ramblin_ag02 said:

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FalconAg06 said:

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Catholics + orthodox = Christian
Everything else =/= Christian

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Sorry Jesus. All those people converted by Billy Graham across the world that had their lives changed by Your Grace and who live out the message of love and forgiveness don't count apparently and neither do I.

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I am sorry as well, Jesus. Forgive them, they know not what they do.

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Your last statement contradicts the entire paragraph ahead of it. The reason for schism is intolerance of disagreement. Every single schism has been the result of an honest disagreement, followed by one side breaking fellowship over this disagreement and the other side refusing to give up the point in order to return to fellowship.

you only get unity in one of two ways. Either everyone agrees on everything all the time, which I consider a fantasy scenario. Or people learn to fellowship with others even though they don't agree about everything all the time, which is only slightly less of a fantasy scenario. I do think the second scenario better demonstrates a lot of Christian virtues such as humility, grace, and love. The first scenario seems like it would promote intolerance, hate, and pride.

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I kinda disagree. There's only one source of unity, and that is God. We don't achieve unity laterally, we achieve it vertically. Union with Him is union to each other - "I in them and you in me." Too much is made of horizontal unity, and not enough of true unity, which is not made by or sustained by men.

I think the Lord's words throughout the Gospel of John are important. When you know Him or are looking for Him - and you don't just know about Him - you recognize Him when you see Him. That's why the heretical Samaritan woman confessed Him as the Messiah when the Judaeans could not.

The problem today, as then, is that there are a lot of people who are very religious, but don't seek after God or know Him. Too much pharisaical rule following and condemnation, too much trying to go to heaven when you die - not enough repentance, humility, and love of God and your fellow man.

We're known by our fruits. And He knows His own. We all need to look to our own sins. But nevertheless, this does not excuse those who would pervert the Gospel for whatever reason.

At the end of the day, there is truth and there is falsehood. Some things are correct and negating those things is incorrect. We are supposed to speak the truth in love and hold fast to the apostolic faith, delivered once for all to the saints.

There is no harm - and actually there is a ton of benefit - in having these kind of discussions. IF our aim is to be reunited to our brothers who have been separated from us, and not to be right, or prove others wrong, or prove our own piety or knowledge. That's kind of difficult sometimes, though.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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I pray for unity of Christians daily. However as the Lord says a house divided cannot stand. His prayers before his sorrowful passion were for all of his followers to be one as he and the Father are one. Schism is antichrist and is from the enemy. There shouldn't be relativism with in the Church.

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Your last statement contradicts the entire paragraph ahead of it. The reason for schism is intolerance of disagreement. Every single schism has been the result of an honest disagreement, followed by one side breaking fellowship over this disagreement and the other side refusing to give up the point in order to return to fellowship.

you only get unity in one of two ways. Either everyone agrees on everything all the time, which I consider a fantasy scenario. Or people learn to fellowship with others even though they don't agree about everything all the time, which is only slightly less of a fantasy scenario. I do think the second scenario better demonstrates a lot of Christian virtues such as humility, grace, and love. The first scenario seems like it would promote intolerance, hate, and pride.

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It is not out of my pride that I wrote that. I don't consider it a fantasy scenario because it is what the Lord asks of us. He wouldn't ask it if it wasn't possible. The Church was one for 1000 years and pride caused the Schisms after that. I agree there should be core of beliefs and after that there should be room for individualism.
John 17
The Prayer of Jesus.*
1 When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven* and said, "Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,a
2* just as you gave him authority over all people,b so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him.
3* Now this is eternal life,c that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
4 I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.
5 Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.d


6 "I revealed your name* to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
7 Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,
8 because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.
9 I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours,e
10 and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them.f
11 And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.

Personally, I do not like the "Catholic vs." mentality or conversation and I'd prefer to keep the discussion charitable and productive. I certainly believe there are many, many, many Christians that are not Catholic or Orthodox.


Another personal story... growing up my Baptist friends across the street informed me I was not a Christian and I was going to hell because I was Catholic. I think I was 9 or 10 at the time.

In my senior year at A&M I came to realize that many/most of my really good friends in college were actually very anti-Catholic. When this kind of slipped out one night (one insinuated that I couldn't be Christian because I was Catholic) we began having regular conversations about our beliefs. Eventually my Church of Christ roommate withdrew from these talks because I was able to provide answers and support for virtually everything Catholic that he had been taught was unBiblical and contrary to the Bible. Unlike most people I have come across who grew up with an anti-Catholic bent, he kept an open mind and was very genuine and sincere in our discussions.

It was fun initially, but then he began to have his faith shaken because I had or found the answers to pretty much every "issue". Mary, the Saints, Baptism, Confession, the Bible the Pope, Purgatory, the Eucharist, daily Mass, etc, etc, etc. I did not convert him, and that was never my intention, but he definitely softened toward the Catholic faith and realized that we are not the great Satan so many believe us to be, and in fact his Church had taught him to believe.

I'll never forget the night he finally withdrew, he busted in my room and said "I'm done, I'm out! I can't do this anymore. You have an answer for everything I throw at you. I don't know that I agree with you but at least I know we will see each other in heaven because I know you are a Christian...even though you were Baptized as a baby."

TLDR - when Anti-Catholics stop coming at Catholics as the Great Satan and dumb sheep, but rather keep an open mind and allow Catholics to provide a defense for our faith, I think a lot of distance can be covered and help bring us together. It does not mean one will convert, but at least may help in understanding that we probably aren't what you think we are! We are not in denial about Church history, and we place our hearts and our faith and our trust in Christ Jesus - and all the He promised.

And for us Catholics, we need to approach our non-Catholic brothers and sisters with similar charity. We have the benefit of understanding the Christian faith through a lens that non-Catholic Christians have never been able to look through. It Can be a difficult and scary thing for them. I think that is why many here avoid answering (intentionally or not) the direct, seemingly simple questions we pose. Where the answers lead might be a little unsettling for them.

I say all of this not out of Catholic hubris or arrogance, but out of love and sincerity. We all have something to gain from each other, and we are all seeking the truth.

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And for us Catholics, we need to approach our non-Catholic brothers and sisters with similar charity. We have the benefit of understanding the Christian faith through a lens that non-Catholic Christians have never been able to look through. It Can be a difficult and scary thing for them. I think that is why many here avoid answering (intentionally or not) the direct, seemingly simple questions we pose. Where the answers lead might be a little unsettling for them.

I say all of this not out of Catholic hubris or arrogance, but out of love and sincerity.

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This is the very definition of hubris.

Most of us non-Catholics can literally tell you the exact same story from our POV - we encountered some flack from nowhere and we educated some poor fool with our bible knowledge. The truth is, we probably just encountered someone who was a little overzealous and under educated. it's easy to think you're like Paul arguing with Pharisees in those situations.

There's also a very strong correlation between people calling someone the Great Satan and those people having very little knowledge of their own faiths. We know this because that attitude doesn't come from knowing your faith. It comes from blindly following some other person who doesn't know about their faith.

I can also sympathize that no one should have to hear that, and I'm sorry that happened to you.

However, I can tell you that from the perspective of someone you seem to be trying to engage with "love and sincerity", this post is rather uncharitable.

Do with that as you wish.

You don't see any pride in the statement "We are always right. We are never wrong. We always know exactly what God wants from everyone and it always involves submission to our Authority which He bestowed on us." ??

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The Church was one for 1000 years and pride caused the Schisms after that. I agree there should be core of beliefs and after that there should be room for individualism.

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Seriously? Have you never heard of the Quartodecimians, the Arians, the Nestorians, the Monophysites, the Monothelitics, just to name the highlights? The Church has been in schism since the 3rd century. I'm not even talking about the Gnostic heretics either. I'm talking about men ordained by the Church through Apostolic Succession that held completely incompatible beliefs with other parts of the Church. However, all of these men could trace their beliefs and practices back through their entire tradition.

Everyone has Scripture, all these people also had Tradition. Just like the current Orthodox and Catholics and many high church Protestants claim Scripture and Apostolic Tradition as well. I said this on another thread, but these schisms always followed the same pattern. Some people held one view, some another. Some group decided that their view was right and no dissenting view should be tolerated. They break fellowship. The other newly heretical group refuses to back down and give in to maintain fellowship and we have a schism. The current Catholic and Orthodox churches are both the "victorious" branches (at least until they broke fellowship with each other) and had more military, financial and political clout and were therefore able to push out and "expel" these other groups. Sometimes this was done by truly heinous means. If you want to call that process "The Holy Spirit maintaining Apostolic truth" then feel free, but I can't follow you there. I don't believe God would need or desire to use such banal earthly methods to ensure Church purity

I can get behind a good excommunication for someone like Marcion who argued evil as good and good as evil. I'm not a complete relativist. But most of these schisms amount to arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and then burning people at the stake for having the "wrong" answer.

The Catholic / non arguments have followed a very similar pattern in the 20 years I've been watching them here, but mostly they've been productive and good natured.

Really, the fundamental question tends to be:
What is the Bible? Where did it come from? Who decides? Who interprets?

The Apostolic arguments are extremely strong. I hope all reading the thread look into them.

I don't think it's anywhere near as black and white as you're making it, and I think you're exaggerating the number of, let's say, "sorrowful" schisms versus out and out falsehood being preached as truth. There are a handful of sad schisms - like the Copts - but the majority are not like this.

And at any rate, if the Arians and Nestorian and so forth we're preaching the truth, where does that leave us? Yes the history is messy - it is made by men - but what men mean for evil God works for good. St Paul tells us this much about schism and heresy.

If we accept what the scriptures tell us about the church persevering and the faith being one, and continuous from the beginning, there are just not many groups that have any kind continuous teaching. Sometimes these things are spiritual matters, and these we should approach with caution and humility. But many of these issues are simply historical matters of fact and no great divine wisdom is required to examine them.

The problem is some modern faiths are based on spiritual concepts which are blatantly historically unworkable.

Back to the topic of the scriptures though. For those who say they are the ultimate authority, let's consider 2 Corinthians.

When St Paul wrote his letters he didn't write them himself. Writing in the ancient world used an amanuensis, a secretary. This was anywhere from word for word dictation to a kind of topical iterative collaboration, like a modern speechwriter. We know that St Paul used scribes like these because we know some of their names, and we see where he signs the letter at the end in his own hand sometimes.

Then after the letter is written, it looks like 2 Corinthians is actually two letters that have been edited together.

Then sometime in the 2nd century all of the letters of St Paul we have today were compiled in a collection. Every manuscript we have of his letters come from collections.

So what is 2nd Corinthians? The original words St Paul dictated? The words his scribe(s) wrote? The one he signed? Or the two? Or the combination of them, but maybe before the version that was in the collection? Or the one in your bible. All of these may be quite different from each other.

What about the story of the woman caught in adultery? Historically this story was often found in manuscripts of St Luke's gospel, and is absent from the earliest manuscripts of St Johns. It's not until something like the 8th century that it finally lands in John 8. Which version of Luke is right? Which version of John? How do we know?

Consider also. Something like 40% of the manuscripts we have are from lectionaries. Books made to be read aloud in church.

FYI -Pope Damasus I, at the Council of Rome in 382 AD, laid out, infallibly, the canon of scripture from among hundreds of different books available...And only 73 books made the cut.

It always, always, always comes back to authority. Only one Church makes the claim from Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition of a single, titular office that is empowered to loose and bind and is divinely kept from errors in matters of faith and morals.

Zobel said:

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I don't think it's anywhere near as black and white as you're making it, and I think you're exaggerating the number of, let's say, "sorrowful" schisms versus out and out falsehood being preached as truth. There are a handful of sad schisms - like the Copts - but the majority are not like this.

And at any rate, if the Arians and Nestorian and so forth we're preaching the truth, where does that leave us? Yes the history is messy - it is made by men - but what men mean for evil God works for good. St Paul tells us this much about schism and heresy.

If we accept what the scriptures tell us about the church persevering and the faith being one, and continuous from the beginning, there are just not many groups that have any kind continuous teaching. Sometimes these things are spiritual matters, and these we should approach with caution and humility. But many of these issues are simply historical matters of fact and no great divine wisdom is required to examine them.

The problem is some modern faiths are based on spiritual concepts which are blatantly historically unworkable.

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You honestly think the highest priority of the Holy Spirit is to keepsafe the most correct of the academic speculations on the ineffable mystery of divinity? And to shun and cast out those who are slightly less correct in their own speculation on the ineffable mystery of divinity?

So what if the Arians, the Nestorians or any other these other groups were more correct? It doesn't matter. Do they (or we) descend from the Apostles, teach Christ crucified and resurrected, and share a message of hope of eternal life, faith in God and love for each other? What else could the Holy Spirit want? Abstract theology is fun and interesting, but I wouldn't call it the lynchpin of God's love for mankind or the boundary stone of His Church.

I bet if you sat down the Apostles and their followers prior to their death and glory and started asking them about the finer points of trinitarian theology, they would shrug. These debates arose later among people who cared about these things for entirely unchristian reasons like pride, politics, and power.

Both the Orthodox and Catholic churches carry on this tradition of prideful, political, power-seeking hyperfocus on abstract theology by arguing over the Filoque for a thousand years. All it would take would be a simple "we don't know, God is great and ineffable" from both sides and the whole stupid thing would be done. Faith leading to humility leading to fellowship leading to love. That's how the Holy Spirit works, not by continually amputating limbs from the body of Christ

I understand you feel it is prideful for the Church to speak with Authority and to declare truth. That is one of the primary duties of the Church. Christ created a church so that it could declare truth. To correct errors is a charitable act. To allow another to to believe error, and be ignorant of truth would be a very negligent action. Its not to sever the limbs of the body of Christ, but to care for it wounds and to prevent a spread of infection. Is it truly a act of humility to allow a brother to sin or be led astray?

From the Baltimore Catechism

138. Why did Jesus Christ found the Church?
Jesus Christ founded the Church to bring all men to eternal salvation.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me. And I give them everlasting life; and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. (John 10:27-28)

139. How is the Church enabled to lead men to salvation?
The Church is enabled to lead men to salvation by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, who gives it life.

140. When was the dwelling of the Holy Ghost in the Church first visibly manifested?
The dwelling of the Holy Ghost in the Church was first visibly manifested on Pentecost Sunday, when He came down upon the apostles in the form of tongues of fire.

And when the days of Pentecost were drawing to a close, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a violent wind blowing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues as of fire, which settled upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak in foreign tongues, even as the Holy Ghost prompted them to speak. (Acts 2:1-4)

141. How long will the Holy Ghost dwell in the Church?
The Holy Ghost will dwell in the Church until the end of time.

And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to dwell with you forever, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. (John 14:16)

142. Who sent the Holy Ghost to dwell in the Church?
God the Father and God the Son sent the Holy Ghost to dwell in the Church.

143. What does the indwelling of the Holy Ghost enable the Church to do?
The indwelling of the Holy Ghost enables the Church to teach, to sanctify, and to rule the faithful in the name of Christ.

But when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will teach you all the truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he will hear he will speak, and the things that are to come he will declare to you. (John 16:13)

144. What is meant by teaching, sanctifying, and ruling in the name of Christ?
By teaching, sanctifying, and ruling in the name of Christ is meant that the Church always does the will of its Divine Founder, who remains forever its invisible Head.

145. To whom did Christ give the power to teach, to sanctify, and to rule the members of His Church?
Christ gave the power to teach, to sanctify, and to rule the members of His Church to the apostles, the first bishops of the Church.

He who hears you, hears me; and he who rejects you rejects me; and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me. (Luke 10:16)

146. Did Christ intend that this power should be exercised by the apostles alone?
No, Christ intended that this power should be exercised also by their successors, the bishops of the Church.

And they prayed and said, "Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all, show which of these two thou has chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas fell away to go to his own place." (Acts 1:24-25)

Doubt there is a theology test to get into heaven.

Agree with your post 100 percent.

I'll write a more thoughtful response but this last post is evidence of the bass ackward western approach. Theology is knowledge of God. There definitely is a theology test - do you know Him or not? Not about Him.

The doctrine of the church is a hedge around experience. The fathers dogmatized from knowledge of God. It's not an abstract intellectual exercise.

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You honestly think the highest priority of the Holy Spirit is to keepsafe the most correct of the academic speculations on the ineffable mystery of divinity? And to shun and cast out those who are slightly less correct in their own speculation on the ineffable mystery of divinity?

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No, and this is a disingenuous representation of the situation. To characterize the teaching of the Faith - which encompasses everything from Prophecy and the words of the Lord to formal doctrine - as "academic speculations" is really problematic. There are things which are true, and things which are false. Learned academic people are in no better position than unschooled peasants when it comes to understanding God - even knowing the scriptures doesn't mean you are in a better position to come to know God. Look at the Lord's conversations with the Pharisees in John 8.

People who come to know the Lord Jesus Christ come to experience the ineffable mystery of divinity directly and not second hand. What they speak from this experience is not speculation.

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So what if the Arians, the Nestorians or any other these other groups were more correct? It doesn't matter. Do they (or we) descend from the Apostles, teach Christ crucified and resurrected, and share a message of hope of eternal life, faith in God and love for each other? What else could the Holy Spirit want? Abstract theology is fun and interesting, but I wouldn't call it the lynchpin of God's love for mankind or the boundary stone of His Church.

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This is frankly a shocking thing to say. It doesn't matter if Christ is a creation or not? It doesn't matter if Christ Jesus was actually a human also God? Or put another way, it doesn't matter if the Holy Spirit is involved or casually indifferent to these things? Does it matter if the Holy Spirit is God?

When someone puts forward a teaching that contradicts another, only one can be true. Heresy isn't merely misunderstanding but persisting in that misunderstanding to schism.

One man's abstract theology is another man's reality. To suggest that the theology of the Church is merely abstract speculation is to deny the immanence of God, and that Christians have the mind of Christ and the ability to come to know God, in a real and meaningful way, through the practice of the Faith.

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I bet if you sat down the Apostles and their followers prior to their death and glory and started asking them about the finer points of trinitarian theology, they would shrug. These debates arose later among people who cared about these things for entirely unchristian reasons like pride, politics, and power.

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Again, I think this puts the question the wrong way. I suspect if we asked St John if there was a time when Christ was not, he would tell you no.

When you say "the finer points" - are you talking about the detailed specific words? If so, sure - like philosophy, a great deal of effort is put into using particular words in particular ways. Not as an abstract or pedantic exercise, but because fundamentally we know that when you define something that is by definition undefinable, you must take exceeding care to guard from error. This is why the Church actually puts forward very little in terms of positive dogmatic statements, but is much stronger is affirming what is not true.

Take for example the formula of Chalcedon - "two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation." It doesn't really explain how this works. Nor does the doctrine of the Trinity explain the how or why of three and one. We say - "Trinity is truly a Monad, for such it is; and the Monad is truly a Trinity, for as such it subsists."

I think you take a very risky stance to condemn a great deal of people that you don't know with your last sentence. There's more than a little irony here, especially from someone who is so quick to acknowledge some heresy (Marcion) as "evil as good and good as evil." Are you saying this on your own authority? How do you judge something that is abstract and intellectual? Is this pride, politics, power?

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Both the Orthodox and Catholic churches carry on this tradition of prideful, political, power-seeking hyperfocus on abstract theology by arguing over the Filoque for a thousand years. All it would take would be a simple "we don't know, God is great and ineffable" from both sides and the whole stupid thing would be done. Faith leading to humility leading to fellowship leading to love. That's how the Holy Spirit works, not by continually amputating limbs from the body of Christ

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Again, what is abstract to you is real experience to others.

The bold statement is the problem. We do know, or we should.

"I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning...I have written to you, children, because you know the Father...I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning...You, however, have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth."

The Lord says in one place to the Pharisees "You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also."" He later tells St Philip "If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him."

St Paul teaches us "We speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God...God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words...we have the mind of Christ."

These are not empty promises.

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I'll write a more thoughtful response but this last post is evidence of the bass ackward western approach. Theology is knowledge of God. There definitely is a theology test - do you know Him or not? Not about Him.

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There is considerable irony in this statement. Christianity was born from Judaism, and neither ancient nor modern Jews place so much emphasis on theology and doctrine. The dividing line between Jews is difference in observance and practice, not difference in opinion and theology. Even then, the Jews are not nearly as divided as the Christians over these things. You'd never heard Orthodox Jews deny that Reform Jews are Jewish or vice versa like Catholics and Protestants do with each other. The idea that the theology is paramount is very much a Greek infusion into the Jewish bones of Christianity. Greeks obsess over the immaterial. It's a fundamental aspect of their culture and philosophy. So my de-emphasis of theology would more correctly be called a "bass ackward" near eastern approach.

I also vehemently deny that we can know the true nature of God. He is ineffable and incomprehensible. We barely understand the true nature of humans. So to say that we have perfect knowledge of the fusion of the human and the divine in all it's particulars is hubris. I can just imagine people sitting down with St Peter after the Pentecostal sermon and asking him if Christ's begetting involved creation, how many natures Christ has, how many wills Christ had, how man persons Christ had, whether any of these natures, wills, or persons were separate, partially cominged or completed fused, and whether the Holy Spirit also proceeded from Christ. The tragic thing is that pretty much every Apostolic schism happened due to arguments over those very difficult and ultimately incomprehensible questions. And you're here arguing that those questions are the single most important things about Christianity and should be the dividing lines between Christian and heathen. I reject that entirely

Your post is simply not correct. Look at the divisions in the schools at the time of the NT - Sadduccees, Pharisees, Essenes - and if you want to consider them, the Samaritans.

These are separated dramatically by their views!!

They don't agree on what books are scripture. Sadducees and Samaritans accepted only the Pentateuch, with the Samaritans using a different version. Pharisees and Essenes had different "canons" and there was no broad consensus even within these groups on certain writings.

They don't agree on where to worship. The Sadduccees were centered on the Temple, Pharisees grudgingly accepting the Temple while saying it was corrupted / compromised, the Essenes rejected it, the Samaritans had their own temple on Mt Gerazim until it was destroyed by John Hyrcanus.

They didn't agree on their Messianic views...whether the Messiah was to be a Teacher, or a Prophet, or a King, or whether there was to be Elijah and then the Messiah or the Messiah was Elijah etc etc.

They didn't agree on the outcome of their faith, whether or not there was an afterlife (Sadducees no, Pharisees yes) or a resurrection.

Modern Judaism is more or less united in Rabbanic teachings which came out of Pharisaism because when the Temple was destroyed, Jewish sects who were centered around Temple worship were basically wiped out.

Your argument is kind like, if the entirety of Christianity was destroyed except for denomination X, they'd be much more united theologically than today. Because that's what happened to Judaism in the last few centuries BC and first century AD.

As for "Greek infusion" - why question the judgment of the Spirit? We have the scriptures and Faith and doctrines we have today that the Lord wants us to have, that we need to have, for our salvation. He is actively involved. If He wanted the NT to be written in Hebrew it would have been. If He had not wanted the majority of the OT quotations in the NT to come from the Septuagint, they wouldn't have. I think the flexibility, specificity, and precision of the Greek language (which is part and parcel to some of the cultural aspects - chicken and egg, can you talk about it without the language to express?) is a feature, not a bug.

Christianity is older than Judaism.

Judaism was totally re-invented, by grave necessity, when the world famous Temple, the center of Jewish faith and practice, the place that attracted pilgrims from all corners, was decimated in Titus in 70 AD (exactly as Christ predicted).

Rabbinic Judaism is NOT AT ALL like the Temple faith.

Now, after Christ, we see:

Temple = body
Sacrifice = Mass
Priests = Apostolic priests
Flood = baptism
Ark = St. Mary
New Eve = St. Mary
New Adam = Christ

I never said they agreed, only that those disagreement aren't definitional. Sadduccees never sought to banish and excommunicate Pharisees. Essenes isolated themselves but didn't claim the others weren't really Jewish. They never fought each other, never went to war, and open worked together to govern Israel through the Temple and Sanhedrin. You may want to put Jewish unity into a single remnant, but that single remnant is about as old as Christianity and Buddhism and several hundred years older than Islam. Yet even so, Jews don't reject each other based on differences in practice or belief, and they've certainly never gone to war with each other over such things.

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I also vehemently deny that we can know the true nature of God. He is ineffable and incomprehensible. We barely understand the true nature of humans. So to say that we have perfect knowledge of the fusion of the human and the divine in all it's particulars is hubris. I can just imagine people sitting down with St Peter after the Pentecostal sermon and asking him if Christ's begetting involved creation, how many natures Christ has, how many wills Christ had, how man persons Christ had, whether any of these natures, wills, or persons were separate, partially cominged or completed fused, and whether the Holy Spirit also proceeded from Christ. The tragic thing is that pretty much every Apostolic schism happened due to arguments over those very difficult and ultimately incomprehensible questions. And you're here arguing that those questions are the single most important things about Christianity and should be the dividing lines between Christian and heathen. I reject that entirely

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Again, you are fundamentally mischaracterizing the questions and projecting an incorrect understanding of theology on top of the discussion.

The first rule of ancient theology is that God is unknowable AND immanent. So in one sense you are correct that we cannot know the true nature of God, in His being - He is incomprehensible, always beyond our understanding or even knowledge, and even beyond un-knowing because that's in some way understandable. Fundamentally other, without comparison. The OT teaches this, this is not a novel Christian teaching (Isaiah 40:25 etc).

On the other hand, God became man. He condescended to come into the world in order to be known, and so we absolutely CAN know God - in the Person of Jesus Christ. Everything Christians know about God the Father is gained through knowledge of the Son. This is why over and over again the Lord says - if you know me, you know the Father. Or the negative, you don't know the Father because you don't know me. He is "the exact representation of His nature" (Hebrews 1:3). When we see Christ Jesus, we see the Father.

Add to this, He did not leave us. He sent His Spirit, which is the "Spirit of Truth" (John 14:17) and the Spirit of the Son" (Gal 4:6). So through the Spirit today we can come to know God, come to know Truth. Not in an abstract way but a real way.

It is a mistake to deny the knowledge we can have by affirming (correctly) there there are things which are unknowable.

As for the schisms. What would you have people do? That schisms will happen is a given - St Paul teaches us much, and also teaches that they are necessary for the God to reveal truth and reject error. (1 Corinthians 11:19).

The objection is never over philosophical points for their own sake. It is never a pedantic argument because someone used the wrong word innocently. All of the examples you describe are because if we accept certain affirmations, they have implications which are false. You cannot mix falsehood and truth. Ultimately the schisms happen because the people teaching things which are NOT taught from the beginning, which are NOT apostolic, and which if accepted conflict with apostolic teaching, do not recant and persist until they leave.

The single most important thing about Christianity is who Christ Jesus is. And, as He says, who we say He is. This is why every heresy ultimately is Christological, and why philosophizing and speculating about God is something that should not be done lightly. "Not to every one, my friends, does it belong to philosophize about God; not to every one; the Subject is not so cheap and low; and I will add, not before every audience, nor at all times, nor on all points; but on certain occasions, and before certain persons, and within certain limits."

I agree entirely. Post Temple Judaism is an entirely different beast in many ways than Temple Judaism. However, their attitudes towards their beliefs and each other have carried on. Even if we say that modern Judaism was born in 70 AD, that's still nearly 2000 years without a major schism or religious war within Judaism.

I'm also not some advocate for Hebrew primacy, aside from the Old Testament. Ancient Greek was a fantastic language full of abstraction and nuance not easily expressed in Hebrew. Christianity is more full and rich for use of that language than it would have been with purely Hebrew. I greatly appreciate the New Testament and early Church's balance of the mundane and the transcendent, which largely mirrors the balance of Hebrew and Greek languages and attitudes. Christ afterall is the ultimate conjuction of the mundane and the transcendent. So to build Christianity out of a fundamentally material culture fused with a fundamentally abstract culture is inspired and beautiful.

Another way to put my problem then, is the overbalance of Christianity toward the transcendent and away from the mundane. The moment the Church starting kicking people out for not knowing the right answers to difficult, contentious, and yes abstract questions is the moment it went too far that way.

Again, these aren't true statements. Or at least they're certainly intended to minimize what were very real differences.

It conflates only theological views with what were whole sections of society built along with theological views. Sadducees were aristocratic priest class with their own views but were focused on the Temple. Rabbanic teaching / Pharisaism was a view about how to "recover" from exile but fundamentally began in the diaspora.

"Excommunicate" means what, exactly? Refusing to worship with them? What can we call the Essense "isolating themselves" from the Temple other than excommunication? In a religion that is fundamentally centered on the sacrifices in the Temple, you don't think this is incredibly significant?

And I see you skipped right over the Samaritans. John Hyrcanus definitely went to war over theological reasons, and completely destroyed the rival temple on Mount Gerazim - which was devoted to Yahweh and was used to worship him there by a group of people who viewed themselves as Jews Hebrews and used the same scriptures as the Judaeans.

In many respects I think the myriad Christian denominations are much more homogenous in their beliefs that Jews of the time. Not that this justifies or excuses war, or persecution. We can accept that there are heretical beliefs, and there are things we should not accept or put forward as Christian teaching, without saying we should kill or persecute those who hold them.

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The objection is never over philosophical points for their own sake. It is never a pedantic argument because someone used the wrong word innocently. All of the examples you describe are because if we accept certain affirmations, they have implications which are false. You cannot mix falsehood and truth. Ultimately the schisms happen because the people teaching things which are NOT taught from the beginning, which are NOT apostolic, and which if accepted conflict with apostolic teaching, do not recant and persist until they leave.

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Honestly, when I talk about schism over theology I'm being generous. It seems clear to me that these divisions were motivated by much more base and loathesome human motivations with theology being a convenient excuse, but I wasn't there and didn't know those people. So I'm not trying to say that with any certainty. And again, I find it impossible to believe that the Apostles from the very moment of Pentecost taught the eternal begetting of Christ with two completely comingled natures in one person with one will. These are distinctions that came later, and the arguments were always between two groups that both followed Apostolic teachings. The eternal begetting argument that reconciled the Subordinationists and neutralized the Arians wasn't even articultated until Athanasius in the 4th century. So to say that was the Apostolic belief from the beginning is demonstrably false.

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As for the schisms. What would you have people do? That schisms will happen is a given - St Paul teaches us much, and also teaches that they are necessary for the God to reveal truth and reject error. (1 Corinthians 11:19).

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You and I read that passage very differently. Based on the following passages, it reads to me like Paul is admonishing the people in the congregation that refused to fellowship with the others. Likely due to differences in social class, wealth or cultural background. I don't see any smoking gun there that points to the inexorable need for theological divisions

Zobel said:

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Again, these aren't true statements. Or at least they're certainly intended to minimize what were very real differences.

It conflates only theological views with what were whole sections of society built along with theological views. Sadducees were aristocratic priest class with their own views but were focused on the Temple. Rabbanic teaching / Pharisaism was a view about how to "recover" from exile but fundamentally began in the diaspora.

"Excommunicate" means what, exactly? Refusing to worship with them? What can we call the Essense "isolating themselves" from the Temple other than excommunication? In a religion that is fundamentally centered on the sacrifices in the Temple, you don't think this is incredibly significant?

And I see you skipped right over the Samaritans. John Hyrcanus definitely went to war over theological reasons, and completely destroyed the rival temple on Mount Gerazim - which was devoted to Yahweh and was used to worship him there by a group of people who viewed themselves as Jews and used the same scriptures as the Judaeans.

In many respects I think the myriad Christian denominations are much more homogenous in their beliefs that Jews of the time. Not that this justifies or excuses war, or persecution. We can accept that there are heretical beliefs, and there are things we should not accept or put forward as Christian teaching, without saying we should kill or persecute those who hold them.

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This is reflective of our discussion regarding the Church. You see differences in opinion and emphasis as irreconcilable division. I see a lack of persecution, lack of exclusion, and lack of armed conflict as unity. Essenes were free to worship at the Temple. There was no ordinance that prevented it. Essenes were never treated as Gentiles. They had full citizenship and full rights as Jews.

The skipped the Samaritan question because it is a false equivalency and betrays a lack of knowledge about Samaritans in general. So here's a brief history. Samaritans are not Jews and never were Jews. The Northen Kingdom of Israel broke away from Judah and eventually stopped coming to Jerusalem for political reasons. They built an identical altar in the Northen Israel so they wouldn't have to travel south any more for scheduled feasts and sacrifices. This was all universally condemned in the Bible. When the Assyrians conquered Northern Israel, they removed all the native Jews and replaced them with other refugees from scattered parts of the Assyrian Empire. These non-Jews picked up the corrupted and false practices that had been followed by Northern Israel and this fusion of false and corrupted Israelite worship practiced by foreign refugee settlers is the origin of Samaritanism. Samaritans are neither ethnic Jews nor religious Jews and had no ties whatsoever to the Jewish Kingdom of Judah, the diaspora or the Second Temple restoration.

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Another way to put my problem then, is the overbalance of Christianity toward the transcendent and away from the mundane. The moment the Church starting kicking people out for not knowing the right answers to difficult, contentious, and yes abstract questions is the moment it went too far that way.

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Ok, but that doesn't happen. No one has ever quizzed me on my views about these things. No one ever got "kicked out" for not knowing the right answer to some theological pop quiz.

LOTS of people were excommunicated for teaching things which are incorrect. The ones you're bringing forward are the most-nearly-correct ones. The ones you're not talking about are the dozens and dozens of heresies ranging from the mild to the totally wackadoodle. No one mourns the loss of Valentinus' or Marcus' theology.

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I find it impossible to believe that the Apostles from the very moment of Pentecost taught the eternal begetting of Christ with two completely comingled natures in one person with one will. These are distinctions that came later, and the arguments were always between two groups that both followed Apostolic teachings. The eternal begetting argument that reconciled the Subordinationists and neutralized the Arians wasn't even articultated until Athanasius in the 4th century. So to say that was the Apostolic belief from the beginning is demonstrably false.

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This presupposes that these doctrines are novel. The counterpoint is that these doctrines are latent and inherent within the Apostolic teaching. In other words, Arianism requires refutation of one teaching or another. Likewise Nestorianism.

The litmus test is not can you trace to Apostolic teaching - Gnostics claimed this. It is, is your belief or teaching compatible with the faith writ large?

So, no, the formula of Chalcedon, or the definition using the word homoousios are not Apostolic. But no one says they are, and this is not what the claim is. The claim is these represent the Apostolic teachings - they are a safe, and reliable, and true way to express it. This is what the word symbol in Greek means - not the definition or exact thing, but that which implies the other. The Creed is not an exact exposition of the Christian faith. It is a Symbol of the Faith (this is the proper name) and it is a list of statements which imply the rest. By definition, then, none of these statements can negate portions of the faith. This is where the heresies come in. Formulations which negate the faith, which falsify scripture or which have implications which do so, or which are novel or come from sources which do not have authority, are not trustworthy or reliable and cannot be taught.

The chain is - As the Prophets beheld, as the Apostles have taught, as the Church has received, as the Teachers have dogmatized. The dogmatic formulation is an expression of the teaching. This is why Orthodox teaching freely admits that doctrine is not true as such, but it reflects the truth and is not false. This is the test.

I'm aware of the history but you're making a key mistake. This is all condemned in the Bible as accepted by the Pharisees and Essenes. It is NOT condemned in the Bible as accepted by the Sadducees, because theirs ends with Deuteronomy. And the version of the Pentateuch that the Samaritans used is different than the ones the Judaeans used. Sooooo which one is right and how do you justify it?

And the thing about Samaritans not being ethnic Jews goes back to people like Josephus (who is hardly a reliable witness) and is actually false. We have genetic and DNA evidence today that shows they are. At any rate, this is just a no true Scotsman. "No Jews ever went to war with Jews, and by that I mean, any real Jews. Not those Samaritans, they're worse than gentiles."

Zobel said:

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You honestly think the highest priority of the Holy Spirit is to keepsafe the most correct of the academic speculations on the ineffable mystery of divinity? And to shun and cast out those who are slightly less correct in their own speculation on the ineffable mystery of divinity?

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No, and this is a disingenuous representation of the situation. To characterize the teaching of the Faith - which encompasses everything from Prophecy and the words of the Lord to formal doctrine - as "academic speculations" is really problematic. There are things which are true, and things which are false. Learned academic people are in no better position than unschooled peasants when it comes to understanding God - even knowing the scriptures doesn't mean you are in a better position to come to know God. Look at the Lord's conversations with the Pharisees in John 8.

People who come to know the Lord Jesus Christ come to experience the ineffable mystery of divinity directly and not second hand. What they speak from this experience is not speculation.

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So what if the Arians, the Nestorians or any other these other groups were more correct? It doesn't matter. Do they (or we) descend from the Apostles, teach Christ crucified and resurrected, and share a message of hope of eternal life, faith in God and love for each other? What else could the Holy Spirit want? Abstract theology is fun and interesting, but I wouldn't call it the lynchpin of God's love for mankind or the boundary stone of His Church.

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This is frankly a shocking thing to say. It doesn't matter if Christ is a creation or not? It doesn't matter if Christ Jesus was actually a human also God? Or put another way, it doesn't matter if the Holy Spirit is involved or casually indifferent to these things? Does it matter if the Holy Spirit is God?

When someone puts forward a teaching that contradicts another, only one can be true. Heresy isn't merely misunderstanding but persisting in that misunderstanding to schism.

One man's abstract theology is another man's reality. To suggest that the theology of the Church is merely abstract speculation is to deny the immanence of God, and that Christians have the mind of Christ and the ability to come to know God, in a real and meaningful way, through the practice of the Faith.

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I bet if you sat down the Apostles and their followers prior to their death and glory and started asking them about the finer points of trinitarian theology, they would shrug. These debates arose later among people who cared about these things for entirely unchristian reasons like pride, politics, and power.

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Again, I think this puts the question the wrong way. I suspect if we asked St John if there was a time when Christ was not, he would tell you no.

When you say "the finer points" - are you talking about the detailed specific words? If so, sure - like philosophy, a great deal of effort is put into using particular words in particular ways. Not as an abstract or pedantic exercise, but because fundamentally we know that when you define something that is by definition undefinable, you must take exceeding care to guard from error. This is why the Church actually puts forward very little in terms of positive dogmatic statements, but is much stronger is affirming what is not true.

Take for example the formula of Chalcedon - "two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation." It doesn't really explain how this works. Nor does the doctrine of the Trinity explain the how or why of three and one. We say - "Trinity is truly a Monad, for such it is; and the Monad is truly a Trinity, for as such it subsists."

I think you take a very risky stance to condemn a great deal of people that you don't know with your last sentence. There's more than a little irony here, especially from someone who is so quick to acknowledge some heresy (Marcion) as "evil as good and good as evil." Are you saying this on your own authority? How do you judge something that is abstract and intellectual? Is this pride, politics, power?

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Both the Orthodox and Catholic churches carry on this tradition of prideful, political, power-seeking hyperfocus on abstract theology by arguing over the Filoque for a thousand years. All it would take would be a simple "we don't know, God is great and ineffable" from both sides and the whole stupid thing would be done. Faith leading to humility leading to fellowship leading to love. That's how the Holy Spirit works, not by continually amputating limbs from the body of Christ

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Again, what is abstract to you is real experience to others.

The bold statement is the problem. We do know, or we should.

"I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning...I have written to you, children, because you know the Father...I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning...You, however, have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth."

The Lord says in one place to the Pharisees "You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also."" He later tells St Philip "If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him."

St Paul teaches us "We speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God...God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words...we have the mind of Christ."

These are not empty promises.

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You bring up some good points but there are things, true and false and things we don't know. There are things that we are unsure of. I believe in Pretrib rapture and can support it and others can probably support other views.

We should try to know and understand God surely.

But would Christ not see more value in helping the poor and the widow than some of the churches endless debates over nonessential theological matters?

Again, there's presuppositions that have to be examined. There's nothing wrong with being in error. We all believe an error. In fact, philosophically or mathematically speaking in any formal system you can either know everything with an error, or know an incomplete picture correctly - this is a fact, mathematically provable. A formal, logical system cannot be complete and consistent. So this kind of thing 'well you can't know everything' shouldn't trouble us a bit.

There's also a great deal of leeway in personal pious opinion. There's even a word for it - theologoumenon. It's just, like, your opinion, man. And that's ok. There's nothing wrong with these, provided they don't contradict the Faith directly or indirectly. And even then, knowing or thinking something wrong isn't heretical. Heresy is persisting in the error even when corrected by someone in authority, being factious, and ultimately the scriptures say we are to cut off people like that.

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But would Christ not see more value in helping the poor and the widow than some of the churches endless debates over nonessential theological matters?

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This does not follow. We should help the poor and the widow. If it falls to us, we should also profess the truth. We can profess the truth two ways - by accepting the testimony of those who are reliable and have authority from their own experience, or from our own personal experience. This is what a witness is, a martyr. So people should not speculate about theological things any more than they should write travel guides to foreign cities they've never visited. But there's no danger in reading and believing a book from a reliable witness about a city, or even planning your trip to Paris based on Rick Steves' guide.

As has been said, it all comes back to Authority. Reading scripture alone is not authoritative - the Lord makes this clear when He rebukes the Pharisees. They read the scriptures, but they don't know God, so they don't recognize Him and so they will die in their sins.

The truth is that these things don't happen in a vacuum, and righteousness bears fruit. "You shall know them by their fruits." The whole point of the correct belief isn't because you get a gold star for being able to recite the anathemas or memorizing the canons of the second ecumenical council. The point of right belief is that it informs how you live your life, it leads you to Christ when you put it in action (Matt 7:24), and in turn God grants deeper knowledge of Himself, which starts the process over again.

And this is the real reason for theological disputes. Not because it is good to be right or profess the truth, but because persisting in believing something which is incorrect or incompatible with the faith is a stumbling block to coming to know Christ, and knowing Him is salvation.

Zobel said:

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I'm aware of the history but you're making a key mistake. This is all condemned in the Bible as accepted by the Pharisees and Essenes. It is NOT condemned in the Bible as accepted by the Sadducees, because theirs ends with Deuteronomy. And the version of the Pentateuch that the Samaritans used is different than the ones the Judaeans used. Sooooo which one is right and how do you justify it?

And the thing about Samaritans not being ethnic Jews goes back to people like Josephus (who is hardly a reliable witness) and is actually false. We have genetic and DNA evidence today that shows they are. At any rate, this is just a no true Scotsman. "No Jews ever went to war with Jews, and by that I mean, any real Jews. Not those Samaritans, they're worse than gentiles."

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The DNA thing is a non-starter. I said ethnic, not genetic. Jewish ethnic identity is based on an intermingling of faith, family and tribe. If my DNA says I'm 80% Jewish, I don't get Right of Return to Israel unless I'm also a practicing Jew. There are ethnic Jews from pretty much all over the world that are granted right of Right of Return including pretty much every racial identity. Samaritans shared neither family, faith or tribe with Jews.

The Jew versus Samaritan debate is where I get to one up the Jews. Jesus was born among the Jews and specifically told Samaritans they were wrong. So if you're looking for an authority to say which of the two groups was correct, you can't get any better than that. The story of the "Good Samaritan" is so powerful because the Samaritans were literally worse than Gentiles. Gentiles were at least ignorant of God largely by no fault of their own. Samaritans weren't just ignorant, they were wrong and obstinately so. And I think that makes my point better than anything. Jesus in that parable asked "who is your neighbor/brother?" Not the callus holy priest or the indifferent holy levite, but compassionate heretical Samaritan. Jesus is literally saying that kindness, love, compassion and succor are more important than status or righteousness or belief.

Oh, I'm with you that the temple on Mt Gerazim was not the true temple. The Lord was clear. That wasn't the point - the Essense, Pharisees, and Sadduccees were all wrong, too, if we're going to go by the words of Christ.

You said the Jews didn't go to war with other Jews over theological differences. For historical accuracy's sake, we should say Hebrews or Israelites since Jew is "Judaean" not a religious sect. If we're going to talk about religious sects, we can't say "Jewish" because that covers Pharisees, Sadduccees, Essenes, and Samaritans. They all claimed to be the bearers of the true religion of Moses, and they all criticized the others based on their interpretation of religious texts - which they differed on which were canonical.

The Samaritans consider themselves Israelites, from Ephraim and Manasseh, just like a Judaean was an Israelite from Judah.

So again, you can't say they weren't Jewish because they were wrong about Mt Gerazim any more than you can say the Sadducees weren't Jewish because they were wrong about the Resurrection (or the fact that they weren't descended from Zadok and had no rightful claim to the Temple or the priesthood).

The Samaritans say those who returned from the Babylonian exile we the false worshipers, and that they are the true worshipers. For matters of heresy, the Samaritan-Judaean conflict is the most apt. And it resulted in a bloody religious war. Again, you're creating a no true Scotsman.

I don't believe the Samaritans were literally worse than the Gentiles. I think you're pulling some incorrect things out of the parable of the Good Samaritan here. This is a long tangent, but its well worth exploring I think.

The parable isn't a stand-alone thing, and it shouldn't be removed from the context. The event starts up with an expert in the Law testing Christ. This expert was a Pharisee, and he asks the Lord "who is my neighbor?" The meaning of this question delves into what the "experts in the Law" did - they sought to examine, quantify, stratify the requirements of the Law, so they could build a hedge around the Law as to not sin. This is where all the modern rules and interpretations about what constitutes work on the Sabbath and so forth come from, or that you can't say the Name (so as to avoid saying it in vain - just don't say it at all!). So when he says - who is my neighbor? - he is wanting to know, in order not to sin, how far out does this obligation go.

This is critical to understand the Lord's answer! The priest and the Levite weren't merely callous, in the view of Pharisaism what they did was right. By avoiding a person who was bloody and perhaps dead they avoided polluting themselves. Their understanding of the law said either the man was not their neighbor, in which case they had no obligation toward him, or that it was preferable in the understanding of the Law to remain clean.

THIS is why the Samaritan's character is used. Because the Samaritan was considered as worse than the gentiles by the Pharisees. Not by the Lord! The Lord says they are ripe for harvest! St Photini, the woman at the well, was one of the first to confess Jesus as Messiah, she was one of the first Apostles to evangelize! But this Samaritan, this "sinner" (to the Pharisees) had compassion, and showed mercy. I don't think the Lord is putting the Samaritan forward as a heretic because HE necessarily condemned them, but because the Pharisees absolutely did.

This was a condemnation of their understanding of the Law. The takeaway is not, as you say, that compassion is more important than righteousness or belief, but that wrong belief causes people to act in unrighteous ways!!

And to feel as if they are justified and righteous in doing so. THIS is why heresy must be answered.

One other thing. I agree with you that at the end of the day book learning doesn't mean anything to the Lord. The Gospel accounts make that abundantly clear. The people who are seeking God recognize Him immediately, regardless of their religious background or even their lifestyle choices up to that point. The ones who are not seeking Him don't see Him even when He hits them over the head with it, because they don't know or want to know God, and this actually precludes them from understanding the scriptures.

That's why Christians should never condemn or judge anyone. And we should never, ever presume who is and isn't righteous in the eyes of God. This is just as true when we see a person we think is sinning as when we see someone from another denomination! We see the sin, but not the repentance. We may see the theological error, but not the desire for righteousness.

So what was said about who is and isn't a Christian is just wrong. It's no business of ours to judge or condemn others. We should look to our own sins. We know where Christ is - we have no ability to say where He isn't. As St Gregory said, "We are not seeking victory but to gain brethren, by whose separation from us we are torn." And, paraphrasing St Mark, our objective in these discussions should always be the truth - not victory.

Zobel said:

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One other thing. I agree with you that at the end of the day book learning doesn't mean anything to the Lord. The Gospel accounts make that abundantly clear. The people who are seeking God recognize Him immediately, regardless of their religious background or even their lifestyle choices up to that point. The ones who are not seeking Him don't see Him even when He hits them over the head with it, because they don't know or want to know God, and this actually precludes them from understanding the scriptures.

That's why Christians should never condemn or judge anyone. And we should never, ever presume who is and isn't righteous in the eyes of God. This is just as true when we see a person we think is sinning as when we see someone from another denomination! We see the sin, but not the repentance. We may see the theological error, but not the desire for righteousness.

So what was said about who is and isn't a Christian is just wrong. It's no business of ours to judge or condemn others. We should look to our own sins. We know where Christ is - we have no ability to say where He isn't. As St Gregory said, "We are not seeking victory but to gain brethren, by whose separation from us we are torn." And, paraphrasing St Mark, our objective in these discussions should always be the truth - not victory.
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Amen.

And I can not stand when someone is called a "good" or "true" Christian. As opposed to what?

diehard03 said:

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And for us Catholics, we need to approach our non-Catholic brothers and sisters with similar charity. We have the benefit of understanding the Christian faith through a lens that non-Catholic Christians have never been able to look through. It Can be a difficult and scary thing for them. I think that is why many here avoid answering (intentionally or not) the direct, seemingly simple questions we pose. Where the answers lead might be a little unsettling for them.

I say all of this not out of Catholic hubris or arrogance, but out of love and sincerity.

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This is the very definition of hubris.

Most of us non-Catholics can literally tell you the exact same story from our POV - we encountered some flack from nowhere and we educated some poor fool with our bible knowledge. The truth is, we probably just encountered someone who was a little overzealous and under educated. it's easy to think you're like Paul arguing with Pharisees in those situations.

There's also a very strong correlation between people calling someone the Great Satan and those people having very little knowledge of their own faiths. We know this because that attitude doesn't come from knowing your faith. It comes from blindly following some other person who doesn't know about their faith.

I can also sympathize that no one should have to hear that, and I'm sorry that happened to you.

However, I can tell you that from the perspective of someone you seem to be trying to engage with "love and sincerity", this post is rather uncharitable.

Do with that as you wish.

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I think you missed the entirety of the point I was trying to make. My friends were not flacks...they knew their Bible verses and beliefs . What I was able to help them see is that what they THOUGHT Catholics believed or practiced was not actually correct. They knew their own positions well enough, but they assumed they also knew where we Catholics were lost and got it all wrong. Our conversations at least helped them to see that Catholics could in fact be Christians.

You conveniently deleted the last line of my post..
"We all have something to gain from each other, and we are all seeking the truth."

The point I was trying to make is that all of us bring our own built-in bias or perspectives to these discussions, and our personal experiences and how we were raised or grew up in the faith informs our views. These are built in traditions that give us the glasses (lens) with which we are looking through. I am looking through a Catholic lens. For someone who has grown up as a "Bible" Christian they are looking through a kind of different lens. I have encountered many people close to me that were raised to believe Catholics are not Christians and/or the Pope is the anti-Christ, etc. I don't think my experience is all that unique for Catholics.

I've said this before but to put a spin on Ronald Reagan's famous line about liberals... "the trouble with our non-Catholic friends isn't that they are ignorant (of Catholic beliefs), it's just that they Know so many things (about Catholicism) that aren't so."

To further complicate matters, it has been my experience that it is virtually impossible to keep the discussion ON TOPIC. I feel like I am always being forced to jump from topic to topic to topic without really having the time to actually address the original question. As soon as I feel like I am getting somewhere on the first topic the subject gets changed and I am defending something different. Either that or simple, direct questions are avoided, ignored, or dismissed (examples evident in this very thread).

So, I meant what I said. I think you can look at everything I have ever posted, and you can see that I attempt to engage in honest, sincere, direct discussions with anyone willing to do the same. I don't expect others to come to the discussion with the same perspective or lens...but I would hope others would come with an open mind. That is why I like to ask direct, simple questions - and I try to answer any direct questions asked of me because I am happy to defend my position.