| Author | Message | ||
| Javagirl Registered user Username: Javagirl Post Number: 694 Registered: 6-2005  |
Hi guys, Been missing you lately! Im trying to understand the Catholic resistance to being "born again". Anyone with any insight or background with Catholicism--Im in an interesting dialog. Thanks! Lori | ||
| 8thday Registered user Username: 8thday Post Number: 1386 Registered: 11-2007  |
Google Mike Gendron.. He has an amazing ministry like Dale Ratzlaff's to Catholics. He has tons of great resources. Sondra | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 10763 Registered: 12-2003  |
Lori, I think that, like Adventists, Catholics resist being born again because their soteriology is almost exactly the same as Adventists'. Jesus blood is necessary, but the individual cannot be assured of salvation apart from good works. So they're always working to merit God's favor. The new birth would mean adopting a new covenant paradigm, something completely different from what they know. But I'm not an expert; check out the reference Sondra gave! Colleen | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 3104 Registered: 10-2004  |
"...their soteriology is almost exactly the same as Adventists'." Except, minus the satanic scapegoat teaching. Jeremy | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 1839 Registered: 4-2000  |
My favorite former Catholic website is www.bereanbeacon.org . Oh yes, don't miss visiting the ex-priest's online bookstore. Richard Bennett, a well-educated, former Catholic priest for many years, is the owner of this outstanding website. He has some good videos to watch for free. He used to put peebles in his shoes, as a young seminarian, to mortify his flesh (to appease an angry God). Richard and I have exchanged emails. Dennis Fischer | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 856 Registered: 3-2009 |
Oh boy, am I in trouble. As you already know my family on my mother's side is one of the "pillars" of the SDA organization in the country. What you don't know is that my family on my father's side is very Catholic. I have several cousins who are Catholic priests. What a combination! Hec | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 857 Registered: 3-2009 |
River, don't laugh! Hec | ||
| Doc Registered user Username: Doc Post Number: 491 Registered: 2-2003  |
As far as I know, according to RC teaching a person is "born again" through infant baptism. This is supposed to cancel original sin, so if the baby dies, it will then go to heaven. This baptism has to be performed by an ordained priest, and is a "sacrament" which is effective for that very reason, so it does not depend on the faith of anyone really. Unfortunately, every time a Catholic commits what they call a "mortal sin", they are lost again, until they go and confess to a priest, and receive absolution and have to perform some penance, like repeating various prayers. These are also "sacraments". Something like that. I agree with Sondra, Mike Gendron is worth listening to. God bless, Adrian | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 5804 Registered: 9-2006  |
I ain't laughin' hec. I got family that are LUTHERAN!  River | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 5805 Registered: 9-2006 |
"Im trying to understand the Catholic resistance to being "born again". I can tell you why the resistance, like anybody else, they like the sin more that the true conviction of sin. Wasn't that easy Lori darlin'? | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 5806 Registered: 9-2006 |
If people use a false conviction of sin, that way they can pick and choose. If it is true conviction of sin, it don't leave many choices does it? | ||
| Grace_alone Registered user Username: Grace_alone Post Number: 1613 Registered: 6-2006  |
River ~ and you're DARNED lucky! me | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 5807 Registered: 9-2006 |
Don't I KNOW it! Me | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 1120 Registered: 7-2007 |
Catholics, like Adventists, Mormons and J. Witnesses, each believe that they are in the one true church. Believing that they have to be "born again" would undermine that. (Same with Islam too.) | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 860 Registered: 3-2009 |
Adventists believe that they need to be born again. Only their definition of "born again" is not spiritual but mental based on Rom. 12:1-2. Hec | ||
| Doc Registered user Username: Doc Post Number: 493 Registered: 2-2003 |
That's right Hec, It seems to me they put the born again experience in the area of the soul and not of the spirit (as they do not believe that man has one). Unfortunately, that means that the "soulish" person does not understand the things of the Spirit (1 Co 2: 14-16). | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 861 Registered: 3-2009 |
Doc, Wouldn't 1 Co 2:16 show a parallel between the spirit and the mind? It's taking about the spirit and all of a sudden it switches to mind as if the tow were the same. Hec | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 1840 Registered: 4-2000 |
Mark 12:30 says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." If we go by the trichotomist's principle that such lists of terms tell us about more parts to man, then if we also add spirit to this list (and perhaps body as well) we would have five or six parts to man! But that is a false conclusion. It is far better to understand Jesus as simply piling up roughly synonymous terms for emphasis to demonstrate that we must love God with all of our being. Likewise, in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Paul is not saying that soul and spirit are distinct entities, but simply that, whatever our immaterial part is called, he wants God to continue to sanctify us wholly to the day of Christ. Dennis J. Fischer | ||
| Honestwitness Registered user Username: Honestwitness Post Number: 979 Registered: 7-2005  |
Thanks for explaining that so well, Dennis. I have wrestled for years with the question of just what is the difference between soul and spirit. You have helped me see that, though there be slight shades of difference, it's all still just one thing -- the immaterial part of us. Thank you so much! | ||
| 8thday Registered user Username: 8thday Post Number: 1391 Registered: 11-2007 |
As an sda.. we spoke of "conversion" as a person who mentally assented to our list of doctrines and joined the church. Never at any time do I remember being taught what the new birth was - I'm sure it was covered somewhere (i.e. buried) but have no memory of that. It was not the central goal in reaching others for Christ. I have an sda bible with studies at the end. There are 27 studies in all the last one being.. Study 14 - is entitled "Our Greatest Need - A New Lifestyle!" AFTER these 27 studies is the separate section "How to become a Christian". It's a fairly good presentation of the gospel there (except for the statement that we renew our justification daily) - but the fact that it comes after all the false teachings preceding it that contradict the message there nearly entirely - I am not surprised that it is hard to have a logical conversation with someone trying to reconcile all this. Deception uses a measure of truth, then adds a lie. Trying to hold these both in your mind at once will most definitely divide and damage your mind. I wonder if this may cause a disconnect that flows into other areas of life, preventing discernment in other decisions also. I remember Elijah asking Israel on Mt. Carmel.. "How long will you go limping between two opinions?" And James says the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. I know that has definitely been a description of our lives until we were delivered. Sondra | ||
| Doc Registered user Username: Doc Post Number: 495 Registered: 2-2003 |
Wow Sondra, those are good verses to think about. Hec and others, I would basically go with the dichotomous view that man is made up of two components, body and spirit. These are the phyisical and immaterial parts of man. The word soul is then sometimes used almost as a synonym of spirit, e.g. in Rev 6: 9. Unfortunately the word soul has a much broader range of meaning than this, in Hebrew even more than in Greek, so it is sometimes difficult to interpret the passages using it. If Colleen has put my study on hell on line yet, one of the sections deals with this. Colleen? The usual definition I have come across is that your soul is your personality, made up of intellect, emotions and will. So you have a physical body, an immaterial part, and a personality. All are inextricably linked while you are alive, and affect one another. When you die physically, your body "falls asleep" but the soul goes off with the spirit and does not. So spirit and soul are inseparable, but may be contrasted by definition. In the 1 Cor 2: 14-15 passage I quoted, Paul is not thinking about the immaterial part of man, but about his mentality. A literal translation of the Greek is something like this: "The man of the soul (psychikos) does not accept the things from the Spirit of God, they are foolish for him, he cannot know them, for they are spiritually (pneumatikós) discerned. But the spiritual (pneumatikos) person discerns all things." Here the expression "of the soul" is rather negative, and used more or less as synonymous with carnal or fleshly, as in the following section 1 Cor 3: 1: "Brothers, I could not talk to you as spiritual, but as carnal (sarkinos - of the body)." Another two passages where "of the soul" is used in this negative way are James 3: 15: "This wisdom is not from above, but of the earth, of the soul, demonic" and Jude 19: "These are those who divide you, of the soul, not having the Spirit." Unfortunately the NIV translates psychikos as something different in each case, so the idea of the man of the soul as being negative does not come across. The Hungarian translation does not use the word soul either, I don't know about others. The best word would be "soulish" but that is not really an English word, so that is probably why it is not used. I think what Paul is saying to the Corinthians is, that although they were Christians, so they had the Spirit, they were still not "spiritual", because they still had a worldly, soulish, carnal mentality, and were reacting and behaving like people in the world, instead of thinking what the Spirit of God would want. And my point about Adventism and the new birth was, as they do not believe in the spirit of man, they have to define the new birth in terms of the soul, i.e. an intellectual understanding (soul = emotions, intellect, will), and not according to something "from above" which happens to man's spirit, i.e. it comes into relationship with God. Phew! Was that followable at all? Adrian | ||
| 8thday Registered user Username: 8thday Post Number: 1393 Registered: 11-2007 |
I think so.. thanks for straining my pea brain!! ha. So.. this verse Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Is this an example of the two different concepts in one verse, and how does this relate to what you are saying? When we first began to go the Bible Church, someone asked the pastor (with a Ph.D.) what the difference was between soul and spirit, and he didn't have an answer. Maybe this is a confusing subject to alot of people. The verses do seem to overlap the meanings - so it's hard. I never thought the state of the dead mattered one way or another until I came to see the reality of the new birth. Then it mattered quite a bit and I understood why I was never taught the true meaning - because there is no basis to understand it if you don't have a spirit. What is your understanding of the role of the soul in the new birth? Our spirits are quickened and made alive by the Holy Spirit in us (is there a better way to say that?) - so is the soul then trained to follow the Spirit instead of the other way around? Watchman Nee writes about it alot - and what he teaches resonates with me as true.. but not sure I see a biblical reference for much of what he says except for the verse in Hebrews. Sondra | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 5809 Registered: 9-2006 |
The way I always understood it is that, without a spirit we could not be a sentient being, the spirit is what directs the body and mind. If we were altogether flesh we would be like any other animal. When a person is dead too Christ, his spirit is dead, and cannot direct the body and mind in a direction of his choosing, but to will again and again direct it to do fleshly and dead things. But when the Spirit is awakened to God, then the spirit can direct the mind and body in the things of God, therefore if we walk in the Spirit, we don’t fulfill the lust of the flesh to do dead works continually. Now we still have the problem of the body making its demands of the flesh, therefore Paul exclaimed, Romans 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Romans 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. So now his mind is directed by the Spirit with a renewed and capable mind, providing that he is walking in the Spirit. If we walk in the flesh and do not allow the Spirit to direct our minds, we are controlled by the flesh and we will fulfill the lust of that flesh. We have the freedom to do either one, but we don’t have the permission of God to do either one. | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 867 Registered: 3-2009 |
Yes, Doc. It was not only followable but also helpful. Hec | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 1121 Registered: 7-2007 |
Paul makes it pretty clear that we're three parts, when he says: "...and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless..." 1st Thessalonians 5:23 It would also explain in what way we are created in the image of God - we have three parts; body, soul and spirit. God also is three - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God didn't have a body when He created man. He said "Let Us make man in Our image" (Gen. 1:26); but Jesus said, referring to the Father: "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:24) |
