Catholic vs Calvinist (if you had to choose)

[DrHuk&Duck]

The Audacity of Pope: Would you describe the Pope authorizing priests to bless same-sex couples as "maintaining its stance on the social issues?"

Pope says Roman Catholic priests can bless same-sex couples

Announcing the change, the Vatican emphasised that it continues to view marriage as between a man and a woman.

www.bbc.com

Roman Catholic bishops in Africa have strongly protested this pronouncement by the pope. They don't seem to think that the Roman Catholic Church is "maintaining its stance on the social issues" at all.

“Within the church family of God in Africa, this declaration has caused a shockwave, it has sown misconceptions and unrest in the minds of many lay faithful, consecrated persons and even pastors, and has aroused strong reactions,”

Africa's Catholic hierarchy refuses same-sex blessings, says such unions are contrary to God's will

In the greatest rebuke yet to Pope Francis, the Catholic bishops of Africa and Madagascar have issued a unified statement refusing to follow his declaration allowing priests to offer blessings to same-sex couples.

apnews.com

Did you actually read the article you linked? Did you read, for example, this quote:
But the Vatican said blessings should not be part of regular Church rituals or related to civil unions or weddings.
It added that it continues to view marriage as between a man and a woman.

 

[Ransom]

Whoa…that’s a pretty strong statement there. Really? Damnable??)

The phrase "let him be anathema" originates with Paul issuing a waning to purveyors of false Gospels. So "damnable heresy" is fair.

 

[Ransom]

Can you explain then, why have I had two different IFB pastors in my lifetime who have publicly stated from the pulpit that they believe there are Catholics who are genuine Christians and will be in heaven?

What's there to explain? If there are genuine Christians within the Church of Rome, it's in spite of their soteriology, not because of it.

 

[illinoisguy]

Dr. Huk asked if I read the article I linked to. Yes, I read it. It described the new Roman Catholic policy of blessing same-sex unions as a "change." If the pope has made a "change" in policy on social issues, that is different from "maintaining" the policy on social issues, as Dr. Huk says the Roman Catholic Church is doing.

As usual, Dr. Huk did not answer the question posed to him. I asked him if he regards the pope's new policy on same-sex unions as "maintaining its stance on social issues" and he didn't respond.

How should we as Protestants respond to this change of policy on same-sex blessings by the Roman Catholic Church? Should it make us more or less interested in joining the Roman Catholic Church? We have been critical of the mainline Protestant denominations for their favorable acceptance of homosexuality, and now the Roman Catholic Church is going down the same road. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? One does not have to be militantly anti-Catholic to see a problem with this. The pope's new policy on blessing of gay unions has been rejected by the Roman Catholic bishops of Africa, Kazakhstan, Poland, Hungary and Haiti, all of whom seem to see it as a step in the wrong direction. Why are Roman Catholic bishops making a fuss about this, if, as Dr. Huk says, the Roman Catholic Church is "maintaining its stance on the social issues?"

 

[DrHuk&Duck]

Dr. Huk asked if I read the article I linked to. Yes, I read it. It described the new Roman Catholic policy of blessing same-sex unions as a "change." If the pope has made a "change" in policy on social issues, that is different from "maintaining" the policy on social issues, as Dr. Huk says the Roman Catholic Church is doing.

As usual, Dr. Huk did not answer the question posed to him. I asked him if he regards the pope's new policy on same-sex unions as "maintaining its stance on social issues" and he didn't respond.

How should we as Protestants respond to this change of policy on same-sex blessings by the Roman Catholic Church? Should it make us more or less interested in joining the Roman Catholic Church? We have been critical of the mainline Protestant denominations for their favorable acceptance of homosexuality, and now the Roman Catholic Church is going down the same road. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? One does not have to be militantly anti-Catholic to see a problem with this. The pope's new policy on blessing of gay unions has been rejected by the Roman Catholic bishops of Africa, Kazakhstan, Poland, Hungary and Haiti, all of whom seem to see it as a step in the wrong direction. Why are Roman Catholic bishops making a fuss about this, if, as Dr. Huk says, the Roman Catholic Church is "maintaining its stance on the social issues?"

No, it’s not a good look for the Pope or the Catholic Church. I don’t quite understand the concept of what he was doing, but it seems that the Church hasn’t shifted doctrinally from its historical position. About a month after his initial remarks, the Pope actually clarified that homosexuality is a sin, but not a crime. He says any sexual acts outside of marriage are sin: https://www.usccb.org/news/2023/pope-clarifies-remarks-about-homosexuality-and-sin

 

[DrHuk&Duck]

What's there to explain? If there are genuine Christians within the Church of Rome, it's in spite of their soteriology, not because of it.

Fair enough, but they can only be saved because they believe in the Trinity and salvific power of Christ and his death on the cross for our sins. Would you believe a Jehovah Witness could gain true salvation through the church of JW?

 

[Tarheel Baptist]

Can you explain then, why have I had two different IFB pastors in my lifetime who have publicly stated from the pulpit that they believe there are Catholics who are genuine Christians and will be in heaven? (As a side note, one IFB pastor had a Bob Jones University background, the other had a Pensacola Christian College background—both were longtime pastors.)

That’s an entirely different ‘thing’.
There may very well Catholics who are saved…but NOT because they trusted in the works and ritual salvation preached by the Catholic Church.

Two different IFB pastors saying something is not a viable argument to prove anything except that they said something.

 

[Tarheel Baptist]

Fair enough, but they can only be saved because they believe in the Trinity and salvific power of Christ and his death on the cross for our sins. Would you believe a Jehovah Witness could gain true salvation through the church of JW?

No one receives salvation through any church.
We receive salvation by trusting in the finished work of Christ on the cross.

 

[Bob Jones VI]

I’d choose to be a Catholic. I believe the theology of Catholicism is more accurate than that of Calvinism.

What about you? Anyone agree with me?

Sarcasm? Catholics believe in salvation by faith and works.

 

[Ransom]

Fair enough, but they can only be saved because they believe in the Trinity and salvific power of Christ and his death on the cross for our sins. Would you believe a Jehovah Witness could gain true salvation through the church of JW?

Salvation isn't dispensed by any institution; it comes from the person and work of Jesus Christ.

A person might conceivably receive enough truth in either the Roman Catholic Church or the Watchtower to seek out and attain saving knowledge of Christ. Regardless, both institutions teach damnable heresy. They're saved in spite of their affiliation, not because of it. Both things can be true.

 

[DrHuk&Duck]

I’ve heard a few of you talk about your experiences as a Catholic-turned-Protestant, but that reminded me that there are also Protestant-turned-Catholic stories as well. In this conversation, it’s actually a Baptist pastor who became a Catholic: https://www.ncregister.com/blog/john-thompson-former-baptist-pastor-becomes-catholic?amp

 

[abcaines]

I’ve heard a few of you talk about your experiences as a Catholic-turned-Protestant, but that reminded me that there are also Protestant-turned-Catholic stories as well. In this conversation, it’s actually a Baptist pastor who became a Catholic: https://www.ncregister.com/blog/john-thompson-former-baptist-pastor-becomes-catholic?amp

First line from the article:

“If this is the same Church that traces its roots back to the Apostles,” says John Thompson, “yes, this is where all men and women belong.”

I think we have established in this thread that the claim that the RCC traces it's roots to the apostles is a false claim.

 

[DrHuk&Duck]

I think we have established in this thread that the claim that the RCC traces it's roots to the apostles is a false claim.

I wouldn’t say “we have established.” I’d say according to the link from Got Questions, it’s a bit fuzzy—a lot of “maybe's” and “probably’s” and “most likely’s.” (https://www.gotquestions.org/Peter-first-pope.html)

On the other hand, the Catholic Church also had an article rebutting the type from Got Questions (https://www.catholic.com/tract/origins-of-peter-as-pope). Again, we’re not going to find video evidence of such a claim, and they have a bias to promote themselves.

Regardless, I’m more interested in the theological aspect of the article. I’ve only gotten through 25 minutes of the embedded video interview of the former Baptist pastor, but it’s an interesting interview.

 

[Ransom]

I think we have established in this thread that the claim that the RCC traces it's roots to the apostles is a false claim.

It's "tradition."

Of course, it's the RCC who gets to define what "tradition" is, which pretty much just favours the RCC and its claim to be the holder of tradition.

 

[illinoisguy]

TOP TEN REASONS TO JOIN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH:

1. Their theology is not quite as bad as that of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
2. At least they do not teach out of the Koran.
3. It's not wrong for them to have rituals - so do the IFBs and SBC.
4. Everyone agrees that Peter was the first pope. (Not true, we don't all agree to that)
5. Roman Catholics have been around longer than Protestants. (So have the Jews, Hindus and Buddhists)
6. Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic priest. (Never mind that he led a massive exodus from the Catholic church and called the pope Antichrist)
7. Galileo was Roman Catholic. (Never mind that the Catholic church convicted him of heresy and placed him under house arrest)
8. Roman Catholic Church has maintained its stance on the social issues. (Never mind that Pope Francis authorized blessings on gay unions)
9. A preacher from Bob Jones University once said that some Catholics will be in heaven.
10. We all agree that our church ancestry is from the Roman Catholic Church. (Not true, many Protestants, including non-Landmarkers such as Charles Haddon Spurgeon, rejected this claim and maintained that there were always true evangelical groups throughout the Middle Ages)

Until we can come up with better reasons than this, I'm not ready to sign up to be a papist.

 

[DrHuk&Duck]

TOP TEN REASONS TO JOIN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH:

1. Their theology is not quite as bad as that of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
2. At least they do not teach out of the Koran.
3. It's not wrong for them to have rituals - so do the IFBs and SBC.
4. Everyone agrees that Peter was the first pope. (Not true, we don't all agree to that)
5. Roman Catholics have been around longer than Protestants. (So have the Jews, Hindus and Buddhists)
6. Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic priest. (Never mind that he led a massive exodus from the Catholic church and called the pope Antichrist)
7. Galileo was Roman Catholic. (Never mind that the Catholic church convicted him of heresy and placed him under house arrest)
8. Roman Catholic Church has maintained its stance on the social issues. (Never mind that Pope Francis authorized blessings on gay unions)
9. A preacher from Bob Jones University once said that some Catholics will be in heaven.
10. We all agree that our church ancestry is from the Roman Catholic Church. (Not true, many Protestants, including non-Landmarkers such as Charles Haddon Spurgeon, rejected this claim and maintained that there were always true evangelical groups throughout the Middle Ages)

Until we can come up with better reasons than this, I'm not ready to sign up to be a papist.

LOL. I mean c’mon…you really went through and cherry-picked my comments from various posts. I wasn’t exactly writing a defense treatise of the Catholic Church.

 

[illinoisguy]

However, many (most?) giants of the faith and Christian intelligentsia have belonged to the Catholic Church, from Augustine to Aquinas to Galileo.

Seems like I keep on hearing about what a "giant of the faith" St. Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274) was - and not just here on this forum, by any means.

So, let's talk about him. What did Aquinas teach that was so great?

[Aquinas] "exploited the works of Aristotle for purposes of Christian theology. . . . More than other scholastic theologians he uses the Scriptures, but only for the confirmation of ecclesiastical dogma. He represents the principle of absolute subserviency to ecclesiastical authority in its complete form." - Albert Henry Newman, "A Manual Of Church History," Vol. 1, p. 483.

"Of course, Aquinas did believe in the doctrine of merit and the necessity of good works. So in this sense he would fall short of the Protestant understanding of salvation by faith alone." - Norman Geisler and Ralph McKenzie, in "Roman Catholics and Evangelicals - Agreements and Differences."

"To the pope, it belongs to determine what is of faith. Yea, subjection to him is necessary to salvation. High churchmanship could no further go. In his declarations about heresy and its treatment, Thomas [Aquinas] materially assisted in making the persecution of heretics unto death the settled policy of the Church and the State. At any rate, he cleared away all objections as far as it was possible to clear them away." - Philip Schaff, "History of the Christian Church," Vol. 5, pp. 674-675.

Aquinas wrote, "With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side, the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evildoers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death." - St. Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Theologica," II-II, Q. 11, Articles 3 and 4)

"Before the end of the [13th] Century, St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theol., II-II:11:3 and II-II:11.4) already advocated capital punishment for heresy though it cannot be said that his arguments altogether compel conviction. The Angelic Doctor, however speaks only in a general way of punishment by death, and does not specify more nearly the manner of its infliction." - "Catholic Encyclopedia."

I won't get into Augustine, except to say that he believed that a person in a coma could be born again by baptizing him while in the coma, and that he misused Luke 14:23, "compel them to come in," to justify Church persecution of the Donatist "heretics."

 

[DrHuk&Duck]

Seems like I keep on hearing about what a "giant of the faith" St. Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274) was - and not just here on this forum, by any means.

So, let's talk about him. What did Aquinas teach that was so great?

[Aquinas] "exploited the works of Aristotle for purposes of Christian theology. . . . More than other scholastic theologians he uses the Scriptures, but only for the confirmation of ecclesiastical dogma. He represents the principle of absolute subserviency to ecclesiastical authority in its complete form." - Albert Henry Newman, "A Manual Of Church History," Vol. 1, p. 483.

"Of course, Aquinas did believe in the doctrine of merit and the necessity of good works. So in this sense he would fall short of the Protestant understanding of salvation by faith alone." - Norman Geisler and Ralph McKenzie, in "Roman Catholics and Evangelicals - Agreements and Differences."

"To the pope, it belongs to determine what is of faith. Yea, subjection to him is necessary to salvation. High churchmanship could no further go. In his declarations about heresy and its treatment, Thomas [Aquinas] materially assisted in making the persecution of heretics unto death the settled policy of the Church and the State. At any rate, he cleared away all objections as far as it was possible to clear them away." - Philip Schaff, "History of the Christian Church," Vol. 5, pp. 674-675.

Aquinas wrote, "With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side, the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evildoers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death." - St. Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Theologica," II-II, Q. 11, Articles 3 and 4)

"Before the end of the [13th] Century, St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theol., II-II:11:3 and II-II:11.4) already advocated capital punishment for heresy though it cannot be said that his arguments altogether compel conviction. The Angelic Doctor, however speaks only in a general way of punishment by death, and does not specify more nearly the manner of its infliction." - "Catholic Encyclopedia."

I won't get into Augustine, except to say that he believed that a person in a coma could be born again by baptizing him while in the coma, and that he misused Luke 14:23, "compel them to come in," to justify Church persecution of the Donatist "heretics."

I’d recommend you read this article by Dr. R.C. Sproul, who is not a Catholic, but rather was a Protestant minister. As he said, “Protestants owe a debt of gratitude to Thomas Aquinas.” My own former IFB pastor occasionally quoted Aquinas. He was our friend, not our enemy. https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/thomas-aquinas-2019-05/

 

[Ransom]

Seems like I keep on hearing about what a "giant of the faith" St. Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274) was - and not just here on this forum, by any means.

Aquinas was one of the greats of Western philosophy. He popularized Aristotelian thought in the West, where it had been lost and was just being rediscovered. He introduced such concepts as necessity vs. contingency or essence vs. existence to Western ontology. His "Five Ways" to prove the existence of God are still taught and debated. Aquinas is indispensable for a proper understanding of the development of Western thought.

A giant of "the faith"? Not so much. Of the Roman Catholic faith, certainly. He's the originator of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, in which the Eucharistic elements transform into the real body and blood of Christ, while retaining the outward, accidental properties (taste,texture,etc.) of the bread and wine. I'd submit, on the other hand, that there's a reason the wafers still taste like crackers and not Jesus--and it's got nothing to do with Aquinas's assertion, which by its nature defies proof. (I've not read those parts of the Summa Theologica, and now I want to, just out of curiosity how he gets around what seems to me is a fatal flaw in his argument.) A lot of the errors in Catholic doctrine? Aquinas could have invented them.

 

[DrHuk&Duck]

Aquinas was one of the greats of Western philosophy. He popularized Aristotelian thought in the West, where it had been lost and was just being rediscovered. He introduced such concepts as necessity vs. contingency or essence vs. existence to Western ontology. His "Five Ways" to prove the existence of God are still taught and debated. Aquinas is indispensable for a proper understanding of the development of Western thought.

A giant of "the faith"? Not so much. Of the Roman Catholic faith, certainly. He's the originator of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, in which the Eucharistic elements transform into the real body and blood of Christ, while retaining the outward, accidental properties (taste,texture,etc.) of the bread and wine. I'd submit, on the other hand, that there's a reason the wafers still taste like crackers and not Jesus--and it's got nothing to do with Aquinas's assertion, which by its nature defies proof. (I've not read those parts of the Summa Theologica, and now I want to, just out of curiosity how he gets around what seems to me is a fatal flaw in his argument.) A lot of the errors in Catholic doctrine? Aquinas could have invented them.

RC Sproul is widely regarded as one of the great contemporary theologians—and to boot, he was also a Calvinist. It doesn’t seem he shared your sentiments concerning Aquinas. Regardless, my admiration for Aquinas is mainly from his work in the area of natural law.