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godofthunder9010;38689205]It was from post #88 and I'm talking about revelation equal to that received by apostles and prophets. The scriptural canon is closed because both Protestants and Catholics believe that scripture-level revelation ended permanently. Am I wrong about that?
I'm 70 now, so maybe I've slowed down a bit
We believe that the Catholic Church is a living entity and that while neither Doctrine or Dogma can be voided; nevertheless a fuller understanding as revealed by the Holy Spirit over time can be possible. So no, we Catholics do not hold to"revelation" having been made impossible.
The Catholic Canon has not changed in about 1,600 years, so it seems very unlikely that it will at any distant time. WHY?
Because God can be defined as [emphasis not shouting here] ALL GOOD THINGS PERFECTED
The Bible has everything needed for man's POSSIBLE salvation in Christ, through His Church [today's CC]. So what need might there be for more
So until you do that, you'll just be a jerk to everybody because you think you have more common sense than everybody else. Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Come on man what really is your problem.
We believe that the Catholic Church is a living entity and that while neither Doctrine or Dogma can be voided; nevertheless a fuller understanding as revealed by the Holy Spirit over time can be possible. So no, we Catholics do not hold to"revelation" having been made impossible.
The Catholic Canon has not changed in about 1,600 years, so it seems very unlikely that it will at any distant time. WHY?
Because God can be defined as [emphasis not shouting here] ALL GOOD THINGS PERFECTED
The Bible has everything needed for man's POSSIBLE salvation in Christ, through His Church [today's CC]. So what need might there be for more
God Bless you,
Patrick
Do you believe that one must accept the formal doctrine of the Trinity in order to receive salvation? That most certainly is a Catholic teaching, but it's possible you don't accept your Church's teaching that accepting the Trinity is a requirement for salvation. The Roman Catholic Church does in fact still teach that though.
Worth noting: The formalized doctrine of the Trinity is not in the Bible. There is no passage laying out the whole, "Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three persons but one substance/being" business. According to both Catholics and Protestants alike, it is crucially important to understand God as a Trinity in unity, etc. Well, the fact that this was completely left out of the Bible is quite troubling since that's supposedly a foundational doctrine of Christianity. Other things: I don't believe that the Bible offers a clear teaching on abortion insofar as I'm aware. The Bible offers no help whatsoever when confronting heroine, cocaine, marijuana and crystal meth. These things didn't exist when the Bible was being written. Do you suppose that God has an opinion on whether we should use said substances? Again, not in the Bible. What about video games? Is being addicted to those a bad thing? And is it immoral for a woman to wear a bikini in a public beach or pool? A thong? A micro-bikini? Nothing at all? Does God have any opinion at all on that? And if the entire purpose of the Bible is to demonstrate that God is, "All good things perfected" and nothing else, then what's with all of the commandments and instructions for how to live your life? Civilization has changed drastically since the Law of Moses and the Sermon on the Mount. How does God want us to live our lives in a world that is so very different from OT and NT times?
Catholicism is in a stronger position than Sola Scriptura Protestantism on these topics. Still, these modern issues demonstrate a need for a God who is just as plugged in as he ever was. The very idea that God hasn't had anything to say that was scripture-worthy in the last 2000 years troubles me to no end. Why wouldn't he have anything more to say that is good enough to go into the canon of scripture??? Why does a 2000+ year old paper and ink book hold a higher status than what God might want to say to us right now? Seems to me, if God has something to say right this moment, that trumps anything he said 2000+ years ago. And after telling us over and over and over again that He never changes, God goes from being a regular chatty-Cathy to going dead silent. More than anything, it troubles me that anyone believes that the proverbial wellspring of scripture ran dry at some point.
So until you do that, you'll just be a jerk to everybody because you think you have more common sense than everybody else. Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Come on man what really is your problem.
Good then we agree that I'm not a problem. So what is your problem if it's not me? Because if everything you say is out of common sense, then treating people like dirt for no reason is pretty senseless. Wouldn't you think?
It was from post #88 and I'm talking about revelation equal to that received by apostles and prophets. The scriptural canon is closed because both Protestants and Catholics believe that scripture-level revelation ended permanently. Am I wrong about that?
Are you saying that scripture level revelation ended permanently after 422ad ? Because I don't know any protestant or catholic that believes this.
The Canon was closed by the church that all Christians recognized as the one that has the authority to do this and it was the Catholic Church through 4 catholic councils between 380 to 422?
And the only reason they Decided on the Canon was because of disagreements.
The African church in the 4th century even thought that the book of revelations wasn't God inspired but it was the Roman Catholic Church as the church Christ built upon Peter that decided this once and for all with the help of the Holy spirit. The same church that Christ said in the bible that the gates of hades shall not prevail over.
When Jesus was teaching his 12 apostles he never once to,d them to write a book. He said preach the gospel. The Bible is one way of making sure his word would be passed down correctly to future generations.
He ordained his 12 apostles and they in turn ordained future church leaders. When judas killed himself the apostles elected Mathias to replace him . Did jesus tell the apostles that it was OK for people to interpret his word personally? No he did not. In fact he told the apostles that whoever hears you hears the one that sent you. The Bible must also be interpreted also.
Ignatius of antioch was a student of the apostle john. Did the student of the apostle John tell his fellow Christians in 110ad to follow their own interpretation of Scripture ? No ,he said not to do anything without the approval of the bishop .
Personal interpretation of Scripture is what created the doc exist heresy in 110ad that Ignatius was speaking against heretics to the word of Christ and his church because they interpreted scripture and in their interpretation they believed that Christ never head a physical body but came in pure spirit. So in the thinking of the docetists the crucifixion was an illusion.
Christ gave us his word and also gave the church the authority to interpret scripture authoritatively .
Do you believe that one must accept the formal doctrine of the Trinity in order to receive salvation? That most certainly is a Catholic teaching, but it's possible you don't accept your Church's teaching that accepting the Trinity is a requirement for salvation. The Roman Catholic Church does in fact still teach that though.
Worth noting: The formalized doctrine of the Trinity is not in the Bible. There is no passage laying out the whole, "Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three persons but one substance/being" business. According to both Catholics and Protestants alike, it is crucially important to understand God as a Trinity in unity, etc. Well, the fact that this was completely left out of the Bible is quite troubling since that's supposedly a foundational doctrine of Christianity. Other things: I don't believe that the Bible offers a clear teaching on abortion insofar as I'm aware. The Bible offers no help whatsoever when confronting heroine, cocaine, marijuana and crystal meth. These things didn't exist when the Bible was being written. Do you suppose that God has an opinion on whether we should use said substances? Again, not in the Bible. What about video games? Is being addicted to those a bad thing? And is it immoral for a woman to wear a bikini in a public beach or pool? A thong? A micro-bikini? Nothing at all? Does God have any opinion at all on that? And if the entire purpose of the Bible is to demonstrate that God is, "All good things perfected" and nothing else, then what's with all of the commandments and instructions for how to live your life? Civilization has changed drastically since the Law of Moses and the Sermon on the Mount. How does God want us to live our lives in a world that is so very different from OT and NT times?
Catholicism is in a stronger position than Sola Scriptura Protestantism on these topics. Still, these modern issues demonstrate a need for a God who is just as plugged in as he ever was. The very idea that God hasn't had anything to say that was scripture-worthy in the last 2000 years troubles me to no end. Why wouldn't he have anything more to say that is good enough to go into the canon of scripture??? Why does a 2000+ year old paper and ink book hold a higher status than what God might want to say to us right now? Seems to me, if God has something to say right this moment, that trumps anything he said 2000+ years ago. And after telling us over and over and over again that He never changes, God goes from being a regular chatty-Cathy to going dead silent. More than anything, it troubles me that anyone believes that the proverbial wellspring of scripture ran dry at some point.
Actually the trinity wasn't left out of the bible. It just isn't seen in a perfectly explicit way, and it was fully defined in the 4th century. And just because something doesn't get added into canon doesn't make it unimportant . Celibate priests are just one example of this .
In the melkite catholic rite the priests are allowed to be married. They are important yet still not in canon.
As far as belief in the trinity for salvation the Catholic Church officially teaches inclusivism, so if someone is let's say born into a Muslim family in a Muslim country and never had a chance to know or hear the word of Christ properly he can still be saved.
Actually the trinity wasn't left out of the bible. It just isn't seen in a perfectly explicit way, and it was fully defined in the 4th century. And just because something doesn't get added into canon doesn't make it unimportant . Celibate priests are just one example of this .
In the melkite catholic rite the priests are allowed to be married. They are important yet still not in canon.
As far as belief in the trinity for salvation the Catholic Church officially teaches inclusivism, so if someone is let's say born into a Muslim family in a Muslim country and never had a chance to know or hear the word of Christ properly he can still be saved.
The Trinity, celibacy, the Immaculate Conception and perpetual virginity of Mary, praying to saints, the elevation of a mere bishop (the Bishop of Rome) to successor of Peter, indulgences, the inquisitions, reverencing relics: These are all examples of things worthy of a separate thread to debate. They are not Biblical, so you're left with four possibilities:
Option A: The Church that emerged (and systematically eradicated it's "heretical" rivals) in the fourth century was God's True Church. Later, after enduring schism after schism, it is still God's Only True Church. All other Christian religions are rebel factions against the True Church.
Option B: The Church that emerged (and systematically eradicated it's "heretical" rivals) in the fourth century was God's True Church. In time, under the leadership of the Bishop of Rome, the West rebelled and remains a renegade faction apart from the True Church to this day -- along with Protestantism which are just rebellious factions against the original rebellious faction. The divinely ordained leadership of the True Church is either held by the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Patriarch of Antioch, the Pope in Alexandria, one of several other religious leaders in the East, or all of them together.
Option C: The Church that emerged in the fourth century was a unsanctioned bureaucratic construct within the True Church. The True Church continues to survive because the beliefs and scriptures survive. God never intended to create the massive theocratic empire known as the Catholic Church (Eastern or Western). That unsanctioned theocracy added a long list of things to Christianity, but did so without any God-given right. The True Church of Christ is composed of true believers who follow Christ. This is essentially Protestantism.
Option D: The original True Church was lost at some point. Some would say it was lost when the apostles died out. Others would say it was sometime later than that. But the Church that emerged in the fourth century was an unsanctioned apostate form of Christianity. It would continue to serve God's purposes in large degree by spreading the good word and proclaiming Christ, but it was not His Church. The True Church would need to be restored back to the earth by God later on. (A Biblical forerunner of this would be the Northern Kingdom of Israel with their corrupted forms of worship and temples at Bethel and Dan where they incorporated golden calves into the worship of YHWH. They still worshiped YHWH, but their priests and their form of worship were unsanctioned and in rebellion against God.) Those that believe in the need for God to restore the original Church of Christ to the earth all fall into the Restorationist Category. Like Protestants, they feel that false doctrines and practices were more or less made up on the spot and added into Christianity.
How you go about convincing a Protestant that the Roman Catholic Church is right for them? How do you convince an Eastern Orthodox that they are the true rebels against the True Church? How do you convince a Restorationist that True Christianity survived? The bloody and power-hungry history of the Papacy is an incredibly difficult hurdle to cross. The RCC spent about 1000 years thumping their collective chests and pointing to their trump card document -- the Donation of Constantine. That document was eventually proven to be a forgery and is now acknowledged as such by Rome. This plugs right into the accusation by all three groups that the RCC's claims to supreme authority were the invention of the RCC. With a generous amount of revisionist history and tampering with existing texts, the Popes have usurped massive authority that was never given to them by God. Rome's claim to supremacy hangs by a single critical thread. They claim that the Bishop of Rome is the successor to Simon Peter. The RCC bets it all on that.
If it could be demonstrated that Rome did in fact somehow become the only true successor to Peter, that would at least be a start. Personally, I see no reason to believe that Peter ever had anything to do with the See of Rome. He may have never set foot inside Rome ever. Can you tie Peter to Rome?
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] ALL GOOD THINGS PERFECTED
