Too late to reedit I meant to write he is quoted as saying," Why do you say I blaspheme whe I call God my father when your father’s did
Did you happen to notice the couple of times I made the distinction between asking saints to pray for something, and asking them directly to intervene?
It’s the difference between a child saying to his sister “Go and ask daddy to drive us to the mall” and saying “drive us to the mall yourself”.
Regards,
Shodan
For those people who believe the Saint is triggering the desired event personally (rather than acting as a go-between or advocate between the prayer and God), the power the Saint is using is the power that God has delegated upon him, so it’s still God’s power that’s being used.
“Sister, please drive us to the mall in Daddy’s car”, if you wish.
Asking them to intervene is asking them to ask a higher power person, or God. As I understand it, once a person is in heaven they are supposed ot have powers they didn’t have on earth , so if the child asked the person to drive them that would mean he/she would have the right to drive them, as in your example.
They don’t ask the the person to drive them ,them selves!!! That is a big difference
At any rate if the Psalmist is correct them all are gods!
Not always, as I’ve said. Sometimes they ask the saint to act directly, not merely to ask God to act. Although it can be the case that “Blessed St. Ambrose cured my sore throat” is shorthand for “God cured my sore throat when I asked blessed St. Ambrose to ask God to do it.” But not always.
Which is, IMO, another step closer to worshiping saints as minor gods.
Since saints (and angels) are not part of the natural world, by definition a Catholic who asks a saint to act directly is asking for assistance from a supernatural power other than God. In Protestant eyes, and based largely on the experience of Martin Luther in the Reformation (the anniversary of which is next Monday) this is strictly verboten.
Whether or not it is enough to disqualify Catholics from being Christian is a judgment call. AFAICT, asking for saints to intervene is not official doctrine, and therefore no, Catholics are Christian, but it is still (IMO) sinful, albeit perhaps not consciously so.
In a way, it is like the practice of private confession. Catholics think so highly of the practice as to make it one of their sacraments. Protestants include private confession in their rituals, but mostly figure “why bother with intermediaries?” and confess their sins directly to God. Likewise with prayer - why not ask God, and if He chooses, He can send angels (or saints, I suppose) to carry out His will.
Regards,
Shodan
If I remember correctly from my Bible reading, Jesus is quoted as telling his 12 Apostles,“Whose sins you shall for give are forgiven them, whose sins you shall retain are retained”. at one point it also states ,all power is given to me in heaven and on earth, So if Jesus is God ,as Christians believe ,then the power was given to his 12 Human Apostles. so why not the saints given power to help a person they are using the strength God is said to give them?
If the Catholis church had no authority, and the reformation took place in 1,400( or so) with out the Catholic and Orthodox churches there would be no Christian religion or teachings. The monks at the time were all under the Roman church (because of Constintine wanting a united catholic church and he was the Roman emperor) .
There were reasons why people split and the many divisions of Christianity came about, the Orthodox split with Rome in 1,000,then some followed Luther,Calvin. etc. so all followed the teachings of a human.
Muhammad came along and said an angel was sent by God to write a new book, he too was just a human and so it is a matter of what one wants to believe or who.
To me it is like a medicine, some pople can take a medicine and be helped another could take it and die. I have nothing against religions but I do not think God has any religion or started any. A good father loves his children and looks out for them,not expecting someone else to do what he is able to do for them, nor does he give more to one child over another.Nor would a good being choose an adulterer or murderer to lead his people like David or the one called Moses.Even we humans seem to look for good character in our leaders, (some times even though they are not competent to lead)!!
The only one of the apostles who was dead at that point was Judas Iscariot, and I doubt that Catholics do a lot of praying to Judas.
[ul][li]Who said the Catholic church had no authority? []1517, not 1400 []I am not sure I understand what you are saying about Catholic and Orthodox churches. If you are talking about the preservation of literacy by monastic orders, that came much later. Constantine died in AD 337. There were monks at that time, but they were more like hermits than the later monastic orders such as those of Benedict and St. Francis.[*]You do realize that Martin Luther himself was a monk, do you not? [/ul][/li]Regards,
Shodan
But is this a formal tenet written in a book that is used to justify the practice, or the actual belief? Are the overwhelming majority of Catholics who treat saints as lesser gods not really Catholic?
The actual teaching of the RCC is that one prays to saints for intercession in the same way that one asks friends or relatives to pray for one.
For any number of reasons–poor education, cultural influences, a psychological attraction to polytheism, etc.–a number of Catholics do tend to treat the saints as minor deities. This does not make them “not Catholic” in the sense of the No True Scotsman fallacy, it simply means that they are, for one reason or another, failing to follow the teachings of their church in one particular area of belief.
Most anti-Catholic Protestants with a knowledge of church history will say that the Roman Catholic Church apostatized only at the Council of Trent when sola fide was condemned and thus that pre-Trent RCC had some good elements in it.
You were indeed correct on Martin Luther’s date, so then The protestant religion started at that time.the Greek Othoordox and Rome were once united under the rule of Constintine, indeed there were monks and they were in union with each other(Rome and the Orthodox) They were the educated men of their time ,and are the ones who copied the writings that were from what was called the canon at that time, Then the Bishops gathered under Constantine’s desire, and decided what was the word of God, what was inspired by God. They pre-dated Benedict and Francis by many years, Some think the Essesens were the first monastic groups because if the Dead sea scrolls, seemed to indicate they were of a monastic mind!
Yes, I know Luther was a priest in a monastic order(or was taught such) and he left because of the Church’s misuse of what he called Indulgences, and married a Catholic nun. he didn’t believe he was leaving the Catholic Church ,but thought he was reforming it. He was excommunicated by the pope of that time.
Indeed Judas was dead ,but the remaining 11 picked another to take his place.
If one would say the RCC is not Christian, then it would mean it had no authority to speak for Christians!
I know a lot of RCC’s and they do not consider a saint to be a lesser God and do not think of them as having the power they reserve only for their God!
There may be Catholics that do but are mistaken about Catholic teaching.
Catholic just means universal, but the council of Nicea seemed to put the one catholic church in the creed so that Christianity would be united!
In the same sense many non-Catholics I know do not follow their own beliefs, so in that sense there are very few real Christians; although their teachings tell them to love their neighbor, turn the other cheek, give to the poor(I am referring to those on the right who do not want to help some other person who got into finiancial trouble though poor management of their money and now need help).Even though the Jesus they claim to follow, told the young man to sell what he had and give it to the poor then come and follow Him. Now they yell…Socialism! Not considering Jesus would be called a bleeding heart Liberal, were he alive today!!
That one’s a little scary.
Christian, by definition, refers to believing in, yanno, Christ.
I remember in the 8th grade (Catholic school), once we were asked to list as many religions as we could think of, then during class discussion categorize each one as Christian or not.
Catholic: Y
Presbyterian: Y
Lutheran: Y
Hindu: N
Buddhist: N
Jewish: Y
Moslem: Y
I raised my hand at the last two and questioned them. The teacher INSISTED that they were indeed Christian.
Yoiks. For the most part I felt we got a decent education at that school but I didn’t have the chops to stand there and argue with a TEACHER about how she was, well, an ASS. I wonder how my parents would have reacted to a phone call like that?
I think that ordeal is probably due to a general split you usually get between Catholics and Protestants. Though I don’t think this is universally advertised by the Catholic church, your much more likely to get someone who believes that those who get into heaven encompasses much more then just people who believe in Christ on the catholic side of things.
Since Heaven itself is just a matter of belief, one needn’t worry! If the God who created all of His children is that big of a monster, then Heaven is not as it is all cracked up to be!! If a so called perfect being like Satan, could revolt over some petty thing, then so could some so called good Christian get into the same situation!
Since all teachings, writings, thoughts, and ideas can be proven to be that of humans, it even makes it less important as to who, or what is Christian. If a person believes he or she is Christian, then it’s faith makes it so! all religion is based on Belief.