Daniel - I'm appreciating your posts because the theme is a good way to help us understand how you've been thinking. Your comments here about Dr. Hahn carrying his reformed attitude with him into the Roman church reminds me of how I am sometimes aware that my Anglicanism and my interaction with the Roman church (e.g., frustration over Mary's Assumption) have that reformed shape to them. I was a Bible reader before I found out I was reformed, btw, which is why my first reaction to things is not what some reformed confession or theologian says about anything, but what the Bible says. And while I want to have as much respect for and listen to the traditions of the Church, if I hear or read something that I know the Bible does not go along with - I'm sorry, but I just can't go along with it. I don't like the individualism inherent in that; I want to be as catholic as I can, I believe I do avoid private interpretation, but there it is. Blessings.
Thanks for reading and posting a comment! Appreciate you taking the time. I definitely think there is a sense in which someone becomes a better "protestant" when they become Catholic.
That said, I understand your view on the Assumption. It was a hurdle for me as well. I told a friend, who had a different issue with the Catholic church, when someone converts, there is going to be something in the Church that only God can get them over. The assumption didn't bother me as much, as he Eucharist. That was the big one for me. But before I read your comment, yesterday I was toying with the idea that I should swap one of the books with Jewish Roots of Mary by Brant Pitre. Those books are excellent.
Ha! I actually have a harder time with the Immaculate Conception, Perpetual Virginity, and the Assumption than with transubstantiation! :-) At least there's something in the Bible that you can argue from: "This is my Body; This is my Blood." I'll have to check out Pitre. I've no problems giving honour to Mary; but we don't have to make her another pre-lapsarian Eve in order for Christ to be perfectly sinless. See St. Thomas on that. And there is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. etc. I think the idea of her being rewarded as other women like her were rewarded in the past (e.g. Hannah), with a large happy family, has a wholesome beauty about it. There's also biblical indication in that direction. So! Yep. Give me transubstantiation any day. :-)
Yes, I agree that the Eucharist is a easier Biblically. But I don't think that Christians are irrational for believing that miracles like the Assumption happened even if there is no explicit mention of them. Similarly, I think that miracles around the life of Maximilian Kolbe and the miracles like Tammy Peterson getting healed after praying a Rosary are good reasons to think some of these, what appear to be "extrabiblical" things, are true even if they don't have "proof texts".
There is a debate I received from a Protestant friend of mine on sola Scriptura that I found very good representation from both sides. I hope to write some on this subject myself in coming months on the parallels between modern Protestantism and Cartesianism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7qdPSHSJk&t=3690s
Pitre gets into the Biblical arguments from a Jewish perspective, and I found them compelling. I also think the Typologies for Mary as the New Ark of the Covenant are amazing. One thing I think is true is that modern Chrisitans have lost almost all sense the Jewishness of Christianity, which I think Pitre does a good job highlighting.
The more we recognize the Jewishness of the Faith the better; just as long as we don't slip into Judaizing - which some people have; I knew one in Israel.
Daniel - I'm appreciating your posts because the theme is a good way to help us understand how you've been thinking. Your comments here about Dr. Hahn carrying his reformed attitude with him into the Roman church reminds me of how I am sometimes aware that my Anglicanism and my interaction with the Roman church (e.g., frustration over Mary's Assumption) have that reformed shape to them. I was a Bible reader before I found out I was reformed, btw, which is why my first reaction to things is not what some reformed confession or theologian says about anything, but what the Bible says. And while I want to have as much respect for and listen to the traditions of the Church, if I hear or read something that I know the Bible does not go along with - I'm sorry, but I just can't go along with it. I don't like the individualism inherent in that; I want to be as catholic as I can, I believe I do avoid private interpretation, but there it is. Blessings.
Thanks for reading and posting a comment! Appreciate you taking the time. I definitely think there is a sense in which someone becomes a better "protestant" when they become Catholic.
That said, I understand your view on the Assumption. It was a hurdle for me as well. I told a friend, who had a different issue with the Catholic church, when someone converts, there is going to be something in the Church that only God can get them over. The assumption didn't bother me as much, as he Eucharist. That was the big one for me. But before I read your comment, yesterday I was toying with the idea that I should swap one of the books with Jewish Roots of Mary by Brant Pitre. Those books are excellent.
Ha! I actually have a harder time with the Immaculate Conception, Perpetual Virginity, and the Assumption than with transubstantiation! :-) At least there's something in the Bible that you can argue from: "This is my Body; This is my Blood." I'll have to check out Pitre. I've no problems giving honour to Mary; but we don't have to make her another pre-lapsarian Eve in order for Christ to be perfectly sinless. See St. Thomas on that. And there is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. etc. I think the idea of her being rewarded as other women like her were rewarded in the past (e.g. Hannah), with a large happy family, has a wholesome beauty about it. There's also biblical indication in that direction. So! Yep. Give me transubstantiation any day. :-)
Yes, I agree that the Eucharist is a easier Biblically. But I don't think that Christians are irrational for believing that miracles like the Assumption happened even if there is no explicit mention of them. Similarly, I think that miracles around the life of Maximilian Kolbe and the miracles like Tammy Peterson getting healed after praying a Rosary are good reasons to think some of these, what appear to be "extrabiblical" things, are true even if they don't have "proof texts".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4uWemSfpwk
There is a debate I received from a Protestant friend of mine on sola Scriptura that I found very good representation from both sides. I hope to write some on this subject myself in coming months on the parallels between modern Protestantism and Cartesianism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7qdPSHSJk&t=3690s
Pitre gets into the Biblical arguments from a Jewish perspective, and I found them compelling. I also think the Typologies for Mary as the New Ark of the Covenant are amazing. One thing I think is true is that modern Chrisitans have lost almost all sense the Jewishness of Christianity, which I think Pitre does a good job highlighting.
The more we recognize the Jewishness of the Faith the better; just as long as we don't slip into Judaizing - which some people have; I knew one in Israel.
Not familiar with the term “Judaizing”. Meaning, things like reinstatement of dietary laws and things like that?
Yes. It's the problem st. Paul addresses in galatians.
Yes, ok I’m tracking now. We had Dr. Michael Brown come and speak on that very issue. He’s a Charismatic Jewish convert.