Dan Brown: I am a Christian.
I was reading the FAQs from Dan Brown’s Official Website and found that Brown considers himself a Christian.
ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?
Yes. Interestingly, if you ask three people what it means to be Christian, you will get three different answers. Some feel being baptized is sufficient. Others feel you must accept the Bible as absolute historical fact. Still others require a belief that all those who do not accept Christ as their personal savior are doomed to hell. Faith is a continuum, and we each fall on that line where we may. By attempting to rigidly classify ethereal concepts like faith, we end up debating semantics to the point where we entirely miss the obvious–that is, that we are all trying to decipher life’s big mysteries, and we’re each following our own paths of enlightenment. I consider myself a student of many religions. The more I learn, the more questions I have. For me, the spiritual quest will be a life-long work in progress.
He lists three different answers for what people consider being a Christian is:
- being baptized
- accepting the Bible as absolute historical fact
- believing and accepting Christ as personal savior
Christianity is not a continuum as Brown suggests, rather it is a specific set of beliefs. Many Christians around the world hold to a set of common beliefs outlined in the Nicean Creed:
We believe in one God
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit
and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified
under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand
of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord,
and the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son
is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in the one holy catholic
(universal Christian) and apostolic church.
We acknowledge one baptism
for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
What about you? Do you hold to the Nicean Creed? Is there a part of it that you disagree with or do you disagree with it all? What beliefs do you hold?
119 Responses to “Dan Brown: I am a Christian.”
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Oh and you said if confessing to a priest is wrong (which I never said it was) then why did so many people do it before the reformation? I’m going to answer question with another question. Why do so many people confess to God now?
This is different than telling you kids to do their homework. God didn’t say I HAVE to confess my sins to a priest and that I CAN’T confess my sins to him.
How do you know other options are contrary to his will?
In that passage does it say we have to confess our sins to an apostle or priest? It says that an apostle CAN forgive us of our sins. It doesn’t say we have to go to him to get our sins forgiven.
Don’t twist the Bible so that it will say what you want it to say. You can’t say that the passage says we must confess our sins to a priest if it doesn’t say that.
I don’t why people confessed to priests before the reformation. I wasn’t there. And I’m sure alot of people confessed to God anyways.
You think God is too stupid to know when we aren’t being honest?
And when I’m generalizing or when I’m not being honest with God I know. I don’t know about you but I’m not very good at hiding stuff from God. I end up being honest with God and specific because I can’t hide things from him and I don’t want to. Sometimes confessing to God is the hardest thing for me to do but I do it anyways because of the obvious reason (not confessing your sins has huge consequences) and I want to be real with him.
Incase you haven’t realized I don’t agree with everything in the Catholic Bible. But I’ll read it.
Oh and I think confessing to a priest is useful. For example, if you are a missionary or whatever people in Africa could confess to you because they may not understand anything else.
And I do believe that you can recieve forgiveness for someone elses’ sins on their behalf if they may not realize what they are doing and the like. So that is like forgiving them in a way. It’s hard to explain exactly what I mean.
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And Tasha, I know you don’t agree with everything I believe and you know that I don’t agree with everything you believe.
Gary, I also have a copy of the catechism of the catholic church. And i find it is one of my most useful resources.
Michaela,
When God says in the Bible that we are to confess our sins to a priest, that confession of sins in that manner is His will, He does not and should not have to tell us that any other way is contrary to His will. It should be obvious. I don’t know if you have any kids or not but my wife and I raised twin daughters. We also home-schooled them. When it was time to do their math we would hand them their assignment and tell them to work on it. We did not also have to tell them that this means that this was not the time to play with their cats or watch TV or whatever else they wanted to do. That was understood when we told them to work on their math.
In the same way, when God tells us to confess our sins to a priest, He is telling us what to do and how to do it, we need to understand that any other option is contrary to His will. God does not have to specifically forbid any other manner of confessing our sins once He has told us how He wants us to do it. Here’s the *-passage where God, through the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of St. John the Apostle, tells us how we are to confess our sins:
the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you,’ 20 and, after saying this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord, 21 and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. ‘As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.’ 22 After saying this he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone’s sins, they are retained. [John 20:19-23, New Jerusalem Bible]
But this doesn’t tell us to confess our sins to a priest. Yes, it does, but in a roundabout way. The apostles were the first bishops of the Church. In the first few years of the Church’s existence there were no priests because the bishops handled everything. This worked because there weren’t that many believers but it soon became unworkable and the Bible talks about the bishops ordaining priests – some translation call them presbyters – with the laying on of hands (2 Tim 1:6).
In the passage from John’s gospel Jesus breathes on the apostles and says “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (Interestingly, the Greek word for ‘Spirit’ is ‘pneuma’ which also means ‘breath.’) Then Jesus tells them that if they forgive anyone’s sins they are forgiven and if they do not forgive a person’s sins, they are not forgiven. It is not because they were such spiritual guys that Jesus could do this but it was a special anointing of the Holy Spirit, a spiritual gift given only to those who hold the office of priest.
Now I realize that this is not your intention but for Jesus to do this when He didn’t have to because it’s just fine to confess your sins directly to God makes Jesus look a bit silly at best and idiotic at worst. Clearly Jesus gave the apostles this special gift because He intended them to use it and they can’t use it unless believers confess their sins to them.
Let me ask you a question: If God is OK with us confessing our sins directly to Him, why do we not see this happening prior to the Reformation? There are tons of Christian books written prior to that and, in those which deal with the topic at all, confession is always to a priest.
Another question: The fact that Jesus gave the apostles the authority to retain a person’s sins (that is, not forgive them) implies that there would be times when this would happen. It could be assumed that, in these cases, the person was making an insincere confession. Maybe they really weren’t repentant or maybe they stole something and were unwilling to return it to the true owner. How can you be sure that you are not making an improper confession if you are confessing directly to God? People have a remarkable capacity for generalizing. I know I do.
Lastly, there was a point you brought up in a past post which I meant to address and forgot to do so. (Hey, I’m 54. I forget stuff.) You said something to the effect that you thought I was pulling some of my ideas out of thin air. While I thank you for what I will take as a compliment to my creativity, I think that if you get a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church – it’s available online, do a Google search – you will find that everything I have said is there. In fact, if you find that something I have said contradicts the catechism, I would appreciate you letting me know.
yah, but just cause i know your opinions, michaela, doesn’t mean i agree with all of them.
Hey Tasha! Nice to see you on here. You know all my opinions:D
Just so you know Gary, Tasha is a good buddy of mine.
I’m not trying to proove you wrong. I don’t think confessing to a priest is wrong and I don’t think confessing to God is wrong. It says nowhere in the Bible that I can’t confess to God. And I’m not ignoring the Bible. The Bible doesn’t say I have to confess to a priest and that’s that. And there is nothing wrong with talking to a priest.
Saying that you grow more by confessing to a priest than confessing to God is wrong. That’s just your experience. I’m very happy for you if you want to confess to a priest. I honestly don’t care. And personal preferences are irrelevent when they go against what the Bible says. Confessing to God isn’t going against the Bible.
No Michaela, I don’t know Matthew. What I do know is that when starts off by saying that all Christians are mindless sheep who will do whatever they are told, he isn’t looking for a discussion. As far as my tone provoking him, where is he? He hasn’t posted anything since my response. If I had provoked him he’d be all over me like a bad Hawaiian shirt.
I don’t remember ever saying that God couldn’t or wouldn’t speak to you. I’m sure He does. I’m just telling you what the Bible says on the subject of confessing your sins. It’s entirely up to you if you choose to confess your sins as Scripture says to or whether you choose to ignore what the Bible says. Personally, I don’t understand your reluctance. It would be different if you were trying to show me that I was wrong about the Bible’s teaching on the matter but you haven’t. Neither have you shown me anything in the Bible that says we should confess our sins directly to God. You also seem to be inconsistent. If you can talk to your pastor or your friends in the church about your sins, what’s the problem with talking to a priest about them?
I also never said that you couldn’t grow spiritually; I just said that the method laid out in Scripture was better. You can’t really say that I’m wrong since you’ve never done it that way. However, if it comes down to basing what I am going to do on the Bible or your experiences – or even my experiences – I’m going with the Bible. Our personal preferences are irrelevant.
——-
Hi Tasha, welcome to the discussion. I’ve been hoping that more people would join in.
As far as sacramental confession goes, I do beleive that it is a sacred and beneficial tradition. But you can have commited even a mortal sin and end up dieing before you even get the chance to repent to God for your sin, and go to heaven. This is the purpose of purgatory. After you die you are given a last chance to repent for your sins. However I do attend sacramental confession atleast twice a year, and find the most releaving part is the penance. A chance to do something to make up for what I did.
I also quite agree, Gary J Sibio, with your comment on the salvation of nonchristian religions. God saves anyone who He choses regardless of (human) religion.
Do you know Matthew? I’m pretty sure you don’t. Maybe he does like to stur up trouble, alot of people do. But your “angry tone” doesn’t do anything. It just provokes him.
Um, God can speak to me. I don’t know if you believe that or not but God does speak to people. I know from experience. And I can ask my friends for advice. And I can ask my pastor for advice or other leaders in my church.
Oh and I said we need accountability with other Christians. We need to tell close Christian friends or other Christians we really trust about the sins we are struggling with. So that’s confessing you sins to them in a way.
You are so wrong. I don’t even know what else to say. I’ve grown so much by confessing my sins to God. You can’t deny something I’ve experienced. It’s my testimony, it says so in the Bible.
It seems like you keep pulling things out of a hat. Honestly, it really seems like you’re making things up to so that you can be right. Where in the Bible does it say if you can’t get to a priest but you die you’ll still go to Heaven?
Just to solve that whole confusing thing about not being able to get to a priest situaton: you can just confess to God. My plus is a plus.
And just to remind you, I don’t believe that if you commit a sin and you die the next day before confessing it you are not going to Heaven.
AND you may think confessing to a priest is better and I think confessing to God is better but does it really matter? It’s a difference in what we like best. I never said confessing to a priest is wrong. So you don’t need to whip out your sword and start fighting me about it.
Michaela,
Yes, we do have to be real with people. That’s why I reacted to Matthew as I thought his post deserved. There is no difference between what I did with Matthew and what you did with me. I told him he was wrong and used an angry tone; you told me that I was wrong in responding to him that way and used an angry tone. I never said that you attacked about anything related to Catholicism, it was your comments on my response to Matthew that I was calling hypocritical.
Normally I would not attack what someone believed but, in this case, Matthew was telling me what I believed – that I was nothing more than a sheep following whatever I was told. In fact, he not only said that about me, he said that about all followers of Christ. When I pointed out that he would have to be able to read our minds to know what we are thinking. He denied that and said he got his information from a few Christians he had talked to. I do not believe that anyone told him that they were mindless sheep and, even if it were true, he still erred by making a sweeping generalization. Based on the tone of his post, it was clear to me that Matthew was not interested in a discussion. He was what used to be called a discordian, someone who was only interested in stirring up trouble in online discussions. It’s how he gets his jollies.
As far as confessing to a priest being better than going directly to God, that’s simple. Feedback. The priest can listen and give helpful advice. Of course some are better at this than others.
Have you ever heard of Padre Pio? He died in 1968 and was canonized a few years ago by Pope John Paul II. If you have a few minutes, Google him. He was an incredible man whom God used in a miraculous way.
I bring him up because of his renown as a confessor. People would stand in line for hours to confess to him because of the gifts which God had given him. Many lives were changed for the better because of the graces they received from God by confessing to this remarkable priest.
Not all priests are as good in the confessional as Padre Pio was but, by virtue of the gifts they receive at their ordination, they are usually quite helpful.
In sacramental confession – that is, confessing to a priest – we receive graces which sanctify us, make us more Christlike. I know from personal experience that that does not happen when you confess directly to God. There is forgiveness, but no growth.
You are still ignoring the fact that God has set up a system in which we are to go to a priest and confess to God through the priest. Why would you want to circumvent the method God has established? We know from the writings of early Christians that this is how they handled it. Your method was not used until the Reformation, over 1,500 years later.
By the way, it is the teaching that the moment we repent of a sin, it is forgiven but we are still required to confess it. For example, if you repent of a sin at night but can’t get to a church for confession for a couple of days but you die in the interim, your sin would still be forgiven because you intended to confess it. Your plus is not really a plus.
First off, I never said be huggy-feely. You have to be real with people.
And secondly, I’m not attacking you and what you believe. I’m discussing it with you because I want to know more about it and why you believe it. And if I made it seem like I’m attacking what you believe, I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention. I told you a while back that I just want to get to the truth.
Should you really be attacking what someone believes? I don’t think that’s effective.
Back to what we were talking about before…
Why would confessing to a priest instead of confessing to God be more beneficial? That doesn’t make any sense.
I understand what you are saying about God not having to say everything we shouldn’t do but with something like this I think he would.
Oh and confessing to God means I can ask for forgiveness whenever I want. I don’t have to wait to go to church or whatever. My sins can be forgiven wherever I am. That’s a plus!
Oops. That last sentence should have been ‘against Matthew’ not ‘against William.’
Michaela,
Look back at Matthew’s first post. He set the tone of the discussion. He said that all religious people are just mindless sheep who follow whatever they’re told and when I called him on it, he denied it. That’s what I said was bull.
Sometimes it doesn’t work to be all huggy-feely. People are used to Christians being all wishy-washy and not taking a stand when their faith is attacked. Jesus called His opponents white-washed tombs and overturned the the table of the money changes and through them out of the temple. Paul wished that those who were telling the Galatian believers that they had to follow the Jewish law would castrate themselves (Gal 5:12, that’s the literal meaning of the word that gets translated mutilate).
BTW, don’t you find it just a little bit hypocritical to talk about me pointing out someone’s errors in a post in which you are taking me to task for what you believe to be my errors? Why is it wrong for me to go on the attack against William yet perfectly alright for you to go on the attack against me?
Sibio,
Do you only care about being right and prooving people wrong? ‘Cause what you said to Matthew was pretty harsh and pretty disrespectful.
When you said his “claim for innocence is bull” was pretty ridiculous. Who do you think you are? I don’t know your intentions for saying it but it’s not effective. You talk about evangelizing to people and how Catholics try to help people, well, why don’t you act like it? ‘Cause that wasn’t a very loving thing to say.
Anyways, take it how you want to. That’s all I have to say.
Michaela,
As far as Mary is concerned, I also think it best not to get into that now. I feel a bit guilty that we are pretty much monopolizing the space here even though no one seems to mind. I would, however, suggest that you look into that subject on your own. She has a bigger role in our lives than a lot of Christians have ever imagined.
re: confession
I don’t think that God is refusing to forgive your sins because you don’t go to a priest but that doesn’t mean that you are not missing out on a wonderful gift that God has given His children. God is not arbitrary. He did not establish confession to a priest just because it struck His fancy. God is love; He is motivated by His love for us. When He does something, He does it because He loves us. When He decided that we should confess our sins by going to a priest rather than just between us and Him, He did it because He loves us. Why on Earth would any believer be reluctant to do it His way.
You’re right. There is no specific prohibition on not going to a priest. There’s also no specific prohibition on wring them down on a piece of paper, stuff them in a Dr. Pepper bottle and tossing it into the nearest convenient body of water. He’s already told us how we are to confess our sins. He doesn’t have to list the various options He does not want us to use. What you have to decide for yourself is are you going to do it His way or are you going to ignore what the Bible and the Church, the pillar and foundation of the truth, has taught since the beginning.
Hmm. I don’t know what to think or say about the mortal sin thing right now.
I think I said God “inspired” the Bible. Basically saying what you just said. He moved people to right what he wanted to say. The Bible, is obviously, God approved.
Any observation about churches, Catholic or Protestant could fit a few. And when you say most churches split because of conflict do you mean protestant churches or all of them?
The Church means all of the things you said, to me and more. Except for Mary as my mother but that’s not something I want to bother getting into.
And on the confessional thing, I’m pretty sure when I confess my sins to God, he isn’t thinking “Well, Michaela isn’t doing it properly. She should go confess her sins to a priest.” My relationship with God is personal and one on one. God knows what sins I’ve committed but I confess them to him because I’m being open and honest to him. I go to God first. When I’ve sinned I go to him. When I have a problem I usually go to him first. And it really humbles you when you go to him and confess your sins and ask for forgiveness. And I’m pretty sure the Bible doesn’t say I can’t confess my sins straight to God.
Michaela,
I can know that someone who is committing a mortal sin is rejecting God because that is the definition of a mortal sin. In 1 John 5 it talks about sins which results in death (mortal) and sins which don’t result in death (venial). Clearly St. John is not speaking of biological death but of spiritual death which is separation from God. For a sin to be mortal three conditions must be met:
1) It has to be a serious matter. In other words it must be on the level of breaking one of the commandments. Something along that line.
2) It must be intentional in the sense that you are acting of your own free will. If someone puts a gun to my wife’s head and tells me they will kill her unless I rob the neighborhood convenience store, it would not be a mortal sin for me to do so. If I just decide I want the money, it would be.
3) The person must know that they are acting against God in committing the act. You can’t commit a mortal sin by accident or if you are truly ignorant through no fault of your own.
I have to disagree with your statement that God did not write the Bible. This is not to say that He was the one who put pen to papyrus but it was the Holy Spirit who moved on the individuals in such a way that, although their own style enters into it, they wrote what God wanted.
I believe what I said is that, in my experience, evangelical churches exhibit less freedom of thought than the Catholic Church. This would limit my scope to those churches with which I’ve had some first-hand experience. Despite that I think that my observation could pretty much fit quite a few, if not most, evangelical churches. How do most churches handle doctrinal conflict? They split. That’s how we ended up with so many denominations.
The church is more than just a place where we can go to feel safe although we certainly should feel safe there. It is literally our new adopted family. We have God as our Father and Mary as our mother. (See John 19:26-27 if you don’t believe me on that last one.) Jesus is our first-born brother and the saints are our older brothers and sisters. The Church is where we get our identity and find our true purpose in this life.
If God preferred us to confess our sins directly to Him, why would Jesus give priests – in the form of the apostles – the authority to forgive or retain them? I am not aware of any reason why Jesus did this but it is very clear from the scriptures that He did. God does not have to explain Himself to us; we need to place our faith in Him. There must be some benefit to the way He set things up. Why would He send His Son to die for us just to stick it to us later? I don’t see the Bible as teaching that confessing our sins directly to God is an option. It’s not easy going into the confessional and spilling your guts but it is what the Bible says we are to do.
I know the father took the prodigal back. That was my point. When the son came back and repented, the separation his rebellion had caused was removed.
————–
Matthew,
Your statement that Christians just believed what they are told because they are mindless sheep was applied to all Christians, not just the ones you have talked to so your claims of innocence are bull. In addition, I doubt that any Christian told you that he was nothing more than a sheep mindlessly following what he was told. And believe me, you don’t need to know everything to see all of the holes in your argument.
There is nothing wrong with evangelization. I said that the Catholic Church teaches that it is possible for non-Christians to enter Heaven, not definite, not even probable. We share the truth with them in the hopes of increasing the chances that they will. I suppose if you saw a blind man walking toward a hole you’d let him fall in rather than warn him of the danger he is in. That’s what evangelism is, warning the spiritually blind about the dangers they are moving toward.
My last statement to you is open your eyes.
Hi Gary, I just wanted to say that I never have assumed to know what is going on in anyones mind I KNOW that many christians believe that way because it came straight from their mouths. While you clearly do have a much greater knowledge of the bible and christian doctrine you can’t learn what other people think by reading you have to speak to them, try it sometime you might be shocked. And I love comments like yours where you try to take my argument dissect it leave it uncredible and also you can’t stop until you’ve established that you know it all. And if the great catholics are so tolerant can you explain to me why they travel the world trying to convert everyone to believe the way they do because it seems to me that if they know God will not condemn people why seek to “save” them, my point was meant to be this you shouldn’t push your beliefs on people and you shouldn’t let other people push their beliefs on you if you disagree with that its ok I don’t care much what Gary J Sibio thinks of me or my ideas and if you do disagree with me congratulations you just made a personal decision and it wasn’t based on anything anyone thought you should know you came up with it all on your own. However, it is admirable that you defend your faith and fervently believe in what it is you believe in. Undoubtedly, you have somewhat misunderstood what it is I was trying to say and I have somewhat delivered it in an unclear manner because of the emotion with which I spoke, I did indeed rant. I would say that if the message was simply don’t believe things that people try to force on you and don’t try to force things on other people and do not come here looking for the anwsers to your faith instead look inside for them that would have a much clearer less offensive message and served my purpose better. Thank you, no offense
How do you know if someone who commits a mortal sin is rejecting God and doesn’t want to go to Heaven? You don’t know what’s in their hearts.
I’m not attacking the Catholic church just so you know.
And I agree with you. We should follow what the church says because the Holy Spirit told them to say it.
God didn’t write the Bible, that’s kind of obvious. God more inspired the Bible than anything. He spoke to people and they wrote it down. And people wrote down all the events that were happening and what not.
Ok, you can’t say that evangelical churches have less freedom. That’s generalizing them. Each church is different. When you’ve been to them all let me know how it goes.
The community of the Church is important to me because I know I’m around people I trust. People I can be with and know I’m safe. And they believe the same thing I do. When you’re out in the world there are non-christians all around you. I have nothing against them but it can be stressful. For example, at work people are constantly talking to me about how drunk they got last night and who they slept with. Not something I want to hear. It’s nice to know that I can go and be with my Christian friends and I won’t hear any of that junk. I’m not saying we should live in our own little Christian bubble but it’s nice to get away from the world once in awhile. The community of the Church is important to me because they are my friends. And I love them like my brothers and sisters.
Shouldn’t we confess our sins to God? I think that’s more personal. Like I said before, as Christians we should have accountability and tell a Christian friend you really trust what sins are struggling with or whatever. For example, if you are struggling with lying, you should tell a close friend so they can help you and pray for you. But I think the confessional part of it should be brought to God. I just don’t feel right asking forgiveness from a priest. But you do things differently and I respect that. I’m not saying it’s wrong because I don’t know if it is or not.
The Father still took the prodigal son back.
Matthew,
I love comments like yours. The authors assume that they know what is going on in everybody else’s head and, of course, they are entirely exempt themselves. It’s always everybody else who follows others like sheep, not the freethinking author.
The truth is that you know absolutely nothing about anyone here and their spiritual journeys. You’ve made up your mind that we are mindless sheep and nothing will change your mind. Oh yes, you left yourself a bit of an out by using the phrase “for the most part” but I doubt you believe there are any exceptions to your rule except for those who believe as you do.
You couldn’t even make it through your entire rant without getting insulting by saying that you’d rather go to Hell if Heaven holds no one but Christians.
You also show a profound ignorance of the facts. While there are some Christians who believe that all non-Christians are condemned to Hell you have overlooked the fact that the Catholic Church, the largest segment of Christianity teaches that God can and will allow into Heaven anyone He chooses regardless of their religion. Non-Christians are saved despite their religion and because of the death and resurrection of Jesus but they may have liven their entire life as a Hindu, Moslem or whatever. It’s up to God, not us and not you.
Michaela,
I believe you said that it was possible to lose your salvation if you rejected Jesus by saying that you no longer want anything to do with Him. However, when a person commits a mortal sin, they are rejecting Jesus but they are doing it with their actions instead of their words. A person in a state of mortal sin does not want to go to Heaven. They want nothing to do with Jesus. (Of course this can change if they sincerely repent.) If God sent a person in a state of mortal sin to Heaven it would be against their will.
I never said that we should never think for ourselves. If you look through the history of the Church you will see some of the greatest thinkers the world has ever produced: Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, Bernard of Clairvaux, Teresa of Avila, Jerome and so on. The Catholic Church teaches that we are morally bound to follow our consciences if, after studying an issue, we find ourselves in disagreement with its teachings.
However, if you believe the Bible to be the inerrant word of God, I believe that the more you study it, the more Catholic you will find it to be. You’re right. God doesn’t want us to follow what the Catholic Church says because the Catholic Church said it. He wants us to follow what the Catholic Church says because the Holy Spirit said it. The Church doesn’t pull its doctrines out of thin air; the apostles were given a special gift to be led into all truth by the Holy Spirit. This happened during the course of the Last Supper – I’ve posted the exact passages before – and I don’t remember Luther, Calvin or Wesley being there in the biblical account.
I’ve found that there is much less freedom of thought in evangelical churches. One time, while teaching an adult Sunday School class at a Baptist church, I mentioned that my study of scripture had led me to believe that the post-tribulation rapture was the truly biblical position rather than the pre-trib. The amount of grief I got over that was unbelievable.
I didn’t mean to imply that there was no significant relationship between God and the individual believer. What I’m saying is that Protestantism, especially American Protestantism, has stressed the individual to the point of ignoring the concept of the body of Christ. Not that they don’t pay lip service to the belief but it doesn’t hold much importance in their spiritual walks. Even in your own comment on the community aspect of the Church you only mention their role in leading you to Jesus. You don’t say how the belief is important to you today.
I have to say that I believe that your comments on confession are contrary to the clear teaching of Scripture. It was Jesus who told the apostles that they had the right to forgive sins or to refuse to forgive sins in His name. Where exactly does the Bible tell us to confess our sins directly to God since the establishment of the Church?
I have to disagree with you about rebelling and rejecting. I don’t know your life history but I doubt you rebelled against them completely. Think prodigal son.
All we are doing is questioning what this movie is presenting. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Like you said, you aren’t supposed to believe something just because someone tells you to believe it. You’re supposed to ask questions and see if it lines up with what you believe and what’s in your heart.
I don’t fight against movies and say certain things because I want to condemn you or anyone else. I don’t want people to go to hell. I question things and discuss things because I want to know the truth. I feel like I know a part of it, maybe a small part and I want to share it with people.
Everyone is presented with a choice, an opportunity and it’s what you do with it that matters.
I’m curious as to why people say they have faith, but for the most part we believe what we are told to believe and the reason that we believe it is the same reason that we believe everything, it is what we’ve been told to believe by others. I’m not saying that beliefs aren’t something that can be passed on but if you just happen to believe in the exact same thing as the everybody in your religion how did you come to believe that? If someone has made you come to believe in something you don’t believe it at all and do you honestly think that if God wanted us all on the same page we would have free will? You cannot tell me that I don’t believe in something because I’m not like you, I have never been baptized, I almost never go to church, if I ever made it to heaven and the only people that make it are christians I would choose hell, if indeed God punished good people because they devoted their lives to a religion other than Christianity why would he be worth following at all? But somehow many Christians here on Earth decide that everyone that believes something different is damned to hell and they criticize everything. God is tolerant if he is anything don’t you think that that is how he would want us to be. I believe myself to be a fervent believer because I searched my life and found what I believe to be true not what I’ve had shoveled down my throat since childhood. I’m not saying that theres anything wrong with what you believe in the only thing I advocate is that you believe it. There must be millions of baptized church goers that have never chosen anything at all and believe what they have been told and never once made a decision for themselves. And is it not those same people that rally together to protest our troops and shun other people and protest movies like this. All I ask though it isn’t my place to is that you evaluate yourself and figure out how and why you believe what you do and if you can’t figure it out then you have to believe something else and you already know what that is because deep inside it’s what you’ve believed all along. And finally, when you meet people meet them with tolerance, an open mind, a smile, and love in your heart because that is what makes life worth living. Thanks for reading
Ok, I never said there are no consequences for sin. Of course there are. There are consequences on earth and in the spiritual realm.
What I said is that just because we sin doesn’t mean we are now not allowed to go to Heavan until we confess of our sins.
Yeah, I mean spiritual truths.
Ok so you’re saying we shouldn’t think for ourselves and we should blindly listen to everything the church says? ‘Cause I don’t believe that. Yes, the Church has the job to sort out the truth from the lies but so do we. God doesn’t want us to follow what the church says just because they say it. We need to think for ourselves also. If we didn’t think for ourselves we would be blindly following the church and their teachings. If we did that the church could tell us all sorts of lies and we wouldn’t know the difference.
We have a choice whether we want to listen to the Holy Spirit or not. Sometimes people just ignore it. Not everyone listens to God. Plus, even if we are faithful, commited Christians who recieve direction from the Holy Spirit we still don’t listen to him all the time. People just go their own way sometimes. That’s why we don’t believe the same thing.
The relationship with God and the individual is hugely important. But I think we need community before we have that. I would have never known God if I didn’t know Christian people who loved and cared about me enough to try and lead me to him. It’s just a balance between the community and the individual. I don’t know where you would draw the line. It all depends.
I don’t know if I agree with the confessional thing. It’s a hard thing for me to decide. As Christians we need accountability and we should confess our sins to our brothers and sisters in Christ. But just because a priest says our sins are forgiven that doesn’t make it so. And I think it makes Christians believe that they don’t need to confess their sins to God which is the most important.
I AM NOT saying that rebelling against God is ok and if you do it everything is fine and dandy. But just because you rebel against God doesn’t mean you are rejecting him. I’ve rebelled against my parents and it doesn’t mean I hate them and I am rejecting them. It’s something that most teenagers go through. And I think a Christian atleast once in their life rebel against God. I’ve done it. It doesn’t make it right but it doesn’t mean I hate him and I’ve rejected him. It’s like rebelling against your parents, in a sense. Plus, someone might say they don’t want anything to do with God and may not mean it. God knows our hearts. He knows if we mean it or not.
I realized today that I had forgotten to include some vital points in my comments on Purgatory.
First, only the saved go to Purgatory. Purgatory gets us ready for Heaven. There’s no sense purifying and making more Christ-like, someone who is going to Hell. Not everyone who goes to Heaven has to go through Purgatory. Some, who have lived a particularly holy life, will have remitted all of their temporal punishment during their lives. Purgatory is unnecessary for them.
Purgatory is temporary. We think about time in Purgatory because it makes it easier to wrap our limited minds around the concept but, like Heaven, time may not exist in Purgatory. Eventually, everyone will get out of Purgatory and, after Jesus returns and establishes the fullness of His Kingdom, Purgatory will cease to exist.
Purgatory is purification, not punishment. In the course of the Church’s history, a handful of saints have been given a vision of Purgatory. They describe it as full of joy because the people there know that they will soon be in the presence of Jesus.
After the end of World War II my father was moved from the Pacific to Germany where he was stationed in southern Bavaria. While there he came into possession of a beautiful porcelain horse made in Dresden, Germany prior to its bombing during the war. The horse was about a foot long but very detailed, an incredible piece of art. My father greatly prized this possession.
When I was a young boy the horse sat on the coffee table in our living room. For this, and various other reasons, tossing a ball around was high on the list of things I was not allowed to do. One afternoon a friend of mine came over, I forgot about the rule and the unthinkable happened.
Needless to say my father was not very happy but he knew I was truly sorry and he forgave me. However, that was not the end of it. I lost my allowance for two months, twenty-five cents a week.
I’m sure this horse must have been worth hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars so why would my father make me pay two dollars for it? In fact, if he had forgiven me, why would he demand any punishment? Many Christians look at sin this way. If we sin and are truly repentant, then God the Father forgives us and that’s the end of it. There is no further consequence. However, that is not the biblical perspective.
“And have you forgotten the exhortation which addresses you as sons? – ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage when you are punished by him. For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.’ It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time at their pleasure, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.” [Heb 12:5-10 quoting Prov 3:11-12]
Theologians call this punishment temporal punishment to distinguish it from eternal punishment, eternity in Hell. Temporal punishment is for our own good, that we may share God’s holiness. Temporal punishment will not keep us out of Heaven permanently like eternal punishment will.
When we commit a mortal sin, we receive an eternal punishment – separation from God and the loss of Heaven. If we are truly repentant and confess our sins, God removes the eternal punishment but the temporal punishment remains.
While we are alive we can do various things to remit this temporal punishment. We can pray, meditate on the Scripture, perform acts of charity, etc. This should not be confused with trying to earn our salvation. Temporal punishment has absolutely nothing to do with salvation. It has to do with making real changes in us, to make us more Christ-like. Martin Luther wrote that we are snow-covered dung heaps meaning that, when we are saved, God sees us as pure although, underneath it all, we are still miserable sinners. This is what I was taught when I was an Evangelical. The Catholic Church does not believe that God deceives Himself about our true nature like this. He knows what we are really like but His grace makes us holier.
But what happens if we cannot remit all of the temporal punishment we have accumulated during the course of our life. If we are in a state of grace we can’t be sent to Hell yet the Bible quite explicitly tells us that, unless we are perfect – note that it does not say appear perfect like Luther taught – we cannot enter Heaven. Any remaining temporal punishment makes us less than perfect so it must be dealt with.
To deal with this God established what we call Purgatory. We are not told much about Purgatory. The word doesn’t even appear in the Bible. (That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. The words ‘Trinity’ and ‘incarnation’ do not appear in the Bible either but you would be considered a heretic if you did not believe in them. Catholic theologians define Purgatory as a state in which our unremitted temporal punishment is dealt with but it makes it easier for us to think of it like a place. (It may or may not really be a place. That has not been revealed to us.)
Of course there is biblical support for the existence of Purgatory. I should note that the first quote comes from one of the biblical books which Protestants reject. Since you may not have a copy of it, I included it.
2 Maccabees 12:3846
[38] Judas rallied his army and went to the city of Adullam. As the week was ending, they purified themselves according to custom and kept the sabbath there. [39] On the following day, since the task had now become urgent, Judas and his men went to gather up the bodies of the slain and bury them with their kinsmen in their ancestral tombs. [40] But under the tunic of each of the dead they found amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jew to wear. So it was clear to all that this is why these men had been slain. [41] They all therefore praised the ways of the Lord, the just judge who brings to light the things that are hidden. [42] Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas warned the soldiers to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen. [43] He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; [44] for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. [45] but if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pius thought. [46] Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin. (NAB)
What does this passage prove in regards to purgatory? It show that at least some of the dead are in a state in which they can be helped by the prayers of the living. Since those in Heaven do not need our prayers and those in Hell are beyond our help, this requires another option. The objection could be made that these men were guilty of idolatry and, therefore, did not die in a state of grace. This being the case they would be in Hell rather than purgatory. This assumes that they did not repent, which may have been the case but it is not ours to say. If even one or two of them had repented, they would have gone to purgatory. Even if none of them did repent, this passage still demonstrates that prayer for the dead was a part of Jewish theology.
Mal 3:3
He will take his seat as refiner and purifier; he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they can make the offering to Yahweh with uprightness. (NJB)
To refine something like gold and silver implies that it will be refined in fire since that is how gold and silver are refined. However, in Heaven there is no need of purifying fires and Hell’s fires are not for purification.
Matt 5:2526
[Jesus speaking] “[25] Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. [26] Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.” (NAB)
The context of this passage is the final judgement and the sins that we commit. Jesus’ teaching in this portion is primarily concerned with murder and anger. The aspect of judgement comes in when Jesus mentions coming before the judge. The opponent, whom I believe to be Satan, will be there to accuse us before God. Jesus speaks of a prison where we go to pay a penalty for our sins. Since the possibility of release exists, He cannot be speaking of Hell and prison is an unlikely metaphor for Heaven. If we are not prepared for heaven, there will be time in purgatory.
Some say that the context of Matt 5:2526 is dealing with earthly judges and courts. But Jesus is teaching on God’s law to show us how encompassing it really is. Starting with v. 21 He is talking about the relationship between anger and murder. It is God’s law and, therefore, the Judge is God Himself. No human judge is worthy to pass judgement on God’s law because he falls short himself. If it is God’s law and God is the judge, how can it be an earthly prison? Obviously it cannot. I do not think that Jesus is calling purgatory a prison, He is just using a metaphor. I think Peter picked up on this metaphor in 1 Pet 3:19.
Matt 12:32
[Jesus speaking] “Whoever says anything against the Son of Man will be forgiven but whoever says anything against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” (NAB)
This passage implies that if there is a sin which cannot be forgiven in the life to come, there must be a sin which can. Those in Heaven have no sins to be forgiven and those in Hell are beyond forgiveness. Therefore, there must be another option, a state of the soul after death which is neither Heaven nor Hell. This does not indicate that we cannot receive forgiveness for our sins during our lifetime.
Luke 12:5859 see Matt 5:2526
1 Cor 3:13,15
“[13] … the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire [itself] will test the quality of each one’s work…. [15] But if someone’s work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire.” (NAB)
God will test each of our works. Those works which are not of God will be burned away. All that is unholy will be removed. This occurs after our death. Notice what this passage says about those who do not do well in this test. They will be saved but as if through fire. This cannot refer to Hell since there is no chance of salvation there. Neither can it refer to Heaven since there is no suffering fire to be found there. The passage only makes sense when it is considered in the light of the doctrine of purgatory.
This passage does not go into great detail about how and where this will take place. In fact, it is not clear from this passage that a place is involved at all although it is certainly reasonable to assume that it is. The Church has not officially defined purgatory as a place. It is considered to be a state. This does not rule out a place however. Thinking about purgatory as a place certainly does make it easier to comprehend.
1 Pet 3:19
It was in the spirit also that he [Jesus] went to preach to the spirits in prison.
This verse only makes sense if it is a reference to purgatory. If the prison here is Hell, to what end does Jesus preach there? Those souls in Hell have no hope of ever getting out. For Jesus to preach to them (assumedly about salvation) would amount to sadistic teasing. If Hell is ruled out then, and the idea of the Bible using prison as a metaphor for Heaven is ludicrous, there must be a third option which is part of the spiritual realm. Purgatory would seem a fitting place for Jesus to preach the gospel as well. (Again, this does not mean that He is currently doing so. The event in this passage may have been a onetime event.)
An objection might be made that this “limbo of the fathers” might be some place other than purgatory. If this is the case, it still clearly demonstrates the fact that Heaven and Hell are not the only options for the afterlife. There is nothing about the doctrine of purgatory which says that it has to be the only temporary intermediate state.
Rev 21:27
Nothing impure can enter Heaven. Since there are impurities in us that have not yet been purged when we die, there must be some place where we go for these impurities to be removed.
Michaela,
I think that the Bible is more than just rules and guidelines but I’m still not clear on what *you* mean when you say that the Bible is not all you need. Obviously, if you’re having trouble with your computer, the Bible isn’t going to help much. However, I’m talking about spiritual truths. Things which you need to know for your spiritual life. Is that what you believe?
I put together something on Purgatory. I’m posting it separately.
As far as having to be careful about orally transmitted revelation, that’s not really our job. It is the Church that has been given the task of being the pillar and support of the truth. It’s not up to us as individuals. A lot of people worry about the accuracy of orally-transmitted truth. A couple of years ago a thought hit me. (It happens once every four years.) Take the absolute latest date for the creation of the universe which is about 4000 BC. Now take the earliest date for Moses writing the book of Genesis which is 1500 BC. That’s a 2,500 year period during which the biblical account of creation and the accounts of Adam and Eve were passed on orally. Remember, that’s the absolute minimum. It could be thousands of years longer.
Public revelation ended with the death of St. John, the last living apostle which was around 100 AD. That’s only 1,900 years for those truths to have been passed on, quite a bit less than the creation accounts. Yet no one worries about those accounts having been corrupted over time.
I have to disagree that God has promised everyone that the Holy Spirit will lead them into the truth. When Jesus made that promise it was during the Last Supper and only the apostles were present. Also, one need only look at the horrendously divided state of the Church to see that the Holy Spirit has not led all believers into the truth. If He had, we would not have doctrinal differences, we’d all believe the same thing, the truth. Sadly, that is not the case.
I didn’t mean to imply that you were saying that Christians should be loners. I should have worded that better. What I meant was that Evangelical theology, while talking about the importance of gathering yourselves together, tend to stress the relationship between the individual believer and God. It’s not that they have no concept of the body of Christ but there’s no emphasis on it or, at best, very little emphasis. Evangelicals encourage each other to study the Bible and determine what it means to them, apart from the teachings of the Church. Catholic theology views the Church as a family to which we all belong with God as Father, Mary as mother, Jesus as the eldest (first-born) brother and the saints as our older brothers and sisters.
I don’t disagree that it is God who must, ultimately, forgive sins but there’s no escaping the fact that Jesus gave the apostles the authority to forgive or not forgive. He told them, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retained the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23). The forgiveness comes from God but it is up to the priest to administer it. When a Catholic goes into the confessional, the priest does not say ‘I forgive you’, he says ‘I absolve you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.’
I keep saying that you believe that God forces salvation on some because you claim that once a person is saved, there is nothing he can do to change that. If it is not possible for a person to change their mind, then salvation is being forced upon them. We’ve all heard of people who, because of something that happened that they blame God for, no longer want anything to do with him. You seem to believe that such a person can become ‘unsaved’. However, those people who commit a mortal sin are also turning their backs on God or they wouldn’t be actively rebelling against Him by committing a mortal sin. That person is also telling God he doesn’t want anything to do with Him any longer yet you believe that God will still send someone who rejects Him in that manner to Heaven. Someone who commits a mortal sin is always free to confess that sin if they repent but, if they do not, they are going to Hell by their own choice.
A mortal sin is not just falling short of perfection. It is a purposeful act of rebellion against God.
I don’t think the Bible is all you need. The Bible is a book of rules and guidlines pretty much. It tells us how to live our lives but there is other things besides that.
Explain to me what is purgatory.
I agree with you that beliefs that were passed orally are as important as beliefs written down. But of course, you still have to be careful about the orally passed ones.
I know alot of people believe that there way is the right way and God lead them to that belief or idea. But I think that Jesus didn’t just promise the apostles that the Holy Spirit would lead them to all truths. Jesus promised that to everyone. Why else would everyone recieve the Holy Spirit?
I never said that Christians were made to be loners. We are supposed to live in a community, which would be the church.
We can pray that peoples sins will be forgiven but it’s not us who are doing the forgiving. It’s God. Prayer opens the door for forgiveness but we don’t do the act of forgiving. As human beings we are imperfect and we are with sin. How can we forgiven someone else who is imperfect and with sin? Only God can.
I never said Jesus forces himself on us and makes us go to Heavan. You keep implying that I am saying that. If we don’t want to go to Heavan we don’t have to. We don’t have to love Jesus and we don’t have to worship him. If we are saved and we don’t want to be saved anymore we don’t have to be. What I am saying is if I sin and I don’t ask for forgiveness I’m still going to Heavan. I want to be in heavan. God isn’t forcing me to go there. If someone else sinned and they didn’t want to be there God would know. God wouldn’t make someone go to Heavan if they didn’t want to. But sinning doesn’t really have anything to do with it. It’s whether we want to be there or not. People aren’t perfect. I’m not perfect. Just because I sin doesn’t mean I am denying God and saying I don’t love him anymore and that I don’t want to go to Heavan.
Michaela,
Just to be sure that we’re both on the same page, what do you mean when you say that you don’t think the Bible is all you need? I’ve never met an Evangelical who rejected that belief before which is why I want to make sure that we are understanding each other clearly. The Catholic Church teaches that there is a body of truth which Jesus taught His apostles and they passed on to us all of which is binding on believers. However, not everything contained in this body of truth was written down in what we call the Bible. Some of it was passed on orally yet we are still responsible to hold to these truths. They may or may not be alluded to in the Bible but they are not there in any detailed sense. For example, although you will not find the word ‘Purgatory’ in Scripture and you will not find the doctrine clearly laid out in Scripture, it is alluded to in the Bible. However, we believe that Jesus and the apostles taught what we teach about Purgatory.
There is nothing wrong with checking the Scripture to see if a particular belief contradicts them or not. If a belief contradicts what the Bible says, then it must be rejected as false because, even though the Bible does not contain all spiritual truth, what it does contain is without error. However, that does not follow that if the belief is not found in the Bible, or that it is not clearly taught there, then it must either be rejected or, at best, considered optional.
The belief that you only need the Bible contradicts several passages in the Bible which teach that Sacred Tradition (the part of Jesus’ teachings which were not written down) is just as binding as what was written down in the Bible. I know that’s a bit confusing but I couldn’t think of a better way to put it. 2 Thes 2:15 puts it this way: “Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement (sacred tradition) or by a letter (the Bible) of ours.” St. Paul is saying that oral teaching carries the same weight as the Bible. Therefore, if you say that a teaching must be in the Bible to be either valid or binding, you are contradicting this passage. Of course what was passed on orally cannot contradict the Bible because that would mean that Jesus was contradicting Himself.
In past discussions with other Evangelicals on this subject they point to the Bereans in the Acts of the Apostles who studied the Scriptures to test what St. Paul was saying. However, there are some big problems with that defense. The Scriptures the Bereans were using were the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. Most of the NT had not yet been written. If the Evangelicals want to be consistent, they have to say that truths are to be judged against the Old Testament, not the New. There’s another problem, however. The Septuagint OT includes seven complete books which Evangelicals reject as well as parts of two other books. In other words, the Bereans were using the Catholic OT, not the Protestant one.
I don’t think that anyone on Earth knows everything bout the Bible, that wasn’t what I was referring to. You say that you can understand the Bible with the Holy Spirit guiding and directing you. However, you must certainly know people who disagree with you on something in Scripture and I would be willing to bet that they also believe that they were led to their understanding of Scripture by the Holy Spirit. Yet the Holy Spirit can’t tell you one thing and someone else something contradictory. I hate to return to it again but each of those 30,000 Protestant denominations believe that the Holy Spirit has led them to their particular set of doctrines yet they differ from each other. How can you be sure that you are hearing the Holy Spirit accurately and the person whose beliefs differ from yours, regardless of how minor the point, is not. That person is just as convinced as you are that they are hearing the Holy Spirit properly.
In Matt 16:18 Jesus established His Church and made St. Peter its first earthly head. (Of course Jesus is _the_ head of the Church.) When He did so, He promised Peter that the Gates of Hell – which, contrary to popular opinion, does not refer to the head of Microsoft – would never prevail against the Church. If error ever entered the Church, the Gates of Hell would have prevailed and Jesus would either be mistaken or a liar. I also previously mentioned those two passages in the Gospel of John in which Jesus promised the apostles, the future bishops of the Church, that the Holy Spirit would lead them into all the truth. Jesus could have made this promise to all believers but He chose not to do so. This does not mean that the Holy Spirit cannot speak to individual believers, He does so all the time, it just means that we don’t have the same certainty that the leadership of the Church has.
Christians were never meant to be loners. Jesus never intended for us to seek truth independently of each other. If He had, He would not have bothered to create a Church. However, Jesus did create a Church and He tells us not to forsake gathering together (Heb 10:23-25).
If you don’t believe that a human being can forgive sins for Jesus then how do you explain John 20:22-23 in which Jesus appears to the apostles gathered in the upper room after the crucifixion, breathes on them and says: “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” Jesus is quite clearly giving them the authority to forgive sins in His name. James 5:13-16 also tells us that the elders should pray over the sick and their (the sick) sins will be forgiven.
2 Tim 2:12 tells us that if we deny Jesus, which is what we do when we sin, He will deny us. It is our choice. If we rebel through sinning we are, in effect, telling Jesus that we want nothing to do with Him. If we don’t want anything to do with Him, why would you want to spend eternity praising Him. That would be torture, not love. Sin separates us from God. Jesus’ sacrifice can save us but only if we want it. Jesus will not force Himself on us. In addition, nothing unclean can enter Heaven. If we are unclean because of sin, then we cannot get it, period.
I don’t think the Bible is all you need but I believe you do need to check alot of things with the Bible. Make sure it lines up with what God says. And how is saying that “you only need the Bible” contradict the Bible?
I don’t think it’s easy to understand the Bible. I’m not some super genious who knows everything about the Bible but I do believe that I can understand with the Holy Spirit guiding me and directing me.
Ok…? I know Catholics have the Holy Spirit and you should be following his direction, which I’m sure many of you are. But people choose not to listen to him, so isn’t it possible some things have gotten skewed?
Only God can forgive our sins. Human beings can’t do it for him. And I just don’t believe that sinning takes away my salvation. I’ve sinned before, deliberately out of rebellion sometimes. I know not to and I plan not to but I don’t think rebellion will keep me out of Heavan. of course I’ve asked for forgiveness but even if I didn’t, I was, am and always will be saved. That’s the beauty of Jesus’ sacrifice.
Michaela,
Sorry it took me so long to respond. My wife runs the CCD program at our parish (the Catholic version of Sunday School) and classes start this Saturday. She was given new software to use and I’ve been helping her with it.
Acts 2:38 quite clearly says that baptism forgives sins. When someone in the crowd asked St. Peter what they needed to do he responded repent _and_ be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Both repentance and baptism are necessary for any sin committed up to that point to be forgiven. Either one, by itself, is insufficient.
The Church doesn’t make the Bible systematic. The Church presents the truth in a systematic way. It is a Protestant misconception that, if it’s not in the Bible, we don’t need it. The Bible nowhere makes the claim that it is all you need. Although the idea popped up in the Waldensian movement in 13th century Italy, it was Luther who is responsible for this idea which he called Sola Scriptura (Latin for ‘only Scripture’). Not only is it not found in the Bible, it directly contradicts the Bible.
If you claim that the Bible is so easy to understand then I have to bring up the 30,000 different Protestant denominations. If the Bible is so clear, why is there so much confusion over what it says? In 2 Pet 3:16 talks about Scripture being difficult to understand and easy for the unstable to twist. Look at how many cults there are which claim to be based on solid biblical teaching.
What prevents the Catholic Church from teaching error is the Holy Spirit. Before I continue, let me say that I am _not_ saying that Protestants do not have the Holy Spirit. Of course they do. But on the evening of the last supper Jesus gave the apostles a special spiritual gift that He didn’t give to all His followers: that the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth (John 14:26; 16:13). The apostles became the bishops (leaders) of the Church. The Catholic Church doesn’t distort the Bible because the Holy Spirit, in His role of leading the Church leadership into all truth, would prevent it.
I guess you could consider the gospels to be letters in some sense but they don’t follow the Greek literary structure for letters. It’s not a big issue.
If we willingly disobey God we will not receive eternal life unless we make a sincere confession. Jesus knew that we would sin which is what disobeying God is, but He provided confession as a way of taking care of those sins so that they can be forgiven and we will regain eternal life. This is why Jesus gave the apostles the authority to forgive sins or to retain them (John 20:22-23). So yes, sin causes us to lose eternal life but it can be restored.
I don’t believe that baptism forgives your sins up to that point. I believe your sins can be forgiven before that if you just ask God. There is definately no restrictions on forgiveness.
Um, if the church makes the Bible “systematic”, then couldn’t the church just manipulate the Bible? And secondly, it’s not like the average person can’t understand the Bible for themselves. We don’t need a pastor telling us what everything means.
Aren’t the gospels letters too? I think they are.
So you mean if we don’t obey God we don’t recieve eternal life? People make mistakes and we can’t obey God 100% of the time. Even God knows that.
Michaela,
I never said that you could only receive forgiveness of sins after baptism. Baptism forgives all sins committed up to that point. What I said was that, after baptism, the only way a sin could be forgiven is if you confessed it (1 John 1:9).
St. Paul didn’t have to tell the Romans about baptism because they were already baptized. You can only be baptized once. However you must continuously do what it says in Rom 10:9-10. If the Romans didn’t know about about baptism, he would have told them. This is what I meant about the Bible not being a systematic guide to theology. It’s not that what it says isn’t absolutely true, it’s just that it was never intended to fulfil that purpose. That is why Jesus established His Church which St. Paul calls the pillar and support of the truth (1 Tim 3:15). It is the Church which passes on these eternal truths in a systematic way, not the Bible.
Most of the NT is letters. The exceptions would be the gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and Revelation. The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles might also be letters since they are addressed to someone but it is my understanding that, in ancient Greek, letters had a set structure and those two don’t follow that structure. One theory I have heard about them is that they were written to provide St. Paul’s defense when he went to Rome to appear before Caesar. It is also possible that they were written to be shared with the churches which St. Paul encountered on his way to Rome. They are addressed to Theophilus, which is Greek for ‘lover of God’ and may refer to believers in general rather than an actual person.
As far as eternal life being a free gift, I agree with almost everything you have to say. While you need to believe, that is not all you must do. You must also obey. 1 John 2:4 tells us that we are liars if we say that we know God yet fail to obey Him.
Where in the Bible does it say that you can only recieve forgiveness of sins after you are baptized?
Well then why would Paul only tell them that if they believed in their hearts and confessed with their mouths that Jesus is Lord they will be saved? If baptism is a requirement for salvation I highly doubt he would leave that out. Even if they were baptized I don’t think he would leave it out. What if those people started to evangelize to others? They would be telling them that baptism isn’t a requirement for salvation. It doesn’t make any sense.
I know that most of the New Testement is made up of letters, alot of them from Paul. And I have studied who they are for and what there specific problems were. I don’t know everything of course, but I have a good idea. Actually, aren’t all the books in the New Testement letters?
Jesus offers a free gift of eternal life. There isn’t requirements, rules or requlations. That’s why it’s free. That’s why anyone can recieve it. You just need to believe, which is obvious. If you don’t believe in Jesus then you wouldn’t believe in his salvation.
No worries. Misunderstandings happen, especially on the internet.
Michaela,
If you are also interested in Church history, I’d like to recommend a book. It’s called “The Voices of Morebath” and is written by Eamon Duffy. Morebath was a small British village. They found the local church’s accounting records there and were able to use them to piece together what it was like in the village during the time when it went from being a Catholic church to an Anglican one. In this particular case the priest did not stand up against the change. Very interesting book.
I understand that you believe that you are saved when you fulfill what it says in Rom 10:9-10 but my point is that you have taken one passage of Scripture and made it say something that is contrary to Scripture when taken as a whole. I have no problem with what St. Paul says in that passage. He is 100% correct. However, that verse does not stand alone and, when you try to make it do so, you stray for the biblical truth.
In addition, you are also trying to make the passage say something that it does not. St. Paul simply says that salvation requires that you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. He does not say that that is all you have to do and he does not say that baptism is unnecessary. We know from other pars of the Bible that baptism is necessary and that you must confess any sins you commit after baptism for them to be forgiven. Your view of this passage makes it contradict other Scripture passages.
Please keep in mind that the Bible is a collection of short writings and not a systematic catechism or theology text where all truth is laid out in an orderly fashion. Many of the books of the Bible were letters written to specific groups who had specific problems which the author of the letter addresses but doesn’t deal with other things that were not a problem. The letter to the Romans is one of these. The local church in Rome was being troubled by a group known as the Ebionites (AKA Judaizers) who were teaching that non-Jewish converts to Christianity had to be circumcised and adhere to the Jewish ceremonial law. This was heretical and St. Paul wrote to them to straighten them out. When you read the letter, you should keep that in mind.
While I knew you did not believe that God forced us to be saved, I was under the impression that you believed that once you were saved there was nothing you could do to change that. Sorry about the misunderstanding.
I’m glad I’ve been able to help you even though we don’t agree on everything. Some day we will, whichever one of us is right.
Oh church history! How I love it! I don’t really know what else to say. I don’t have a problem with what you said about Martin Luther or anything else about church history.
Well, I did tell you what a believe waaay back when but I’ll refresh your memory :D. I believe that salvation is when you believe in with your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, that he died for you sins on the cross and he rose again.
I believe baptism is extremely important and it is a command by God to be baptized but I don’t believe it is neccassary for salvation. I believe baptism releases the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in you, therefore releasing spiritual gifts in you, like the gift of tongues and what not (think of Pentecost…Acts 2:1-13).
And I believe in this verse:
Romans 10: 9-10 says ?That if you confess with your mouth, ?Jesus is Lord,? and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.?
This verse says if I believe in my heart and confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord I will be saved. Plain and simple.
Sometimes the internet is frustrating and I wish I could talk to you face to face.
You’re right. God does not force us to become saved and he does not force us to stay saved. I totally agree with you…so what’s your point?
Naw. You haven’t offended me. I’m not easily offendable (if that’s a word). Plus I won’t let myself get offended because we are just discussing our beliefs. You aren’t saying anything personal about me. Well atleast I hope not. I’m not saying anything personal about you. And I’m sure you have a lovely sense of humor.
Ummm…I have no idea where everybody is. We’re just too intense for them! Ha. And by the way, I commend you for having so much knowledge and using it to the best of your ability (as far as I can tell). You’re smart and you’ve taught me alot, believe it or not. You’ve taught me to seek out the truth every chance I get and give reasons for why I believe what I believe. Thanks!
Michaela,
re: Martin Luther
I knew about Luther because Church history is a hobby of mine. I’ve read a lot about him and I’ve also done some reading of his own writings. He had a lot of good points but he also had some major problems, one of which was a huge ego. For example, when he made his German translation of the Bible, he inserted the word ‘alone’ into Rom 3:28 even though it isn’t there in the Greek. Then he wrote to a friend of his by the name of Dr. Link and told him that if anyone were to question why he put it there he would say that it was because he, Martin Luther, said it should be there.
Luther started off doing the right thing. It was wrong to sell indulgences and the Church stopped the practice. I suspect his ego got in the way and kept forcing him further and further away from what was good and correct about the Catholic Church. Interestingly, Luther never abandoned the Catholic Church’s beliefs about Mary. He believed in her perpetual virginity and immaculate conception until he died. (The same is true of Calvin.)
I might be wrong about this but I have the feeling that the majority of the violence between Catholic and Protestants – and you are right, it did go both ways – was more the work of the secular rulers using religion to improve their personal situations. Some rulers wanted to break with the Catholic Church to get out from under papal authority while others sided with the pope thinking he made a good ally. I don’t really think the religious leaders of the day had much to do with the killings. Like I said, I might be wrong about that.
The main passage on the difference between mortal and venial sins is 1 John 5:16-17. Mortal sin is just another name for sin which is deadly and venial for sin which is not.
I think you missed my point. What I said about baptism is that it is necessary to enter Heaven under normal circumstances. There are special circumstances when you can get into Heaven without being baptized in water. For example, the repentant thief who was crucified with Jesus could not be baptized with water because he was being executed. He probably didn’t even know about baptism. However, we can assume that, had he not been in that position, he would have been baptized because he wanted to follow Jesus and would be obedient to Jesus’ commands. The Church calls this baptism by desire.
However, the typical believer does not come to Christ while being executed. He doesn’t have that excuse. He has the opportunity to be baptized with water. Since the Bible makes it pretty clear that baptism is necessary for salvation, to not be baptized would be willful disobedience, a sin.
We’ve been talking about what I believe about baptism but what about your beliefs? Where does the Bible teach that baptism is a public profession of your faith in Jesus? (I hope I worded that correctly.) It seems to me that, in the Acts of the Apostles, that in most cases the only people around are those being baptized and the one doing the baptism.
re: salvation and belonging to Christ
Putting aside for the moment that salvation is a process and not a one-time event, if God does not force us to *become* saved, why would He force us to *stay* saved? He doesn’t. Just as we have a free will before we give ourselves to Jesus, we have a free will afterwards. If we chose to follow God and then, later, choose to reject Him, which is essentially what a mortal sin is, we will not go to Heaven. Of course the possibility remains that we will repent of that sin and confess it, receiving forgiveness and being restored to a state of grace, then we will again go to Heaven when we die, probably through Purgatory but that’s another subject. You said it yourself: “If you are not saved and/or don’t want to be saved you do not belong to Christ.”
Please don’t worry about me thinking you hate Catholics. Believe me, I have had quite a bit of experience with people who do and it never entered my mind that you were one of them. I hope I haven’t offended you at all. I have a weird sense of humor which sometimes doesn’t translate well in cyberspace. I certainly don’t mind answering any questions you might have. A lot of Christians don’t know what Catholics believe or why. That’s how I returned to Catholicism. I was in an Evangelical church and I heard a lot of people who had some unusual ideas about what Catholic believed so I taught a couple of Sunday School classes on the Church’s teachings. I had been raised Catholic and knew what they believed but didn’t know why. In fact, that is why I left the Church for Evangelicalism. In doing research for this class, I started to find out why and realized that if I were going to be true to what the Bible said, I was going to have to return to the Catholic Church.
BTW, any idea what happened to everyone else?
sorry I repeated my question about mortal sins.
Ok I give! I’ve been thinking about the whole denominations thing and you’re right. They’re bad. You’re right that they started from fighting and Jesus probably wouldn’t want them.
How do you know that Martin Luther had false teachings? Plus, people were so extreme in that time. Catholics were killing Protestants and Protestants were killing Catholics. It was crazy. Martin Luther wasn’t the only one. I think that was the church’s down fall.
Yes, you need to confess your sins to be forgiven but where in the Bible does it talk about “Mortal sins” and other ones. Where does it make the seperation in the Bible?
Quoting me didn’t bother me, I was just curious why you did it.
Ok, well if you aren’t baptized then it won’t keep you out of Heavan. You said so yourself. That’s my whole point.
You’re right. God doesn’t force salvation on us. I’m saying those who are saved belong to Christ. Those who belong to Christ can’t go to hell because they are saved. If you are not saved and/or don’t want to be saved you do not belong to Christ.
Where in the Bible does it talk about mortal sins and all that other stuff you were talking about that had to do with that?
And by the way, I have a friend who is Catholic so I don’t want you to think I hate Catholics or I say certain things out of ignorance. I am constantly asking questions about what she believes because I don’t want to be ignorant. I totally respect what you and other Catholics believe and I always want to know more about it.
Michaela,
OK, I’ll bite. What good has come from denominationalism. All I see is disunity and confusion. Denominations weaken the Church. They make us less able to fight the enemy because we’re too busy fighting ourselves. I heard someone say once that Jesus is coming back for a bride, not a harem.
We should be working for unity including uniting Catholics and Protestants. But unity cannot come at the cost of the truth.
You’re missing the point about denominations. It’s the fighting that produced them. Sometimes the differences are very small but sometimes the divisions are over major points. The groups that have divided over the minor points have even more to repent of than those who split over bigger issues. However, regardless of how big the issue is, once pride gets in the way, the truth no longer matters and divisions ensue.
I believe that the Reformation was completely unnecessary. All of the issues that Luther had when he nailed his 95 Theses to the church door were taken care of at the Council of Trent. Unlike Sts. Francis of Assisi, Dominic and Teresa of Avila who also saw major problems in the Catholic Church and spent their lives reforming it, Luther broke with the Church and started adding new, false doctrines such as salvation by faith alone and his view that all we needed was the Bible. (The latter is, I acknowledge, an oversimplification.) Had he followed the example of his predecessors – he overlapped with St. Teresa of Avila – we’d probably be calling him St. Martin now. Luther was ruined by pride. He thought that the Jews would flock to him once he broke with the papacy and, when they didn’t, he got angry and told his followers that, if they were to encounter a Jew on a bridge, they should throw him off. Toward the end of his life he wrote to one of the kings of his day saying that it would be fine to take a second wife.
1 John 1:9 is very clear. Confession is required for forgiveness. Therefore unconfessed sins are not forgiven. A person who commits a mortal sin and does not confess it remains separated from God. They are impure because they have unforgiven sin and nothing impure can enter Heaven (Rev 21:27).
I’m sorry if quoting you bothered you. I was trying to be clear about what I was responding to.
Mark 16:16 Jesus speaking: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”
You are correct. Jesus does not mention baptism in the second part of the verse but He does say that it is necessary to be saved. I believe that the reason He didn’t mention baptism in the second part is because if you cannot be baptized for reasons outside of your control, it will not prevent you from going to Heaven. But you can’t just skip the first part of the verse. Jesus clearly says that there are two requirements to be saved: belief and baptism.
re: 1 Pet 1:3-5
I pretty much agree with what you said about this passage except that I would say that we will receive salvation if we remain faithful.
re: Rom 8:24
You also have to look at the verse that comes after it. We are hoping for salvation because we have not yet received it.
re: Heb 4:1
First, the titles are not part of the original text. They are put there by the editors of whichever version you are using. They are not part of the inerrant text.
If you start reading the last few verses of Heb 3 and then continue in ch 4, you will see that the author is using the sabbath rest of the Mosaic Law as type of our salvation. Those who fail to enter into the rest refers to those who, for whatever reason, failed to be saved. The letter to the Hebrews was written to Jews who had become Christian so the author is talking about Christians who will not be saved for whatever reason.
What makes you think that people who belong to Christ can’t go to Hell? Where does Scripture teach that? God gave us a free will. He doesn’t force salvation on us.
You’re right in a way. I don’t think Jesus wanted there to be denominations and they probably did start from a fight. It wasn’t planned but it happened anyway. Something good can come from bad things.
The thing is, it happened. There are denominations now. What can you do about it? And if denominations are so bad then shouldn’t the protestants and the catholics unite? We are all Christians, believing in the same God and the same Jesus.
I don’t think denominations are vital to the life of the church. We can do without them. But we have them. And I know that it isn’t just different styles of worship. I know each denomination believes in something a little different. But is something so small worth fighting about? Is it worth arguing who’s right and who’s wrong? I don’t think so. If they taught something that went against the Bible or against Jesus or against something so important to the faith then I would be worried. But I don’t know all the denominations out there and the ones that I know are just different in a little way. Paul wouldn’t have argued with something small.
I agree with you that breaking the 10 commandments willingly is really really serious. But where does is say in the Bible if you do so and haven’t confessed of that sin and you die you’re going to hell? And why are you quoting what I said?
Also, I did what you told me to do awhile ago, I sat down and read all the verses you gave me.
Matk 16:16 – The verse does not say whoever is not baptized is condemned. It says those who don’t believe.
1 Peter 1:3-5 – When we give our lives to Christ it’s like we are insuring we get a present. We don’t recieve it now but we will later. We recieve eternal life when we die.
Romans 8:24 – You need to look at the verse before. Romans 8:23 says we wait eagerly for the redemption of our bodies and then it goes to vrs. 24. The word “hope” also means “to believe, desire or trust.” Ex. My hope is in Jesus…My belief, desire, trust is in Jesus.
Hebrews 4:1 – That verse is talking about the Sabbath. First off, the title of the passage is called ” A Sabbath-Rest for the People of God” and the rest of the passage is talking about the Sabbath. You can’t take some verses out of context. Hebrews 4:1 can be interpreted anyway you want by itself. You need the rest of the passage to know it’s meaning.
You also said once “Baptism is what joins us to Christ. It puts an indelible seal on us which says that we belong to Christ.”
If we have an indelible seal on us that says we belong to Christ that means it never goes away. Therefore, we have eternal security because people who belong to Christ don’t go to Hell.
Michaela,
I have to disagree with your viewpoint on denominations. Of all the things that Jesus could have prayed for the night before He was crucified He chose to pray that all of His followers would be unified. He prayed that we would be one the same way that He and His Father were one (John 17:11). I can’t see the Father and the Son having doctrinal differences. Denominations bring division and confusion, they are not of God. They usually spring from a fight. In Matt 16:18 Jesus told St. Peter that he was the ‘rock’ on which Jesus was going to build His church, not His churches. If denominations were a good thing, why did we not get any until the 16th century? There were no denominations for the first 3/4ths of the Church’s existence.
St. Paul is writing about people being the different parts of the body, not denominations. In the very first chapter of the letter you quote he warns against sectarianism (1 Cor 1:12-13). If he were writing today he would be warning us about saying that ‘We are of Martin Luther’ or ‘We are of John Wesley’ or whoever started whichever denomination you belong to.
Denominations are not merely different styles of worship. Each denomination teaches something they claim to be the truth and it differs from what the other denominations teach. Yet all of them claim to be teaching what the Holy Spirit teaches. Is the Holy Spirit some kind of cosmic joker telling each denomination a different story? I don’t think so but you’d have to believe that if you believe that denominations are vital to the life of the Church. Denominations are not awesome, they are awful. They are an abomination.
As I said in my last post, a mortal sin is a sin that causes us to die spiritually. In other words, it separates us from God. I mentioned the three factors that make a sin a mortal sin the last time. Breaking one of the 10 commandments would qualify as being a serious matter so, if the person were aware of this and it was done willingly, it would be a mortal sin. Let me get a bit more concrete.
The Catholic Church teaches that engaging in sex outside of marriage is a serious sin. If you know that sex outside of marriage is against God’s will yet you choose to engage in it anyway, then you would have committed a mortal sin. If you died before you confessed it, you would go to Hell. However, if you are raped, you have not sinned because it was against your will. Also, if you really did not know that sex outside of marriage was wrong – perhaps you were raised in a culture where it was the accepted thing to do and there are some of these – then you have not committed a mortal sin because you were acting in ignorance rather than rebellion.
You said>> I believe all sin separates us from God. That’s why we needed Jesus to bridge the gap. I believe if I sin I am separated from God until I ask for forgiveness. God can’t be in the presence of sin because of his holiness and perfectness. It’s says so in the Bible but I’m not sure where. But when I ask for forgiveness I am made right with him. I’m white as snow. Not perfect but I can be in his presence again. > I also believe if I’m saved breaking the 10 commandments, like committing adultery, won’t keep me out of Heavan. Not that I should take it lightly. It’s a command not to commit adultery.
I know there are billions of people who believe the same things I do and I there are a an amazing amount of Catholics. That wasn’t really my point. I was merely saying that I’m not the only one who believes the same thing. And I don’t want to take a vote on who’s right. Billions of people can be wrong about the same thing.
Having different denominations is not wrong. The Christian community is just one huge church with different parts. Different parts do different things.
1 Corinthians 12:12 says “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.”
There are just alot of parts to the protestant church. And I think it’s awesome. There are different styles of worship and different kinds of church services. But it’s the same body.
And absolutely agree with you. We can’t both be right and we could both be wrong. It’s hard to be wrong but if I am wrong, I’m absolutely sure God would let me know. I believe I’m right but maybe God isn’t telling me anything yet. My one goal is to seek out the truth.
What exactly is a “mortal sin”? Not following the 10 commmandments? Give me something specific.
I believe all sin separates us from God. That’s why we needed Jesus to bridge the gap. I believe if I sin I am separated from God until I ask for forgiveness. God can’t be in the presence of sin because of his holiness and perfectness. It’s says so in the Bible but I’m not sure where. But when I ask for forgiveness I am made right with him. I’m white as snow. Not perfect but I can be in his presence again.
I also believe if I’m saved breaking the 10 commandments, like committing adultery, won’t keep me out of Heavan. Not that I should take it lightly. It’s a command not to commit adultery.`
I believe the only way to not be saved anymore is to renounce your faith. Basically choosing not to believe in Jesus anymore. If you didn’t want to be saved then you can renounce your faith. God knows your heart. If you truly didn’t want to be saved and to be part of the faith he’d know. It’s not like it’s something you have to say outloud. God knows.
I don’t believe God forgives future sins. That would be foolish. If that were true we could run around and do what every wanted. Chuck the Bible out the window and forget everything Jesus has said. My sins are forgiven when I ask them to be forgiven. I think baptism symbolizes being born again. I believe when you are saved you are born again and when you get baptized it’s a symbol of that. This is how I’ve heard it: When you’re standing in the water or whatever you are your old sinful self. When you are dunked under you are leaving that behind you and you are accepting Jesus as your Lord and Saviour. And when you come up you’re a new person so to speak. But I think it’s just a symbol. It’s amazing and important but I don’t think my sins are only forgiven when I get baptized.
Now you’ll be happy because I consulted with some people because I am very curious about all this and I was given a verse:
Romans 10: 9-10 says “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”
Basically this verse is saying if we believe with our hearts and confess with our mouths then we are saved. It doesn’t say anything about baptism being a requirement for salvation.
Michaela,
I think you underestimate how many people agree with you. I would say millions rather than thousands. Of course there are 1 billion Catholics in the world today. The problem is that truth does not get decided by a vote so it doesn’t matter how many people agree with you or how many agree with me.
You speak of a Protestant viewpoint but there are approximately 30,000 different Protestant denominations at last count. Each of them believing something different and something that they felt was important enough to reject Jesus’ call for unity in John 17. Also, while I know of no Protestants who believe that are sins are forgiven in baptism, I know plenty who reject the idea that once we are saved we are always saved. When I returned to the Catholic Church from Evangelicalism I had long ago decided that eternal security was not a scriptural doctrine.
The problem remains that, if we believe two things that contradict each other, we may both be wrong but we cannot both be right. It is irrelevant whether the idea is a Protestant one or a Catholic one, what matters is if it is correct according to what God has revealed to us. If what we believe contradicts God’s revelation, then it is our duty to change what we believe so that we do agree with Him.
According to 1 John 5:16-17 speaks of sins which are deadly and sins which are not deadly. Mortal sins are those which are deadly; venial sins are not deadly. They are just terms which theologians have attached to the biblical concepts. This does not mean deadly in a fleshly way; we are talking about spiritual death, separation from God.
This does not mean that venial sins should be taken lightly. Even if they are not serious enough to separate us from God, they still weaken us spiritually. They make it easier for us to commit a mortal sin. A venial sin won’t keep us out of Heaven but it is still something to be avoided.
As I said last time, it is not easy to commit a mortal sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that three conditions must be met for a sin to be mortal. 1) It must be a serious matter. Anything that breaks one of the Ten Commandments for example. 2) The person must be aware that he is doing something that is abhorrent to God. If the person is honestly not aware that something is a sin, it is not a mortal sin. 3) The sinner must be doing this in his free will. An extreme example of this would be if someone held your child at gun point and threatened to kill him unless you stole something. Despite the fact that stealing would normally be a mortal sin it would not be so in this case.
A mortal sin is, in effect, saying “God, I want nothing to do with you any more.” If you feel that way about God, why would God force Himself on you? If He would, why does He give us free will? I know Evangelicals don’t believe that God will force us to be saved. Why would He force us to remain saved?
A belief in eternal security also demands that you believe that, at some point in time, God forgives all of our sins including the ones we have not yet committed. Evangelicals believe that this happens when they are born again. Catholics, on the other hand, believe that when Jesus spoke of being born again in John 3 (more literally, born from above) He was talking about being baptized. Catholic believe that baptism forgives any sins committed up to that point but not future sins. Scripture tells us which belief is correct.
In 1 John 1:9, St. John tells us that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. For our sins to be forgiven, they must first be confessed. (For the time being let’s skip the part about confessing directly to God or to God through a priest.) If we don’t confess our sins, they cannot be forgiven. Now the belief that our future sins are forgiven is based on the truth that God knows about them in advance. While that is true, it is irrelevant because we don’t have God’s foreknowledge and can’t know of a sin until we actually commit the sin. If we don’t know about it, we can’t confess it therefore it cannot be forgiven.
Now you might argue that when a person is born again they are confessing their future sins generally but not specifically and that is good enough. Apparently not because St. John is writing these words to a group of people who would already have been born again if the Evangelicals are correct. He calls them his brethren. Why would St. John tell them to do something they’ve already done, which he knows they’ve done and only needs to be done once? The simple fact is that our future sins cannot be forgiven until we commit and confess them. This is the clear teaching of Scripture.
You’re absolutely right! Just because I believe something doesn’t make it true. But thousands and thousands of Christians believe the same thing. And I’m sure they know some scripture to back themselves up. So…?
And another thing…I’m not catholic. I’m protestant so our views on Christianity are a little different. You said if our sins are forgiven and we die in a “state of grace” we’ll go to heavan, right? Well I think I should always asking the Lord for forgiveness everyday but if I died one day and I wasn’t forgiven for something, I think I would still go to Heaven.
And what to you mean by mortal sins? Because we sin everyday. So…?
Michaela,
If you ask a Mormon why he believes in the Book of Mormon, as well as their other false scriptures, he will tell you that he knows it’s true because he can feel it in his heart. A Jehovah’s Witness will say something similar. Clearly, just because we believe something with all your heart does not mean that it is true. That goes for me just as much as it goes for you. I hope that you don’t think I’m picking on you or trying to ruin your day. I have no desire to do either.
Although there are some things that we can know about God just from looking at His creation (Ps 19:1) He had to reveal quite a lot that we would never have arrived at on our own. In Old Testament times God spoke to us through the prophets but now He has revealed Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ (Heb 1:1). Jesus revealed these truths to His apostles who, in turn, passed them on to us. Some of these truths were written down (the Bible) while others were only passed on orally (2 Thes 2:15). If what we believe is not found in either of these two sources it is nothing but speculation and if it disagrees with either of them, it contradicts what God has told us and is wrong no matter how right it feels. I quote the Bible a lot here for two reasons. First, it shows that it is not just my idea and secondly because, in my experience, Evangelicals want to see where the Bible says such and such. I’m not trying to rub what I know about Scripture in your face.
To answer your question, although baptism saves us because it cleanses us of all sins committed up to that point, we can still commit a mortal sin – one that will separate us from God resulting in our spiritual death. If we die in a state of mortal sin, we will go to Hell. Mortal sins can be forgiven by confession which God forgives us by using a priest to absolve us of our sin and put us in a state of grace. If we die in a state of grace, we will go to Heaven. (We may have to pass through Purgatory first but that is another matter.) Remember, salvation is not a one-time event. It is a process and there is no such thing as eternal security. Therefore we could be baptized but still hope for salvation.
One little additional point, many Evangelicals with whom I’ve discussed these matters in the past have gotten the idea that Catholics sit around and fret over whether or not we will get into Heaven. After all, one little mortal sin and we blow the whole thing. That’s not the case. Mortal sins are not easy to commit. You really have to be trying. Committing a mortal sin is the equivalent of telling God that you want nothing to do with Him anymore. This is not to say that there aren’t some Catholics who do worry about this constantly. Martin Luther, when he was still Catholic and in an Augustinian monastery, had this problem. Finally a Franciscan friar pointed out Rom 1:16 to him. The people who are like this are that way because they either have a bad image of God or they do not completely understand the Church’s teaching on the subject.
Ok. I don’t have “proof” so to speak. I know this won’t be good enough for you but I just know. It’s faith. And I haven’t been reading the Bible for 20 years. And you can throw all these verses at me and I respect that you really know your Bible but I can’t say that I do. But does it really matter? The disciples didn’t have a Bible to read out to everybody. The only proof they had was what Jesus had done in their lives. And that’s all I have. I have faith. And I know that isn’t good enough for some people but until I get to the point where I know the Bible pretty well I don’t think I can give you proof.
And you believe that baptism is a requirement for salvation, correct? Then why did you say that salvation is something we hope for(Romans 5:2)? If I’m saved because I get baptized then where’s the hope? I’m a little lost.
Michaela,
I don’t think that I ever said that everything you believed was wrong. My conversation with you began by when I made the statement to Michael on Aug 18th that baptism was necessary for salvation and you wrote the next day that it was not. You told me that I was wrong before I addressed anything to you. Not that I mind. I’ve been wrong before and I will be wrong again. That is why I sought the answer to the issue in the Scriptures. I provided four passages which I maintain clearly say that baptism is a requirement for salvation. I understand that you do not believe that but you haven’t shown me a scriptural basis for your beliefs. The same is true about my statement that salvation is a process rather than something that happens to us at a single point in time. Again, I provided the relevant passages to support that view. Again, I understand that you disagree but you provided no biblical support.
I see that you believe in the concept of eternal security, that once we are saved we are always saved but there are a multitude of clear scriptural teaching that it is quite possible not to lose our salvation because that implies that it was not our choice but to throw our salvation away.
Matt 18:23-35 The eorgiven servant lost his forgiveness because he refused to forgive his fellow servant.
Romans 5:2 St Paul writes that “we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God” (going to heaven). Salvation is something we hope for.
Romans 8:24 St Paul he says, “For in this hope we are saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?” Since hope concerns things that are possible but not certain, the saints in heaven no longer have the virtue of hope as they no longer need it. There is nothing left for them to hope for.
Rom 11:21-22 spare branches, continue or be cut off.
1 Cor 9:27 … after preaching … I myself disqualified. St Paul battled earthly temptations lest he succumb to them and lose heaven.
1 Cor 10:12 … thinks that he stands … lest he fall.
Phil 2:12 … work out salvation with fear and trembling.
1 Tim 5:8 A Christian who fails to provide for his family members has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
2 Tim 3:11-13 If we remain faithful to God, He will remain faithful to us. If we reject Him, however, He will reject us.
Heb 4:1 … fear of failing to reach salvation.
1 Jn 5:16,17 … some sins are mortal resulting is spiritual death, some are not.
Rev 3:5 If Jesus can say that if you are victorious, He will not erase your name from the book of life, then it must be possible for a name to be erased.
Oh and about before…I was coping out. I just didn’t feel like saying anything. Dumb huh? Debating, especially about theology, the Bible, faith and all that jazz is not my forte. And I really just don’t want to argue with you.
And to be honest…in the beginning of your reply you bluntly said I was wrong. That everything I believe is wrong and I wasn’t saved when I was kid. You can’t go up to a Muslim and say “Allah isn’t real and you’re wrong and everything you believe is wrong.” They probably won’t listen to you. It seems like you’re trying to evangelize to me (in a way) and telling me I’m wrong isn’t effective. But I’m not offended because I’m pointing it out and I sort of see where you’re coming from. Hey, I’m keeping an open mind about things. Sorry to leave two messages but I thought of this after.