IF you have been on this web site for any length of time you have seen that most of the conversations and debates revolve around the conflict between the Catholic faith and the Protestant faith.
There is constant back and forth banter and in the end the difference is still there.
IT seems that the debates always disintegrate into personal combat and verbal wars with the moderators finally ending the thread and in fact I expect that same thing to happen to this thread.
It seems to me that the conflict comes from our basic human nature in dealing with fundamental disagreements concerning eternal truths. The Protestants understand that the RCC teaches a "work-gospel" that can not save and the Catholic church thinks that Protestants teach a "greasy - grace" gospel that requires nothing more than a simple confession of wrong doing/sin due to the emotional preaching of a man.
However, looking deeper than just that the question must be WHY?
In My Opinion the real rift that ignites the debate is rooted in
AUTHORITY!
How anyone answers that question always determines the answers to all the other questions.
I think that every Catholic believer will agree that when it comes down to deciding a theological issue about defined Catholic dogma, there isn’t anything to discuss on the Catholic's side because once Rome speaks, it is settled.
Therefore we have the ROOT of the conflict. Whenever there is a theological discussion when trying to debate a Roman Catholic – reason and Scripture are not the Catholic’s final authority; they can always retreat into the
“safe zone” of Roman Catholic Authority.
Because of this, the arguments between a Protestant and a Catholic will revolve around one's “private interpretation” of Scripture as against the "official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church."
Catholics claim to successfully avoid the legitimate problems of private interpretation by their reliance on their TRADITION. But that never satisfies the difference but instead merely pushes the question back a step. The truth is that both Roman Catholics and Protestants must, in the end, rely upon their reasoning abilities to choose their
authority and their interpretive skills to understand what that
authority teaches in order to determine what they will believe. IMO, Protestants are simply more willing to admit that this is the case.[/QUOTE
We will not be able to win over non believers if we keep emphasizing our differences. It is time for churches to focus on common ground.
[/url]
wges sn [/IMG]
wges sn