/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>672989

GLORIOUS DAY!

>>672989

>I got saved

>>672989

Once you get baptized then you are truly saved friend. Go get baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

>>672989

Welcome back to the flock, anon.

>>673046

Thanks, I'm so glad to be back, i never want to go back to previous life.

>>672989

>I now have this explainable peace upon me.

Whoops, i mean unexplainable.

>>673026

>You took a bath.

HALLELUJAH!

>>673127

I sadly only said sorry, i never actually repented, but i kept praying and going to church, i had a really really difficult time leaving my fap culture of 13 years. It's only been less than two weeks, but i have no drive for fapping or porn anymore.

>>673138

>It may take time but temptations will come back and stronger, you have to keep vigilant. But when that happens, remember the happiness that this has given you and it should motivate you to keep away from sin.

Yes, i must be stronger than it, however i can confidently say i have God on my side now.

>>673264

>There has to be some standards for The Church, they can't simply do whatever it is they want to bypass their own scripture.

If by "bypass" you mean "teach anything contrary to Scripture", of course they can't, it's a thing that is impossible to be "overruled" by the Church (You might ask how is this impossible, considering that e.g. a pope could want to do it - the answer is that God promised it will never happen, and He's omnipotent and faithful to His promises, and we can trust He will, in whatever way He chooses, prevent this from happening), but I never said otherwise. We both agree that "there are God's doctrines revealed in the Bible" and that "everything in the Bible was revealed by God". But in addition to that, you add another claim: "these doctrines, that God revealed through the Bible, are the only doctrines revealed by God" - or, in other words, not only does Sola Scriptura say that God's doctrines are contained in the Bible, but also that every such doctrine is contained in the Bible. In other words, it's a positive claim unidentical, and added to, "there are God's doctrines given through, whether explicitly or implicitly, the Bible," and "everything in the Bible was revealed by God", and if your doctrine is to be coherent (namely your doctrine, which says that all doctrines are founded in the Bible), you must show that it's founded on the Bible. (To use an analogy: suppose you have a glass filled to brim with water; it's true that the glass contains water, as Bible contains God's revelation - but it doesn't follow that all water there is in the world is in the glass; there may be water outside this glass too - for example in lakes, rivers, etc.; and yet the glass remains filled to brim with water.)

(To prevent possible - I'm not saying intentional, this fallacy is a pretty common mistake - red herring fallacy in reply, notice that I haven't yet claimed that "there are real, Divine doctrines that can be found outside the Bible" - currently, I'm not making any claim except "there are God's doctrines in the Bible" and "the Bible's teachings are revealed by God"; you narrow this down by saying that no other doctrines than these exist, and I ask you to explain why you narrowed it down.)

>If it's traditions than it should have some grounding in scripture.

Aaaand now you just gave me another doctrine - that all traditions should have some grounding in scripture. By Sola Scriptura, if such doctrine is genuine, it should have some grounding in the Scripture. Can you provide me with such grounding?

>>673565

Meant for >>673278

>I feel like there must be an objective way for when an assembly of people is compromised or not.

Of course, I agree with you here - but this claim is a different claim than Sola Scriptura. We also believe there are objective ways to discern which Church is the true one, but we don't believe in Sola Scriptura. Both of us claim that there are such ways, but you add another claim: there is only one such way, and again you don't provide any reason why you narrowed the original claim down.

>RC has a very unfavorable history regarding the bible. If the Pope, relic worship, symbol/statue worship, the divinity of Mary, Eucharist is any indication of counter scripture beliefs than that would be another reason.

We don't believe most of these, and the two ones you get right, you probably have very deep, fundamental misconceptions about. We hold that nothing the Church teaches is contrary to the Bible, although some teachings may not be in it, at the same time not being contrary to it. But all of this is irrelevant to this debate, because I'm now not trying to show that this position is true (it's very defensible and provable though - I just don't want to clutter this discussion with topics, which are outside its scope), only that your position is false.

>Catholicism is also a sort of legalistic religious system similar to the Pharisees. I honestly don't want to offend The Catholics anymore than i already have, but it's sketchy to me, while at the same time, i have wise family asking me not to forget the Virgin Mary. Matthew 12:22-30 brings an interesting point, but there must be a limit to doing something, and placing Christianity on it to void the rest, like being a Christian Freemason, Mormon, Jehovah Witness or Christian Zionist.

See above, because it's the same topic you are talking about as in the previous paragraph. It's simply outside the scope of this particular discussion.

>>673278

>I don't think that the bible explicitly contains every answer (one example would be masturbation not being explicitly stated, but generally accepted that it's not christian),

First: Sola Scriptura states that every doctrine should be somehow contained in the Bible, explicitly or otherwise - as you put it, according to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, Bible should be the foundation for any doctrine. Since Sola Scriptura is a doctrine, it should then also, like any doctrine, be founded on the Bible. But it isn't - there is nothing in the Bible that might provide a foundation for "Bible alone", nothing. It was invented hundreds of years after Apostles' deaths by random, fallible men without any Biblical foundation.

>but it should be the foundation since it's the religion's scripture.

A foundation - sure. So far I'm not saying there are other foundations, perhaps there are no such foundations, (so far at least) I'm not claiming there are. But neither am I claiming there aren't any. That's a claim that can't be deduced just from "it's the religion's scripture" alone. The only thing that can be deduced from "it's the religion's scripture" is "it's a foundation". You have yet to prove a second, separate claim - "there are no other foundations". To use another analogy - suppose you have a table. Now I point at one leg of this table (the Bible) and say "it's the table's foundation, because it's the table's leg". and I would be partially right in that, since it indeed holds and supports the table, it is a foundation. But I would have yet to prove there are no other legs, no other foundations.

>The bible is the word of God, it's given by God, it's not a man's doctrine.

That's a pretty bizarre accusation, that I believe the Bible to be man's doctrine - of course I agree that it's without error, completely inspired by God, and that everything that follows from it must be true. What I say is that the particular doctrine of "Bible alone" (as opposed to "Bible is definitely a one way through which God deposited His revelation, but there may be other ways too" - Catholics would say there definitely are such other ways, but again, arguing for this, although quite easy, would be arguing about something else than "Is "Bible alone" true?" - to get to the Catholic position, one must first arrive at the general "Bible is definitely a one way through which God deposited His revelation, but there may be other ways too", and then, using different arguments, narrow it down to "Bible is definitely a one way through which God deposited His revelation, and there are other ways too") which is neither taught in nor follows from the Bible (and which was alien to the Church of the times of the Apostles, and hundreds of years after these times), is a man's invention. It's not based in Divine revelation, and especially it's not founded on the Bible. "Bible alone" is absolutely a human tradition.

>>673721

>Did God reveal other teachings besides the bible?

As a Catholic I would say yes. I can actually try to provide some evidence for this, since existence of even one such revealed teaching would prove Sola Scriptura false, but to prevent cluttering, I will do so in another reply. It's definitely a good way of proving Sola Scriptura wrong, and as a bonus additionally proving that there are such genuine, extrabiblical doctrines that God revealed. But in this post I want to concentrate on another way (namely showing that it's incoherent - that if we accept it as true, we will have to conclude that Sola Scriptura is false; and hence we can conclude that it can't be true, since nothing true can be false at the same time).

>>>I don't think that the bible explicitly contains every answer but it should be the foundation since it's the religion's scripture.

I have replied already to this part - I didn't say that, according to Sola Scriptura, Sola Scriptura needs to be contained explicitly in the Bible. Only that it somehow needs to come from the Bible, to be founded on it. Which it isn't. Hence Sola Scriptura destroys itself as a legitimate teaching.

>Well other doctrines exist, they're just not reliable. Many people can have faith/divine experiences in different religions, gods, practices, and miracles still happen regardless if it's mercy answers from the true God or the powers of Satan to appear like miracles, for examples in the bible he is mentioned causing storms.

By doctrines I meant here real, revealed-by-God (or at least those that can be logically deduced from them - like "masturbation is wrong" can be deduced from the God-revealed teaching that lust is wrong) teachings. I ask you to show that no such doctrines exist that don't come from the Bible.

>Funny enough, there is no scripture backing for Sola Scriptura, (other than parts in the bible saying that the bible is right, or that "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.")

If it wasn't given by God (since it doesn't come from the Bible and, if Sola Scriptura is true, all revelation God gave us must come from the Bible), who gave us Sola Sciptura? Fallible men. And if it was given by fallible men, why do you believe in it like you would in Biblical truths?

(As for these verses, such parts don't show that Sola Scriptura is true, only that the Bible is true. I believe that all Bible was given by God and contains His revealed teachings, but this is not enough to conclude that they are nowhere else too: just as in the analogy with the glass of water I gave before, merely the fact that there is water (God's revelation) in the glass doesn't mean there is no water outside the glass.)

>I feel it's also vital to start with something objective, we know the bible is the world of God, and that God doesn't change his mind, nor contradict himself.

This reasoning you gave here can definitely lead us to "the Bible is true revelation of God". That's all. It doesn't (At least not yet) lead us to, in addition to trusting in the Bible as true and revealed, believing that nothing else is true revelation of God.

>The bible doesn't explicitly support Sola Scriptura, but it surely doesn't support traditions that contradict it's messages.

Of course, but neither do I. I don't support traditions that contradict the Bible either, yet I accept that there is God-given revelation that doesn't contradict the Bible, but which was given outside the Bible.

>It's not suppose to be against traditions, it's more against unbliblical, extra biblical, anti-biblical doctrines/practices.

Traditions that contradict the Bible - sure. Traditions that don't contradict the Bible, but merely aren't in it? The Bible doesn't condemn them. If by "traditions" you mean only doctrines, the Bible doesn't say that there aren't any that were given by God outside the Bible. If you mean "traditions" as "practices", the Bible doesn't speak against ones that don't contradict it, but which, not contradicting it, simply aren't in it, either.

(1/2)

>>673721

>>674530

>My reasoning for this would be that The original translation of the Hebrew word for Church meant assembly of people, as well as the bible being the standard for the Church, i am pretty grounded in Churches being "bible only" because of the subjects listed before that - as you said - broaden the scope of this topic.

I don't know if I perhaps misunderstood you, so to get things clear: if by "objective means to discern which Church is the true one" you mean "objective truths which a Church must believe, otherwise they are not a true Church" then it's the issue of "what do you base your certainty that all God-revealed objective truths come from the Bible on", to which I already responded elsewhere. In that meaning, you certainly can use the Bible. If you are talking about all signs that can be used to identify a true Church, then we would have to first talk about what "a/the Church" is in the first place, which is a completely different topic than the one we are discussing here (but no, merely the fact that the original word means "assembly of people" isn't enough - it doesn't refer to any assembly of people, that's for sure - assembly in question has to have some other specific qualities to be Church; but what these qualities are is a thing completely distinct from Sola Scriptura). One topic at a time, trying to debate a bunch of different ones at the same time leads to nothing but confusion.

>Yes, you could say that Salvation/God/Jesus led you to Christianity before even reading the bible, or you had a divine experience that lead you to Christianity, all are valid, but all are also subjective, and could lead you to another religion, that is why i put so much authority on scripture.

I thought by "foundations" you meant more "sources of what the Church believes, of what it teaches". Other foundations than the Bible, would be, in that case, other sources of doctrine than the Bible, but equally God-given and objective as the Bible itself. And anyway, the "could lead you to another religion" is true for reading the Bible as much as for those other ways you mention (e.g. a Divine experience) - human mind isn't infallible and is easy to sway by its owners wishes and desires. First, it's very easy to read into Bible what you wish it to say, rather than what the author wanted to say. Itching ears, etc. Second, our minds are prone to error, to misinterpretation, and so on. Even if you genuinely want to know what God wanted to say through the Bible, you could still make a mistake and not understand the actual meaning of some verse. You can see this in that when you have different people, all of whom try to learn what the Bible really says, don't have one, unified doctrine. Calvinists, Lutherans, Catholics, etc. all claim to "follow what the Bible says" but reach wildly different conclusions and when faced with some verse, each groups thinks it means something different. Of course there is one, objective meaning that God gave to some verse - but we, being fallible humans, may have problems in finding what this real meaning is, and so accidentally come to thinking that it means something completely different than what it really means.

>>673721

>>674981

>I actually agree with you, that there are other ways to God, such as stated in the other areas that the Solas focus on (except not only those areas), I cautiously choose the bible because of how sound it is

So far you haven't replied to my main argument against it, and you haven't given any proof of it either.

>even if "Bible only" doesn't cover everything, it's objective which is important in our massive melting pot of spirituality/religion.

So you actually do believe with us that not all revealed doctrines come from the Bible ("even if "Bible only" isn't everything"), but at the same time choose believing that they do (since you hold Sola Scriptura)? What?

>Once i have the Scripture down i can have the more subjective parts

I replied to this "Scripture/other, subjective parts" above. You unjustly discard even the possibility of other, similarly objective sources of doctrine and, more generally, ways of finding out what God meant and said. What's more, you similarly unjustly assume that you interpretating the Bible (trying to learn what it says and means) is a process in which accidental error is impossible (if it was, it would be a subjective process after all - and once again, to avoid possible error, I'm talking about the process of learning what the Bible says as subjective, not the Bible itself; the Bible is infallible and objective).

>>675180

I'm glad i was able to brighten your impression of this flawed board.

Today i was remembering/missing the porn i used to have, and afterwards i felt a strange sinking feeling in my chest, like as if i found out i have cancer or something. Even when i was trying to leave porn and blessed by God, i shamelessly had no care about going back, but now it's the opposite. i felt a strange sense of despair outside of my unexplainable peace. It's like my unbalance has been inverted to a correct origin. I probably sound like I'm making this up to a lot of anons, and/or this is too subjective to use as evidence. It's kind of scary, but very helpful, i must leave that terrible medium. I'm very thankful i haven't.

If you're wondering what caused this change in my, i'd say living without any media, and going to church services 3 times a day, with a squad of experienced pastors praying for me.

>>676458

>Christian Zionism

>>675151

>Are you saying The Church is an official building?

Is the Catholic Church a building?

>Yes

Well, that's definitely a surprise and it completely changes the situation. That's what most people mean by "Sola Scriptura" - that all doctrines of Christianity must have their source in the Bible.

In that case, the fundamental question is: what do you even mean by "Sola Scriptura"?

I just wanted to say also that i lost my save status briefly and was able to get to back thankfully, with help from my church. I committed the sin i told God i wouldn't commit, but thankfully he forgave me, and this time i'll make sure i don't lose him again. I'm extremely new at this, there is a lot that i don't understand. Despite believing in God all my life, i've never had him enter my heart like this. It was strange Going from Having God in my Chest, and having an unexplainable calmness in me, It felt like a peaceful transformation in my chest. When God left my body, i was empty, and felt nothing, and my heart was missing a sort of "cushion", and i had lost that peace. I can't want to experience the world with God with me, i can't believe i can say something so unbelievable, it's so beautiful to meet the creator of the universe. I now see why every Christian i met was so peaceful, and happy, and how foolish i was to push them away.

>>678061

>Is the Catholic Church a building?

Yes? i don't understand this question.

>what do you even mean by "Sola Scriptura"?

I understand the confusion. I use the bible as the first and most objective "path" to God (even though it requires more than just reading the bible, like prayer, faith and church), i use SS more as a general rule, not an absolute because of the objectivity of the bible. I know that People can find God/Jesus/holy spirit without the bible, and that leads them to Christianity. It's more of "we know the bible is right" with "bible only" as a general rule when you start out, because of how subjective and misleading a lot of spiritual information is, or divine experiences, even ones that claim to be Christian. I see how that can cause confusion because it's a clear contradiction, but a helpful simplification for starting out and being buried with doctrines with every denomination. I agree with all the flaws you mentioned with it, and I won't use SS as a general rule anymore. It was a thoughtless "rule" i had.

Assuming you're ID:161551 I was wondering about this?

>>Did God reveal other teachings besides the bible?

>As a Catholic I would say yes. I can actually try to provide some evidence for this

>>680089

>>680082

I'm a ex-catholic who tries to be non-denomination as possible while understanding that there are many ways to God beyond the bible, but my church would be considered baptist/protestant. I don't really know too much about the technicalities of salvation, but i was told by my church that you can lose salvation if you sin, than sanctification is when you lose your desire to sin. I haven't really looked into "once saved always saved" salvation, there is soo many conflicting doctrines and denomination.

>>680089

>Pentecostals

I've never been to a Pentecostal church before

>but in reality never had it.

How do you know if you never had it? Is this the "once saved always saved" doctrine?

>if that's the case it's heresy by denying the living God,

How am i denying God?

>>680222

>>673550

>>673134

>>672992

Thank you, even though i have a lot to improve.

http://www.spiritual-experiences.com/real-spiritual-story.php?story=1050

http://archive.is/4e2xt

Part of the reason i made this thread was to ask if any of you have had this sensation in your chest before, as described in the link above? Salvation or not, i have the same feeling except it's all the time.

>>678083

>Yes? i don't understand this question.

Well, it's a great society of people (angels also count, I suppose), founded by Christ and still present, which (more precisely, the part still on Earth - those who died saved also belong to the Church, but we don't how many of them there are) currently numbers around 1.3 billion people.

I would think it's obvious that it's a society and not a building, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding you.

>i use SS more as a general rule, not an absolute because of the objectivity of the bible.

First, in case I wasn't sufficiently clear in my previous posts, to avoid any unnecessary misunderstandings (and for others who are reading this), I will try to succintly state my position.

We believe that God already deposited the doctrines of Christianity and isn't going to add anything to them. A portion of this revelation was given to us in the form of a book, namely the Bible; but not all, and some doctrines were given in some other medium: e.g. if the Apostles taught something as infallible dogma to be believed by the faithful, but didn't write it down in the Bible, it would belong to this category.

Sola Scriptura, in its usual meaning, claims that the second of these portions of revelation doesn't exist. One way to show that this is false is by finding at least one piece of revelation contained in this second portion, which I will do in another post below.

If we consider Sola Scriptura as what you seem to mean by it - a practical principle, in which you treat Bible as the only objective source of dogma, even though you accept others might exist - then this also is wrong. If you consider the Bible as the objective, independent from you, deposit of revealed doctrine - then your principle is wrong, because whatever revealed doctrine exist outside the Bible, they too must be abstract truths - absolutely independent from you and objectively true.

But now you might say that you don't know whether, while trying to find this objective, independent, abstract truth you will succeed - that you might be misled on the way, accidentally misinterpret something and think that you have reached this truth, and out of fear that you will in the process come to believe something false, you avoid these and stay only with the Bible.

But the objective, independent truth that the Bible contains is equally "hidden" - you still have to actively study the text to reach it, and in the process you can still be misled, misinterpret something, etc. So such an objection would apply to the Bible too.

>but a helpful simplification for starting out and being buried with doctrines with every denomination

Your "helpful simplification" has so far not led you to the Church that is the body of Christ, which God gave the world to save it from Hell.

There is a much easier, more efficient and better way to reach Divine truth: namely, to rely on that which God established as, as 1 Timothy 3:15 says, "the pillar and foundation of truth" - that is, the Church. Surely you can't go wrong with relying on "pillar and foundation of truth", can you?

And since we know (e.g. from His promise in Matthew 16:18) that Jesus will always protect his Church, we can also know that this "pillar and foundation of truth" is still here, still preaching and passing down that truth given to it by Christ, no matter how many false doctrines, invented by men, appear outside in churches founded by men.

Now, if you want to know where this Church of God remains: how many churches can you name which can trace their history back to Christ and his Apostles?

>>687686

>Oh, i didn't see your point there. I missed that it was a society as well as a church.

Perhaps it will be a good idea to post an article from the Catholic Encyclopedia, which is a very good source on our beliefs by the way, on what we believe the Church is. It seems we may have two very different conceptions of what the word even means.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03744a.htm

>Regardless, Churches have fallen to hell with rainbow flags, and freemasons moving Christians out of them for their formation "prayers", both baptist and Catholic.

Jesus promised that the gates of Hell will not, in the end, prevail against the Church as a whole. He never promised that they won't prevail against its individual members. And even as regards the whole Church, there is nothing in His promise to suggest that the gates of hell will not try, with their whole might, to prevail against His Church - they can try all they want, they can win over vast swathes of the Church, they can get to the point of almost suceeding - but in the end, even if they are inches away from victory, God will prevent them from succeeding and stop their attack.

>They clearly have control. Did Jesus mean that there is some secret niche church out there that hasn't been taken over by something?

As regards the faith, the state of the Church, etc., the Catholic Church - the Church that Christ founded and so the Church to which His promises refer - still remains. Barely, but again, nobody says that the Church will be safe and triumphant - only that God will once again, like so many times before (see e.g. the Arian crisis of the 4th century), ultimately save it. Pic closely related.

Please don't 404 on me!

>>673520

>Infant baptism is unbiblical.

https://www.scripturecatholic.com/sacrament-of-baptism/#III_Infant_Baptism

>>702676

>I guess a polite way of asking would be why do catholics often put something before Jesus and God

We don't - perhaps you have a distorted image of our religion and what we do; we most assuredly don't.

>like statues

Like most things, statues are not inherently evil. They are neutral objects which can be used in either good or evil manner. You can worship them as gods, or use them to worship false gods, and this would be an example of evil use. Or you can use them to help you in thinking about what they represent - e.g. placing a statue of Jesus before your eyes to help you concentrate on him. This is a good use. You can also e.g. make a beautiful statue in order to, through its beauty, give God more glory. This also is an example of a good use.

The bottom line is, it depends not on the object, but on what people do with this object.

>where do they get the strange practices like using bells and smoke

Because ritual like this has all kinds of great effects on the worshippers, helps them in worship, glorifies God, etc. and is not forbidden. Perhaps you might claim that God never said that this must be done - I would have heavy doubts that He didn't, but even if it was indeed true, such style of worship would still be acceptable and advised - as it has a better effect, and again, is definitely not forbidden by God; (and it's good to add, already - see e.g.: the worship in the Temple of Jerusalem - employed by Him before.)

>praying to saints?

First, it's good to know the meaning of the word: a saint is somebody who is already in Heaven. We can therefore ask them to pray for us, to admire them, etc. - either way, we don't worship them.

>If the Apostles and Martyrs, while still in the body, can pray for others, at a time when they must still be anxious for themselves, how much more after their crowns, victories, and triumphs are won! One man, Moses, obtains from God pardon for six hundred thousand men in arms; and Stephen, the imitator of the Lord, and the first martyr in Christ, begs forgiveness for his persecutors; and shall their power be less after having begun to be with Christ?

>lIf you had another link that goes into detail about this i'd love to read it

The Catholic Encyclopedia I gave you link to above is a very solid source on our beliefs and practice. If I later think of some other similarly solid sources, I can post them here.

>I need a pretty good answer because my family has been re-educated by JW.

(Just in case you don't know, Jehovah's Witnesses use a mistranslated Bible, modified to make it seem as if their doctrines are biblical; they also believe numerous errors and heresies)

(Also, as regards my long-overdue post on extrabiblical doctrines: this is a very long and complex topic, but I should probably have time tomorrow)