Christian theology thread for Christians - Deus homo factus est naturam erante, mundus renovatus est a Christo regnante

[Chicha Drinker]

If Christianity actually worked, meaning the Spirit of God actually lived inside of you and remade you into a new creation, then you would be better than you are. And Christians in general would be better than they are. But every thought in the Christian's heart is wicked continually, as is true for all non-Christians. Your fake three-headed God doesn't actually make any of you holy, yet if your doctrine of the Trinity and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit were actually true, then you would be holy. Yet you aren't. And you never will be.

You seem to have a lack of underatanding relating to free will and how it works in the bible, what is your religious background in Christianity (what denom, how long, etc)? Cassius is 100% right, it sounds like you were fed poor theology and/or were personally wronged by a Christian during your past experience, so it all fell apart later. If that is the case then im sorry.

Unfortunately, poor theology has been the sand that many people trust pastors to build their houses upon, and we all know how that goes. 90% of rhe ex-christians i talk to say in no uncertain terms that they were promised something unbiblical by a chariamatic leader, who was apathetic to their problems when things inevitably fell apart.

 

[Slap47]

The Church has survived centuries of attack both from the outside and corruption from within is probably, this is probably one of the strongest arguments for her divine protection. No other institution can make that claim.

Shintoism, the Orthodox Church, the Coptics, Ethiopian Church, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Buddhism, and even the many groups that makeup Hinduism are just as old or older and have also survived persecution. The Christian churches mentioned here can even claim that they have changed less than Catholicism and have obviously faced more persecution (oftentimes by Catholics).

Council of Trent

The counter reformation only came about after the Church's started wars that killed tens of millions of people. It had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of corruption and even then has since remained a force for the elites, backing elitist authoritarian (and even fascist) governments and only putting a bandaid on poverty.

A corrupt judge doesn't invalidate the Constitution. A bad president doesn't nullify the presidency.

The entirety of the church engaged in these practices for centuries. Likewise, secular positions like presidencies and constitutions are basically invalidated all of the time. The Weimar constitution was only ended in 1946, but it obviously lost its meaning long before then.

No other Church gets attacked like the Catholic Church does, there's a reason for that.

The reason is that it's the biggest Church. It acquired this position through political alliances that allowed it to violently crush any opposition. It committed what many historians view as the first ideological genocides. Most criticism of the church is focused on this. The Church eventually lost most of its political power, but this current toothless institution is a recent development.

 

[Chicha Drinker]

The Cajun "Holy Trinity" is the cornerstone of many Cajun dishes and is composed of an equal mix of onion, celery, and bell pepper. In addition to this they can make, "The Holy Trinity and the pope" where garlic is added as well.

Bros is this an accurate metaphor for the triune God?

 

[Preacher ✝]

The Wisdom of Bl. Fulton Sheen

Day 191 - It is never true to say that we have no time to meditate; the less one thinks of God, the less time there will always be for God. The time we have for anything depends on how much we value it.

Book says "depends of how much we value it."

 

[mindlessobserver]

Backing the nobility over the masses of people who believed in his message during the German Peasant War was pretty messed up. Those peasants had valid grievances.

Yes, but their solution was to burn down society. The Nobles did the right thing putting them down like dogs.

 

[Local Farmer]

I don't understand the desire to have six children, I have one and that is more than enough to keep our hands full. I see these couples with five, six children and think, 'how can you possibly be keeping up with all their wants/needs at the same time'.

I like to joke it's the reason I could never be a Catholic,

"Catholic? No thank you, one child enough for us".

I think you might appreciate this Monty Python clip

 

[Mad_Dog]

Shintoism, the Orthodox Church, the Coptics, Ethiopian Church, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Buddhism, and even the many groups that makeup Hinduism are just as old or older and have also survived persecution.

None of them are institutions, and none come close to the scale of the Catholic Church.

The counter reformation only came about after the Church's started wars that killed tens of millions of people

Some say it was billions, perhaps even trillions of people. For no reason at all.

The entirety of the church engaged in these practices for centuries.

Yes, every single Bishop, Priest, Deacon, I heard even the laity was corrupt, down to the infants. Centuries upon centuries, it was horrible.

It committed what many historians view as the first ideological genocides

You say that like it's a bad thing. Some ideologies don't deserve to exist. The Catholic Church single-handedly save the West from becoming muslim, and it will do it again.

The Church eventually lost most of its political power, but this current toothless institution is a recent development.

Rerum Novarum had no effect on society, completely toothless, I tells ya!

only putting a bandaid on poverty.

This one is my favorite lie you've spouted. Good job, you son of the devil.

 

[Paradox Mystic]

I don't think even Luther would agree with that. But he certainly did a very important thing right: he understood how God justifies us through his free gift of grace, and brought that good news to the masses for them to hear, repent, and believe for their salvation.

Luther called himself a miserable bag of worms, and Augustinianism isn't known for having a optimistic view of human nature. People often sum this up as "Lord have mercy upon me for I am both evil and retarded."

 

[Preacher ✝]

The Wisdom of Bl. Fulton Sheen

Day 192 - Because he's born in a cave, all who wish to see him must bend, must stoop, the stoop is the mark of humility. The proud refuse to stoop. Therefore they miss divinity. Those, however, who are willing to risk bending their egos to go into that cave, find that they are not in a cave at all; but they are in a universe where sits a babe on his mother's lap, the babe who made the world.

 

[Cassius Crayfish]

Good job, you son of the devil.

Roman Catholic trying to avoid damning anyone who disagrees with them challenge (impossible)

 

[Key the Metal Shitposter]

Roman Catholic trying to avoid damning anyone who disagrees with them challenge (impossible)

I prefer latins with a bit of fire and brimstone methinks, cause the ones that arnt are all wierdos who pray with muslims. At least the the former has a real position that I can exchange discourse with, Ive talked with one of those uniates and it seemed like basically anything goes theologically for them as long as you submit to the Pope. Its kinda wild.
Also remember that Luther himself would call the Pope the antichrist, this isnt a one way street.

 

[Derrick]

I prefer latins with a bit of fire and brimstone methinks

Views on the afterlife are a big reason I'm a protestant. It's easy to look at Roman Catholics with doctrines like purgatory and salvation for the unlearned and think, 'these people have gone theologically off the rails', but then I look at the Orthodox with their doctrines of praying people out of Hell, no fire in Hell, and the 40 day journey into the afterlife, and suddenly the Catholics don't look so bad.

I'm mean I'll give Catholics this, at least people sent to Hell stay there for eternity.

 

[Key the Metal Shitposter]

Views on the afterlife are a big reason I'm a protestant. It's easy to look at Roman Catholics with doctrines like purgatory and salvation for the unlearned and think, 'these people have gone theologically off the rails', but then I look at the Orthodox with their doctrines of praying people out of Hell, no fire in Hell, and the 40 day journey into the afterlife, and suddenly the Catholics don't look so bad.

I'm mean I'll give Catholics this, at least people sent to Hell stay there for eternity.

https://www.godwithuslc.org/martin-luthers-sermon-on-christs-descent-into-hell/

 

[Derrick]

https://www.godwithuslc.org/martin-luthers-sermon-on-christs-descent-into-hell/

All the more reason not to be a Lutheran.

 

[Preacher ✝]

, no fire in Hell

I'm mean I'll give Catholics this, at least people sent to Hell stay there for eternity

The nature of Hell is often debated. What we know for certain is that Hell is total and complete separation from God, and only God knows who might be sent there.

Some consider the fire and brimstone talk to be more poetic/artistic language than real. It could very well be that Hell is just nothingness. Considering that God is the Father of all creation, it isnt unreasonable to suppose that total and complete separation from Him is the absence of existence. That line of thinking also aligns with the notion that God is infinitely loving and merciful. After all what mercy is there in an eternity of torment for the sins of fleeting mortality?

 

[Derrick]

The nature of Hell is often debated. What we know for certain is that Hell is total and complete separation from God, and only God knows who might be sent there.

I like the bolded part, I'm glad that (unlike the Orthodox) the Catholics will at least admit Hell is eternal

However I think (correct me if I'm wrong) Fire and Brimstone is the Catholic Church official position, even if it is very begrudgingly, assuming Our Lady of Fatima is accepted by the Church (where Mary shows people literally burning in Hell) my assumption is this is the Church's position.

What I was trying to say was that when I started learning about the Catholic position on the afterlife I was like, "Wow these guys are off the rails man with this purgatory stuff and this nonsense about unlearned people being saved". Then I heard the Orthodox don't believe in Purgatory so I thought, "Let me go check them out, maybe they have a better view on things," and then I was like, "You know, actually the Catholics are a lot closer to the Bible than I realized".


This was literally my reaction to reading about the Orthodox's view of a 40 day journey to Heaven:

Spoiler: My Reaction

 

[Key the Metal Shitposter]

All the more reason not to be a Lutheran.

So youre a reformed of some kind? Whatever the case, I just dont think the idea that hell is a created place that God throws you into to be tortured is at all consistent with scripture and Gods love and mercy. God is all good, he does not create evil. Evil is the absence of good, and so fundamentally what Hell is is seperation from God as a result of your own actions. If you are seperated from God, then God who is a cleansing fire will burn you by the very presence of his uncreated light and in the end Gods presence will be inescapable. So no there is not a literal fire that God created to torture you.

 

[Derrick]

So youre a reformed of some kind?

I am not.

I just dont think the idea that hell is a created place that God throws you into to be tortured is at all consistent with scripture and Gods love and mercy.

You are entitled to believe whatever you want about God, however what the Bible actually says is:

"and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever".- Revelation 20:10
"Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels". -Matthew 25:41

For the things I think Catholics get wrong they at least get this right.

 

[Preacher ✝]

However I think (correct me if I'm wrong) Fire and Brimstone is the Catholic Church official position, even if it is very begrudgingly, assuming Our Lady of Fatima is accepted by the Church (where Mary shows people literally burning in Hell) my assumption is this is the Church's position.

CCC 1033: To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."

CCC 1034: Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable fire"reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. [Cf. Mt 5:22, 29; 10:28; 13:42, 50; Mk9:43-48] Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather... all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire," [Mt13:41-42] and that he will pronounce the condemnation:"Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!" [Mt 25:41]

CCC 1035: The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." [Cf.DS 76; 409; 411; 801; 858; 1002; 1351; 1575; Paul VI, CPG §12] The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.[393]

Also CCC 1472: To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it isnecessary to understand that sin has a double consequence.Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes usincapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the"eternal punishment" of sin. On the other hand every sin, evenvenial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must bepurified either here on earth, or after death in the state calledPurgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the"temporal punishment" of sin. These two punishments must not beconceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without,but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion whichproceeds from a fervent charity can attain the completepurification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment wouldremain. [Cf. Council of Trent (1551): DS1712-1713; (1563): 1820][1861, 1031]

Notice how every reference to fire is in quotes. This is where there is considered room for debate on the precise nature of Hell beyond it being "eternal separation from God." Some choose to interpret those words as literal, others choose to interpret them as a poetic means of describing that which is indescribable to mortal ears. Eternal separation from God is the worst possible thing in a sense that defies our mortal comprehension. Eternity in a lake of unquenchable fire is among the worst possible things we can comprehend. Therefore in order to convey how bad Hell is, describing a lake of fire is, by some interpretations, just the closest approximation we can understand.

In other words Hell may be a lake of unquenchable fire, or it may be even worse than that in a way that we can neither describe nor comprehend. Suffice to say we can't know for sure, and we shouldn't want to find out.

 

[Derrick]

The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity.

Well at least you give me it's eternal and may have fire, I can't even get that out of the Orthodox.