Ok...thanks to Grant, I feel I need to state my position on whether I believe Catholics will go to heaven. I do believe that Catholics will go to heaven, though just by being part of the Catholic Church does not achieve heaven. Basically, if you believe that Jesus Christ is God, died for your sins, offers you a righteous standing before God and you continue to believe that way until death, then you will go to heaven. To clarify my statement about the Church: if I join the Catholic Church and don't trust Christ as my Savior, simply being a member of the Church just looks good on the resume I'll turn into Satan at the gates of Hell.
I have 4 main conflicts with the Catholic beliefs, but I've finally come to just leave it all alone since I get so blasted mad at them. But just for kicks and giggles (and to stir up the water, possibly), here are my 4 big "beefs" with the Catholic Church:
1) The Marian Doctrines:
- Mary is the Mother of God: (I'll give my synopsis thoughts at the end)
- Mary is the Mother of All Christians
- Mary was Assumed into Heaven (did not die, just got snatched up)
- Mary Queen of Heaven (the "woman" referred to in Revelation 12:1-6)
- The Immaculate Conception: Mary was born without sin and never sinned
- Mary the Mediatrix: basically that she has a role in redemption. This is still disputed within the Church and not fully accepted to my knowledge
- Perpetual Virginity: she never had sex and remains a virgins eternally.
- The Second Eve: basically that Jesus was the Second Adam, and Mary was the 2nd Eve. Their logic makes sense (Eve was in the garden, too, therefore there MUST be a 2nd Eve!!!), but is not supported by Scripture.
My synopsis: utter bull crap on all points. To me, this is flat out heresy.
2) Doctrine of Justification by Grace & Works: you will need to scroll down about halfway to get the Catholic view of Justification, as the article begins with the "wrong" view (Protestant). Basically, that salvation through faith alone by grace alone is not sufficient for salvation and that works are REQUIRED for salvation. On this point, at the surface level, both parties (Catholics / Protestants) look like they agree: works are a naturally outflowing of the salvation you possess. However, when you look deeper into the Catholic Catechism, you'll see an ever-growing divide between the two doctrines.
3) Purgatory: that's crap through and through. The Scripture tells us we are justified by God and stand unaccused before the Throne of God. If, then, we are required to purify ourselves in Purgatory after death, then God is a liar and our faith is worthless. What a weak God we would serve if Purgatory we true.
4) Transubstantiation: Basically, that during communion, the bread literally becomes the flesh of Christ, and the wine literally becomes the blood of Christ. I'm not so hugely opposed to this one, as they can make a decent argument for the practice. However, it's amazing to me they use the same Bible as we do: haven't they read Hebrews 9???? (specifically chapter 9, emphasis on verses 23-27).
Those are my main disagreements with the Catholic Church. Now, I believe you can see these points as TRUE and still go to heaven (if you have your faith and trust established in Christ). However, these are just things that get in the way of the Christian life.
I'm open to ridicule if one sees fit, but this is the way I (and a few others...roughly everyone not Catholic) interpret the Holy Word of God.
3 Comments
Published by John Nelson
on February 09, 2005 at 3:06 PM.
I have 4 main conflicts with the Catholic beliefs, but I've finally come to just leave it all alone since I get so blasted mad at them. But just for kicks and giggles (and to stir up the water, possibly), here are my 4 big "beefs" with the Catholic Church:
1) The Marian Doctrines:
- Mary is the Mother of God: (I'll give my synopsis thoughts at the end)
- Mary is the Mother of All Christians
- Mary was Assumed into Heaven (did not die, just got snatched up)
- Mary Queen of Heaven (the "woman" referred to in Revelation 12:1-6)
- The Immaculate Conception: Mary was born without sin and never sinned
- Mary the Mediatrix: basically that she has a role in redemption. This is still disputed within the Church and not fully accepted to my knowledge
- Perpetual Virginity: she never had sex and remains a virgins eternally.
- The Second Eve: basically that Jesus was the Second Adam, and Mary was the 2nd Eve. Their logic makes sense (Eve was in the garden, too, therefore there MUST be a 2nd Eve!!!), but is not supported by Scripture.
My synopsis: utter bull crap on all points. To me, this is flat out heresy.
2) Doctrine of Justification by Grace & Works: you will need to scroll down about halfway to get the Catholic view of Justification, as the article begins with the "wrong" view (Protestant). Basically, that salvation through faith alone by grace alone is not sufficient for salvation and that works are REQUIRED for salvation. On this point, at the surface level, both parties (Catholics / Protestants) look like they agree: works are a naturally outflowing of the salvation you possess. However, when you look deeper into the Catholic Catechism, you'll see an ever-growing divide between the two doctrines.
3) Purgatory: that's crap through and through. The Scripture tells us we are justified by God and stand unaccused before the Throne of God. If, then, we are required to purify ourselves in Purgatory after death, then God is a liar and our faith is worthless. What a weak God we would serve if Purgatory we true.
4) Transubstantiation: Basically, that during communion, the bread literally becomes the flesh of Christ, and the wine literally becomes the blood of Christ. I'm not so hugely opposed to this one, as they can make a decent argument for the practice. However, it's amazing to me they use the same Bible as we do: haven't they read Hebrews 9???? (specifically chapter 9, emphasis on verses 23-27).
Those are my main disagreements with the Catholic Church. Now, I believe you can see these points as TRUE and still go to heaven (if you have your faith and trust established in Christ). However, these are just things that get in the way of the Christian life.
I'm open to ridicule if one sees fit, but this is the way I (and a few others...roughly everyone not Catholic) interpret the Holy Word of God.
DANG!!!!! That's a freakin' post, right there, I tell you what!!! You know, if you had posted this a month ago - you might have won Best Evangelical Anti-Catholic Blog for 2005.
Seriously - nice work. "Utter Bull crap" is a wonderful play on words AND accurately depicts the Marian Doctrines.
I have less of a prob with the transubstantiation, but the rest of it looks all good.
Yeah...you hit on one of my biggest soapboxes that I had in storage. It's kinda nice to pull it out once in a while, but it's a good feeling to put it back into storage, too. In the recent past, I really stood on that soapbox and yelled a lot. My motivation was more or righteous indignation rather than love for my Catholic brothers, so after a lot of prayer, I put it away and focused on loving instead of yelling.
I do admit, Transubstantiation is the least of a lot of my concerns. There are several Scriptures that CAN be interpreted as having the Real Presence of Christ in Communion. However, my main issue is that the Scripture they use (John 6:53) contradicts the Law given to Moses about drinking blood and eating uncooked food. If you take His statement literally, then there exists a contradiction in commands of God (1: don't eat uncooked food and 2: don't drink the blood of any animal). And if that is true, then God flip flopped on the issue. God set up the Law to show us we're sinful and to point us toward Christ. If you believe that to be true, then a flip flop on these commands would shatter His credibility and overall plan. Therefore, I don't believe transubstantiation is Biblical. However, I can see the point Catholicism makes for the case of the Real Presence and it is less of a friction point for me.
In retrospect, I should have used Apostolic Succession as my 4th point of disagreement with Catholic doctrine. But I've put the soapbox in storage, so we'll save that one for a later date.
Here's a good breakdownof how transubstantiation is unbiblical.
Though some of the arguments appear to be pretty far fetched, there are a couple of points that are pretty hard to deny.