Featured The explanation of Catholic Beliefs

quantumfaith,
Apparently I misunderstood your posts. I apologize.

 

I would generally agree, but if the person were a Roman catholic, and they shared with me that they are sure they are going to go to heaven because they believe in Jesus, and go to mass, and confession, and were baptized, and have not committed any mortal sins...I would have serious doubts about their salvation...AND I would have no reason to think they were telling me something that is at odds with what their church taught them...(as opposed to a Baptist telling me that they thought their Baptism saved them...there are surely baptists who believe that, but it is not what most Baptist churches teach).

 

I do appreciate your sentiment, but there is no need to apologize.

Blessings to YOU

 

......and to you, thank you!

 

This is what I'm attempting. Accuracy only emboldens our case. Wild, baseless accusations only discredit us.

I stand by the ratio. Particularly if we consider that between AD 500 and 1500 (these are round numbers) there were no other churches which existed in the west which carried the Gospel to people. I know you're not saying this, but others have, but are we really ready to just say that all these people were condemned to Hell because they faithfully confessed Christ (part of confirmation) and participated in the functions of their local parish? I can't say that. Even now, I've met and known plenty of faithful Catholics who can and have distinguished their faith apart from the mindless dogmatism of others.

Really my point is ad hoc and certainly disputable. I'm not going to stand by it do or die. I think it is worth stating though because I do believe that many people in our Baptist and evangelical churches do live theologically myopic lives. If we were to question their faith and why they are "saved" they would produce a rambling series of answers that are cloaked in cliche and dubious theologically. That's okay. Grace is bigger than my ability to articulate theological answers.

It is interesting that you have added Presbyterian to this list and also that you've excluded Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian, Anglican, etc etc etc.

Presbyterians believe in both infant baptism (a doctrine I strongly spurn) and believe that baptism carries a degree of salvific efficacy. So do the others I just mentioned. Now, Catholics believe that infant baptism (which, btw, the development of their doctrine is a fascinating read) is there to secure the child in the grace of the Church until their confirmation communion once they reach an age of appropriate ability to think and discourse. (My friends called it CCD, I don't know what its called now) Then the child communicant receives their first communion, a big day, and is sealed in the Church so long as they receive the continuing sacraments. Presbyterians, as I understand it, don't accept the 7 sacraments but do hold to both transubstantiation, or con-, and do believe baptism has sacramental efficacy.

In fact, I'll do so far as to say Baptists and their Anabaptist type, free church brethren are the only ones which distinguish the sacraments as being a non-blblical doctrine, preferring ordinances which are not efficacious.

We agree here.

I don't disagree here.

Listen folks, I'm not waving a banner for the RCC. They've got HUGE theological issues. I do not accept their doctrinal positions on most things once we get outside of the fundamentals of the faith. However, I do see them as partners in the work of the Church and proclamation of the Gospel insofar as they are a legitimate arm of God's work in the world. We cannot overlook 1500 years of ministry because we misunderstand their dogma and theology.

My work in my PhD was such that I engaged with historical theology which took me to a specific time period where the RCC was becoming, and was, the dominant form of Christianity for a significant amount of time. I worked in the development of a specific doctrine and found it to be a fascinating time for me personally, theologically, and ministerially. I currently am engaged in several interfaith dialogues where my Christian peer is a faithful Roman Catholic priest who I have gotten to know and love like a true brother in Christ. He admits that it isn't always the case that a priest in the RCC is a faithful believer, but he admits he worries about us Baptists too. That's where I'm coming from. I hope this continues to facilitate conversation.

 

Transubstantiation is of the utmost heresy. Christ was once offered for sins; not many times over. The elements (wine and bread) do not change to the actual body and blood of Jesus, which they do believe. We believe they are symbolic; they do not. It is called "the sacrifice of the mass," for good reason.

And why wouldn't you? Just because it was an early heresy, doesn't mean it isn't a heresy. There were heresies that both Paul and John corrected in the NT. Paul told the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 that after he would leave many false teachers would come in. Every author of the NT warns about false teachers and false prophets.
Christ shed his blood only once, not many times over.

Taking Scripture and dismantling it is not making a good point.
Ask yourself these questions:
"I am the door." Does Christ look like a door?
"I am the manna that came down from heaven." Really? Did Christ look like coriander seed?
"I am the bread of life." Does Christ look like bread?
"I am that living water." I hope it is not from the Dead Sea. Which water does he look like?

Christ is using metaphors, and he was using a metaphor in Mat.26 and in John 6. To eat his flesh and drink his blood, was to have eternal life. It was to trust him. If one expounds the entire passage of Scripture they can come to no other conclusion then the meaning of trusting Christ.

John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
--Almost all of his metaphors were about believing on him and obtaining eternal life, as the one above indicates.

Who is going to stop me?
I call it what it is.

Good. And transubstantiation is a blasphemous heresy, no matter what others say.

In liturgical practice, no.
In dogma, yes. Mariam dogma is central in their teaching. As I pointed out to you, one of their saints and leaders wrote an 800 page discourse on the defense of Mariolatry, a major dogma of the RCC. That was in the 1700's!
John Paul II reaffirmed the RCC commitment to Mary.

Those same prayers are repeated today. Spend time listening to a Catholic TV station. (On second thought don't. It is a waste of time.)

Which would be slander, because they have changed their views. The RCC still holds Mariolatry as a major doctrine.
I listed many doctrines in which they believe that are directly contrary to the Bible. That in itself should be convincing enough. If you don't believe me, post in the Other Chris. Denom. Forum, where there are some Catholics and you will get it straight from the horses mouth.

I have noted some who have taken some things to an extreme; but on the other hand you have not taken their heresies seriously enough.

If I kneel down before you, and pray to you, then I am making you an idol. That is ascribing divinity to you. That is what is forbidden in the Ten Commandments, and that is what the RCC does with Mary.

I never said they did. I said there was a liberal element within the ranks of the RCC that would like to do so. It probably won't happen though.

A god is a god is a god. If she is worshiped as a god then she is a god. That is idolatry; condemned in the Ten Commandments.

Take an example from Hinduism--the elephant god called Ganesh.
This is a popular Hindu deity that has a body of a man and the head of an elephant. He is the Lord of Beginnings and the Lord of Obstacles. If you see a Hindu praying before this "idol" do not insult him by asking him why he would pray to something made out of wood and stone, for he isn't. He is praying (the same as Catholics do), to the god that the statue represents--The god that removes obstacles, the god that originated all rituals and ceremonies. The idol is not the god. It only represents the god.

In the RCC, there are many statues. They pray before the statue of Mary. They make "the stations of the cross," and go and pray before each image, directing their prayers before that image. But, they say, they are not praying to the image, but the saint whom the image represents. That is no different than Hinduism. It is idolatry, that which God condemns.

Prayer to another is worship of another. Catholicism is polytheistic. It is the worship of many gods. What does the Lord say:

Exodus 20:2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
--He is a jealous God. He will not share his glory, his adoration, the worship that is due him and him alone with another--and that includes Mary. To worship Mary is idolatry. To pray to Mary is idolatry. This what the RCC needs to understand. We cannot go by their definitions; we must stick by what the Bible defines as idolatry.
I learned that when I came out of the RCC. The Catholic Church has different definitions for worship, adoration, veneration, etc. then the Bible does. It even has a different set of Ten Commandments, revamping the first four making them only three, in order to omit making images and bowing down to them.

 

Try telling that to the RCC. They will oppose what you just said.

First I quoted Legouri for you. That should have been sufficient.
Look up the writings of John Paul II. You will find writings to the same effect.
Second, every Catholic must say this prayer for penance:

Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee,
Blessed art thou among women
and blessed is the fruit, of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary mother of God,
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen.

That prayer is repeated over and over again--53 times every time one prays through the rosary. Why would one need to pray to Mary, especially at the hour of their death, if they had any assurance of salvation. The reason--Mary helps one into heaven.

The Catholic Catechism

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p4s1c2a2.htm#2679
--I trust that should be clear enough and authoritative enough.

You must believe what their official dogma teaches, not what one is comfortable with. Again, the Catechism:

It is not a red herring. What you need to realize is this. Like Hinduism, The RCC is not, never was, and never will be a "Christian religion." It is pagan. Simply because it has some Christian elements to it does not make it Christian. The Hindus hang a picture of Christ in their homes and make him one of their gods. That doesn't make them any more Christian then the RCC.

There is no gospel in the RCC. I've been there; done that.

No they don't.
They believe that salvation comes through the RCC itself.
Salvation is through works.
Salvation is through baptism.
The Catechism says that the meaning of the new birth means baptism.
Baptismal regeneration is another heresy which they believe. The Bible calls it a "damnable heresy."

Plainly put their doctrines send people to hell and are opposed to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Nah! They don't worship Mary!

 

And you want to talk about sickening.

 

:thumbsup:

 

:thumbsup:

I could never be Roman Catholic, for some of the reasons you have stated. Also, their murderous past history bothers me, but then that is the past history of many former state church Protestants.

But I do believe that there are saved Roman Catholics. And their errors are no more objectionable than some protestant errors, in my opinion.

 

Yes, they certainly are. This is proof enough.

http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?id=39679#

 

Living in an idolatrous country, I am completely in agreement with those who are here saying that Catholics worship Mary, and are thus idolators. I have seen Buddhists and Shintoists bow down to their idols many times. I once talked to some kids after seeing them bow down to a jizo, a roadside idol of Buddha. They were praying to it, and I asked them if Buddha had ever answered them and they said no.

Catholics bow down to and pray to Mary. The Hebrew word for "worship" in the comman against idolatry in Ex. 34:14 is shachah, which means "1) to bow down 1a) (Qal) to bow down 1b) (Hiphil) to depress (figuratively) 1c) (Hithpael) 1c1) to bow down, prostrate oneself 1c1a) before superior in homage 1c1b) before God in worship 1c1c) before false gods 1c1d) before angel" (BDB lexicon).

In NT Greek the main word for worship is proskuneo, occurring 54 times. It also means to physically bow down.

This is what Roman Catholics do when they bow and pray to Mary--worship. Therefore there is no doubt that Catholics are idol worshippers. This goes way back to when the Nestorians were kicked out of the Catholic heresy in the 5th century for objecting to the heresy that Mary was the "Mother of God."

 

Would you not have to say, then, that those Catholics who are saved are saved in spite of their church's beleifs, not because they are in lock-step with them?

 

Well It's obvious we disagree about the possiblility of so-called "carnal" Christians...but perhaps that is for another thread.

I would only say this...In the NT Letters to the churches, you have churches that:
-Put up with rank immorality
-Were full of dissensions
-Were mixing in Jewish requirements for salvation
-Had lost their love of Christ
-tolerated false teaching

And in none of these cases did Paul, or John advise the people to leave and find another church...they addressed their leaders and congregations jointly and said, "fix these problems, re-focus on Christ."

I believe that there can be people who remain deceived about some issues, such that they are very afraid of protestant and non-catholic churches, but they are relying on Christ for salvation, despite the teachings of the church they attend.

Also, I know of a Catholic priest in Rome who was awakened to the truth of the Gospel, and began teaching Salvation by grace through faith alone in his parish...untill he was kicked out by the catholic authorities...Was he wrong to remain once he saw the truth, or should he have left immediately.

 

Actually, no. The Nestorians were considered heretics because they separated the two natures of Jesus. Their objection to "Theotokos" was a by-product of this.