Maryslittleflower
Fiat Voluntas Tua
Hey all,
I've decided to set my doubts aside and accept Christ. (My handle is because I identify a lot with St. Thomas the Apostle, since I am a big doubter. I can only wish to see what he saw, though.)
The trouble is, what now? It seems to me that all flavors of Christianity have very serious flaws in their doctrine:
1) Orthodox/Catholic: A) I am highly uncomfortable with the whole Mary, saints, and icons thing. I know that they don't worship any of those, rather using them as a medium through which to approach God, but actual pagans would say the same things about their idols. The Mary thing especially, even though they claim they only offer hyperdulia to Mary, while God gets latreia, it seems to me to be semantic games to justify an existing Mary cult, which is merely a 'baptized' continuation of the age old 'Mother Goddess' tradition. Not to mention the flurry of novenas and chaplets to various saints, which seems to be far exceeding the 'it's just like asking your friends/neighbors to pray for you' analogy that is often given to justify it.
Hi, there's a big difference between the pagan idea of idols as mediums and the Catholic idea. In the Catholic understanding, it's like the Church is a family and it's on earth as well as in Heaven. They help us by praying. Latria is different from hyperdulia not only in name but that latria is adoration, and hyperdulia is very great respect. Worship (more properly termed adoration, as in old documents worship was just a word for any respect even for an earthly leader) - needs to be understood properly. It's not just singing worship songs or kneeling. We can kneel simply as a prayer position. Adoration is something proper to God alone and according to Catholic Encylopedia it's "an act of religion offered to God in acknowledgment of His supreme perfection and dominion, and of the creature's dependence upon Him."
B) Unbiblical dogmas: This one is especially about Catholicism. Neither the Immaculate Conception nor the Assumption of Mary have much backing in anything except apocrypha and stories written centuries after the New Testament, and yet every Catholic must believe in those, since those are the two undisputed instances of the pope using his infallibility. Frankly this infallibility thing is very disturbing. Also, the church has contradicted itself. The council of Florence in Cantate Domino says that everyone outside the Catholic Church is definitely going to hell forever: "“The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Church before the end of their lives; that the unity of this ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only for those who abide in it do the Church’s sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia produce eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church” (“Cantate Domino,” 1441, ex cathedra)."
as does the bull Unam Sanctam in which Pope Boniface VIII says:
Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sin… Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."
while Lumen Gentium from Vatican II says:
"But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans… Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all men be saved. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life."
I see you have done research but there's more to this. We can't take quotes in isolation. The Church has always taught about invincible ignorance for instance. In the case of invincible ignorance, those people are not externally Catholic but they are not willfully separated from the Church, because they haven't chosen this, and that fits in with the first quote you provided. Vatican II also talks about invincible ignorance but that's NOT a new teaching, it's a traditional teaching that was around before that. They go together.
As for "unbiblical doctrines", - the Bible itself says to follow what the Apostles said in word OR letter. That means in the Bible or in Tradition. In the beginning the Bible didn't exist yet. The early Church was not "sola Scriptura".
Your concerns with Protestantism I understand. I was Protestant before I was Catholic and there's no unity in Protestantism. There's no way to tell whose interpretation of the Bible is correct. That's actualy why Catholics have the Pope, the Magisterium, Councils, etc - because God guides the Church how to interpret the Scriptures. It's not a human institution, it's the Body of Christ on earth. It is not only invisible. The Holy Spirit guides it and it has a structure and a hierarchy. We can see this in the early Church too. St Irenaeus, who died in 202 AD, so very early on, said that he knows he's in the true Church because of Apostolic Succession.
God bless you
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