The death of the Virgin in RCC imagery

[bbbbbbb]

So? Your 'bible' doesn't acknowledge Ptolemy's existence but I'm pretty sure he was a real person

If Ptolemy was an essential individual in a religion's theology and if he experienced a particularly miraculous event, do you think that the religion in its scripture might mention something about him and, perhaps, this particular miraculous event?

 

[Optimax]

So? Your 'bible' doesn't acknowledge Ptolemy's existence but I'm pretty sure he was a real person

That is because "Ptolemy" is not a Bible Figure like Jesus, Paul, John, etc.

 

[Optimax]

ok
I trust my Churches Traditions as much as I trust the Bible

it was from the same Traditions that the cannon of the NT was decided upon

You are placing your eternity in that trust.

Be sure of what you are trusting.

It has eternal ramifications!

 

[ivebeenshown]

That is because "Ptolemy" is not a Bible Figure like Jesus, Paul, John, etc.

So what? The point is that things can be true without being in the bible.

If Ptolemy was an essential individual in a religion's theology and if he experienced a particularly miraculous event, do you think that the religion in its scripture might mention something about him and, perhaps, this particular miraculous event?

Again, if you don't believe in the apostolic succession in the first place, you don't even have to worry about the Marian dogmas. The point of my Ptolemy statement is that things have happened in reality that aren't in the bible. The bible is not God's entire revelation to man. God reveals himself every day in a new way.

 

[Fireinfolding]

I know the scriptures dont mention "pepsi cola" but I used to drink that junk everyday (I know it because I felt it fizzle in my mouth) and when I laughed a few times it shot through my nose on occasion.

Though you'd really have to take my word for the "shot through my nose" (deal) because I have no witnesses on that one. God knows but it shouldnt become my gospel trying to convince others it happened. I mean, who cares?

Even if there were witnesses to "the glorious event" (pun intended) why should I (or I am them) start peddling it around, saying, "Look we know scripture is silent on pepsi, but that doesnt mean pepsi is not true, see? For behold... a bottle of pepsi! We saw someone laugh (when it began to go down) and "wallah"! it come up again only to shoot out her nose it was amazing....

(Ya really just had to be there!)

Pepsi's really an inadequate example because someone can actually see it and experience it too. Therefore be a witness to it experientially without any witnesses (well...as long as pepsi is in business) and we can all experience "the fizzle" and "the shootin out" our own noses thing, its neither here nor there though. Whereas the witnesses of Christs resurrection is contained in the prophets and confirmed by the apostles whereas upon the church is built upon both just the same, pillar and foundation of the truth not assumptions (so to speak).

But I know, "assumed" here aparently doesnt mean "supposed" as its found under the word "supposed" in scripture. And am aware it means something else entirely, "taken up" or "ascend" (even though I have not found the word assumed under either of them).

Though maybe I havent looked hard enough

 

[Optimax]

So what? The point is that things can be true without being in the bible.Again, if you don't believe in the apostolic succession in the first place, you don't even have to worry about the Marian dogmas. The point of my Ptolemy statement is that things have happened in reality that aren't in the bible. The bible is not God's entire revelation to man. God reveals himself every day in a new way.

I do not agree with the "apostolic succession" as you do. I also do not worry about the "Marian dogmas".

If I worried I sure would not worry about something that I do not believe.

I do have a difficult time in understanding a "mindset" that places more credibility on religious beliefs, dogmas, tradition, etc., than scripture.

I respect your right to believe what you want, it is the above that I struggle with in understanding.

 

[DiligentlySeekingGod]

I do not agree with the "apostolic succession" as you do. I also do not worry about the "Marian dogmas".

If I worried I sure would not worry about something that I don not believe.

I do have a difficult time in understanding a "mindset" that places more credibility on religious beliefs, dogmas, tradition, etc., than scripture.

I respect your right to believe what you want, it is the above that I struggle with in understanding.

I agree with you, Optimax, especially with what I highlighted in your post.

 

[bbbbbbb]

So what? The point is that things can be true without being in the bible.Again, if you don't believe in the apostolic succession in the first place, you don't even have to worry about the Marian dogmas. The point of my Ptolemy statement is that things have happened in reality that aren't in the bible. The bible is not God's entire revelation to man. God reveals himself every day in a new way.

Is there a particular reason you did not answer my question?

 

[BrendanMark]

Why do folk think Scripture has less credibility that tradition? Scripture was part of the tradition that wrote it! There is no difference (save one of Man's making) between Scripture and the Tradition it emerged from and spoke to, inspired by the grace and presence of the Holy Spirit . The same people who wrote the NT also formed the liturgy, sacraments etc.

In attempting to give a tacit account which would fit with the writings and practices available, my favoured category is that of means of grace. Thus the sacraments, the Scriptures, the Creed, the canon of the Fathers, and the like, I am suggesting, were construed as materials and practices which fed the soul, which mediated the life of God, which returned human beings to their true destiny as children of God, and which ultimately led to a life of sanctity. Alternatively, we might say that they were seen as gifts of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church, intended to bring about participation in the life of God through the working of the same Spirit, who guided the Church in their selection and use.

This account is at once substantial and modest. It is substantial because it has profound consequences as to how these practices and materials were received and used. Thus they were approached in a spirit of humility and faith, accepted gratefully as medicine to heal the sickness of the world. It is modest because it leaves open a host of questions which can take a lifetime to unravel, much less resolve. Thus, although virtually everyone held that canonical materials, especially the Scriptures, were divinely inspired, no particular doctrine of inspiration was canonized. Moreover, the canons did not in themselves provide explicit answers to the deep questions about divine revelation and knowledge which their content and their actual use naturally evoked. Hence, although the use of the early canons in the Church clearly involved coming to know God in a very deep way in the life of the Church, the canons were relatively reticent about how we are to think of it and about how we might relate this knowledge to other species of knowledge we might want to identify. In short, they did not generally supply any kind of explicit epistemology, not even an explicit religious epistemology.
Abraham, William J. – Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology [Oxford 1998 p. 112 - 113]

Scripture is a means of realizing grace, and contains the truth of the experience of those touched by the grace of Christ. To construe that truth as an epistemic norm truly is bizarre. The truth of grace is something someone realizes within, and the external evidence of it is in poetry, Michelangelo’s La Pieta, Bernini’s Ecstasy of St Theresa, most every cathedral and stained-glass window in Christendom and so on. Even if you have never experienced grace, to think that every saint, artist and worshipper were just deluded by clever priests or were all stupid or crazy is obtuse and frankly unhistorical. The external evidence is there if we care to look.

Related to this is the historical fact that sola scriptura was never an aspect of the early Church or the origins of Christianity. The slide in perception from canon of grace to epistemic norm, accelerated by the Reformation and Enlightenment, has consequences we rarely consider until pointed out to us, so used are we to the idea of scripture as the basis of truth and knowledge. But in fact we have criteria for truth and knowledge that we think confirmed by scripture: scripture contains no formulae or instruction in interpreting sense perception, for instance.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

Yikes. Not according to Peter, Paul, and Mary.

1 Peter 3:8 Christ also suffered when he died for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners that he might bring us safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit.

v17 For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin first among God's own children. And if even we Christians must be judged, what terrible fate awaits those who have never believed God's Good News?

Huh?

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

Where is "Mary's death/resurrection" displayed?

Not in the Bible.

Only in departures from scripture in your "churches" traditions.

No one has shown why everything we believe must be explicitly spelled out in the Bible.

 

[Standing Up]

So what? The point is that things can be true without being in the bible.Again, if you don't believe in the apostolic succession in the first place, you don't even have to worry about the Marian dogmas. The point of my Ptolemy statement is that things have happened in reality that aren't in the bible. The bible is not God's entire revelation to man. God reveals himself every day in a new way.

Two things you should know.

Yes, God reveals Himself to us, but we don't build doctrine around that personal revelation (unless you're LDS). Remember Peter.

Yes, there's apostolic succession, but it has specifically to do with "teach the same to faithful men" (2 Tim. 2:2). Remember Paul.

Now, we can see that IF we don't teach the same, then yes we teach new revelation and couch it in terms of God revealed.

How do we know the difference? Something that is not found c100ad, like the Marian dogmas, clearly fall out of "teach the same" into personal revelation.

 

[WordofFaith1]

No one has shown why everything we believe must be explicitly spelled out in the Bible.

Only things that pertain to Biblical things are in the Bible.

 

[Standing Up]

Only things that pertain to Biblical things are in the Bible.

Salvation necessary-only things.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

I don't think anyone has claimed that the only dogmatic statements in the Catholic Church are the four regarding Mary, I think you misunderstood whatever the person was saying. There are a great many more dogmatic teachings.

Dogmas in the Catholic Church can be confusing, even to many Catholics. For example, Papal Bulls were considered to be dogmatic in the past, but are not considered to be so at present. Some perceive a difference between doctrine and dogma whereas others do not. For a non-Catholic such as myself it can be quite confusing.

There is a difference between dogmatic and binding. We can be bound (obliged) to obey something which is not dogmatic. A dogma is a teaching which is contained within the Deposit of Faith. A dogma may be formally defined and promulgated in the documents of an Ecumenical Council or by a papal bull or encyclical or it may have never been formally defined at all. For example, in the encyclical Munificentissimus Deus the definition of the dogma is found near the end, which I have emboldened:

For which reason, after we have poured forth prayers of supplication again and again to God, and have invoked the light of the Spirit of Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished his special affection upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages and the Victor over sin and death, for the increase of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of the entire Church; by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.

The rest of the document regards the dogma but is not part of the dogma, nor is it considered to be infallible.

Thus a papal bull (in this case an encyclical), to use your example, may contain a definition of a dogma but they are not dogmatic in and of themselves because they are not a single teaching. You may be confusing "dogmatic" with "infallible", of course all dogmas are defined infallibly but not all infallible statements are dogmas nor are papal encyclicals considered infallible by their very nature (though they may contain infallible statements already defined, of course, or define new statements as with the encyclical above).

So I'm not really sure what you are trying to get at here.

 

[Standing Up]

Question.

Since RC teaches that believing the dogma of the assumption is necessary for salvation, what do they say about the salvation of those who died before the dogma was born?

Would it be safe to say that RC teaches that only Mary is in heaven between the time of her assumption and the dogma defined?

 

[godisreal36]

There is a difference between dogmatic and binding. We can be bound (obliged) to obey something which is not dogmatic. A dogma is a teaching which is contained within the Deposit of Faith. A dogma may be formally defined and promulgated in the documents of an Ecumenical Council or by a papal bull or encyclical or it may have never been formally defined at all. For example, in the encyclical Munificentissimus Deus the definition of the dogma is found near the end, which I have emboldened:



The rest of the document regards the dogma but is not part of the dogma, nor is it considered to be infallible.

Thus a papal bull (in this case an encyclical), to use your example, may contain a definition of a dogma but they are not dogmatic in and of themselves because they are not a single teaching. You may be confusing "dogmatic" with "infallible", of course all dogmas are defined infallibly but not all infallible statements are dogmas nor are papal encyclicals considered infallible by their very nature (though they may contain infallible statements already defined, of course, or define new statements as with the encyclical above).

So I'm not really sure what you are trying to get at here.

Just joking around but it is rather confusing . John chapter 3 is hard enough already. Now there is some deep teaching for you, it requires some deep understanding through much study, meditation and practice.

Prayer is most helpful also.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

Really? There's only one gospel.

Mk. 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

Mary is assumed into heaven? No.

The filioque is defined? No.

Then what? What's the good news?

1 Cor. 15 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

Only way to be saved you know.

V3-4 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

Good news. That's it. Don't add to or subtract from.

The Gospel is not that one statement but everything taught by Christ.

And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.

But we ought to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved of God, for that God hath chosen you firstfruits unto salvation, in sanctification of the spirit, and faith of the truth: whereunto also he hath called you by our gospel, unto the purchasing of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.

Not one simple statement but a whole body of teaching from the Apostles.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

The death of Jesus Christ was the result of sin - not His own sin (because He was sinless) but His vicarious sacrifice for the sins of the world. As the perfect Lamb of God, He, and only He, was able to take upon Himself our sin and suffer the consequences for it - death - both physical and spiritual.

Thus, I stand with the statement of Romans 6:23 - the wages of sin is death.

Sin doesn't transfer.

In those days they shall say no more: The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the teeth of the children are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that shall eat the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.

You need a more complex equation. Right now you are saying that our sins were somehow transferred from us to Christ and then He was condemned as a sinner. Thus Christ would have been justly punished but this is false.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

You are placing your eternity in that trust.

Be sure of what you are trusting.

It has eternal ramifications!

There is a lot more evidence of the Divine origin and protection of the Church than that of me.

Do you place your eternity in trusting in your own opinions or in the Church established and sustained by Christ?