Interesting info, but I still don’t see any reference to the Bible in all of that. Is there anything in the 66 books that we all agree on, that says there is more work that needs to be done after death?
I need to learn to change the username on the computer when I post. I’m sorry, the post to beagledave was from me, not from Joe_Cool.
“that we all agree on?”. heh.
Thanks, but MY Bible includes Maccabees…are you genuinely curious about why Roman Catholics have their belief about purgatory…or you attempting to debate the merits of the doctrine (by, it appears, among other things, questioning the validity of some books of the Catholic bible?)
If the former…I’ve laid out AN answer.
If the latter, perhaps at least be honest about your intentions and start a new GD thread about the flaws of the purgatory (or papal infallibility) teachings of the church.
BTW, the first link I listed DID list other scriptural sources that the Church uses to develop the doctrine.
“The concept of a purification after death from sin and the consequences of sin is also stated in the New Testament in passages such as 1 Corinthians 3:11-15, Matthew 5:25-26, and 12:31-32.”
Tsk, tsk, JerseyDiamond. Is there any reference in the Bible–you know, the 39 books that all of y’all Judeo-Christians agree on–that identifies this Jesus of Nazareth fellow as the Messiah? I mean, I see lots of citations from “Matthew”, “Mark”, “Luke”, and “John”, not to mention the letters of this “Paul” fellow, but I still don’t see any reference to the Bible in all of that.
The Catholic Church says 2 Maccabees is part of the Bible, just as much Genesis or Isaiah or Acts or Revelation.
The OT tells of a Messiah coming and how we are to recognize Him. Also, see John 4:25b The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.
John 4:26 Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. In the New Testament, the original Greek word for Christ is Christos. The same word in Old Testament Hebrew is Mashiach, which in English is rendered as Messiah. The literal translation of both Greek and Hebrew is “the anointed one”. It is the title and identity which Jesus acknowledged during his ministry in Palestine.
Key words, * the catholic church says *
I wasn’t necessarily attacting the validity of the catholic bible. You and I do not agree on the catholic bible, so I was hoping you can show me something in my Bible. The 66 books. Is that possible. Your Bible does include the 66 books of my Bible, right?
Ookay, can you explain to me how those passages have anything to do with purification after death. Are you reading everything around it?
Thanks, JD
Heh. Silly me. I thought you were asking about * Roman Catholic * church doctrine, when you asked about purgatory. Again, if you wish to debate the “correctness” of such a doctrine…by all means start a debate (although it’s been done before)…if you have genuine curiosity, then I’ve made an honest attempt to answer your question.
I’m guessing that you decided to NOT do a search on previous threads…let me help you out.
Try here, here and here for previous discussions about purgatory.
Ok, thanks for trying beagledave. It’s really not necessary to start another thread when I am in GD and this is ask the catholic guy.
Anyway, I apologize. I always thought that catholics and Christians believed the same thing until now. It’s clear that Christians believe the Bible and catholics believe the roman catholic doctrine. ** Paul did say** Gal 1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Gal 1:9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
I am curious to know your take on what ** Joe_Cool** posted on the second page.
thanks, JD
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Read the previous threads…this has been done before, with better precision that I care to lend to your “question”
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Since you’re referring to a specific denomination, “Roman Catholic” is capitalized.
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I’ll leave your trollish swipes about “catholics” not being “Christian” for what they are…
I guess you’ve answered my initial question (not that I had any real doubt…you’re more interested in Catholic bashing than in satisfying a genuine curiosity. Trust me, the bashing has been done before…MANY times before on the SD, and by far better.
- Read the previous threads.
Well, yeah, of course there are numerous places where the 39 books of the Bible talk about the coming of the Messiah. My question was, is there any place in the Bible where it says this Jesus of Nazareth guy is the aforementioned Messiah? I see that you mentioned this “Gospel According to John” book, but I was hoping you could show something in, say, cmkeller’s Bible which specifically identifies Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. I wasn’t necessarily attacking the validity of the Protestant Bible. You and cmkeller do not agree on the Protestant Bible, so I was hoping you could show me something from his Bible. The 39 books. Is that possible? Your Bible does include the 39 books of cmkeller’s Bible, right?
Key words: The Protestant churches say 2 Maccabees is not part of the Bible.
JerseyDiamond, the thread is called “Ask the Catholic Guy(s)”. That would indicate it’s for discussing, guess what? “Catholic doctrine”!
“Christian”: believing that, Jesus Christ, Son of The One God of Abraham and Jacob, Himself God, was incarnated as a human and born on Earth to liberate mankind from sin through the sacrifice of His blood and from death through His resurrection, and to teach mankind the way of living that allows them to partake from that liberation; and that He shall return in the end of time to make the World truly whole. The Catholic Church complies fully with these requirements. CATHOLICS ARE CHRISTIAN.
Biblical literalism, hierarchical organization, schisms, reformations, participation/nonparticipation of women in clergy, faith vs. works, political alignments, Missions, sending tax-free money to televangelists, etc.,… that is arguing about details.
In any case, you bring up the opportunity to point out another element of Catholic Doctrine: Catholicism DOES NOT pretend to work from Sola Scriptura(‘Scripture Alone’)-- it clearly and up front states the belief that the Holy Spirit continually refines the way that the message of Christ reaches the people, and that while the primary source of that message is Scripture, the dissemination and interpretation of the message also relies upon tradition and upon a body of inspired thought, scholarly study, and personal meditation conducted while continuously praying God’s guidance.
Quoting from the summation of the relevant chapter of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
So that a Catholic doctrine does not meet some Fundie standard on a biblical-literalism test means… darn little, since they do not subscribe to Biblical Literalism AT ALL. And if I may be so bold, any claim that X or Y group follows THE pure unadulterated biblical guidance, unaffected at all by 20 centuries of human interpreters and teachers and changing social constructs, or by individual perceptions, is to be taken with a truck of salt.
Anyway, I agree with the post a little earlier. Maybe the Fundamentalist Christian reading of the 39 protocanonical books simply means that Jews believe in the Bible, while Fundamentalist Christians believe in “Fundie Doctrine.”
jrd
Oh, PS : Really, Fundie witnessing against Catholicism (apart from being Old Hat in this day and age) DOES belong in ANOTHER thread.
Oooh! I get to say it first:
Straw man!
The RCC has not said “that the pope is infallible when speaking on matters of doctrine.” The RCC has said that the pope is infallible when proclaiming matters of Faith and Morals on those occasions when he has chosen to speak ex cathedra, (meaning that he has declared that he is making an infallible decree). Since Peter never actually had the money to own a chair, he never did get around to speaking ex cathedra. (It is also true that the doctrine of infallibility is not wholely embraced within Catholicism, and I suspect that some “new understandings” of that doctrine will be issued in the next century, or so.) As has already been pointed out in this thread, only two doctrines have actually been declared infallible.
The RCC has a long history of popes being publicly rebuked. (Even Theresé of Lisieux got in a few jabs.)
As to Peter and his rock, the RCC has always acknowledged (and revelled in) the play on words implicit in the statement of Jesus. (It shows that Jesus actually had a sense of humor–even resorting to puns.) That passage of Scripture is never used to justify the papacy, only to establish a Scriptural connection. The full history and development of the papacy is a much more complex issue, and is not contained in the sort of “sound bite” quotation so beloved by one brand of Christian Biblical Literalist.
While the tradition of establishing a relationship with Jesus is, indeed, ancient, it hardly is a “tenet of the Christian faith” and it would be interesting to see what Scripture is cited to support this claim. Certainly, the catch-phrase “accept Jesus as my personal savior” that is so beloved of some groups is, indeed, a very modern phrase that appears nowhere in Scripture–in fact, the word “personal” appears in no Biblical translation prior to 1980, and never in regards to a “relationship” with Jesus. So it seems that we now have someone propounding a non-Scriptural “tenet” of Christianity. (Oh, the horror!)
Or, rephrased, it is clear that Christians believe the Bible while many Protestants reject those parts of Scripture that have been recognized by the Christian Church (Catholic and Orthodox) for over 1900 years, choosing to follow the opinion of a single man, Martin Luther, in rejecting some Scripture because Luther chose to create a different tradition.
I’m willing to set aside one-liners and smart-ass jabs, discussing genuine differences. If we’re going to simply get sound bites and sniping, however, I’m going to be quite happy to reply in kind.
Actually:
While the RCC is still on record as being very opposed to masturbation, it is not maintaining a list of “mortal sins,” so masturbation is not in that category (and the list of exculpatory considerations almost makes the point moot);
Limbo was a theological construct and was never a doctrine of the RCC (Sister Mary Holyterror notwithstanding).
The contraception issue is also more complex, although the shorthand “contraception is evil” is certainly easier to extract from the church’s statements than any other equally short statement.
What exactly are you saying here? I don’t recall the church doing away with the concept of mortal sins and such. If they did do away with that idea, wouldn’t that effectively eliminate hell and say that everyone will go to purgatory for varying amounts of time?
Also, annullment means that in the eye of the church the marriage never occurred. Is there such a procedure for baptism? My priest told our CCD class that church doctrine claims that God reveals himself in all religions, so any relgion (excluding satanism) is worshipping Him. The priest proceeded to say that a person has the right to find how God calls him/her. This doesn’t seem to jive with traditional doctrine. Was my priest speaking the truth on the church allowing conversion, or was he speaking his personal viewpoint? In the same conversation he told us he was for women priests, so he is pretty liberal for a catholic priest.
Because they believe that Christ has already risen off the cross? That’s one explanation I’ve heard.
The Church still recognizes the distinction between mortal (deathly) sin, that separates one completely from God, until a person responds to God’s Grace by seeking forgiveness and venial sin, that impairs one’s ability to respond to God without the complete separation involved in a mortal sin.
However, the old lists that identified specific actions or events as falling into the categories of mortal or venial are no longer being published. Too many conditions factor into whether any specific action by a particular person under various situations constitute a mortal sin, so the RCC has gotten out of the business of providing a list of things that will have a mortal effect on our soul while providing an alternative list of things “we can get away with” simply because “those are only venial.” (The of “know it, will it, do it” conditions still apply.)
If you dig up an old high school religion book from the early 1960s or earlier, you can often find sections dealing with hair-splitting decisions of what actions would invoke the judgment of “mortal” ro “venial.” (Some got down to identifying how long a passionate kiss could go before it tripped into one category or another.) Those lists are no longer supported by most Catho;lic publications.
Here is the Catechism on sin. Note that while they show a few brief examples of how some sins may be worse than others, they do not set up a rigid list, detailing where every action occurs on a spectrum.
There is no annulment for Baptism. Even excommunication is simply a declaration that a person has, by his or her actions, removed themselves from the ability to participate in the Sacraments. The RCC views anyone who has been baptized as a Catholic, regardless of their actions. (The church is not currently in the habit of trying to physically drag apostates back into the fold, of course.)
The RCC does say that all religions are attempts by people to respond to the grace of God calling all people to Himself. However,
is rather more liberal than the RCC will actually say on the subject. The RCC still maintains that it holds the best expression of God’s Truth and that all should be encouraged to find and relate to God through the church.
While I got a chuckle out of “Peter wasn’t rich enough to own a chair,” Tom~, the point to “papal infallibility” as I understand it (and I welcome you or Bricker or any of the other knowledgeable Catholics correcting me) is that the RCC holds that the Holy Spirit protects the Pope (or a Church council) from leading the faithful astray under the circumstances you’ve outlined.
Peter speaking to Jesus prior to the Crucifixion was not equipped by the Holy Spirit to do the work of an Apostle. After Pentecost, he was. It’d be my understanding that under the Catholic line of thought, the Popes function as successors of the Apostles and their teaching is similarly inspired by the Holy Spirit. (Obviously, this is not going to sit well with conservative Protestants, but I wanted to get the point straight. Same deal as with Mass: Never yet met a priest who believed he could turn bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood – but I know a lot who believe the Holy Spirit answers their prayers to do so.)
Your points are accurate, Poly. In the same way, the Councils of the Church and the Magisterium (teaching) is considered to be protected by the Holy Spirit. There have been synods (and one or two councils) where the church later set aside the findings, but in those cases, the original meeting is considered to have been flawed by deliberate heresy or some other impairment.
Obviously, an outside observer can look at those decisions and say that it was simply a case of the winners writing history. Since we are dealing with issues of belief, I can think of no outside objective measure that would satisfy both proponents and opponents on these issues.
Papal infallibility was a fairly late entry to these discussions, and was an effort to codify the particular relationship that the pope had under the guidance of the Holy Spirit–extending the concept of the Magisterium–on the specific areas of Faith and Morals.
Given that it has been challenged within the Catholic community, I am not going to claim that any non-Catholic should accept the notion. Witty turns of phrase, on the other hand, however amusing, (and James Branch Cabell did it better in Jurgen), do not actually address the issue.
The way I heard it was “knowledge, intent, and grave matter” – which is also a bit problematic, because when does something become grave matter (beyond the obvious)? What the catechism says is that this is based on the Ten Commandments, but they’re interpreted very broadly (for instance – “don’t commit adultery” has to do with anything related to sex).
Who’s your priest? I’d like to meet him-he sounds like a good guy.
When I have conversations like this, I almost consider going back to Mass, since I guess deep down, I’m NEVER going to leave behind my Catholic upbringing.
But then I go and read where the Pope has condemned this this and this…sigh It’s so bloody confusing.