Hymn To The Pope

[azaelia]

I am praying for you, Icthus.

[DojoGrant]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Sep 30 2004, 09:19 PM'] Divinely inspired tradition? Where are we told in the Scriptures that there is anything other than the Scriptures themselves which are divinely inspired? [/quote]
How about every time the prophets spoke?

How about when God wrote on the stone tablets his commandments?

How about when the Apostles preached?

How about Paul's encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus?

How about Jesus Christ Himself, the Word of God?

Are these things recorded in Scripture? Yes. Is it all in Scripture? No. John tells us that Jesus did "many other signs" not recorded, for instance. Even if it was all the same, that's still two modes of trasnmission of divine revelation, the second being the recording of the first.

[DojoGrant]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Sep 30 2004, 09:19 PM'] You Romanists always amaze me. You think that anything with a touch of attitude is a refutation. Your Romish religion disgusts me. [/quote]
You just did what you said you hate.

[MC Just]

ICTHUS, it's not like the hymn is a official document and as usual you make the typical Protestant mistake of misenterpretation. If only they would see the damage they cause.

[flip]

ICTHUS I love you.

Do you love me?

[dUSt]

ICTHUS,

You have an avatar of Martin Luther.. Does that mean you worship him? How lewd!

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Sep 30 2004, 07:19 PM'][quote name='Apotheoun' date='Sep 29 2004, 10:44 AM']No, you clearly showed that your understanding of the doctrine of the Papacy, or more generally, your understanding of the doctrine of secondary and participated causes, is Islamic and not Christian.[/quote]
Whatever do you mean?[/quote]
ICTHUS, please stop fooling yourself, because the religion that you've chosen to join, i.e., Calvinism, like Islam, denies any secondary or participated causality; in other words, it denies that man is a being with free will, and holds instead that all things happen of necessity. You may have a hard time admitting this to yourself, but if you're going to follow Calvin and the other Reformers, you should accept the fact that you are going to have to be a Manichaean dualist and hold that God is the cause, source, and origin of evil and sin, and that evil is a substantial reality, rather than a negation of the good in the will of the creature.

In contrast to the nominalism of the Protestant Reformers, the Catholic Church holds that man is a true secondary cause, and that God has created him with free will, which means that man is a true moral agent who is responsible for his own actions. The Catholic Church also teaches that this created freedom is perfected by the uncreated grace, and that once his will is perfected it is possible for a man to cooperate with God, under the power of grace, in bringing about his own salvation. That is what St. Augustine meant when he said that, "God made you without any cooperation on your part. For you did not lend your consent so that God could make you. How would you have consented, when you did not exist? But He who made you without your consent does not justify you without your consent. He made you without your knowledge, but He does not justify you without your willing it." [St. Augustine, Sermon 169:13]

The Catholic Church, in line with scripture and tradition, teaches that Christ is the sole mediator between God and man, but in addition to this, she teaches that the sole mediation of Christ is something that the man justified, by the power of grace, can participate in, because all men become one man in Christ Jesus. This is the mystery of the salvation, for Christ the Head, and His Body the Church, are one man; and so the actions of those who are justified by grace are truly [i]theandric[/i] energies, which means that they are actions of God [i]in[/i], [i]with[/i], and [i]through[/i], the members of Christ's Body. As Christ said, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing." [John 15:5] Often times this text is read as if Christ is the root of the vine, but that is not what He is teaching; instead, Christ is the whole vine plant, and those men who are united to Him in His grace are members of that one living organism, which is Christ Jesus. It is Christ who lives in His members, and so He is the source of all of the actions of the justified man, but the man who has been incorporated into Christ is not passive in his own salvation, and to view salvation in that way is to miss the whole point of the incarnation. The incarnation is the means by which God unites all men to Himself, so that He can work, [i]in[/i], [i]with[/i], and [i]through[/i] them. Salvation is not simply about the forgiveness of sin; instead, it is about the elevation of man into the uncreated life and glory of God. Salvation is deification.

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Sep 30 2004, 07:19 PM'][quote name='Apotheoun' date='Sep 29 2004, 10:44 AM']Simply providing quotations from scripture is not a proof; for you see, you interpret scripture in a defective Protestant manner.[/quote]
So you say - I could just as easily respond "You interpret Scripture in a defective Romanist manner" Saying this will not get you anywhere.[/quote]
The burden of proof is on you, because you have joined a sect which only originated in the 16th century; thus, you must prove that the teachings of the Reformers not only agree with scripture, but that they agree with the universal and constant teaching of all the Christians who lived during the 1,500 years prior to the Reformation.

ICTHUS, I know that it is hard for you to accept the historical nature of revelation, because like all Protestants you have no sense of historical continuity, but Christian revelation is by definition historical, for the incarnation is a true event of history, which affects man's history and which is intended by God to be a permanent reality. The incarnation is not simply an event of the past, it is an ongoing event, because the Church is the perpetual extension of the incarnation throughout time. This truth is founded upon what John said in his Gospel, for when he said, that ". . . the Word became flesh and dwelt among us," he did not mean it as some isolated event, and this is clear when you translate the text literally, because what John actually said is that, ". . . the Word became flesh and tabernacled [b][i]in[/i][/b] us." [John 1:14] Thus, the incarnation takes place in a particular way in Christ, but it also affects the entire human race, for by becoming man, Christ has united Himself to all men, and this reality is something that Protestantism has forgotten.

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Sep 30 2004, 07:19 PM'][quote name='Apotheoun' date='Sep 29 2004, 10:44 AM']The presuppositions underlying your interpretations of scripture are from the 16th century, and so they are a theological novum.[/quote]
The presupposition underlying what is being discussed in this thread is the premise that God is a jealous God and will not permit any mere man, successor of Peter or no, to be worshipped.[/quote]
The fact that you have a problem with the incarnation is regrettable, but the consequences of the incarnation are the elevation of man into the Godhead. God became man, so that man might become God. God intends this, and so He is not against sharing His uncreated energies with man. ICTHUS, your theological position is ultimately a denial of the incarnation of the Son of God and an apostasy from the Christian faith. As far as the your exegetical presuppositions are concerned, the burden of proof is upon you, you must prove that the Reformers views have been constantly and universally accepted throughout the 2,000 years of Christian history. Since it is clear to anyone familiar with the writings of the Church Fathers that they were in no sense Protestants, your presuppositions are a theological novum and are in error. ICTHUS, I expect a response from you on this, and not simply an assertion that the Calvinist view is correct, you must show that every Christian Father prior to the Reformation was a Calvinist.

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Sep 30 2004, 07:19 PM'][quote name='Apotheoun' date='Sep 29 2004, 10:44 AM']As a consequence of this, even though we accept the same sacred texts, we read them in a different way, you read them in the light of a human tradition created by the Reformers, while I read them in the light of the divinely inspired Dominical and Apostolical tradition of the Church given to her by Christ the Lord Himself.[/quote]
Divinely inspired tradition? Where are we told in the Scriptures that there is anything other than the Scriptures themselves which are divinely inspired?[/quote]
ICTHUS, your belief in [i]sola scriptura[/i] is not evidence of its veracity. If you are going to assert that scripture alone is the rule of faith, then you must prove the extent of the canon of scripture from scripture alone. But of course, scripture doesn't enumerate the canon; instead, the canon of scripture is an extrabiblical tradition that has been infallibly defined by the Church's Magisterium, and so I sincerely doubt that you will provide any kind of intelligent response to me on this topic.

Scripture and Tradition are the revelation of God to man, for St. Paul tells us to ". . . stand firm and hold to the traditions ([i]paradosis[/i]) which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter." [2nd Thessalonians 2:15], and this is what I do, but you have chosen to reject the divinely inspired Tradition of the Church, and put in its place the tradition of Calvin.

The burden of proof is yet again upon you, you must show that the 16th century human tradition of [i]sola scriptura[/i] is true, and this of course is something that you cannot do, and that explains why you never answer my posts on this topic. You have chosen to blindly follow Calvin and the Reformers into heresy, and I refuse to do that. I was Protestant, and I will never be one again.

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Sep 30 2004, 07:19 PM'][quote name='Apotheoun' date='Sep 29 2004, 10:44 AM']In other words, you have chosen to follow Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, et al., while I have chosen, by the grace of God, to follow Christ.[/quote]
In other words, you have chosen to follow the Roman Catholic Church, the traditions of men, and the Pope, the man of sin and the son of perdition, and I have chosen, by the grace of God alone calling me out of the darkness of Romanism, to follow Christ.[/quote]
ICTHUS, I know it is hard for you to accept, but there is a historical continuity and development of Catholic tradition, which goes all the way back to the first century. You have chosen to reject the first 1,500 years of Christian history, but as I've pointed out several times to you already, the burden of proof is on you to show that the interpretations given by the Reformers are consistent with the constant tradition of the Church, which she received from Christ the Lord Himself. Christ opened the minds of the Apostles to the scriptures and gave them an inspired understanding of the revelation given by God to man (cf. Luke 24:27), and so, like the Protestant Reformers, you have rejected Christ's truth. Until you respond with more than simply rhetorical and polemical comments, I can only assume that you have no answer, and that you basically admit that you hold your religious opinions without any foundation.

ICTHUS, I expect you to give an intelligent and non-polemical response to this post.

God bless,
Todd

[Hananiah]

To be fair, not all Calvinists are hard determinists. Most define free will as the ability to act according to one's desires. One's desires are determined by how God has created the will and what objects He places before the will. Thus they reconcile the existence of secondary causes with determinism.

Martin Luther, however, did hold the hard determinist view.

[Hananiah]

The phrase the Pope's throne is "in the heart of men" could certainly be given an idolatrous interpretation. However, if it is referring to the Pope's power to bind the consciences of Catholics by speaking as God's representative/ambassador, then there is nothing wrong with it.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Hananiah' date='Oct 1 2004, 12:43 PM'] To be fair, not all Calvinists are hard determinists. Most define free will as the ability to act according to one's desires. One's desires are determined by how God has created the will and what objects He places before the will. Thus they reconcile the existence of secondary causes with determinism.

Martin Luther, however, did hold the hard determinist view. [/quote]
Similarly in Islam Al-Ashari developed a theory of acquisition of acts that tried to allow for secondary causes, but both his theory and Calvin's theory are evasions of the real question, for they still do not accept the fact that man can be a true cause; instead, they make man a puppet subject to divine interventions which only appear to be true choices.

God bless,
Todd

[Enda]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Sep 30 2004, 11:12 PM'] It emulates language which is used to worship God and uses it for the Pope! How is this not worship????

[/quote]
Well Jesus didn't seem to think giving Peter a name that was used by God took away His glory:

[quote]And so I say to you, you are Peter (rock) and upon this rock I will build my church. (Matt. 16:18)[/quote]

[quote]Truly, who is our God except the Lord?  Who but our God is [i]the rock[/i]? (Ps. 18:32)[/quote]

It is, therefore, in imitation of Christ Jesus, who did the same to the first Pope, St. Peter, that we give the Holy Father names previously used only by God.

Edited October 1, 2004 by Enda

[Enda]

Thanks to Dave, for helping me find those verses.

[toledo_jesus]

let me stress again, there are only so many words in the English language. You are bound to use some of the ones found in the Bible. Look, I just used some right there. and there.
the point is, just because it SOUNDS like the language we use to worship God doesn't mean it IS worshipful. It certainly is very formal and poetic and touched with reverence and honor, but the pope is worthy of those things. Read what it says man! Where does it say anything about the pope being exalted above God? or even on par with God? it doesn't.

God is worthy of worship and [b]all[/b] good things. This song gives praise and honor to the Pope, whose grace we so admire came...from God. Does that work for you?

Edited October 2, 2004 by toledo_jesus

[vianney]

Anybody want a peanut?

[Theoketos]

No more ryhmes I mean it!

Have you ever heard of the Pope Charisms?

I have seen it in action, simply hearing the voice of the Bishop of Rome is enough to make hardened hearts of sinners turn to Jesus!