The Church Dogmatically Teaches The Muslims Worship The One True God

[ChildoftheCreator]

Uh, this topic is so hard to read, so many side-notes about people´s character and integrity.

But it would seem to me that the Church should in no way define this because it is rather useless to the faith of the people at large. If the Allah is the same as our God in no way influences how I am going to worship God, so therefore would be a useless dogma to make, if in fact it is a dogma.

That being said, as a matter of personal opinion. I would think that Allah and God are the same, they just do not know Him as we do. The Jews had no opportunity to know the Triune nature of God until Jesus came around. However, they still worshiped the same God as we do. He has not changed. That being said the Muslims worship the God of Abraham, the same one as the Jews do, but they have a different understanding. Don´t they believe that He is the God who created the world and has always existed. Their understanding of Him is just different.

[Apotheoun]

Stormstopper,

I refer you back to what I said several pages ago: "The Magisterium can no more determine the object of Muslim worship than it can say which form of Buddhism is the 'true' form of Buddhism, because both of these things are beyond the competence of the Magisterium, which can only bind the faithful to believe things that are divinely revealed, or logically connected to divine revelation, or which are related to good morals."

Finally, you say that you know something about the faith of the Catholic Church, that is great, but answer me this: Is everything that a pope says [i]de fide[/i]?

[Akalyte]

know what I'm sick of? These Bible thieves attacking Catholicism..I think you need to know where the bible came from before defending your version of Christianity. Protestants have nullified the "word of God" and turned it into the word of man. Your not asking people to believe in God or the bible, your asking people to believe you and your version. Unbelievable how they charge Catholics with being "unbliblical" yet their versions of the bible have countless errors that have been transferred into every other version of "protestant" bibles. Read Henry Graham's "Where we got the bible: our debt to the catholic church"

[url="http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/wbible.htm"]http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/wbible.htm[/url]

[mommas_boy]

[quote name='Akalyte' date='16 December 2009 - 07:42 AM' timestamp='1260967322' post='2021738']
know what I'm sick of? These Bible thieves attacking Catholicism..I think you need to know where the bible came from before defending your version of Christianity. Protestants have nullified the "word of God" and turned it into the word of man. Your not asking people to believe in God or the bible, your asking people to believe you and your version. Unbelievable how they charge Catholics with being "unbliblical" yet their versions of the bible have countless errors that have been transferred into every other version of "protestant" bibles. Read Henry Graham's "Where we got the bible: our debt to the catholic church"

[url="http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/wbible.htm"]http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/wbible.htm[/url]
[/quote]

Bam!

[Jaime]

I think that while there might be some discussion on whether or not Lumen Gentium is dogma, there are two things that I believe are true about it

It is an authentic document of the Church

it is indefectible

[size="2"]also this needs to be noted. this was a response from the prefect of the CDF with regards to [/size][size="2"]on the book[i]
Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism
[/i](Orbis Books: Maryknoll, New York 1997)[i]
[/i]by Father[i]
JACQUES DUPUIS, S.J.[/i][/size]

[quote][b]V. On the value and salvific function of the religious traditions[/b]

8. In accordance with Catholic doctrine, it must be held that «whatever the Spirit brings about in human hearts and in the history of peoples, in cultures and religions, serves as a preparation for the Gospel (cf. Dogmatic Constitution [i]Lumen gentium,[/i] 16)».[url="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20010124_dupuis_en.html#_ftn15"][sup][15][/sup][/url] It is therefore legitimate to maintain that the Holy Spirit accomplishes salvation in non-Christians also through those elements of truth and goodness present in the various religions; however, to hold that these religions, considered as such, are ways of salvation, has no foundation in Catholic theology, also because they contain omissions, insufficiencies and errors[url="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20010124_dupuis_en.html#_ftn16"][sup][16][/sup][/url] regarding fundamental truths about God, man and the world.

Furthermore, the fact that the elements of truth and goodness present in the various world religions may prepare peoples and cultures to receive the salvific event of Jesus Christ does not imply that the sacred texts of these religions can be considered as complementary to the Old Testament, which is the immediate preparation for the Christ event.[url="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20010124_dupuis_en.html#_ftn17"][sup][17][/sup][/url][/quote]

[Apotheoun]

The kind descriptions used in connection with non-Christian religions at Vatican II are not doctrinal in nature, nor are they authentic teaching, which is why they cannot bind a man in conscience.

Catholics are free to inform themselves of what the various world religions teach and to form their judgments accordingly.

Edited December 16, 2009 by Apotheoun

[goldenchild17]

[quote name='hot stuff' date='16 December 2009 - 12:00 PM' timestamp='1260986439' post='2021817']
I think that while there might be some discussion on whether or not Lumen Gentium is dogma, there are two things that I believe are true about it

It is an authentic document of the Church

it is indefectible

[size="2"]also this needs to be noted. this was a response from the prefect of the CDF with regards to [/size][size="2"]on the book[i]
Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism
[/i](Orbis Books: Maryknoll, New York 1997)[i]
[/i]by Father[i]
JACQUES DUPUIS, S.J.[/i][/size]
[/quote]

+1 (in spirit). What he said. Also, its not like this particular statement of Vatican II is completely new.

Pope Gregory VII in 1076 wrote to Al-Nasir, the Muslim Ruler of Bijaya: “Almighty God, who wishes that all should be saved and none lost, approves of nothing in us so much as that after loving him one should love his fellow, and that what one does not want done to oneself one should not do to others. You and we owe this charity to ourselves [b]especially because we believe in and confess one God, admittedly in a different way and daily praise and venerate him, the Creator of the world and Ruler of this world.[/b]”


Francisco Suarez (a very notable theologian in my opinion): "Thomas, however, rightly distinguishes two kinds of religious practices: there are those which go against reason and against God insofar as he can be recognized through nature and through the natural powers of the soul, e.g., the worship of idols, etc. Others are contrary to the Christian religion and to its commands not because they are evil in themselves or contrary to reason as, for example, the practices of Jews and even many of the customs of [b]Mohammedans[/b] and such unbelievers who [b]believe in one true God[/b]
."

Suarez, Tract. de Fide Disp. 18 Sect. III



From the Catechism of Pope St. Pius X:

"12 Q. Who are infidels?
A. Infidels are those who have not been baptised and do not believe in Jesus Christ, because they either believe in and worship false gods as idolaters do, or [b]though admitting one true God[/b], they do not believe in the Messiah, neither as already come in the Person of Jesus Christ, nor as to come; [b]for instance, Mohammedans and the like[/b]."



From the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia entry - Infidels:

"As in ecclesiastical language those who by baptism have received faith in Jesus Christ and have pledged Him their fidelity and called the faithful, so the name infidel is given to those who have not been baptized. The term applies not only to all who are ignorant of the true God, such as pagans of various kinds, but [b]also to those who adore Him but do not recognize Jesus Christ, as Jews and Mohammedans[/b]."


Hilaire Belloc in his book addressed Islam as a heresy, not beginning as a new religion but a perversion of Catholicism:

"Mohammedanism was a <heresy>: that is the essential point to grasp
before going any further. It began as a heresy, not as a new religion. It
was not a pagan contrast with the Church; it was not an alien enemy. It
was a perversion of Christian doctrine. It vitality and endurance soon
gave it the appearance of a new religion, but those who were contemporary
with its rise saw it for what it was_not a denial, but an adaptation and a
misuse, of the Christian thing."
http://www.ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/HERESY4.TXT



I think if this concept was really that offensive, that people would have been up in arms over it well before Vatican II. Maybe they were, I'm not sure. But there's no reason to attack Vatican II for stating it when its been noted long before this council.

Edited December 16, 2009 by goldenchild17

[Apotheoun]

I have no problem with the pious idea that pre-Christian religions are a [i]preparatio evangelica[/i], but a religion founded after the time of Christ, and one which explicitly rejects the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation is not a [i]preparatio evangelica[/i], if anything it is an [i]obstructio evangelica[/i].

Edited December 16, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Winchester]

The problem seems to be a misunderstanding of what we must believe as opposed to what we are free to believe or reject. The mohammedan religion is not part of the economy of salvation.

[Jaime]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='16 December 2009 - 01:14 PM' timestamp='1260987259' post='2021823']
The kind descriptions used in connection with non-Christian religions at Vatican II are not doctrinal in nature, nor are they authentic teaching, which is why they cannot bind a man in conscience.

Catholics are free to inform themselves of what the various world religions teach and to form their judgments accordingly.
[/quote]

This doesn't contradict what I've stated

Also it can be said that I as a Catholic (and all Catholics) am free to fully accept the teachings of Lumen Gentium.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='hot stuff' date='16 December 2009 - 12:05 PM' timestamp='1260990310' post='2021886']
This doesn't contradict what I've stated[/quote]
I agree.

[quote name='hot stuff' date='16 December 2009 - 12:05 PM' timestamp='1260990310' post='2021886']
Also it can be said that I as a Catholic (and all Catholics) am free to fully accept the teachings of Lumen Gentium.
[/quote]
Yes, you are free to do that, just as I - after spending many years studying early Muslim texts - am free to reject the opinion of the bishops assembled at Vatican II on that issue.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Winchester' date='16 December 2009 - 11:54 AM' timestamp='1260989651' post='2021872']
The mohammedan religion is not part of the economy of salvation.
[/quote]
I agree.

[Winchester]

In general, the only thing we have to agree to is that the Catholic Church is the one true church.

[Jaime]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='16 December 2009 - 02:09 PM' timestamp='1260990550' post='2021891']
I agree.


Yes, you are free to do that, just as I - after spending many years studying early Muslim texts - am free to reject the opinion of the bishops assembled at Vatican II on that issue.
[/quote]


the problem is the inference of the thread. "If its not taught dogmatically, its not true". That's the message some folks can take away from it. TBH I thought Lumen Gentium was considered dogmatic and was corrected on that. But I am content with the document being indefectible and being taught by the Church is sufficient for me to accept its teaching.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Winchester' date='16 December 2009 - 12:10 PM' timestamp='1260990650' post='2021894']
In general, the only thing we have to agree to is that the Catholic Church is the one true church.
[/quote]
As. St. Augustine said: "I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church" ([url="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1405.htm"]Contra epistolam Manichaei[/url], 5:6).