No true Christian?

[Harel13]

hmmmm.
I acknowledge your point as being valid.

I finally found it:

the divisions of Christianity
​

I started that thread because my posts in the "mother" thread were deleted because it is a "same faith" thread...
Mother Thread:

Christian: A house divided?​

I'll check those out. Thanks.

 

[PureX]

In the last couple of years of my surfing forums and engaging online with people of different religions, I've come to realize that not only are there literally tens of thousands of Christian denominations, but many - if not most of those denominations - appear to deny the Christianity of other denominations and consequently, consider those "outsiders" to be blasphemous sinners condemned to whatever punishment that denomination holds to be the worst possible.

My question is, why is this so? Why not unify in some sort of way? Lots of people like throwing at us Jews the expression "Two Jews, three opinions" - but in the end, we're all Jews, for better or for worse. It doesn't seem to me that the same can be said of Christians. If I'm wrong, please correct me. If I'm right, I'd be happy to hear why this is so.

Group unity is more easily obtained in opposition to an "other" group. This isn't a religious phenomenon, it's a human phenomenon.

 

[metis]

Great question. Let me rephrase... There are books in all religions that contain truth and wisdom as God deals with all people but, as a believer that I am, the prophetic veracity is found in the Tannakh.

So, is it "the prophetic veracity" or is it "a prophetic veracity"? IOW, iyo, is it possible that there could be "prophetic veracity" within other religions as well?

The Devil is making me do this, btw.

 

[metis]

I second Ken's post, a great question indeed Metis!

As you know my friend, the stance of Christians concerning the existence of "truth" in religions other than Judaism is highly variable, ranging from: the most pluralistic and pro-interfaith dialogue (such as our own Catholic tradition, liberal Protestants and Mormons) to the most exclusivist and entrenched theologies (especially our Evangelical Protestant brethren).

Virtually all Christians believe that God's historical covenant with Israel represents an unprecedented and 'special' revelation in the divine economy, not because it is the only communication between God and humanity (far from it the Noahide covenant precedes it while Abraham is to be the father of many nations, as the words attributed to St. Paul in the Book of Acts evidence: "From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’" (Acts 17:26-28)), rather due to the fact that in the words of Nostra Aetate 1965 (Catholic Church's declaration on Non-Christian Religions):


Nostra aetate

"...the Church of Christ acknowledges that, according to God's saving design, the beginnings of her faith and her election are found already among the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets. She professes that all who believe in Christ-Abraham's sons according to faith (6)-are included in the same Patriarch's call, and likewise that the salvation of the Church is mysteriously foreshadowed by the chosen people's exodus from the land of bondage.

The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the Jewish people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles.

The Church keeps ever in mind the words of the Apostle about his kinsmen: "theirs is the sonship and the glory and the covenants and the law and the worship and the promises; theirs are the fathers and from them is the Christ according to the flesh" (Rom. 9:4-5)".​

But the New Testament also states that “the Word is the true light that enlightens every man coming into the world” (John 1:9). This concept is echoed in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13: 3−9, where the divinely scattered seeds of divine truth are dispensed indiscriminately, to all and sundry. St. Paul likewise informs us of pagans being able to access the 'natural law' of God inhering in every conscience and thus attaining salvation in Christ: "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the Law, do by nature what the Law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the Law, since they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness" (Romans 2:14).

The 1978 Mormon Church Presidency, for instance, declared among other things that:

• Great religious leaders of the world received "a portion of God's light".
• These leaders and others were given moral truths by God "to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals."

@Katzpur may be able to fill us in some more on that, as she is my go to authority on the forum for all things LDS Christianity-related. I have deep admiration for Mormon inclusivism.

So far as the Catholic Church is concerned, our doctrinal position expressed at the Second Vatican Council is broadly similar to that of the LDS and we base it upon the teaching of semina verbi (seeds of the Word) derived from the Church Fathers. In his encyclical Letter, Redemptoris missio (1990), Pope St. John Paul II, insisting on the dialogue between Christian faith and non Christian religions, states that that: “through dialogue, the Church seeks to uncover the seeds of the Word (semina verbi), a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men; these are found in individuals and in the religious traditions of mankind." Semina verbi is a very ancient expression, coined by the church father St. Justin Martyr circa 150 A.D., which resurfaced in the documents of the Second Vatican Council to designate whatever is “true and holy" and divinely inspired in other religions.

With reference to Islam in particular, Catholics consider Muslims to be part of God's plan of salvation, as being brothers in the faith of Abraham who worship the same God as we do. This was first expressed, long ago, by Pope Gregory VII in a 1076 epistle to the Muslim king of Mauritania (which is referenced as an authority in Nostra Aetate):


On believing and confessing the one God, ‘although in different ways’

St. Gregory VII, Letter III, 21 to Anazir [Al-Nasir], King of Mauretania PL, 148.451A:

God, the Creator of all, without whom we cannot do or even think anything that is good, has inspired to your heart this act of kindness. He who enlightens all people coming in to the world [Jn 1.9] has enlightened your mind for this purpose. Almighty God, who desires all people to be saved [1 Tim 2.4] and none to perish, is well pleased to approve in us most of all that besides loving God people love others, and do not do to others anything they do not want to be done unto themselves [Mt 7.12].

We and you must show in a special way to the other nations an example of this charity, for we believe and confess one God, although in different ways, and praise and worship him daily as the creator of all ages and the ruler of this world. For the apostle says: ‘He is our peace who has made us but one’ [Eph 2.14]. Many among the Roman nobility, informed by us of this grace granted to you by God, greatly admire and praise your goodness and virtue …

God knows that we love you purely for his honor and that we desire your salvation and glory, both in the present and in the future life. And we pray in our hearts and with our lips that God may lead you to the abode of happiness, to the bosom of the holy patriarch Abraham, after long years of life here on earth.

(Cited in J. Neuner and J. Dupuis, eds., The Christian Faith in the Documents of the Catholic Church. Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 1982, 276–77)​

As Vatican II's constitution on the Church (1965) affirmed (in words that are doctrinally binding on Catholics):


Lumen gentium

In the first place we must recall the Jewish people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh.(125) On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues.(126) But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator.

In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things,(127) and as Saviour wills that all men be saved.(128)

Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.(19*) Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life.​

Both Hinduism and Islam are referred to, by name, in Nostra Aetate:


Nostra aetate

Thus in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. They seek freedom from the anguish of our human condition either through ascetical practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with love and trust....

Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways," comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men...

The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.

3. The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth,(5) who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.​

Thanks so much for spending the time for the above as I do very much appreciate it.

Even though I did attend mass as a non-Catholic prior to Vatican II, I would not have converted into Catholicism back then because it simply was way too parochial for me. I did look into it, but I had WAY too many questions. I still do, btw, but I can live with that, thus committing myself to do the best that I can. And as a scientist, not knowing some answers is where we expect to be on so many things, especially since one answer tends to lead to even more questions.

As you know, I have a real problem with the "my way or the highway" approach in theology. When one studies other denominations and religions in some depth, they pretty much all are logical if one buys into their basic premise, as they've had centuries to evolve and make cogent arguments.

Thus, the "bottom line" imo, is are we gonna take the position that only my religion has the Truth? I can't do that.

 

[Terry Sampson]

I can't do that.

Looks like you'd make a poor candidate for membership in the LDSofJC, JW Kingdom, and a good number of Lutheran Synods, right off the top of my head, eh?

• Strange Creeds of Christendom
  • Sunday morning session, October 8, 1972; Strange Creeds of Christendom, Elder LeGrand Richards, Of the Council of the Twelve
    • Pearl of Great Price - Joseph Smith: "19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”
    • Richards: "We would not want any of our nonmembers to be offended at this statement, but if Jesus did visit the Prophet Joseph Smith, and we know that he did, then his statement ought to be more authoritative than the statement of any other person in all the world, and yet right along with that come similar testimonies of leaders in other churches in the nation."
    • Richards: "We have that of which Peter spoke when he said, following the day of Pentecost, that the heavens must receive the Christ “until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” (Acts 3:21.) We are the only church in the world that claims such a restitution, and there is a great difference between a restitution and a reformation. We are not Catholics. We are not Protestants. We believe in a recommitment to this earth of God’s eternal truth."
• https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/wp20100601/How-Do-Jehovahs-Witnesses-View-Interfaith/
  • How Do Jehovah’s Witnesses View Interfaith?
    • "According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, there are some “10,000 distinct religions worldwide.” Because conflicts between them have led to untold hurt, the concept of interfaith brings hope to many worshippers. They believe that it can engender peace and unity in a divided world."
    • "The early Christians lived in a multicultural and multireligious world. Yet, when writing about the mingling of different religions, Paul asked: “What portion does a faithful person have with an unbeliever?” Then he warned Christians to “get out from among them.” (2 Corinthians 6:15, 17) Clearly, Paul was speaking against interfaith. Why did he do so?"
    • "The apostle explained that spiritual fellowship between one who is a true Christian and one who is not would be an uneven yoke, a misfit. (2 Corinthians 6:14) It could result only in harm to the Christian’s faith."
    • "What about today? Is the Bible’s warning against interfaith still valid? Yes, it is. This is because differing religious beliefs cannot bond through interfaith any more than oil and water can mix simply by putting them together in a pot. For instance, when people of different religions come together to pray for peace, which god is being petitioned? Christendom’s Trinitarian God? Hinduism’s Brahma? The Buddha? Or someone else?"

 

[Kenny]

So, is it "the prophetic veracity" or is it "a prophetic veracity"? IOW, iyo, is it possible that there could be "prophetic veracity" within other religions as well?

The Devil is making me do this, btw.

LOL... I don't want an 80% possibility and find myself thinking that the false 20% was true. I like the 100% security.

I remember when a friend said, "Ken, I set the alarm for 2 in the morning and write down what was in my thought... and it comes true. The other day I woke up wrote down, 'fender bender in the front' and it came to pass".

I thought for a minute and then asked... "what side". He smiled, well it was on the left side in the dream but it happened on the right side of the car". The devil is a liar from the beginning and the best lie is the one that looks the most like the truth. He was being led down a wrong path as he was seeking dreams instead of God.

 

[metis]

Looks you'd make a poor candidate for membership in the LDSofJC, JW Kingdom, and a good number of Lutheran Synods, right of the top of my head, eh?

You got dat right!

BTW, the church I left back in my mid 20's was a fundamentalist Lutheran church, but the irony is that they are quite liberal today-- ELCA.

 

[metis]

I don't want an 80% possibility and find myself thinking that the false 20% was true. I like the 100% security.

I'm not certain there much of anything within a religious context that's 100% certain. "Belief", yes; "certainty", not much with me.

The devil is a liar from the beginning and the best lie is the one that looks the most like the truth.

Hey, once in a while I tell the truth!

He was being led down a wrong path as he was seeking dreams instead of God.

The irony is that dreams used to be considered within many religious contexts to be a "window" ("visions") for us from God. I don't really believe that, especially with some of the dreams I've had. However, I never much believed in "premonitions" until...

 

[Terry Sampson]

BTW, the church I left back in my mid 20's was a fundamentalist Lutheran church, but the irony is that they are quite liberal today-- ELCA.

Ha! "fundamentalist"??? they were liberal heretics when they "rebelled against" the one true church (Missouri Synod) around 1970.
My father was a pastor in Missouri Synod and remained in it during the MS-ELCA split. He was opposed to the split and was deemed an "ELCA sympathizer" by his MS brethren and a "lukewarm MS proponent" by his former brethren among the ELCA rebels.
My brothers and I were in our late teens-early 20s when the split between the original ELCA and MS occurred. I well remember my father's grief over it.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

My question is, why is this so? Why not unify in some sort of way?

This is the big issue that all Faiths in God suffer from.

God gives the means for man to turn to God in a unity and peaceful worship, thereby bringing balance and security to this world and this requires sacrafice of selfish motives for the good of all.

Many men desire such power over their fellow men and their desires become their God, where they see they have a better way.

God's Word becomes a plaything for the ignorant and who wants to find out they have become ignorant? Thus the cycle continues.

Regards Tony

 

[Harel13]

This is the big issue that all Faiths in God suffer from.

Arguably, not all faiths in the same way that I described in my OP.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Arguably, not all faiths in the same way that I described in my OP.

I have heard Christians use the same argument, that they are One even though they are now divided under different Names.

So when is the One God divided?

Regards Tony

 

[Harel13]

I have heard Christians use the same argument, that they are One even though they are now divided under different Names.

Yeah, I was corrected on the matter by previous posters.

So when is the One God divided?

What are you talking about and what does it have to do with the thread's subject?

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Yeah, I was corrected on the matter by previous posters.

What are you talking about and what does it have to do with the thread's subject?

What is a true Christian? what is a true Jew? What is a true Muslim?

Would it be the Love of One God and living the laws given by God?

Is there a true Christian, Jew or Muslim without seeing God through all the Prophets?

Regards Tony

 

[ManSinha]

Virtually all Christians believe that God's historical covenant with Israel represents an unprecedented and 'special' revelation in the divine economy, not because it is the only communication between God and humanity (far from it the Noahide covenant precedes it while Abraham is to be the father of many nations, as the words attributed to St. Paul in the Book of Acts evidence:

Other than - as you know - the very embodiment of the Universe - Lord Krishna - speaking to Arjun on the Kurukshetra battlefield - revealing the Gita -

 

[Harel13]

What is a true Christian? what is a true Jew? What is a true Muslim?

Would it be the Love of One God and living the laws given by God?

Is there a true Christian, Jew or Muslim without seeing God through all the Prophets?

What do you mean? Each religion determines who is and who isn't a part of their religion.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

What do you mean? Each religion determines who is and who isn't a part of their religion.

Does God's given Messege exclude, or does it invite all?

Regards Tony

 

[Vouthon]

Even though I did attend mass as a non-Catholic prior to Vatican II, I would not have converted into Catholicism back then because it simply was way too parochial for me. I did look into it, but I had WAY too many questions. I still do, btw, but I can live with that, thus committing myself to do the best that I can. And as a scientist, not knowing some answers is where we expect to be on so many things, especially since one answer tends to lead to even more questions.

Honestly, that's the best attitude in my opinion.

Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, a 15th century theologian and in his day the most powerful office-holder in the church after Pope Pius II himself, wrote a book that made a big impression on me at a young age called: "The Catholic Concordance". Its at the root of the tag under my username "In varietate concordia". In this rather dense tome and his later volume De Docta Ignorantia, he forwards an idea that really appealed to me - philosophically speaking - to the effect that God (or ultimate reality, or the the physical laws of the universe, or mathematical forms or whatever one personally substitutes for this) should be understood as: "the coincidence of opposites" and that owing to this, the height of wisdom was a certain "learned ignorance" i.e.

Nicholas of Cusa on the Diversity of Religions


Nicholas of Cusa (1401-61), a fascinating figure in the Christian intellectual tradition. A native of Kues on the Mosel river, Cusa received his education at Heidelberg, Padua, and Cologne. Absorbing diverse intellectual influences, he owed a special debt to Neo-Platonic thought and to theologians such as Augustine, Bonaventure, and Meister Eckhart. At Padua and Cologne, he became familiar with the writings of Llull and studied the Catalonian’s corpus assiduously. Ordained a priest in 1426, Cusa experienced a meteoric career within the Church, becoming a Cardinal in 1448/49 as well as being appointed Bishop of Brixen in the Tyrolian Alps and a papal legate to German lands in 1450...

To Segovia, he once wrote that the solution to religious conflict should not be settled on the battlefield but through some sort of “dialogue” (colloquia).

Making sense of the diversity of human opinions, religious or otherwise, informs most of his later works, not least his famous Learned Ignorance (De Docta Ignorantia), completed in 1440. In it, he defended his two most celebrated principles, “docta ignorantia” and “conincidentia oppositorum.” The former—an awareness of human beings’ fundamental ignorance that, paradoxically, can only come from extensive learning–was the highest stage of wisdom accessible to the intellect, since truth is infinite and, for human minds, perpetually unknowable in its fullness. The road to truth therefore leads beyond reason and beyond Aristotle’s principle of non-contradiction; it is only in intuition that we can hope to glimpse God, in whom all contradictions meet. Such ideas were meant to chasten human pride and foster intellectual humility among people with diverse outlooks.

Vexed and saddened by religious divisions, he wrote and published in 1453 De Pace Fidei (“On the Peace of Faith”), based on a “vision” that he claimed to have experienced. In the vision, a number of angelic beings— “intellectual powers” –gathered before the throne of God lamenting violence done in the name of religion.” One figure, speaking for the others, addresses God as follows:

"...In God, absolute unity is absolute multiplicity, absolute identity is absolute diversity; absolute actuality is absolute potentiality.

You [God] sent the different nations different prophets and teachers, some at one time and others at another. However, it is a characteristic of the earthly human condition that a longstanding custom which is taken as having become nature is defended as truth. Thus not insignificant dissensions occur when each community prefers its faith to [that of] another.

Therefore, come to our aid . . . For each one desires . . . only the good which you are; no one is seeking with all his intellectual inquiry for anything other than the truth. . . ..

O Lord, be merciful and show your face. . .. It is you, O God, who is being sought in various religions in various ways, and named with various names. For you remain as you are, to all incomprehensible and inexpressible. When you will graciously grant it, then the sword and the bilious spite of hatred and all evil sufferings will cease...

Even though you acknowledge diverse religions, you all presuppose in all of this diversity the one, which you call wisdom...There can only be one wisdom. For if it were possible that there be several wisdoms, then these would have to be from one. Namely, unity is prior to all plurality. None of us doubts that it is one wisdom which we all love and because of which we are called philosophers.

Through participation in it there are many wise men, although this wisdom remains in itself simple and undivided. See how you, the philosophers of the various religious traditions, agree in the religion of one God whom you all presuppose, in that which as lovers of wisdom you profess...."​

 

[Harel13]

Does God's given Messege exclude, or does it invite all?

Regards Tony

Presumably invites all. But not necessarily in a manner this is for every individual's liking.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Presumably invites all. But not necessarily in a manner this is for every individual's liking.

I see it is all inclusive, unless we make it exclusive, by the way we assume God wants it to be.

In the end, we can live our Faith, but it should never cause disunity or give rise to prejudices against other Faiths, no Faith, Race, Gender or culture. But that has to be practiced as a whole, or that unity in a diversity will also not work.

Regards Tony