Originally posted by thessalonian:
More anti-catholic habadashery. I have never had anyone put a gun to my head and force me to call them father.
Please get off your high horse and deal with reality. I shared a hospital room with an Anglican priest who got angry with me because I wouldn't acknowledge him as Father. He was even envious that others would call me pastor when they entered. He was not their Father, and was not addressed as such. His poor pride had been hurt.
I do not have to call the Pope Holy Father.
No, technically not; not if one has freedom of speech--or soul liberty. You could call him the antichrist, or the false prophet. You are at liberty to do so.
[QOUTE] further you muddy the water on this thread with your arguement. The arguement of saying that Mt. 23:9 of calling anyone father is not the same arguement as calling the Pope Holy Father. I don't think that the Bible intends to expound every title anyone on earth should have. There are titles for God which also apply to man, such as Holy One.[/QUOTE]
Now who is muddying the water? In the context where God is called the Holy One, it refers to the fact that God alone is holy. No one else is holy. How can an unholy person like you or I stand before a holy God? It is an impossibility. Don't deceive yourself into thinking that you are holy. You are not.
Further, I think it has been quite clearly shown that calling a man father in the Catholic way in a spritual sense can be used toward man.
On the contrary, the opposite has been demonstrated. The Scriptures used by the Catholics on this board have been amply refuted, and then just reposted again and again, is if the refutation has not even been read. You just keep ignoring the evidence.
Clearly it is used for Paul by himself and by Paul with regard to Abraham. Therefore to say that Mt. 23:9 says not to call someone father in a spiritual or physical sense shows completely destroys the credibility of anyone who claims otherwise.
God gave a covenantal promise to Abraham to make him a father of many nations. Did He do the same to your priest? I think not! He changed the name of Jacob to Israel, meaning prince and gave him the same promise, meaning a prince among nations.
By your reasoning then we should call each other Prince so and so??
How can one claim to say they are correct that the Bible shows we can't call a man Holy Father when they show their bias against the Catholic Church. All of their interprutations are based on what the Catholic Church teaches.
The bias is on what the Bible teaches which is against the Catholic church teaches. We believe what the bible teaches. The interpretation is based on the Bible.
I see a problem that you don't have anyone on earth to call father in the right context if Paul calls himself father and John strongly implies that he is a father by calling his converts "my children". There is nothing but confusion on the issue of Mt. 23:9 and this thread demonstates it quite well. The Catholic view is quite coherent and follows quite well what scripture says.
Paul was as a father to Timothy when he took him under his wing, and treated him as a son. He took him on his missionary journeys and treated him as his son. The relationship was different and unusual. The fact that John addresses his hearers as "my children" or "My little children" is no indication that he considered himself as their father, even though at that time he was a very aged man. The reference to children is to children of God, which we all are, if we have put our trust in Christ. The other reference to children in 1John 2 was in a physical sense. He addresses chilren as young men. He addresses the fathers--not as priests but as physical fathers.
2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
--children of God having a relationship with their heavenly Father.
2:14 I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.
--Note the difference between fathers and young men. This is a physical differentiation.
By the way, someone above mentioned that captialization was what made a title wrong. Funny thing, it is well know that there was no such thing as captalization in the Hebrew Texts.
"Ancient writing contained no punctuation, capitalization, or word spacing. It was meant to be read aloud, and you were thought extremely weird if you tried to read silently. Greek and Hebrew writing at first didn't even have vowels (Hebrew used apostrophe-like marks to mark where the vowel sounds went). In the west, capitalization (actually, the invention of lower-case letters), punctuation, and word spacing were all gradually introduced during the early middle ages, but didn't find complete expression until the advent of the mechanical printing process. "
Better rip those paragraphs and periods out also.
And you point is? Perhaps ignorance. What was said is true. The punctuation and captilization was put in later, much of it by the translators themselves. So in reading there obviously was no difference between father, and Father.
In many places of the Bible it takes a proper study of the Scriptures to know what paragraphs should be connected. Sometimes the translators were not accurate in paragraph differentiatin. But then if you don't believe in sola scriptura, you would not understand that concept anyway.
DHK
