DEAR PeaceByJesus!
Do you think it is helpful to be able to reevaluate issues for oneself, even if it is not expected by one's opinion? Reformed are probably the single biggest religious group in America. Do you think people can go against the grain on this issue to look at things in another way?
It is such a simple proof because it means that the "wrong" side of the debate who followed SS were not able in REAL LIFE to understand it.
This is such a simple fact of logic. There is no mentally reasonable way to argue against that fact.
Also, in PRACTICE Reformed often don't care THAT much for synods to solve controversies except maybe a few foundational Reformed ones like Westminster. Otherwise Reformed today would get together and have a council on Infant baptism, Dispensationalism, and dozens of other major iusses they split over and then they would put major mutual trust in those synods, instead of still arguing with eachother no less tensely over the same issues.
That is so simple.
For Calvin, "Reason" was the standard. Reformed-style SS fails the "Reason" test.
Earlier in your message you cited Westminster's confession with approval. Do you understand that Westminster Confession teaches infant baptism? Calvin taught infant baptism himself.
So now you are saying that Westminster Confession and Calvin were not able to see the truth in the Bible about infant baptism, even though they followed Reformed-style SS.
This is a slam dunk case of SS disproving itself by your standards on infant baptism in real life.
NT Church taught against fracturing into splinter groups and said to follow their traditions. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 In contrast, Reformed sects did not put a major emphasis on upholding Christian traditions and they splintered into groups based on their opposing doctrines, like Dispensation, Zionism, infant/non-infant baptism, how many points of Calvinism you accept, etc. etc. etc.
In early Church time though its also true that there were gnostic groups who did not care about following Tradition and staying under the Church leaders when plausible either, and so even back then there were splinter groups. I don't see this as a good reason to stop caring about mainstream Church traditions like the gnostics did.
I think people should care alot about Tradition though and not break up Jesus' "body" the church over hundreds of strange new teachings.
You are starting to make me sad, how do you with nice name "Peace by Jesus" not see that?
Jesus appeared to Stephen in the clouds. Does that mean Jesus was in Stephen's realm?
Communicating with saints/angels is not always asking for intercession either.
I am very skeptical that as Reformed you will be OK if Christians nowadays go into a church and on their own ask angels and saints in heaven to praise God?
If you use human language to understand the Bible, does that mean you consider human language "equal to" the Bible?
If Reformed were right that Bible alone "provides what is needed " on infant baptism, they wouldn't be so divided on it!
This is such a simple issue of logic, PBJ! And remember, for Calvin, "reasonableness" was a major way to judge against a teaching.
This is where the Reformed Train comes to its destination.
"Bible-only as I see it" directly led to modern mass Unitarianism and JWs.
Scripture can be abused by JWs more easily than "Tradition + scripture".
SECOND, the pharisees' traditions actually WERE helpful to achieve Christianity, but were not infallible either. The NT quotes the OT Apocrypha numerous times even though the OT Apocrypha is not the primary canonical Bible, but is part of a written "Tradition".
Jesus and Paul both studied from the pharisees and in the Temple. Therefore, traditions and learning about them were important. This does not mean that pharisees had inherent permanent authority. When they rejected Jesus, it was game over. If Catholic Popes rejected the basics of Christianity, they can't be considered Christian either. However, whatever your criticisms, Catholic bishops cannot explicitly teach against the basics of Christianity laid out in the Nicene Creed, which our "CF" Forum considers the definition of "Christian".
Let me put it this way:
You are selectively picking on Catholics when you say this, because this is more centrally the thinking in critical scholarship our PCUSA Reformed interlocutor Hedrick discusses. And "critical scholarship" as Hedrick said, comes more from 19th c. German Protestant circles and American secular/modernist Protestant ones.
I should also admit that it was in Reformed PCUSA Confirmation that I learned about how evolution is compatible with the Bible. It was in contrast to PCUSA(Reformed) and Catholic circles that Evangelical ones felt like a mental straightjacket the way they talked about "Evolutionists" (I guess that means PCUSA by implication).
It seems to me that on the question of tolerant interfaith attitudes, Reformed split both ways, with PCUSA becoming more Ecumenical (like Catholics) and conservative Reformed becoming more insular and hostile to "outsiders".
I believe that Catholicism much more tolerant of Evolution than Evangelicals, but Catholicism did not have major massive Unitarian/non-Trinitarian movements exude from it. So the question must become what is more fundamental to Christianity: whether humans came from primates or whether "Christ-God" miraculously resurrected?
Luther's words were "The burning of heretics is contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit.”
You can just do an internet search and find that they are widely quoted by him.
My point on this topic was that I think Luther was right against killing heretics and that the Catholics were wrong to support it, and that Calvin was wrong when Calvin supported killing people who rejected infant baptism (eg. Servetus).
As the book "Did Calvin Kill Servetus?" explains, Calvin followed Luther in opposing the death penalty for heretics until 1553, after Servetus escaped French prison. Servetus came to Geneva where one of the two main reasons Calvin instigated his killing that year was because Servetus opposed infant baptism. It is simply incorrect then to say that Calvin was simply following Rome in this. The fact was that Calvin and the Reformed publicly chose to accept Luther's teaching UNTIL the Servetus affair when they switched their position on their own with no compulsion by Rome to kill Servetus for opposing infant baptism.
If you give a Catholic priest a lie detector test and ask him if he cares what the Bible means or not, they are going to answer "Yes".
Likewise, if you ask a young Catholic student if he cares more about the Bible's true meaning on Jesus or if he cares about what Pope so and so thought about Jesus in the medieval times, he is going to pick the Bible's "actual meaning". Go post a survey over on the Catholic section- "Which do you care about more?"
Maybe you will feel like answering me "Catholics lie, they care more about the popes!"
But such a hostile answer by you, when Catholics speak to you their inner heartfelt cares and beliefs, would show the same judgmental Calvinist mentality that supported killing opponents of infant baptism.
Your response is to complain about a Catholic study Bible NAB treating secondary OT events as metaphors. However, whether those OT events are fables or not is not a foundational issue or mentioned in Nicea's Creed. Whether Noah had a literal flood is not foundational.
Do you see the problem?
When I make this post, the last question is whether the Reformed Approach can lead outside the fundamentals of Biblical Christianity. Balaam's donkey is not a "fundamental". Jesus' unique divine Sonship, denied by the ex-Reformed movement of Unitarianism, is foundational.
The Unitarianism movement's origins is a major difference between the Reformed movement and Catholicism. Whether Ted Kennedy gets excommunicated over abortion is not a dividing line between Reformed and Catholicism. Exagerated Judgmental attitudes against Catholics seems to me to be a hallmark of Fundamentalist Reformed however. This was one of the reasons I left Evan school, even though I was a Protestant who disagreed with Catholicism.
I can see how across mainstream Christian studies there would be a common idea that some OT stories like Noah's flood and Jonah's whale were allegories.
The difference in importance is that the OT is a "type" and prefigurement of the NT fulfillments. If we say that Isaiah 53 was not a chronological account but just an allegory of the Messiah, this does not hurt the fundamentals. If however we say like those Protestant Study Bibles that Is. 53 is not about the Messiah, haven't we begun to cut away the fundamentals, PBJ?
If you "never really repented and received the Lord Jesus to save me", the Catholic Church would say that you were not being a good Catholic and it would agree that you must do this.
The "merits" themselves do not really "save" or "provide grace directly", but obedience to God is a condition or important factor in "being saved". If you are intentionally going hard in the opposite direction, you are not "being saved", whether you sincerely think so or not.
That conservative "Bible believing Prots" don't debunk basic Christianity does not disprove that any RCCs who do are following the modern "Reformed approach" to tradition. Tradition includes basic Christianity like the Nicene Creed, so any RCCs who don't care about the Nicene Creed and claim they know the Bible's "true" meaning will be taking the Reformed approach on that question.
In comparison, if you are RC theologian, you practically have to accept the same basic kind of Covenantalism that non-Zionist Reformed teach.
That's a major difference that you gloss over by saying that weird Reformed innovations are just "different interpretations", while implying that RC somehow have comparable liberty to make the same kinds of odd teachings, even though in reality they don't do that.
The believe in real communion with Jesus during Eucharist, something Calvin taught, but Reformed can't even agree if that happens or if Eucharist is just a symbol.
What do you mean by the "limited unity of the NT"?
How did the NT era have "strong Scriptural substantiation" if the gospels hadn't even by written until after Paul's time?
You say "lacking that [unity] today is our fault"- by that do you mean Reformed?
Do you support the Charismatic movement, and belief in modern massive Gifts of the Spirit? If so, can you please write about Charismatics' "substantiation" of heir gifts and whether you find it comparable to the NT era? It is an interesting question for me, probably for a separate thread.
What is a better example of "deformation" - Tradition-less religious communities that came out of Reformed communities and use the Bible to reject Nicene basics and to reject NT fundamentals like communion rituals, or the RC Church, which still accepts the fundamentals of Christianity and the Nicene Creed?
What's a stronger deformation? "Bible-only based" JWs, Unitarianism, non-Trinitarian SDAs, "oneness Pentecostals, Eucharist-less Protestants who don't believe that the OT predicted the Messiah, etc., or the RC Church that accepts the Nicene Creed / Christian basics stated in the "CF" forum statement of faith?
Thank yo for your ideas. At this point, I would like to ask you to read Question 3 B.
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...of-christianity.7929431/page-19#post-69271122
Do you think it is helpful to be able to reevaluate issues for oneself, even if it is not expected by one's opinion? Reformed are probably the single biggest religious group in America. Do you think people can go against the grain on this issue to look at things in another way?
Yes, in REAL LIFE, the fact that "groups of people (including Reformed) read the Bible in sincerity and are convinced that it means opposite things" disproves IN REAL LIFE that SS "enables one to 100% understand it"."Of course, each writer or prophet in the Bible meant something when he wrote a passage. So in theory, I think each Protestant could read the Bible on his/her own and get the true meaning 100%.
But in real life, the opposite often happens where groups of people (including Reformed) read the Bible in sincerity and are convinced that it means opposite things."
But which not warrant rejecting SS, as meaning Scripture alone is the wholly inspired of God standard, and sufficient in its formal and material aspects, as you have affirmed it enables one to 100% understand it (which a common historical evangelical contention for basic Truths attests to), while also allowing for disagreements.
It is such a simple proof because it means that the "wrong" side of the debate who followed SS were not able in REAL LIFE to understand it.
This is such a simple fact of logic. There is no mentally reasonable way to argue against that fact.
Orthodoxy does not teach infallibility of Tradition except MAYBE a few councils' main creeds (eg. Nicene Creed).For which Scripture provides the magisterial office, which no less than the Westminster Confession affirms: "It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially, to determine controversies of faith," (Westminster, XXXI)
For we see this in Scripture, (Dt. 17:8-13) and which certainly had authority, if not being infallible, but that is not enough for Rome, as she presumes that her magisterial office possesses perpetual ensured infallibility, and that even when not speaking accordingly then she will not err salvifically in her official (which class is subject to RC debate) teaching.
But which ensured infallibility is a novel and unScriptural premise, being unseen and unnecessary in Scripture. And in fact, God not only provided and preserved Truth and faith without a infallible magisterium, but in so doing He sometimes raised up men from without the magisterium to provide and preserve faith, and reprove thoswe who sat in leadership.
And thus the church began and has been preserved as the body of Christ, with the imperfect Reformation being part of that.
Also, in PRACTICE Reformed often don't care THAT much for synods to solve controversies except maybe a few foundational Reformed ones like Westminster. Otherwise Reformed today would get together and have a council on Infant baptism, Dispensationalism, and dozens of other major iusses they split over and then they would put major mutual trust in those synods, instead of still arguing with eachother no less tensely over the same issues.
If only one is correct, then the other one who followed SS in sincerity is wrong. And that proves that the wrong side was not able to discern the real meaning. They tried and failed.Since their views are mutually exclusive, it means that on their own they weren't able to discern the "real" meaning.No, not actually, as it need only mean that only one is correct.
That is so simple.
For Calvin, "Reason" was the standard. Reformed-style SS fails the "Reason" test.
Even if your "side" of that debate were right, the other side who also believed in SS and sincerely tries to follow it is wrong.A good example is the debate over whether to baptize infants.And since they are innocent and morally incognizant, they need not and cannot willful the stated requirements for baptism, that of repentant wholehearted faith. (Acts 2:38; 8:36,37) And the Holy Spirit conspicuously and uncharacteristically never mentions infants being baptized (leaving paedobaptist to extrapolate it out of bare mentions of whole household baptisms) yet requiring repentant wholehearted faith for it. Nor does the very limited correspondence to circumcision (for just males) warrant it either.
Earlier in your message you cited Westminster's confession with approval. Do you understand that Westminster Confession teaches infant baptism? Calvin taught infant baptism himself.
So now you are saying that Westminster Confession and Calvin were not able to see the truth in the Bible about infant baptism, even though they followed Reformed-style SS.
This is a slam dunk case of SS disproving itself by your standards on infant baptism in real life.
Sorry, I don't understand what you are talking about. Do you understand that I am not Roman Catholic and that we don't consider Tradition infallible (except for maybe a few creeds like Nicene Creed)?Which, and multitude more examples, your magisterium is not going to "infallibly" explain, and in fact one a few texts of Scripture have been. Thus this is not a valid objection even if your mag. possesses ensured conditional infallibility.
Moreover, you cannot claim that even the NT church realized comprehensive doctrinal unity, much less Rome in which variant interpretations can lawfully about, and do, even as to what requires assent. And thus by your reasoning your alternative means of determination of Truth and unity is also invalidated.
NT Church taught against fracturing into splinter groups and said to follow their traditions. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 In contrast, Reformed sects did not put a major emphasis on upholding Christian traditions and they splintered into groups based on their opposing doctrines, like Dispensation, Zionism, infant/non-infant baptism, how many points of Calvinism you accept, etc. etc. etc.
In early Church time though its also true that there were gnostic groups who did not care about following Tradition and staying under the Church leaders when plausible either, and so even back then there were splinter groups. I don't see this as a good reason to stop caring about mainstream Church traditions like the gnostics did.
It does not invalidate the source of Truth (Bible). Reality of pervasive breakups invalidates their method for "providing Truth in a way that souls find unity" (Reformed "Reason" version of Sola Scriptura).No, once again that is faulty reasoning, as simply because there are conflicting judgments does not invalidate the source from providing Truth in a way that souls find unity, which is also a reality.
I don't teach Tradition is infallible or demand 100% unity on all beliefs.And in if you demand comprehensive doctrinal unity then the closest thing to that will be found in a cults, which effectively operate under the unScriptural RC model, in which the leadership claims unique ensured veracity based on their teaching.
I think people should care alot about Tradition though and not break up Jesus' "body" the church over hundreds of strange new teachings.
Evangelists and apostles in 35-200 AD produced the NT and their audience were close to them to ask for understanding it. This was in same time NT was written or within 100 years' difference. Pharisees in 30 AD came 800-2000 years after most of the Tanakh was written. That's a huge difference!WRONG. Those who lived in 35-200 AD did NOT produce the NT, any more than the Scribes and Pharisees produced OT writings, though both had enough sense to substantially acknowledge what was of God.
You are starting to make me sad, how do you with nice name "Peace by Jesus" not see that?
So if the men's judgments were so uninspired and unimportant, how did they get the Bible books right, when the list was just finalized in the Church fathers' times?But it is the transcendent, substantive wholly inspired of God writings that are the standard for what Truth is, not the post apostolic judgments of uninspired men who increasingly adopted or relied on traditions of men.
It is the community that decided on which books would be in the Bible.Certainly along with the progressive accretion of traditions of men the 2nd-3rd century church retained enough Truth whereby souls could be saved and morality upheld, but that did not make it the community that produced the Bible.
If an angel or dead saint visually "appeared" to someone in the Bible does that prove that the angel was directly in the person's realm?No, you have ZERO cases of believers on earth seeking beings in heaven to intercede for them. Any two-way communication btwn created beings required both to somehow be in the same realm, and i have yet to see any case in which the the created being was asked to intercede for them before God.
Jesus appeared to Stephen in the clouds. Does that mean Jesus was in Stephen's realm?
Communicating with saints/angels is not always asking for intercession either.
Obviously, saying to the sun and to angels to praise God is not worship addressed to God, just as instructions to Dominoes to deliver pizza to a house are not instructions to the house.Which again does not translate into praying to those in Heaven to interceded for them, as they were both in one place, and no intercession before God was sought.
You need to show created beings being addressed by those on earth, and being asked to interceded for them.
This is not asking angels to intercede for them, or actually addressing them, for employing such poetic language we can also justify praying to the sun and moon and other material objects. For as Ps. 148 goes on to say in proceeding verses after your cut off,
Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created. (Psalms 148:3-5)
Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word: Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars: (Psalms 148:7-9)
Thus these are forms of worship addressed to God, extolling His worthiness of universal worship by all creation.
I am very skeptical that as Reformed you will be OK if Christians nowadays go into a church and on their own ask angels and saints in heaven to praise God?
Who said it is "equal"? It seems you don't understand that if you use a tool to help understand something that the tool is not "equal" to the text.Then you are left with fallible, uninspired traditions being made equal with thewholly inspired word of God!
If you use human language to understand the Bible, does that mean you consider human language "equal to" the Bible?
Why do you not understand that the Orthodox Church does not teach Tradition is infallible? Why spend a Tome as you called it making a strawman?Rather, we are not referring to such things as historical writings being a help, or traditions like wedding ceremonies being used, but making into binding doctrine that which is not in Scripture, and even contrary to it, but with the veracity of which being based on the tradition of an infallible church.
A church which can decree something over 1700 years after it allegedly occurred to be binding Truth, despite such critical lack of evidence for it from tradition that the very scholars of the church opposed it.
Do you know of Catholic scholars who teach that Jesus' incarnation and resurrection was just a "true" story like the Protestant "Jesus Seminar" teaches? Can you find multiple Catholic Study Bibles saying that Isaiah 53 is not about Messiah like the Protestant ones do?And I think that when we add in a modern, "scientific" mindset, we can better understand how some modern groups coming out of the Reformed movement think that the Bible miracles are all just so called "true" "allegories" that didn't "literally" happen.
Which means they departed from the faith, and your argument is less valid than arguing that your church is wrong because Catholic scholars, with the sanction of the American body of bishops, have taught such for decades in the RC Bibles!
Obviously this is a huge contradiction in your logic. You say that Anglican/Catholic/Orthodox idea that priest has a special role in rituals must be wrong because the NT doesn't lay that out and is just silent on the question, even though on other major questions the NT is also silent and debated among Reformed themselves, like infant baptism, Zionism, and many issues.It's only natural that in the early church the presbyters who were responsible for managing their churches would also normally play a leading role in different rituals like the Eucharist.
What kind of response is that to "We can also look in vain to even one instance of a NT presbuteros being titled "priest" and having a unique sacerdotal function." The Holy Spirit is not simply scribbling a few notes but provides extensive description an doctrine on the church and contrasts with the Jewish and other faiths. And in so doing speaks of priests/high priests about 300 times, always using hiereus/archiereus, and not once giving that title to NT presbyters, except as part of the general priesthood of all believers, and nowhere ascribes to NT presbyters any unique sacerdotal function. But Caths insist on ignoring the manifest distinction, and imposing a unique sacerdotal function on prelates.
It provides what is needed and its silence can be as weighty as its statements, and does not teach infant baptism, but which is held due to tradition by more Catholic Prot churches.
If Reformed were right that Bible alone "provides what is needed " on infant baptism, they wouldn't be so divided on it!
This is such a simple issue of logic, PBJ! And remember, for Calvin, "reasonableness" was a major way to judge against a teaching.
For purposes of this argument, that doesn't matter. They claim that they get their weird teachings from the Bible and don't accept God is Trinity from "weak" things like 1900+ years of Christian beliefsAnd the so-called Jehovah's Witnesses effectively operate more according to the RC model of authority and unity, with leadership presuming assured veracity and requiring implicit assent.
This is where the Reformed Train comes to its destination.
Which did a better job of keeping together the basics of Trinity, "Bible 1st + Tradition 2nd" or "Bible-only as I see it"?But which is a poor foundation, for as JWs argue, such also held false doctrine, and the increasing reliance upon tradition, "we always believed this" (even if the NT did not) may have been seen as an easier recourse, but it also fostered the perpetuation of traditions of men that came along with Biblical Truth.
"Bible-only as I see it" directly led to modern mass Unitarianism and JWs.
JWs try to use Scripture, JWs DEFINITELY don't use Tradition because Tradition is Definitely against JWs.In contrast, it is evangelical Bible believing Christians that JWs want to avoid (they must have our house marked, but we have gone after them to reprove when seen), as they are defeated by recourse to Scripture, not tradition with its admixture of truth and traditions of men.
Scripture can be abused by JWs more easily than "Tradition + scripture".
Yes. This goes back to what I said about "a movement [that] appears 1500 years later and goes ONLY on that main sacred Book and doesn't care much about how the contemporary Christian leaders understood the passages in the books that they passed down" and your answer reflects why I said "The Church Fathers are not a central focus of [REFORMED] approach to teaching doctrines".For as with me, the recourse to ECFs is in dealing with Caths, in condescension to them, not because they are determinitive of Truth
I don't disagree with anything in the paragraphs directly above. It seems that you view things in terms of RC infallibility vs. Calvin's "Reason-based" version of sola scriptura. I would encourage you to learn more about Lutheranism, Anglicanism and Eastern Orthodoxy as ways to escape those two strange absolutist poles.Good to see that you agree.
Such affirmation can be of weight if those who provide attestation have Biblical credentials, with the veracity of their claims being based on the weight of Scriptural substantiation. Which i think Nicea much did.
But the RC argument is not simply that an authoritative magisterium is needed, to which we concur, but that an infallible one is, which premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility is novel, unseen and unnecessary in Scripture.
I understand the appeal, as thus there can be no valid dissent, but the church began in dissent from those who sat in the authentic authoritative historical magisterial seat. (Mt. 23:2; Mk. 11:27-33)
Scripture can be a supreme written authority. But that doesn't mean that what some people are convinced the Scripture says is Supreme either. JWs are convinced that Scripture doesn't teach Trinity. But we don't submit the teachings on Trinity to the "authority" of what the JWs believe Scripture says. We need to evaluate the meanings with the major help of what Christians have been thinking about this for the last 1900 years.
Here you don't seem to see the difference - Jesus said about the Church that He would be with them always. He can guide the Church. The Church is filled with God's spirit and a new covenant with a new Israel. That's not the same thing as the pharisees and the old IsraelNo, as that relies on the same presumption of the Jews, that the historical church, via its magisterium, is correct or most trustworthy in any conflict. Thus faced with one that reproved them by Scripture, they rejected him and his followers. (Mk. 7:2-16)
SECOND, the pharisees' traditions actually WERE helpful to achieve Christianity, but were not infallible either. The NT quotes the OT Apocrypha numerous times even though the OT Apocrypha is not the primary canonical Bible, but is part of a written "Tradition".
Jesus and Paul both studied from the pharisees and in the Temple. Therefore, traditions and learning about them were important. This does not mean that pharisees had inherent permanent authority. When they rejected Jesus, it was game over. If Catholic Popes rejected the basics of Christianity, they can't be considered Christian either. However, whatever your criticisms, Catholic bishops cannot explicitly teach against the basics of Christianity laid out in the Nicene Creed, which our "CF" Forum considers the definition of "Christian".
Why do you keep going back to strange RC doctrines of "infallibility"?Yes, I am not teaching "absence of errors". I am saying that if surviving persecution is one of the main proofs of Christianity, and as you are saying these 1st-3rd century Christians are pious of great faith, then don't you agree that their explanations should be a key resource for deciding what the books of the Bible from their own era that they chose mean?
That is not a problem, as far as historical research goes, but the RC argument is that what these selectively say, as in what Rome chooses from them and interprets them as saying or supporting, are the determinitive basis for doctrine, though in the case of the Assumption, that is quite the stretch.
Of course, Rome interprets them as supporting her premise of ensured magisterial infallibility, under which her interpretation of them can be said to be infallible.
Let me put it this way:
If surviving persecution is one of the main proofs of Christianity, and as you are saying these 1st-3rd century Christians are pious of great faith, then don't you agree that their explanations should be a key, crucial, central resource for believers to decide what the books of the Bible from their own era that they chose mean, and not just accidentally helpful for worldly scholars' "historical research"?
I like hearing your personal stories. But what do you mean by the exciting things? I was active in Catholic student groups and they were interested in discussing religious ideas informally. I suppose if you teach something off the radar, mainstream Christians of any group may think it's odd.No, as even as a newly born again yet Catholic who was trying to share the exciting things i was finding then i found little interest. So i went to RC charismatic Bible study, led by a lay RC women who was somewhat discipled by evangelicals, and to a charismatic meetings, which i found some life in. But the hierarchy made them join with a social gospel nun's group (to legitimize the former), and instesd of going forward they went backwards. They could sense it, and even thought that maybe it was bcz the lights were too bright. God will work where He can, but souls must keep pace with the light they are getting if they will go forward.
I sense that your problem here is not really RCs but mainstream Christians in general. Mainstream Christians have about the same level of "gospel life". Arguably there are Catholic circles with more gospel life than Reformed ones in some cases.And after that, having lived in a predominately RC area for over 60 years, and witnessed, or attempted to, to thousands of RCs with the basic non-denominational gospel, i can attest that they are about the most ambivalent or antagonistic group (Jews, God love them, take first place in the latter aspect, followed by some Muslims). Which is due to a dead gospel and dead souls, and faith in their merit and that of a church.
I perceive it iis comparably easy to form bonds with Catholics or Evans. If you are Evan-minded, you may find YOURSELF doing this more with other groups you identify with.Which is in stark contrast to when i have met so many born again evangelical types from different countries church, in which their a spontaneous kinship, based on a common transformative conversion and profound life changing relationship with Christ. Not that all are like that, or that i have always kept pace with the light i have, or do not need to regularly repent of something in heart or in deed, omission of commission. Thank God for the sinless shed blood of Jesus.
Believing DAVID was a myth is considered radical, even among Catholic scholars. Abraham is different since Torah was written generations later.Sure, just a little while ago were debating a RC here that thought Abraham and David were myths. I asked why he was a RC and he said that his beliefs were not considered radical in Catholicism. And they hardly are.
You are selectively picking on Catholics when you say this, because this is more centrally the thinking in critical scholarship our PCUSA Reformed interlocutor Hedrick discusses. And "critical scholarship" as Hedrick said, comes more from 19th c. German Protestant circles and American secular/modernist Protestant ones.
I should also admit that it was in Reformed PCUSA Confirmation that I learned about how evolution is compatible with the Bible. It was in contrast to PCUSA(Reformed) and Catholic circles that Evangelical ones felt like a mental straightjacket the way they talked about "Evolutionists" (I guess that means PCUSA by implication).
It seems to me that on the question of tolerant interfaith attitudes, Reformed split both ways, with PCUSA becoming more Ecumenical (like Catholics) and conservative Reformed becoming more insular and hostile to "outsiders".
I believe that Catholicism much more tolerant of Evolution than Evangelicals, but Catholicism did not have major massive Unitarian/non-Trinitarian movements exude from it. So the question must become what is more fundamental to Christianity: whether humans came from primates or whether "Christ-God" miraculously resurrected?
I am counting those as Reformed who lay claim to the Reformed heritage, including PCUSA, Evangelicals, PCA, etc. Yes, they are a big part of Protestants in the US. Baptists + Presbyterians are two of the biggest groups in America next to Methodists! Catholics are smaller.America is a mainly Protestant country (or else doesn't care about religion), and Reformed are a HUGE part of the Protestants. I think that in practice someone usually risks more ostracization from society if they are Catholic than if they don't care about religion or are Reformed. At least, this is my experience.Hardly, at least if Reformed are conservative evangelicals, which counted as the greatest threat by liberals, Muslims and many RCs.
I am confused what your point is."But the same Catholic church which claims the faith of early martyrs has the blood of Christian martyrs on her hands, both those who were Catholic as well as sincere souls who dared dissent from her."(PBJ)
Anyway, one of Luther's 95 Theses said that it was wrong to kill heretics. That's a wonderful teaching by Luther, right? ~ Rakovsky
So you disagree that it is it wrong to kill heretics (because of that), though i actually think you meant to charge Luther with supporting such, which is another of your historical errors. For where you see this in the 95 theses know not, but likely you are referring to Exsurge Domine condemning errors of Luther, which you mistake as Luther supporting killing heretics, but one of which the pope condemns is "That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit."
Luther's words were "The burning of heretics is contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit.”
You can just do an internet search and find that they are widely quoted by him.
My point on this topic was that I think Luther was right against killing heretics and that the Catholics were wrong to support it, and that Calvin was wrong when Calvin supported killing people who rejected infant baptism (eg. Servetus).
Why do you use the double negative when you say "Calvin disagreed with not killing heretics"?And Emperor Charles V permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence. For the Canons of the Ecumenical Fourth Lateran Council (canon 3), 1215, decreed of RC rulers:
Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church ; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath.
Pope Pius IX also condemned the proposition that "Every man is free to embrace and to profess that religion which, led by the light of reason, he shall consider to true," (Pope Pius IX, “Syllabus of Modern Errors,”December 8, 1864; http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09)
No, Calvin disagreed with not killing heretics but followed Rome in using the state to do so, as she changed the NT teaching on this issue, and again you are making historical errors. See here for Roman Catholic use of the sword of men.
As the book "Did Calvin Kill Servetus?" explains, Calvin followed Luther in opposing the death penalty for heretics until 1553, after Servetus escaped French prison. Servetus came to Geneva where one of the two main reasons Calvin instigated his killing that year was because Servetus opposed infant baptism. It is simply incorrect then to say that Calvin was simply following Rome in this. The fact was that Calvin and the Reformed publicly chose to accept Luther's teaching UNTIL the Servetus affair when they switched their position on their own with no compulsion by Rome to kill Servetus for opposing infant baptism.
That is not my experience. Go check the debates on Infant Baptism, Dispensationalism, Zionism, Replacement Theology, etc. Reformed rarely cite the Fathers favorably during the Reformed infighting related to such topics. The long foundational "Second Helvetica Confession" gives about three paragraphs citing three church fathers favorably, I think.Actually, aside from most all of all the writings of the Church Fathers on the internet being from a late 19th century work (Oxford/Edinburgh "Ante-Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers") of Anglican (if not reformed) prelates, and Salem Communications (Protestant) providing writings of these, Reformed sources often provide and invoke such as historical testimony to truth or error,
Sorry, you are just confusing me on what you mean about Rome "judging them". You keep coming back to the RC views too, even though I am not advocating RC "infallibility of Tradition."but we should not "care about them a ton" such as Caths do as their works are vastly inferior to Scripture, nor always consistent with it or uniform with each other. RCs and EO even disagree on what they support.
And as Rome herself judges them more than they judge her, and for a faithful RC history is what Rome says it means, then it is her authority that is the issue, which we will judge in the light of the most authoritative source, the wholly inspired written word of God.
Of course it's an argument: Since Catholics talk about the Bible often, it means that they care about figuring out what the Bible actually teaches. If they didn't care about the Bible's ideas, they wouldn't talk about them! It's that simple.Jerome and Augustine, among others and other things, held perverse views regarding marital relations, with Jerome even abusing Scripture to support his erroneous conclusion.
Then you agree with us that we can as well, but our basis is what Scripture manifestly teaches. Which certainly was not the RC distinctives as these.
Regardless of what esteeming the wholly inspired word of God over the various ideas of others seems like to you, it seems obvious that Roman and EO Catholics care more about their church and its accretion of traditions of men over what Scripture actually teaches,...
I have a pretty hard time agreeing with the bold, considering how many Catholic and EO commentaries and writings there are about the Bible. I think if they didn't care about figuring out the Bible's real meaning they wouldn't talk about it so much.
That is no argument against Catholics caring more about their church and its accretion of traditions of men over what Scripture actually teaches, as surveys show that Caths come in almost last in personal Bible reading, and evangelical commentaries have been far more popular, while the devil himself is quite interested in what the Bible says, and the notes the sanctioned Catholic NAB Bible and its helps section for the study version are quite liberal, though sometimes refreshing correct, both of which have a relative-few conservative RCs upset.
If you give a Catholic priest a lie detector test and ask him if he cares what the Bible means or not, they are going to answer "Yes".
Likewise, if you ask a young Catholic student if he cares more about the Bible's true meaning on Jesus or if he cares about what Pope so and so thought about Jesus in the medieval times, he is going to pick the Bible's "actual meaning". Go post a survey over on the Catholic section- "Which do you care about more?"
Maybe you will feel like answering me "Catholics lie, they care more about the popes!"
But such a hostile answer by you, when Catholics speak to you their inner heartfelt cares and beliefs, would show the same judgmental Calvinist mentality that supported killing opponents of infant baptism.
Numerous Protestant Bibles are teaching that Is 53 is not about Messiah, even though the teaching that Messiah's resurrection was per the OT is a foundational Nicene belief.The NAB you cited complained that "Then there are ultra-liberal scholars who qualify the whole Bible as another book of fairly tales."
Yes, as even the devil knows not to go too extreme - at first, but relegating such things as the Flood, Jonah and the fish, Balaam and the donkey, the tower of Babel to being fables, and Joshua's conquests (which are treated as literal historical accounts in the NT) and other demonic revisionism is what is included under being led into all Truth via what Rome provides.
Your response is to complain about a Catholic study Bible NAB treating secondary OT events as metaphors. However, whether those OT events are fables or not is not a foundational issue or mentioned in Nicea's Creed. Whether Noah had a literal flood is not foundational.
Do you see the problem?
When I make this post, the last question is whether the Reformed Approach can lead outside the fundamentals of Biblical Christianity. Balaam's donkey is not a "fundamental". Jesus' unique divine Sonship, denied by the ex-Reformed movement of Unitarianism, is foundational.
RC Church allowing Ted Kennedy to stay is not different from what mainstream Protestant churches would do. Let me know if Bill Clinton got excommunicated by Reformed over abortion.That type of things, plus treating such men as Teddy Kennedy as members in life and in death, and besides even the doctrinal errors, requires us to seperate from her or similar liberal Prot denoms.
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (2 Corinthians 6:17-18)
The Unitarianism movement's origins is a major difference between the Reformed movement and Catholicism. Whether Ted Kennedy gets excommunicated over abortion is not a dividing line between Reformed and Catholicism. Exagerated Judgmental attitudes against Catholics seems to me to be a hallmark of Fundamentalist Reformed however. This was one of the reasons I left Evan school, even though I was a Protestant who disagreed with Catholicism.
Can I hope that now you are starting to see the logic behind the slippery slopes of interpreting "miracles" to be just metaphors, as in Calvin's attitude toward the Eucharist bread and to the spiritual rock in the desert?But when you relegate stories such as Jonah and the fish to being a folk tale, which the Lord invoked as analogous to His death and resurrection, then it is a slippery slope leading to a speculative view of the latter.
I can see how across mainstream Christian studies there would be a common idea that some OT stories like Noah's flood and Jonah's whale were allegories.
The difference in importance is that the OT is a "type" and prefigurement of the NT fulfillments. If we say that Isaiah 53 was not a chronological account but just an allegory of the Messiah, this does not hurt the fundamentals. If however we say like those Protestant Study Bibles that Is. 53 is not about the Messiah, haven't we begun to cut away the fundamentals, PBJ?
I am confused - are you implying that good Catholics are not Christian?So the Catholic Church, whatever its faults, is still Christian, because it still accepts the basics of Jesus being God and the Messiah and the other many things in the Nicene Creed (See CF Forums rules for what counts as Christian).
Moreover, the CF Forums statement (which allows for rejecting baptism as a regenerating ordinance) for what counts as Christian (yet the rules say we cannot even imply someone is not!) does not include the very thing that makes one a Christian, that of coming to God as a damned and destitute sinner but with hearfelt repentance and faith in the risen Lord Jesus to save one on His account, not our merits or that of the church.
I, along with multitude other damned souls, professed such a creed, but never really repented and received the Lord Jesus to save me until i was really convicted by God of my lost condition, and heading for judgment. And even then i put it off. Thanks be to God for His long-suffering and mercy and grace in Christ!
If you "never really repented and received the Lord Jesus to save me", the Catholic Church would say that you were not being a good Catholic and it would agree that you must do this.
The "merits" themselves do not really "save" or "provide grace directly", but obedience to God is a condition or important factor in "being saved". If you are intentionally going hard in the opposite direction, you are not "being saved", whether you sincerely think so or not.
Modern Evan movement arose back in the mid 19th century with revivalism and many other such movement whether or not there were liberal revisionists. And this still doesn't change that the revisionists were a product of Reformed. I don't know what you mean about Climate Change here. I don't see how NAB's revision light is from following the pastors, since PCUSA doesn't teach "men's supremacy" and must be comparably "revisionist".Yet is was against such liberal revisionism that the modern evangelical movement basically arose, as Scripture does not change, while the NAB scholar's alternative is liberal revision light. And which examples the problem with looking to men as supreme, to simply "follow the pastors," as Pius X enjoined, as when they go South, so does their followers. Now you have Francis writing an encyclical treating Climate Change as a dire threat, leading some RCs to reject it as not requiring any assent.
"Bible believing Prots" rejected tradition and looked to scripture as standard, but they have a liberal wing that the NAB criticized. There are self-identified "Prots" who who rejected tradition and think that the Bible says things in the NT different than you and both Evangelicals, and Catholics do.If someone imagines the Catholic Church going outside of Tradition and start debunking basic Christianity, then it will mean that the RCC is starting to follow the modern "Reformed" approach that does not treat Tradition as a key way to decide what Christianity means, and instead just decides what the Bible "really" means by itself.
Non-sense, as such Bible believing Prots rejected tradition as the standard since it is inferior to Scripture, and oppose traditions as binding doctrine what are not taught in Scripture, but owe their veracity to Rome's decree, and instead they looked to unchanging Scripture as the standard, with its self-evident literal understanding on historical accounts, etc.
That conservative "Bible believing Prots" don't debunk basic Christianity does not disprove that any RCCs who do are following the modern "Reformed approach" to tradition. Tradition includes basic Christianity like the Nicene Creed, so any RCCs who don't care about the Nicene Creed and claim they know the Bible's "true" meaning will be taking the Reformed approach on that question.
In this case, those "modern traditions of men" would be modern Protestant "critical scholarship", but the RCCs don't consider them "iinfaliible". RCCs in that case would be sharing the modern attitude about critical scholarship that Hedrick has mentioned.In contrast, just as Catholics looked to men who deviated from Scripture in the past, so they easily can follow modern traditions of men which militate against Scripture.
Such strange novelties and innovations as Christian Zionism, Dispensationalism, and numerous odd End Times chronologies and propositions are not "revisionism at all"?Also, you will have to admit that revisionism is common among even conservative Reformed, when they debate over Christian Zionism, Replacement Theology, Dispensationalism, End Times chronologies and propositions, Infant Baptism, etc. etc.
That is not revisionism at all, but differences in interpretation, much of which sees debate among RCs as well, whose interpretation as to treatment of Jews and their homeland can hardly been consistent and pure, while leaving room for debate in eschatology, and RCs also have a great deal of liberty to interpret Scripture to support Rome as they interpret her.
In comparison, if you are RC theologian, you practically have to accept the same basic kind of Covenantalism that non-Zionist Reformed teach.
That's a major difference that you gloss over by saying that weird Reformed innovations are just "different interpretations", while implying that RC somehow have comparable liberty to make the same kinds of odd teachings, even though in reality they don't do that.
Reformed seems to have unity in error like self-disproven SS, but still don't have their churches together.They did a far better job keeping their Churches together though than breaking up into dozens or hundreds of totally independent groups with their own very different teachings, even though the Bible says not to do that as we have been discussing. (eg. 1 Cor 10-11)Unity in error and having churches together does not translate into Biblical unity,
RC "real unity" is very limited?and what real unity they have is very limited,
The believe in real communion with Jesus during Eucharist, something Calvin taught, but Reformed can't even agree if that happens or if Eucharist is just a symbol.
Even if they were a "most distinctive religious threat" (not clear BTW), it does not mean they have unity. 1000 mosquitos with malaria in a room are an extreme threat, but the mosquitos don't have unity.while apart from pseudoProts, if evangelicals were not so unified despite differences then they would not be seen as the most distinctive religious threat by liberals and many Caths alike.
Evangelicals are a major religious group. Are they in declension?Yet all major religious groups are in declension. As prophesied. (2Ths. 2:1-4)
The limited unity of the NT was under powerfully manifest men of God, with strong Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, and lacking that today is our fault, and thus the lack of unity is a judgment against the church of God. But Rome is the most manifest example of the deformation of the NT church.
What do you mean by the "limited unity of the NT"?
How did the NT era have "strong Scriptural substantiation" if the gospels hadn't even by written until after Paul's time?
You say "lacking that [unity] today is our fault"- by that do you mean Reformed?
Do you support the Charismatic movement, and belief in modern massive Gifts of the Spirit? If so, can you please write about Charismatics' "substantiation" of heir gifts and whether you find it comparable to the NT era? It is an interesting question for me, probably for a separate thread.
What is a better example of "deformation" - Tradition-less religious communities that came out of Reformed communities and use the Bible to reject Nicene basics and to reject NT fundamentals like communion rituals, or the RC Church, which still accepts the fundamentals of Christianity and the Nicene Creed?
What's a stronger deformation? "Bible-only based" JWs, Unitarianism, non-Trinitarian SDAs, "oneness Pentecostals, Eucharist-less Protestants who don't believe that the OT predicted the Messiah, etc., or the RC Church that accepts the Nicene Creed / Christian basics stated in the "CF" forum statement of faith?
Thank yo for your ideas. At this point, I would like to ask you to read Question 3 B.
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...of-christianity.7929431/page-19#post-69271122
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