sin

hi i was wondering what anyone thinks of this....i find it extremely hard to think of myself as mired in sin and awaiting salvation but if you truly believed your faith that what you have to believe..so can i really call my self a catholic?

Asiaprod

mariaalice wrote:

hi i was wondering what anyone thinks of this....i find it extremely hard to think of myself as mired in sin and awaiting salvation but if you truly believed your faith that what you have to believe..so can i really call my self a catholic?

Hum, I am not sure that just being mired in sin and awaiting salvation makes anyone a Catholic. Sin and salvation applies to all branches of Christianity. It is in your other beliefs that you are deemed to be a Catholic. For example, your positioning on Mary and was she really a virgin.

mr_angry

Tbh, pretty much anything you do wrong can be loosely defined as sin. And, unless you're some kind of saint, its quite likely that you do the odd bad thing from time to time, as do we all. Mired in sin? Yeah, it doesn't seem quite so unlikely.

As for awaiting salvation... that really depends on your own perspective. It implies that you believe someone can absolve you of your sins, and that pretty much comes down to a belief in God, and that salvation is based on your ability to resist and apologise for sin.

i have two point to make..my ex Bf gave the catechism of the catholic church as a present for Christmas ( i got other presents as well ) i have been reading it and i have come to the conclusion that most people don't have a real understanding of what they believe re sin and salvation. Salvation is central to Christin beliefs and i don't have a problem with it...but i do have a problem with the Christin idea of sin.

Asiaprod

mariaalice wrote:

...but i do have a problem with the Christin idea of sin.

It would help if you we to give us your interpretation of how you see the Christian idea of Sin

i don't have a personal interpretation of the catholic idea of sin but reading the catholic catechism "After the first sin the world is virtually inundated by sin" catechism of the catholic church published by veritas

staple

As another Catholic, I too find this concept quite difficult. This question came up not so long ago, and Excelsior has some very articulate things to say about it. Unfortunately, I can't find the posts to link to now. Can anyone help?

From what I recall of his posts, relative to God, we are all steeped in sin, and that's what you're asked to accept. You won't live a perfect life by the choices you make, you will fall down. You then need God's grace to achieve salvation. God's grace is available to all. You can make lots of good choices and be basically a decent individual, but you'll still end up doing lots of selfish things. Do you find that acceptable?

On the question of denomination, this is something I thought was stressed more in protestantism; protestant emphasis on 'justified by faith alone', catholic emphasis on acts and sacraments. I think Martin Luther was living a very ascetic life, trying very hard to do enough to earn a place in heaven when he realized he never could do enough, and it is through faith and accepting God that we are saved, not by acts of penance. It is, as Maria Alice points out, not an exclusively protestant idea. I think Christians of most denominations believe that faith and works are both necessary.

Finally, what makes you a Catholic is belief in God, Christ's divinity and all those other things in the Nicene Creed. Certainly, what divides protestants from Catholics (transubstantiation, the virgin Mary, the papacy) get more attention but they are not therefore more important.

Excelsior

staple wrote:

As another Catholic, I too find this concept quite difficult. This question came up not so long ago, and Excelsior has some very articulate things to say about it. Unfortunately, I can't find the posts to link to now. Can anyone help?

Put a dictaphone by my bed. I talk this stuff in my sleep at this point.

If I can put on my "I'll be a real theologian someday soon" hat, sin is technically defined as missing the mark. Most people think that sin is doing something wrong. (Most people also think they understand Jesus ) But the way that God looks at it is far more complex and rich than that. He isn't after a cold list of good deeds and an empty list of bad things. What he passionately wants is to see people with a heart committed to bringing about his peace, his vision of dignity and community for all men. So whenever we don't hit the bullseye in intention or end result, that is sin. What this means is that all of us are sinners and there is very little in the world that isn't infected by this sin.

Staple wrote:

On the question of denomination, this is something I thought was stressed more in protestantism; protestant emphasis on 'justified by faith alone', catholic emphasis on acts and sacraments. I think Martin Luther was living a very ascetic life, trying very hard to do enough to earn a place in heaven when he realized he never could do enough, and it is through faith and accepting God that we are saved, not by acts of penance. It is, as Maria Alice points out, not an exclusively protestant idea. I think Christians of most denominations believe that faith and works are both necessary.

All the four major branches of Christianity (oldest to youngest: Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism and Pentecostalism) all hold almost the exact same position on the question of faith versus works. But they each have different ways of expressing it and they are each, to varying degrees, absolutely sure that their way is the RIGHT WAY! This view can be expressed thusly:

We can be reconciled to God through faith in the actions of Jesus and through that reconciliation we are liberated to work for our fellow man in the mission God has planned for us from before the beginning.

Luther and the counter-reformation and all that lark is mired in political debates and social upheavals no longer relevant to our setting. The Catholic Church, thank God, has undergone its own (incomplete) reformation in Vatican II and the distinction between Protestant and Catholic is no longer doctrinal on any of the central matters of Christianity.

Staple wrote:

Finally, what makes you a Catholic is belief in God, Christ's divinity and all those other things in the Nicene Creed. Certainly, what divides protestants from Catholics (transubstantiation, the virgin Mary, the papacy) get more attention but they are not therefore more important.

I can totally agree with where you are going on this. Roman Catholic and Protestant (Evangelical) theology believe that God is the Creator, God is Trinitarian, that human beings are rebels against God, that the rebellion has ended because of Jesus, that faith is how we enter into this new covenant and that faith is how we set about doing the works prepared for us and that there will come a time when Jesus returns. So what I would love to see is a day when we can put away precise labels like Evangelical, Roman Catholic, Paleo-orthodox, Hyper-Calvinistic, Brethern, Pentecostal, and so on and be content with our true identity: as simple Christians.