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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | "Once Saved Always Saved" | NT general Archive 1 | Brian.g | 25545 | ||
There I would like to consolidate your post to me with this post to LisaMarie. First, Catholics do not require other Catholics to define whether we are Roman Catholic, etc. Catholic means universal and we accept and respect each other, without question. I would hope Lisa does not dignify your question with an answer. Second, people seem to forget that freedom from government domination - which we enjoy, but was fought for, in many battles, by the Catholic Church. In these battles, the Church did make compromises - but I feel the Church has corrected these compromises. Unfortunately, the memory of some of these compromises still exist. The history behind the compromise is gone, and the interpretation of the compromise is now out of balance to the facts. I assure you my confidence in John Paul II and the Catholic Church, is significantly higher than in Prince Charles and the English government. Next, today when people are learning, they can go to a Bible class, or a bookstore, and gain an education. When the Catholic Church was carving out Christianity, they were preaching to people who lived in caves and huts, and no concept of a written language. The same concepts which this forum debates - day-in and day-out - needed to be taught to these people, 1,000 plus, years ago. The concept had to be conveyed in a manner which could be understood, without altering the purity of the message. Tell me, in a world where infant mortality was 60 to 70 percent, people lived in huts, had no written language, sanitation and education were unknown concepts, no theology, picture Europe 1,500 years ago - how would you explain were a childs soul goes, if the child dies before they are baptised. The Church has long recognized that it must continuously adapt the method of conveying the message of Christ, to the community in which the message is being heard. Example, the Mass was changed from Latin, to the language of the community - English, Spanish, and so on. Today's method of teaching the word of God, would never have been comprehended 500 years ago. Let's look at Christian theology. Every Christian religion today is built upon the theological principles defined by the Catholic Church over the past 2,000 years. Was the theology completely correct - no, but the Church was constantly asking the questions, and still is, to fullfill its role. I don't mind discussion and debate. The Church is an imperfect and finite tool of God, it accepts questions of its role, and it can withstand any criticism coming from this forum. For the 'former' Catholics in this forum, while the Church may have done a poor job of teaching you, you did have the responsibility to try to understand the Catholic Church - above and beyond your grammer school education. I believe that, with effort on your part, many of the misconceptions brought out in this forum, could have been avoided. Brian |
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2 | "Once Saved Always Saved" | NT general Archive 1 | Reformer Joe | 25557 | ||
Brian: You wrote: "The Church has long recognized that it must continuously adapt the method of conveying the message of Christ, to the community in which the message is being heard. Example, the Mass was changed from Latin, to the language of the community - English, Spanish, and so on." Just what WAS the purpose of keeping the Mass in Latin until the 1960s, anyway? No one has ever been able to explain that to me at all (and I wouldn't call the last four decades as "long recognizing" anything considering we are talking on the order of milennia). You also wrote: "Today's method of teaching the word of God, would never have been comprehended 500 years ago." Sure it was. We call it the Protestant Reformation. Started in 1517. And it is still going on today. You continued by writing: "Let's look at Christian theology. Every Christian religion today is built upon the theological principles defined by the Catholic Church over the past 2,000 years. Was the theology completely correct - no, but the Church was constantly asking the questions, and still is, to fullfill its role." You are saying that the Catholic Church was incorrect in its theology? What about papal infallibility? You don't hold to that? Now this is getting confusing. Is Church tradition fallible or not? This was one of Luther's main sticking points, you know. Incidentally, the Reformation was largely based on the truth of what you said, that the church originally taught what was correct. Luther appealed heavily to Augustine in showing that the medieval Church had departed from the Biblical truth of justification by faith alone. So in asking this question of you, I am not trying to start a skirmish, but what you have said leaves a lot to be settled. If the theology of Rome was not completely correct, why can we trust that what we have now is correct? If the standard of Rome is changing, does that mean that God is communicating imperfectly through the Roman Catholic Church? If we cannot be sure whether the Chruch's theology is correct at any given time, where can we find an unchanging standard? Psssst...think "sola Scriptura." --Joe! |
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