re: Actor Shia LeBeouf converts to Catholicism

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Did you skip the part about Peter, James, and John witnessing the spirits of Moses and Elijah conversing with Jesus at the transfiguration?

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Did you read the part where I said dead people hearing the prayers of living people? Any examples? Or did you guys just make all that stuff up, because some guy long after Jesus’ death thought that would be a cool idea to add?

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Did you read the part where I said dead people hearing the prayers of living people?

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So 2 dead people can physically appear and converse with a fully divine and fully human Jesus in front of 3 other fully human people, but those 2 dead people can't hear prayers?

Also scripture says that he is the God of the living, not the dead. So it's not dead people hearing prayer, unless you're claiming that he ceases to be our God once we get to Heaven...

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I'd say that if your points aren't clear, then you are failing at accomplishing what you set out to accomplish.

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They're unclear to you. As I said, I don't care about that. You've demonstrated repeatedly in the past that you aren't interested in good-faith discussion or having your mind changed.

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There's plenty of evidence for what I believe.

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There's evidence for some of what you believe. But, we'll eventually dig into it far enough, that there's nothing except your beliefs. And I don't care about those.

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A miraculous (non-normative) event is used to prove a rule?

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Did Jesus not prove the rule of his divinity through miracles?

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That’s a shame.

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And YOUR sham heretic religion invented by John Calvin, John Knox and Cranmer is the One True Faith, right?

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He appears to have joined himself to an organization that denies the sufficiency of faith in Christ’s atoning work on the cross for salvation.

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And YOUR sham religion was invented in Scotland, England, France and Switzerland.

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I don’t believe the claim you just made. God predestines both the ends of salvation and the means of it (through faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ).

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Martin Luther believed in Double Predestination. Very close to your heretic and unbiblical belief system.

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I believe that the canon was created by God, not men.

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Modern Protestant scholarship says you are dead wrong about this and admit that the canon comes from the Catholic Church. Much of your heretic theology is out of step with Mainstream Protestantism. You might as well be a Branch Davidian at this point, Foo.

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You can't have it both ways and that is what you seek or attempt to do. Your contention is that if you believe that you have Jesus' saving grace from the cross that's enough. Nothing else is necessary. Go sin, while you are at it, committ some mortal ones . What does it matter, you have Jesus' saving grace from the cross.

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This is the common response from Catholics, but it betrays an ignorance of the underlying reasoning for faith alone for salvation: the transformative work of the Spirit in regeneration.

Faith in Christ's work on the cross for you is the thing that receives the merits of Christ, but faith is not a work that is drummed up by the person doing the believing (which would make it a work of merit rather than an act of grace). Faith is a gift from God, given by the Spirit when He renews us and makes us alive where we once were spiritually dead.

If we are truly made alive, we will respond with good works and a desire for them. We will love God and the things of God. We will still battle with the flesh, but we will be able to do good works by faith when we are "born again".

A person who makes a practice of unrepentant sin has no reason to believe that he has been born again by the Spirit with a saving faith.

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You don't need to do squat. You have divine sanction. God already chose you so it does not matter what you do. You can claim to believe and do good works but it really is not necessary. That is the gist of the whole argument that Luther and later Calvin proposed. It's kind of lazy when you think about it. You contend the possession of the " Saving Faith" of Chris's merits on the cross will receive his merits and get you to eternal life.

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You Catholics are quick to point out how Protestants have "misinformation" regarding Catholicism while being equally quick to present ignorance of the opposing position. What you said is simply not what the Bible teaches, and it's not what the Reformers taught.

On the contrary, we believe that God is the one active in all aspects of our salvation and sanctification.

"And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." -1 Cor. 6:11

God is the one who saves, and He is the one who sanctifies, making us into the image of His son by the Spirit.

God saved people unto good works:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." -Eph. 2:8-10

The end result is this: If we were foreknown (foreloved) by God, then we will be predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. If we are predestined, then we will be called (by the Spirit). If we are called, then we will be justified. If we are justified, we will be glorified (in Heaven). This is found in Romans 8:29-31

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It's all so subjective. You believe it, soyou can chose to do good or you could chose to do nothing....does not matter, if you have the saving faith, you got carte blanche and a get out of hell for free card. Because as you said, so long as you really believe it then you are saved. I can be a odious person, indifferent to suffering, I can be Calvin and watch as people are killed but not necessarily do the deed himself as was the case with the Spaniard heretic Servetus. Blood could be on your hands and it is ok because you have the saving faith.

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A saving faith will result in the fruits of the Spirit, but even the fruits will not be perfectly ripe in all ways on earth. It won't be until we are glorified in Heaven that we will be free from the presence of sin. If we are one of God's elect, then we will show fruits.

If we are saved by Christ's blood, then we certainly do have a "get out of Hell free" card, but if we are truly saved, we will not want to to use that card as a liberty to sin against the one who saved us. If a person lives a life devoted to rebellion against God, that is an evidence that they do not have the Spirit, and therefore, they do not possess a saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Also, I find it interesting that Catholics especially point to the bloodlust of Calvin against Servetus (he had no such thing, as he warned Servetus to save himself by not coming to Geneva) when Servetus would have been burned by the Catholics in France if he stayed there and was captured. Is there no blood lust from the Inquisition? No blood lust from the Catholics who burned Protestants? This isn't a one-way street, you know. The world was a different place, where the Church and State were intertwined and it was a capital (civil) offense to be a heretic against the true faith, as was believed from place to place.