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by sqircles
62 days ago
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I'm not speaking to your personal salvation. I'm speaking in context of what the Catholic Church teaches is required for salvation, as that is the context of this comment thread - take that as you will. The Church (big C, as in the Catholic Church) teaches "infallibly," so if you are a Catholic it really is not up for debate, that there is no salvation outside of Christ AND the Church. That includes the 5 precepts of the Catholic Church - or minimum "laws" you must follow as a Catholic, 4 of which are dependent on the Church itself: attending Mass on Sundays/Holy Days, annual confession at a minimum, receiving Eucharist during Easter, observe fasting/abstaining days, and providing for the Church's needs. Therefore, quite simply, if a Catholic makes the statement "I develop my relationship with god in a way that is helped by worship through the church, but is not dependent on it" that is a direct conflict [0]. I'm not even sure from what position you are arguing from, but both of those statements (relationship with God supported by a visible church rather than requiring it, and Matthew 18:20) are fundamental arguments for Protestantism. [0] https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-there-re... |
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If we can agree on that we are closer than you might think. And when I said "not dependent on the church" i was referring not to what I just defined above, but rather what in my head i figured (perhaps wrongly) you were more narrowly referring to.
To continue, at risk of muddying the waters that might have just cleared a little, the nature of the church (a divine mystery) is such that it can be known experientially while never being fully exhausted by human understanding