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Do Believers Ever Stop Believing??
-- David Ortiz (cyberpunk1986@hotmail.com), May 22, 2004
Yes.
SACRED AND INFALLIBLE :
THE ROCK ~ THE PILLAR AND FOUNDATION OF TRUTH ~
THE MAGISTERIUM OF THE 2000 YEAR OLD MOST HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH SAYS :
HERESY, APOSTASY, SCHISM
"HERESY is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; APOSTASY is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; SCHISM is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."
In fact, "in this One and Only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as Damnable ... The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ's Body—here we must distinguish HERESY, APOSTASY, and SCHISM ~ do not occur without human sin:
Where there are sins, there are also divisions, schisms, heresies, and disputes. Where there is virtue, however, there also are harmony and unity, from which arise the one heart and one soul of all believers.
Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers (Lk 18:8; Mt 24:12). The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth (Lk 21:12; Jn 15:19-20) will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of APOSTASY from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh (2 Thess 2:4-12; 1 Thess 5:2-3; 2 Jn 7; 1 Jn 2:18, 22).
The first heresies denied not so much Christ's divinity as his true humanity (Gnostic Docetism). From apostolic times the Christian faith has insisted on the true incarnation of God's Son "come in the flesh" (1 Jn 4:2-3; 2 Jn 7). But already in the third century, the Church in a council at Antioch had to affirm against Paul of Samosata that Jesus Christ is Son of God by nature and not by adoption. The first ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. confessed in its Creed that the Son of God is "begotten, not made, of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father", and condemned Arius, who had affirmed that the Son of God "came to be from things that were not" and that he was "from another substance" than that of the Father.
The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God's Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431 A.D., confessed "that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man." Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 A.D. that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: "Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh."
The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God's Son assumed it. Faced with this heresy, the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451 A.D. , confessed:
Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; "like us in all things but sin". He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God (Heb 4:15).
We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.
After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ's human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553 A.D., confessed that "there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity." Thus everything in Christ's human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: "He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity."
The Church thus confesses that Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother:
"What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed", sings the Roman Liturgy. And the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom proclaims and sings: "O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified, O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!"
-- james (elgreco1541@hotmail.com), November 28, 2003.
Two words for David: "prophecy" and "apostacy". The first word tells us of things that will come to pass; the other tells us what that thing is.
Once again--"Once Saved Always Saved"-- bull, barf and baloney!
rod...
...
..
-- rod (elreyrod@yahoo.com), November 28, 2003.
Do Believers Ever Stop Believing? Same posts, same answers.
rod...
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-- rod (elreyrod@yahoo.com), November 28, 2003.
Well rod, you can "bull, barf and baloney" all you want but you have yet to prove or even try to prove it wrong. All you can say is "traditions....barf, sola scriptura...baloney....eternal security....bull" but do not even bother to 'refute' this. All you do is try to use "logic" but fail. This is your logic: Kevin says 1+1=3, David says 1+1=2, and rod believes the Roman organization when it claims 1+1=0. Since Kevin and David don't agree, rod must be right.
That's not logic, that's pride.
-- David Ortiz (cyberpunk1986@hotmail.com ), December 3, 2003.
David, you have been conditioned to fear logic. You can't even use logic in your above post. Not only have you misquoted me, you have misinterpreted what I've written. My pride pales in comparison to those who claim to know the Word of God through their own personal feeble attempts to interpret, much less understand, the Word of God. Worse yet, they go around condemning souls to Hell while thinking they are God's Angels of Death. Talk about "pride", let's try arrogance. You told me to take a class in "logic", funny, I didn't see you there. Next time, practice what you preach and stop condemning people who actually use God's gift of discernment, thought, logic, wisdom, and FAITH. I think a de-programming session would best benefit your dilema, David.
...............................................
-- rod (elreyrod@yahoo.com), December 3, 2003.
Uh,.....David, you asked for it. Now, David play nice. .........................................................
-- rod (elreyrod@yahoo.com), December 3, 2003.
Yet more attacks. I do not condemn people, they condemn themselves. Your sounding more like a Universalist rod. As to your attacks on my logic, I gave an example of YOUR logic. MY logic is that 2 contrary statements cannot be both true. Rome says one thing, the bible another. I choose to believe the bible and you attack me for that and basically being like an atheist, try to use "knowledge" to prove stuff. -- David Ortiz (cyberpunk1986@hotmail.com ), December 3, 2003.
"David, you have been conditioned to fear logic." That's your opinion.
"You can't even use logic in your above post."
That's an example of your logic.
"Not only have you misquoted me, you have misinterpreted what I've written."
Show me where
"My pride pales in comparison to those who claim to know the Word of God through their own personal feeble attempts to interpret, much less understand, the Word of God."
Agh, there you go misinterpreting God's word again. "personal...to interpret,"
"Worse yet, they go around condemning souls to Hell while thinking they are God's Angels of Death."
I bet you'd even get mad at Jesus said "you must be born again to enter in the kingdom of heaven"(paraphrase)
"Next time, practice what you preach and stop condemning people who actually use God's gift of discernment, thought, logic, wisdom, and FAITH."
rod, if you accually had that 'gift' you wouldn't be Roman Catholic.
-- David Ortiz (cyberpunk1986@hotmail.com), May 22, 2004.