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I Was Wrong

Discussion in 'Free-For-All Archives' started by Mike McK, Mar 5, 2005.

  1. Mike McK

    Mike McK New Member

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    My purpose here was to be an apology to those I'd spoken badly about in the past, not necessarily to get into matters of doctrine, although I'd be happy to do that with you in another thread.

    I will say this, though: at the very least, you would have to admit that the Catholic church hasn't exactly been a staunch advocate of sola scriptura.

    Just this afternoon, I was involved in a thread where I was told the following:

    The Catholic Church basically believes that it is folly for lay people to attempt to understand Jesus' teachings by only reading the Bible. Jesus did not write a Bible, He left a church. The Catholic Church.

    From their point of view the Word of God is a living Word, that can only be properly understood and interpreted through the church hierarchy.


    As for baptism, the thread is now off the board and under review. If it's put back up, I'll link to it so you can see exactly what was said.

    QUOTE]All I ask is to judge their teachings (and I mean what they really teach) in light of Scripture. [/QUOTE]

    I have, more than ever, and I have to be honest, it doesn't look good.
     
  2. Mike McK

    Mike McK New Member

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    Sure I remember, but if you remember, after awhile, I avoided those threads like the plague and pretty much confined myself to arguing with Aaron over in the music forums, precisely because they were uncomfortable.
     
  3. Mike McK

    Mike McK New Member

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    That's outstanding, not only for Pope, but for those other folks as well.
     
  4. Logan

    Logan New Member

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    Fair enough...

    I agree with you 100%! The doctrine of sola scriptura is not biblical by the simple fact that it cannot be found in the bible. It is in itself, self refuting. But I understand this is not what this thread is about....so maybe another time. ;)
     
  5. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    Ah, the old canard of "extra ecclesiam nulla salus". That is explained more fully in art 14 of Lumen Gentium : "the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism(124) and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved."

    However, most people stop there and fail to read on to art 15; I would suggest you do that. Any Catholic who says as a blanket statement, "there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church" or "there is no salvation without (Catholic) baptism" is not following Catholic teaching as laid out here, and that fact needs to be pointed out gently but firmly to them. So, I think Mike McK has no need of concern here as the posters who were telling him that were out of line

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  6. Mike McK

    Mike McK New Member

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  7. Mike McK

    Mike McK New Member

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    ...no doubt the things in the thread will be old hat to most of you, but I thought it was only fair to give them an opportunity to explain themselves.
     
  8. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    What's your problem with what's being written there, Mike? The Catholic view, reading LG, is that if you KNOW the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation and refuse to enter it, then you cannot be saved. Two explanations have been put forward pretty consistently by the Catholics I know and seem to be being put forward by the guys on your thread:-

    1. If you are a Protestant Christian, you therefore believe the Catholic Church is in error and therefore you do not KNOW that the CC is necessary for salvation. Therefore you can be saved outwith the CC

    2. The definition of Catholic Church is wide enough to embrace all Christians as the Body of Christ; if you are outside the CC as thus defined you are therefore not a Christian and ergo you are not saved.

    I think you and I are OK on both counts... ;)

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  9. Mike McK

    Mike McK New Member

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    I was going to cut and paste some of the responses when I got home from work but, unfortunately, I had no way of knowing that the thread would be closed.

    I was told flat out by more than one person, no, you cannot be saved outside of the Catholic church.

    I was told by another that if you are baptised, you are "imperfectly tied" to the Catholic church, thus, saved in spite of yourself.

    The problem is how can you say that a baptism that is performed by a church you consider apostate, in this case, the SBC, is valid?

    If I had gone into that thread not knowing any better, I would have come away thinking that my only choice was to join the Catholic church (or, as one Catholic poster put it, "become united to the Pope") or burn in Hell.
     
  10. Mike McK

    Mike McK New Member

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    ...OK. Found it. It's not gone, it's just in limbo - no pun intended.

    No, because the Church is the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit protects and guides the Church...you are looking at the Catholic Church and Christ as two separate things when they are not...It is true that outside the [Catholic] Church there is no salvation...They will not be saved if they are not ignorant of the necessity to be united with the Pope. - DefenseorFedei

    This one is just downright disturbing. The Catholic church is Christ?

    So, faith in Christ is not enough to save. - atomagenesis

    If you reject the Church, you reject Christ. - Letalis

    So basically, as a baptist, I'm screwed.
     
  11. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    Mike, all I can say is that the above do not reflect Catholic doctrine, and I would urge you to read Lumen Gentium, which does reflect Catholic teaching - there's a link in my last post - and you will see that their views do not accord with that. Here's a link to another Catholic site where I asked the same question; the responses there, apart from Aluigi's, who then gets reprimanded slightly, are pretty eirenic on the issue. I could have given you a link to another website which is far more ecumenical, but the page has been lost; essentially, though, I asked exactly the same question and was told by two prominent Catholics, one a Thomist theologian and the other a canon lawyer (so he if anyone was likely to be strict with me!) that I definitely was saved (in so far as one Christian can know another one is).

    Yours in Christ

    Matt

    [ March 08, 2005, 04:35 AM: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
     
  12. Ps104_33

    Ps104_33 New Member

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    Matt,
    In your profile you are listed as a Baptist. I have only one question. WHY??? :confused: Wouldnt you feel more ar peace with yourself and God as a Roman Catholic?
     
  13. BobRyan

    BobRyan Well-Known Member

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    quote:
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    "Now, I'm talking to more and more Catholics on this other board who are telling me that there's no salvation available outside of the Catholic church, that baptism is required, that tradition is more important than scripture, etc, and I just wonder why I never took these things seriously."
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    First of all they are very good grounds to tell you that this is the official teaching of the RCC.

    I say take it seriously. (which apparently you are doing - in that you see it to be genuine error.)

    In Christ,

    Bob
     
  14. BobRyan

    BobRyan Well-Known Member

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    Well lets go to some modern day RC sources - well known, well accepted and well published.

    So here a pro-Catholic Catholic Historian gives us a frank view of the "origin of Baptism" from the RCC's POV.

    In Christ,

    Bob
     
  15. BobRyan

    BobRyan Well-Known Member

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    Notice the evolution of doctrine and the evolving state where eventually "infant baptism" as a magic rites/sacrament supplants the role of "Bible teacher" for the priest. They have "powers" to perform sacraments - instead of just limiting themselves to being "Bible teachers".

    With that evolutionary change "borrowed from paganism" came a lot of other "consequences".

    In Christ,

    Bob
     
  16. BobRyan

    BobRyan Well-Known Member

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    From Catholic Digest (Parenthesis mine in the quotes below) from the June 1999 article.
    Please see www.catholicdigest.org for the full article that hints to the changes that have evolved over time.

     
  17. BobRyan

    BobRyan Well-Known Member

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    Don't miss that.

    Don't be mislead by modern well-wishers trying to "put a nice face on that".

    The historic facts are there AND are published by RC sources THEMSELVES in the late 20th century.

    In Christ,

    Bob
     
  18. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    That's very much a work in progress for me at the moment. I currently attend a Baptist Church and feel at home there, by and large; but I have been put off a lot of Baptist doctrine eg: sola Scriptura by some of the contents of this board and the behaviour of some posters towards each other

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  19. BobRyan

    BobRyan Well-Known Member

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    Matt -

    When it comes to tradition are you arguing that "some tradition might be ok" or are you arguing against the idea (in practical application) of really testing it against the Word of God to see if it is in violation of scripture (the way every RC on this board has "actually done" when it came down to a discussion. And the way scripture is bashed anytime you put this subject on an RC message board).

    If your problem is the second one then do you struggle with this...

    The ONE TRUE CHURCH of Christ's day (started by God at Sinai with a papal high-priest successor chosen explicitly by a system God gave - not one that was "made up" in recent millenia) - got twisted around with ITS tradition conflicted with scripture - and denying it the whole time.

    The RCC argument for tradition and against the Word of God (so they can have things like praying to the dead, purgatory, Mary all-powerful like Christ - sinless like Christ - redeemer with Christ - altars to Mary...) is two part.

    1. The first part denies the priesthood of all believers and says that you are too stupid to hear from the Holy Spirit - so the 1John 2, Johh 16 promise of the TEACHING Holy Spirit is "not for you". (Which would include the Heb 8 New Covenant "teaching" Holy Spirit denied to all non-Catholics since the New Covenant is "restricted" to the Catholic Mass).

    2. The second part argues that "tradition alone" is sufficient to establish doctrine - (Purgatory, praying to the dead, infallible Pope, Sinless Mary, etc) and because of part-1 you can not "challenge" or test that tradition since you are incapable of rightly applying the Word of God without the church (the origin of the tradition) telling you that its own tradition is wrong.

    "Seeing" their error in this case - just does not get any easier.

    If this part is confusing - what about the really hard questions?

    In Christ,

    Bob
     
  20. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    Bob, you asked for my view on Tradition.

    Given that, as has been amply demonstrated by several ludicrous threads on this Board,particularly in the Theology Forum and most notably and recently the absurd 4x20-pagers on Millenialism, "sola Scriptura+individual interpretation=theological nonsense and anarchy", I conclude that some form of absolute teaching authority is absolutely necessary to properly interpret Scripture. That is what I see the role of Tradition (now whether that be a wide catholic Tradition or a narrow Roman Catholic Tradition is another matter)to be: to authoritatively and definitively interpret Scripture. Therefore, your question about Tradition conflicting with Scripture is for me oxymoronic; since Tradition explains and expands upon Scripture, by definition it does not conflict. It of course can and does frequently conflict with individuals' interpretation of Scripture through sola Scripture, but that is of course to be expected... ;)

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
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