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Catholicism and Christian denominations - what's the difference?
Topic Started: Sunday, 1. July 2012, 22:35 (1,060 Views)
Penfold
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John Sweeney
Tuesday, 10. July 2012, 23:00
Penfold, I am afraid that is the same old tired nonsense which has put the Church in this country in the sorry state it is in today. Mairtin poses some important points backed up by reasoned arguments but your instinctive reaction is exactly the same as the Church at its worst has employed down through the ages ie it attempts to browbeat even mild scepticism with accusations of disloyalty

John
John I am not brow beating anyone, I am simply saying that if Mairtin wants and answer to the questions he has posed they lie in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I am not prepared to waste any more of my time reprinting examples and answers which he is perfectly capable of looking up for himself.
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Deleted User
Deleted User

The trouble is , Penfold, they do not lie in the Catechism which I am afraid to say is increasingly threadbare in the face of modern life. My one regret is that as a child and then young, and then youngish, adult, I learnt it, defended it and considered it the answer to everything. Experience has taught me how naive I was and how no document or institution has the answer to everything

John
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Penfold
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http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm

by no means the answer to all things but a good place to start and a lot better than the penny catechism many of us learnt by rote as kids.
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Deleted User
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yes, agreed, better than that effort but still not great


John
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OsullivanB

John, it may be useful to bear in mind that the CCC is a (in my opinion masterful) summary of Catholic teaching as it is and as it has developed over centuries; not to be confused with a manifesto for change.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Mairtin
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Penfold
Tuesday, 10. July 2012, 23:06
John Sweeney
Tuesday, 10. July 2012, 23:00
Penfold, I am afraid that is the same old tired nonsense which has put the Church in this country in the sorry state it is in today. Mairtin poses some important points backed up by reasoned arguments but your instinctive reaction is exactly the same as the Church at its worst has employed down through the ages ie it attempts to browbeat even mild scepticism with accusations of disloyalty

John
John I am not brow beating anyone, I am simply saying that if Mairtin wants and answer to the questions he has posed they lie in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I am not prepared to waste any more of my time reprinting examples and answers which he is perfectly capable of looking up for himself.
So the next time I am debating issues with a non-Catholic, I will simply tell them that it's right because the Catechism of the Catholic Church says so :rolleyes:
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Mairtin
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OsullivanB
Wednesday, 11. July 2012, 01:23
John, it may be useful to bear in mind that the CCC is a (in my opinion masterful) summary of Catholic teaching as it is and as it has developed over centuries; not to be confused with a manifesto for change.
A useful summary, yes, if you want to know what specific teaching is but no more than a summary, generally not a good source for teasing out the thinking behind a teaching and the problems with alternative ideas. It seems to me a great pity that the updated Encyclopedia of the Catholic Church is not available online*, whilst the original version at New Advent now seems very antiquated, I always thought it was an excellent piece of work for its time.

(* Available to buy but at $2000, a bit outside my book budget.)
Edited by Mairtin, Wednesday, 11. July 2012, 07:19.
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Penfold
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Mairtin
Wednesday, 11. July 2012, 06:58
Penfold
Tuesday, 10. July 2012, 23:06
John Sweeney
Tuesday, 10. July 2012, 23:00
Penfold, I am afraid that is the same old tired nonsense which has put the Church in this country in the sorry state it is in today. Mairtin poses some important points backed up by reasoned arguments but your instinctive reaction is exactly the same as the Church at its worst has employed down through the ages ie it attempts to browbeat even mild scepticism with accusations of disloyalty

John
John I am not brow beating anyone, I am simply saying that if Mairtin wants and answer to the questions he has posed they lie in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I am not prepared to waste any more of my time reprinting examples and answers which he is perfectly capable of looking up for himself.
So the next time I am debating issues with a non-Catholic, I will simply tell them that it's right because the Catechism of the Catholic Church says so :rolleyes:
No, you tell them the teaching of the church as summarised in the catechism or admit that you do not have the depth of knowledge to answer the question they have asked but invite them to take advantage of one of the many courses available through such things as the RCIA programme or suggest you both go along and discuss the matter with someone who has a little more knowledge and who might be able to fill out the answers provided in the Catechism. The problem with you however Mairtin is that you are not looking for answers to questions, you are looking for questions to match the answers you have already accepted.

I have a fairly extensive knowledge of first aid and can apply field dressings and take such remedial action that I might give a person a chance to live provided they get to a professional surgeon in time, but I am not a nurse and certainly not a doctor. I do what I am able to do and pass the casualty on to the hospital. If I am discussing history, I have a reasonable knowledge of certain periods and of general points but I am not an expert. So to with theology I have a post graduate knowledge of some aspects of theology but if I want to know something about canon law I will check my facts by looking up the books and if that does not help I ring a friend who is a specialist in Canon Law, others may ring me about liturgy or church history. What makes you think you should be the expert, have the honesty to inform the person asking questions of you that you do not have all the answers but join them in seeking them out. I have had some wonderful evenings exploring faith with ministers of other faiths, I learn more about them and they learn something from me, together we learn to accept that our relationship with God and our understanding of creation is limited. What is agreed however is that faith is not about having all the answers, it is being able to accept the love of God without knowing all the answers.
Edited by Penfold, Wednesday, 11. July 2012, 08:34.
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tomais

I have had a look through many of these posts.Fingers crossed that the Catholic laety never get to read through this.
Catholocism and Christian denominations-what's the difference?
Indeed what is the difference between Catholics and Catholics? Post graduate degrees amongst some and oh deary me the simple standard believing up bringing amongst the majority.
An indication of arrogance here!
What do the vast majority believe and how do they express their beliefs?
I can see some answers verging on-They should know- they'd better know-they should know better etc.
Not much compassion for simple souls-and not just in the UK either
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Mairtin
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Penfold
Wednesday, 11. July 2012, 08:22
Mairtin
 
So the next time I am debating issues with a non-Catholic, I will simply tell them that it's right because the Catechism of the Catholic Church says so :rolleyes:
No, you tell them the teaching of the church as summarised in the catechism or admit that you do not have the depth of knowledge to answer the question they have asked but invite them to take advantage of one of the many courses available through such things as the RCIA programme ...
Yeah, if an atheist or Church hater is posting rubbish about the Church on an Internet forum and I want to counteract it mainly because I know other people are watching the conversation then I should suggest RCIA to them; that will really go down a treat :rolleyes:

Quote:
 
... or suggest you both go along and discuss the matter with someone who has a little more knowledge and who might be able to fill out the answers provided in the Catechism

But apparently not yourself.

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The problem with you however Mairtin is that you are not looking for answers to questions, you are looking for questions to match the answers you have already accepted.

Your constant use of that completely unfounded attack on me as an excuse for not answering questions is getting rather tiresome to say the least.

Edited by Mairtin, Wednesday, 11. July 2012, 09:43.
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OsullivanB

tomais
 
An indication of arrogance here!
I don't know why you say that. Would you care to explain?
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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OsullivanB

mairtin
 
So the next time I am debating issues with a non-Catholic, I will simply tell them that it's right because the Catechism of the Catholic Church says so
Not at all. You may tell them that that is what the Church teaches. That is what the CCC does. It tells you what the Church teaches. That is essentially what a course of instruction for a potential convert also needs to do - tell the seeker what the Church teaches - not why but what. For the why one can start with the very extensive footnotes in the CCC which take the reader to the source material, often scripture, encyclicals or conciliar documents, To go deeper it is necessary to consult books in that much derided discipline, theology. Few feel the need to go so deep, but if you really want to understand, the material is there. It is not always expensive but sometimes is. It is not always difficult reading but often is. It is usually, but not always, fairly readily available through online booksellers. If you need or want to understand current issues and controversies about the development or contemporary application of important concepts the material is similarly available.
However, the field of inquiry is potentially almost boundless. It is for each individual to decide how deeply (s)he needs to dig for the understanding and answers that (s)he needs. A full exploration of the theology of atonement and the alternative interpretations of Jesus's death on the cross could take a lifetime of constant study. The same applies to the church's teaching on marriage, sexuality and allied subjects. The CCC does not attempt this. To complain that it does not is not unlike complaining that Harold Pinter never wrote a history play in blank verse. If you want that you have to read Shakespeare.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Mairtin
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That is all correct, OsB, but the original point I have been trying to draw out here – obviously not very clearly – is the difference between Christ saying something and our Church drawing conclusions about what He meant or said.

Let me leave infallibility aside for a moment and talk about the Real Presence, it might make my point a bit clearer. Jesus said "This is my body ... This is my blood" so no Christian can deny that when you take partake of Holy Communion that you are receiving the body and blood of Christ without denying the actual words of Christ.

Different denominations, however, understand this in different ways. We in the Catholic Church believe that through the mysterious process of transubstantiation, the actual body and blood of Christ really become present in the bread and wine which is why, for example, we pay such reverence to the remaining hosts after the Mass in which they were consecrated. Protestant denominations do not believe that, they regard the receiving of Holy Communion as the receiving of Christ’s body in blood but they do not regard the bread and wine as altered in any way, to them it is the act of receiving that matters.

Can I make clear first of all that I have no doubts whatsoever about the Real Presence. Without taking away from my belief, however, I do accept that it is just that, a belief, one human interpretation of what Christ said and I would be very reluctant to condemn other Christians for believing different or to suggest that their particular belief somehow inhibits Christ from coming to them when they worship on the basis of that belief.
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OsullivanB

The Real Presence does not depend on transubstantiation. That is only one theological theory about how this mystery "works". It is a theory based on philosophical concepts which have not worn well with time.

You could just have the New Testament and be a Christian. That is certainly what some denominations were established to attempt. But once you have an institutional church it is almost inevitable that an agreed core of interpretation of Scripture develops. The most robust period of development was perhaps the first few hundred years AD but it has continued to the present day. The CCC is a snapshot of where the Catholic Church was at on publication day. But if you really want to know how the church got from the New Testament to the CCC, then you have to go on a complex and arduous journey in most instances.

I recommend Diarmid MacCullough's "A History of Christianity" as a good starting point and foundation.

I don't think many people who think about it doubt that Jesus honours his promise that He is present wherever and whenever two or three gather in His name. Matthew 18:20 is the guarantee.

It may well be the case that the difference between denominations is less important to God than it is to us. That is not for me (or I think any of us) to know. But if, as I believe, we have a duty to seek the truth and if, as I think most of us mostly believe, the truth is most fully to be found in the teaching of the Catholic Church, then I do not see that it is open to us to disregard the difference between the denominations as trivial. By all means let us understand them. By all means let us acknowledge that the search for the truth by those in other churches is sincere and rigorous. Let us consider their insights to see whether they might deepen out own. But that is not the same as thinking that they may be right where they differ from us.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Penfold
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tomais
Wednesday, 11. July 2012, 09:17
I have had a look through many of these posts.Fingers crossed that the Catholic laety never get to read through this.
Catholocism and Christian denominations-what's the difference?
Indeed what is the difference between Catholics and Catholics? Post graduate degrees amongst some and oh deary me the simple standard believing up bringing amongst the majority.
An indication of arrogance here!
What do the vast majority believe and how do they express their beliefs?
I can see some answers verging on-They should know- they'd better know-they should know better etc.
Not much compassion for simple souls-and not just in the UK either
Tomais, in essence you are correct. If a person is making and enquiry in faith and is desiring to deepen their faith then the answer should be one of faith not theological and philosophical theories.

If a person asks. "Why do you go to mass?" and you answer "Because I believe in transubstantiation!" I suspect their answer will be..."WHat..." but if you say, "I go to mass because I find it helps to lift my spirits and I am deeply moved by the thought that Jesus is truly present.." you might encourage the person to come with you to mass rather than be reaching for a dictionary or an encyclopaedia.
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