for the "extra" books that Catholics use, I believe that they are part of the Bible just like all the other books of Scripture. Why do you say they are not?
I view them as extra books because they are not included in the original Hebrew Bible.
There is a standard by which books were widely agreed upon to be included in Scripture. There are a laundry list of qualifications that each book met in order to be included. They were not arbitrarily decided upon. The apocryphal books and Gnostic Gospels that you mentioned are not included from Scripture because they did not meet one very important standard (not to speak to other standards they may not have met), namely that they were all written in the second century or later.
and I am not insulted that you do not recommend people attend Catholic services, we do not agree on things, why would you recommend people go to a place that you think has wrong teachings? Just seems logical.
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhg
lots of Catholics really suck
we do NOT earn our salvation, we can not earn our way into heaven
the Catholic Church does not teach that but so many Catholics were poorly taught that they do not really make this distinction.
ok... uhg sorry.... I know you are being honest but it just really makes me sad that so many Catholics really mess this up.
ok, lets me pepper you with some more Bible verses
John 14:15
If you love me, keep my commands.
the parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:31-46 has Jesus focusing on the actions done by people.
St. Paul several times gives a list of people (idolaters, fornicators, ect) who will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
not everyone who runs wins the crown 1 Corinthians 9:25
you do not earn your way into heaven, it is all about His grace
but we have to accept His grace, and choosing sin is a rejection of God
kind of like Adam and Eve, they did not earn the garden of Eden, they did not work for it. but in choosing sin, they rejected that free gift that was given by God.
another thing, we can not resist sin on our own, so if we do resist temptation, it is all because of the grace of God
so there is no room for pride in the economy of Salvation
I very much agree with you on all of this in a general sense. I think I just don't make quite the distinction between different types of sins that you do, but I wouldn't make much of an issue about that.
I was actually surprised at how staunchly this guy (I called him Catholic Joe ) defended his belief that good works are what got you into heaven. It is comforting to know that this is not a widely taught belief.
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