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Replying to Justin108]
Catholicism is hardly unique in this regard.
I was citing where and how from Scripture we know the Church was intended to be visible, which then automatically eliminates any religion that professes to be anti organized religion and believes “the church� is “within� us. So, that is one way to identify Christ’s Church on earth, but there are other requirements Christ’s Church must meet, which narrows down the eligible churches greatly and points to the uniqueness of the Catholic Church in meeting all the marks.
Scripture tells us how Christ’s Church must meet the four marks:
The Church Is One (Rom. 12:5, 1 Cor. 10:17, 12:13, CCC 813–822)
Jesus established only one Church, not a collection of differing churches (Lutheran, Baptist, Anglican, and so on). The Bible says the Church is the bride of Christ (Eph. 5:23–32). Jesus can have but one spouse, and his spouse is the Catholic Church.
His Church also teaches just one set of doctrines, which must be the same as those taught by the apostles (Jude 3). This is the unity of belief to which Scripture calls us (Phil. 1:27, 2:2).
The Church Is Holy (Eph. 5:25–27, Rev. 19:7–8, CCC 823–829)
By his grace Jesus makes the Church holy, just as he is holy. This doesn’t mean that each member is always holy. Jesus said there would be both good and bad members in the Church (John 6:70), and not all the members would go to heaven (Matt. 7:21–23).
But the Church itself is holy because it is the source of holiness and is the guardian of the special means of grace Jesus established, the sacraments (cf. Eph. 5:26).
The Church Is Catholic (Matt. 28:19–20, Rev. 5:9–10, CCC 830–856)
Jesus’ Church is called catholic ("universal" in Greek) because it is his gift to all people. He told his apostles to go throughout the world and make disciples of "all nations" (Matt. 28:19–20).
For 2,000 years the Catholic Church has carried out this mission, preaching the good news that Christ died for all men and that he wants all of us to be members of his universal family (Gal. 3:28).
Nowadays the Catholic Church is found in every country of the world and is still sending out missionaries to "make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19).
The Church Jesus established was known by its most common title, "the Catholic Church," at least as early as the year 107, when Ignatius of Antioch used that title to describe the one Church Jesus founded
The Church Is Apostolic (Eph. 2:19–20, CCC 857–865)
The Church Jesus founded is apostolic because he appointed the apostles to be the first leaders of the Church, and their successors were to be its future leaders. The apostles were the first bishops, and, since the first century, there has been an unbroken line of Catholic bishops faithfully handing on what the apostles taught the first Christians in Scripture and oral Tradition (2 Tim. 2:2).
Early Christian writings prove the first Christians were thoroughly Catholic in belief and practice and looked to the successors of the apostles as their leaders. What these first Christians believed is still believed by the Catholic Church. No other Church can make that claim.
https://www.catholic.com/tract/pillar-o ... r-of-truth
RightReason wrote:
Jesus promised, "I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). This means that his Church will never be destroyed and will never fall away from him. His Church will survive until his return.
Again, this is not unique to Catholicism.
Actually, it pretty much is. It points to the fact that Christ would not have established His Church, then left her hidden and dormant for awhile (remember "a city set on a hill cannot be hid" (Matt. 5:14)) and re invented 1000 years later . That would have meant Christ did not remain with His Church, which would make Him a liar.
RightReason wrote:
Among the Christian churches, only the Catholic Church has existed since the time of Jesus.
The first church was the church in Jerusalem in Acts 2:42-47. The true church consists of all true believers. The word church can refer to all true believers, individual congregations, or the churches of a particular region. However, there is no biblical basis for the "true church" in the Roman Catholic sense that excludes other genuine groups of believers.
As for the first congregation... Due to a variety of complex circumstances, the Western church, known today as the “Roman Catholic Church,� split from the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchates of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch in the 11th century. Roman Catholics, however, see it from the opposite perspective, namely that the Orthodox Church broke communion with the Roman Catholic Church.
In short, all of these churches are the "first" church as they all used to be one church.
You have that the other way around. The Eastern Orthodox split from the Catholic Church and they also deny the authority of the Pope, which is established in Scripture, so they can’t be Christ’s established Church. Also, keep in mind the Eastern Orthodox church split into 3 different sects (The Church of the East, The Oriental Orthodox Church, The Eastern Orthodox Church) – so which Eastern Orthodox church are you referring to? Their division alone and the inability to determine which of them can trace its roots back to the Church Christ established prove non of them can be Christ’s Church.
And centuries after the initial split/schism, all of these churches realized it was silly not to be in communion with Rome - and all of them rejoined the Catholic Church. Of course the result again was another split.
RightReason wrote:
Any merely human organization with such members would have collapsed early on.
Can you support that claim? Sounds like a blind assumption to me.
Read any history book. The Catholic Church looked like it was down and out many times, but continually remained standing. This isn’t an assumption. It’s a fact.
RightReason wrote:
Quote:
Does the Church not also teach that using contraceptives is immoral?
Of course. It is Scriptural, logical, and beautiful.
Can you perhaps explain this scriptural logic?
You know I can. Lots of logical, beautiful, Scriptural support . . .
In the creation account of Genesis, we find the beautiful truth, “God made man in His image; in the divine image He created him; male and female He created them� (Genesis 1:27). In this one verse, we find an intrinsic goodness and dignity to each human being. We also recognize a goodness to our human sexuality– both man and woman are made in God’s image and likeness, and both masculinity and femininity are equally good. Yes, man and woman are different– anatomically, physiologically, and even psychologically (as admitted by many psychologists, even “feminist� ones). These differences do not indicate inequality, instead complementarity.
In the next verse of Genesis (1:28), we read, “God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.'� Here is marriage, a God-given, God-designed institution. If we could think of the best way to realize that “image and likeness of God,� it would then be in marriage. In this sacred union, man and woman– each made in God’s image and likeness with their similarities and their uniqueness– come together as one.
The second creation account of Genesis reinforces this idea: Here, God takes the rib from the man to create “a suitable partner,� whom the man recognizes as “‘This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called ‘woman’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.’ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body� (2:23-24).
Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in the gospel affirmed the teaching of Genesis. When asked by the Pharisees about divorce, Jesus replied, “Have you not read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and declared, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become as one’? Thus, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, let no man separate what God has joined� (Matthew 19:3ff).
Given this basis in Sacred Scripture, we hold marriage as a sacrament in our Catholic belief. Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World (#47-52) spoke beautifully about marriage: Marriage is a partnership of life and love designed by God and endowed by Him with its own proper laws, with various benefits, and with various ends in view. Both husband and wife “surrender themselves to each other� and give their “irrevocable personal consent.� Marriage involves a mutual giving of two persons, which entails total fidelity and permanence.
Moreover, the love of husband and wife which binds them together as one overflows, and they may participate in creation, giving birth to children. Through the sacrament they live and the bountiful graces offered by our Lord, couples are fortified to fulfill their duties to each other and their family. As such, marriage is clearly the foundation of the family and the whole human race.
Therefore, we speak of marriage not as a contract but as a covenant. Just as God made a covenant of life and love with His people of the Old Testament through Abraham and Moses, just as Christ made the perfect, everlasting, and life-giving covenant through the blood of His cross, so marriage is a covenant, a permanent bonding of life and love. (For this reason, St. Paul frequently used the image of Christ and His Church in explaining the love of husband and wife (e.g. Ephesians 5:22ff).) Therefore, when a couple exchanges vows, they are promising a love of fidelity, permanence, exclusivity, and perpetuity to each other and God. Man and woman enter into a life-giving covenant with God as husband and wife.
Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae (#9) offered a beautiful reflection on this conjugal love of marriage. The Holy Father said that marital love is a genuinely human love, because it embraces the good of the whole person and is rooted in a free willed, giving of one spouse to the other. This love endures through joy and pain, success and failure, happiness and sorrow, uniting the couple in both body and soul. This love is also total– free of restriction, hesitation, or condition. This love is faithful and exclusive to both partners. In all, this love must be a mutually respectful action, a genuine expression of love. Unlike what is so often portrayed by the various media today, marital love is not some erotic action, rooted in selfishness, fleeting pleasure, or dominance. No, marital love is a sacred action which unites a couple with each other and God. The spirit of this teaching reflects what Jesus said at the Last Supper, “There is no greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends� (John 15:13).
Moreover, the act of marital love also participates in God’s creative love. The couple who has become a new creation by becoming husband and wife, one flesh, may also bring about the creation of new life in accord with God’s will.
Throughout sacred Scripture, we find the birth of children as a blessing from God and a sign of the living covenant between God and husband and wife. For example, Moses delivered the law of the covenant, declaring: “As your reward for heeding these decrees and observing them carefully, the Lord, your God, will keep with you the merciful covenant which He promised on oath to your fathers. He will love and bless and multiply you; He will bless the fruit of your womb and the produce of your soil, your grain and wine and oil, the issue of your herds and young of your flocks, in the land which He swore to your fathers He would give you. You will be blessed above all peoples; no man or woman among you shall be childless nor shall your livestock be barren� (Deuteronomy 7:12-14). Clearly life, fruitfulness, and fertility were cherished as goods granted by God.
Because of this decree and the understanding that the procreative aspect of marital love is a sacred gift, “barrenness� or infertility was a true cross to bear for a couple. For example, in the Old Testament, in the story of Hannah, wife of Elkanah, we read of how she grieved at not being able to have a child although she had a beautiful loving marriage. Sacred Scripture reads, “Hannah rose…, and presented herself before the Lord; at the time, Eli, the priest was sitting on a chair near the doorpost of the Lord’s temple. In her bitterness, she prayed to the Lord, weeping copiously, and she made a vow, promising, ‘Oh Lord of hosts, if you look with pity on the misery of your handmaid, if you remember me and do not forget me, if you give your handmaid a male child, I will give him to the Lord for as long as he lives; neither wine nor liquor shall he drink, and no razor shall ever touch his head� (I Sam 1:9-11). The Lord heard the plea of Hannah, and she conceived and bore a son, Samuel.
In the New Testament, we read the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah, who were “just in the eyes of God� and “upheld the commandments of the Lord.� However, in their old age, they remained childless. By God’s will, they conceived a child, John the Baptist. Elizabeth said, “In these days the Lord is acting on my behalf; He has seen fit to remove my reproach among men.� (Cf. Luke 1:5-25.) Following this line of thought, Vatican II asserted, “Indeed children are the supreme gift of marriage and greatly contribute to the good of the parents themselves� (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, #50).
Therefore, we must not separate the unitive dimension of marital love from the procreative. Both dimensions are intrinsically good. Both dimensions are inherent in the act of marriage. Even if a couple is infertile, the act of marriage still retains the character of being a communion of life and love. We must constantly keep in focus the covenant of life and love a couple shares with each other in union with God.
http://catholicstraightanswers.com/what ... raception/
Is contraception a modern invention? Hardly! Birth control has been around for millennia. Scrolls found in Egypt, dating to 1900 B.C., describe ancient methods of birth control that were later practiced in the Roman empire during the apostolic age. Wool that absorbed sperm, poisons that fumigated the uterus, potions, and other methods were used to prevent conception. In some centuries, even condoms were used (though made out of animal skin rather than latex).
The Bible mentions at least one form of contraception specifically and condemns it. Coitus interruptus, was used by Onan to avoid fulfilling his duty according to the ancient Jewish law of fathering children for one’s dead brother. "Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.’ But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him also" (Gen. 38:8–10).
The biblical penalty for not giving your brother’s widow children was public humiliation, not death (Deut. 25:7–10). But Onan received death as punishment for his crime. This means his crime was more than simply not fulfilling the duty of a brother-in-law. He lost his life because he violated natural law, as Jewish and Christian commentators have always understood. For this reason, certain forms of contraception have historically been known as "Onanism," after the man who practiced it, just as homosexuality has historically been known as "Sodomy," after the men of Sodom, who practiced that vice (cf. Gen. 19).
Contraception was so far outside the biblical mindset and so obviously wrong that it did not need the frequent condemnations other sins did. Scripture condemns the practice when it mentions it.
The biblical teaching that birth control is wrong is found even more explicitly among the Church Fathers, who recognized the biblical and natural law principles underlying the condemnation.
In A.D. 195, Clement of Alexandria wrote, "Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted" (The Instructor of Children 2:10:91:2).
Hippolytus of Rome wrote in 255 that "on account of their prominent ancestry and great property, the so-called faithful [certain Christian women who had affairs with male servants] want no children from slaves or lowborn commoners, [so] they use drugs of sterility or bind themselves tightly in order to expel a fetus which has already been engendered" (Refutation of All Heresies9:12).
Around 307 Lactantius explained that some "complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children, as though, in truth, their means were in [their] power . . . or God did not daily make the rich poor and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on any account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from relations with his wife" (Divine Institutes 6:20).
The apostolic tradition’s condemnation of contraception is so great that it was followed by Protestants until 1930 and was upheld by all key Protestant Reformers. Martin Luther said, "[T]he exceedingly foul deed of Onan, the basest of wretches . . . is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime. . . . Consequently, he deserved to be killed by God. He committed an evil deed. Therefore, God punished him."
John Calvin said, "The voluntary spilling of semen outside of intercourse between man and woman is a monstrous thing. Deliberately to withdraw from coitus in order that semen may fall on the ground is doubly monstrous. For this is to extinguish the hope of the race and to kill before he is born the hoped-for offspring."
Indeed, recent studies reveal a far greater divorce rate in marriages in which contraception is regularly practiced than in those marriages where it is not.
https://www.catholic.com/tract/birth-control
For around 30 years, researchers have studied how having children affects a marriage, and the results are conclusive: the relationship between spouses suffers once kids come along. Comparing couples with and without children, researchers found that the rate of the decline in relationship satisfaction is nearly twice as steep for couples who have children than for childless couples.
http://fortune.com/2016/05/09/mothers-m ... arenthood/
Seems as though having children (i.e, not using contraceptives) is more harmful to the spouses than using contraceptives. Frankly I don't see how using contraceptives can in any way be harmful to spouses. Can you explain?
You left out this little tid bit from the article you linked:
Despite the dismal picture of motherhood painted by researchers like me (sorry Mom), most mothers (and fathers) rate parenting as their greatest joy. Much like childbirth, where nearly all mothers believe the pain and suffering was worth it, most mothers believe the rewards of watching their children grow up is worth the cost to their romantic relationships.
http://fortune.com/2016/05/09/mothers-m ... arenthood/
Your article also mentions those who have more children are less likely to get divorced. Of course the bias author then chooses to add some comment about misery loving company.
Also, your article ignores the bigger picture . . .
As the contraceptive pill became more and more available, divorce became more and more popular. In about 1975-1976 when about every woman who wanted access to the pill had it, that's when the divorce rate leveled off.
https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/2 ... whynot.htm
You also ignore that contraception in general has proven bad for women and marriage. This is evident even from a public health perspective. So before we all hail contraception, let’s not ignore its harm and overall effect on one’s “happiness�
If the basic purpose of sex is procreation, why is it so pleasurable?
You didn’t read the full excerpt. The sexual act is unitive in nature. It has both pleasure and procreative function. The Church simply acknowledges our understanding of nature and the human body clearly shows the primary function/purpose of the sexual act is procreative. It’s why males produce sperm, women ovulate, women have breasts that produce milk to nourish a baby, women have wombs, etc. Fertility is a natural, healthy part of the lives of men and women. It is not something that needs tweaked, fixed, altered, or stopped.
Either God wants us to
a) have over a dozen children and a constantly pregnant wife
Not always the way it works. A woman’s fertility is limited. Women only ovulate once a month and even if timed perfectly there is only a 25% chance of conception any given month and that decreases every year the woman ages. Also, ecological breast feeding acts as a natural ovulation suppressor often making it highly unlikely a woman conceive while still nursing – this (gee almost as if God thought of it) makes a quite beautiful spacing of 2-3 years between children.
b) be sexually frustrated because we're not allowed to have sex if we don't want more children
Not the way it works. God gave us brains and a woman’s cycle is not rocket science. It would be more than easy to abstain from sex a couple of days out of the month if one had serious reason for needing to avoid pregnancy.
Does this logic apply to other sexual acts such as oral sex?
Kissing, touching, rubbing, sucking are all awesome parts of the sexual act, but should always be performed with allowing the culmination of the sexual act to result in keeping with God’s plan and purpose.
