re: Did you attend Church today?

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Do you know the Catholic Church or our forebears assembled the written scripture as the New Testament (New Covenant)? It did not fall out of the sky. The scripture you read today was chosen by early Catholic leaders in the first few centuries AD.

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This is not true. It wasn't "chosen", but "received". It's not like there was a table with 500 writings on it and the leaders of the Church took a vote on which ones were in and which were out.

That which was Scripture was received by the Church, and those writings that came about after the first century did not bear the marks of Scripture, so the Church rejected those.

Also, there was not an ecumenical council that defined the canon as the canon until the Council of Trent in the 1500s.

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I'm not disagreeing with your post, but I want you to realize that you didn't quote the Bible. You used your intellect and judgment to summarize what you think the true gospel of Jesus is.

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I didn't quote the Bible because this is a discussion forum and I'm attempting to summarize what the Bible teaches. It also doesn't lend itself to conversation to only quote the Bible. I support my statements with the Bible as needed, and I would do so to you if you desired it.

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You have made yourself the authority on all things salvation.

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I have not. The Bible is the authority on all things salvation. I believe what it teaches and attempt to explain it to others. I am most certainly not the authority, which is why if you wanted me to prove what I said, I would provide a biblical defense from the Scriptures rather than appealing to myself or other men as the authority, as the RCC does.

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The Catholic Church believes everything you just wrote and you call us heretics and not Christian for holding true everything you just wrote as the only thing that matters.

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I don't agree that the RCC believes exactly what I said, at least by itself. The RCC adds to what I said, in that we must also do good works and participate in the sacramental system, and even go through purgation of sin after death before one can enter into Heaven forever. I didn't include any of that because I don't believe the Bible teaches that.

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has anybody called the lesbian infallible?

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Neither Leo nor Francis ever spoke infallibly. They are human and entitled to their own (frequently wrong) political opinions.

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How does "good works" (which you time and time again misrepresent the teachings of the CC on) and sacraments have to do with believing "That Jesus is the Son of God who came into the world, taking on a human nature, to obey the requirements of the law of God in our place and die a sinner's death to remove God's wrath against our sin and grant us His perfect righteousness, so we can (and do) have peace with God and live with Him forever."?

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Here is how: Rome doesn't teach that merely believing that Jesus did these things takes away God's wrath against our sin, grants us His perfect righteousness, and gives us peace with God so that we can live with Him forever.

Rome says that that statement is not enough, and that we must have additional merit in order to have forgiveness from sins, and we need to be completely purged of all unrighteousness beyond what Jesus did in order to enter Heaven. We also cannot be sure we have peace with God, because we could lose our salvation and suffer God's wrath by leaving a state of grace through mortal sin.

These are important points that fly in the face of the statement I made. If a Catholic affirms what I said but also believes that other things are needed, then they aren't actually agreeing with me.

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By your own definition Catholics are Christians with extra steps. So you don't even believe your own definition of salvation. Gotcha.

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I do believe the Bible's teaching on salvation (not my own definition), and the "extra steps" are exactly what makes me say that the RCC doesn't teach the gospel. The gospel, by itself, is good news, and if you aren't truly saved by the gospel alone (as I summarized the Bible on it), then it isn't good news. The good news comes from other things, like receiving the sacraments and doing good works in addition to having faith in what Jesus did.

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Here is how: Rome doesn't teach that merely believing that Jesus did these things takes away God's wrath against our sin, grants us His perfect righteousness, and gives us peace with God so that we can live with Him forever.

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It does bro. We still have free will. We can still choose to not follow Jesus. Sin still exists. Nowhere in the Bible does it say sin is gone. Jesus’ entire ministry was how we should live and follow God’s will. Why teach anything if just believing He existed is all that’s required? He never said “just believe in me”. He said many times “follow me”. That’s an action. It’s not the Works that save us. It’s actions that prove our faith. So yes, the Catholic Church 100% holds that belief in Jesus is what takes away God’s wrath against our sins.

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These are important points that fly in the face of the statement I made. If a Catholic affirms what I said but also believes that other things are needed, then they aren't actually agreeing with me.

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This statement is very silly. Even if I grant everything you’ve said is correct. If you say all that is needed is A and someone does A + B, they have fulfilled your requirements.

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I get the feeling there are people out there that feel the Scripture just appeared.

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It did, sort of. It depends on what someone means by "appeared". Scripture is God's revelation given to men, written down for posterity. A book of Scripture "appeared" as soon as it was completed as a writing, whether that was Genesis or Revelation. It's appearance coincided with the completion of the writing by its human author, based on the direction of God as the ultimate author. It didn't fall out of the sky, as you said, but it did have divine authorship in a point in time.

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It is in fact at first an oral history of the early church and Christ. It was later brought into writing whether through actual apostles (Matthew, John), Paul or those (Luke, et.al.) who knew them and wrote it down. It is Christ's "story" and his teachings.

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Again, "sort of". All of the teachings of Scripture are Christ's teachings in the sense that Christ, in His divine nature, is God, and God is the author of Scripture. It is true for the Old Testament as it is for the New Testament, where men were guided by the Spirit to write what God intended for His people to know.

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And there were "wise men" who had to decide what was to become canon and writings that were not.

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Again, "sort of". When you and others say that "wise men" had to decide what was to become canon, it wasn't like you are implying: that there were many books that could have been equally canonical in the wrong hands and that those men had to just figure it out.

No, the Church had the pedigree of the Scriptural writings from when they were first written and distributed. The chain of custody existed early on, and that which was Scripture had marks that distinguished it from other writings, so that the Church knew early on what was and wasn't God's Word, with a few outliers. Those writings, like the gnostic gospels, which were rejected by the Church were rejected because they were obviously false, both in their lateness of being delivered to the Church, and the content of their writings not having God's fingerprints on them, if you will.

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Because all writings came after the death of Christ. It did not fall into our hands. There was work involved. And it was these men who decided upon canon and their successors who then carefully guarded the Scripture against heretical movements even way back in the early centuries (Magisterium). And it remains canon to this day because it has been preserved, faithfully. And yet, we still have offshoots who want to change it.

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What Protestants like myself argue is that the canon was created and preserved by God through the reception of it in the broad Church, and that God's Word is self-authenticating, rather than being like any other document that men must make a decision about. The difference is that Protestants believe the authority of the canon is from God, not from man, while the RCC teaches that the canon is only the canon because of the authority of the Church to declare that it is such.

First, another thread unrelated to Catholicism turns into a Catholic debate.

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Also, there was not an ecumenical council that defined the canon as the canon until the Council of Trent in the 1500s.

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Second, just because the Church defined the canon of Scripture authoritatively in an ecumenical council in the 1500s doesn't mean that it invented the canon then. Rather, it responded to the Protestant claim that there are 66 books, not 73.

Take, for example, the Council of Nicaea, which rejected Arianism. Did the Church, up to that point, not teach the divinity of Jesus and then suddenly invent it in 325 AD? No, rather, in response to a widespread heresy, it reaffirmed what it had already taught, namely, what the scriptures taught. That Jesus is fully God.

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It does bro. We still have free will. We can still choose to not follow Jesus. Sin still exists. Nowhere in the Bible does it say sin is gone. Jesus’ entire ministry was how we should live and follow God’s will. Why teach anything if just believing He existed is all that’s required? He never said “just believe in me”. He said many times “follow me”. That’s an action. It’s not the Works that save us. It’s actions that prove our faith. So yes, the Catholic Church 100% holds that belief in Jesus is what takes away God’s wrath against our sins.

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Instead of going line by line and showing how your understanding is incorrect, I'll just say that the RCC does not mean by the words I used what I mean, and what I believe the Bible means by them. I'd be happy to elaborate if you'd like.

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This statement is very silly. Even if I grant everything you’ve said is correct. If you say all that is needed is A and someone does A + B, they have fulfilled your requirements.

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It's not silly. If trusting in Christ alone to save you from your sins is a necessity to be forgiven and saved, and that trusting in anything else (like your own works) actually means you are not trusting in Jesus alone, then by adding to Christ, you're subtracting from Him.

If we are saved by grace alone, then adding works to it destroys grace, because grace isn't grace if we are rewarded based on merit. You can't add works to grace without destroying grace. That's my point.

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First, another thread unrelated to Catholicism turns into a Catholic debate.

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Yeah, that happens around here. At least it wasn't my fault this time

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Second, just because the Church defined the canon of Scripture authoritatively in an ecumenical council in the 1500s doesn't mean that it invented the canon then. Rather, it responded to the Protestant claim that there are 66 books, not 73.

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There were faithful Catholics who disagreed that the Deuterocanonical books were authoritative canonical Scripture, though. That was debated all throughout church history, as there were two tiers of "Scripture" that were used by the early church fathers. Jerome was a primary contributor to producing the Latin Vulgate--the definitive translation of the RCC for most of church history at this point--and he made a distinction between books that were helpful for the Church and those that were authoritative.

RCC's typically frame the issue as if the Church had universal dogmatic agreement on the canon until Martin Luther and those pesky Protestants came along and removed books from their Bibles, so Trent came along and restated what was already beyond dispute.

That's just not an accurate depiction of reality.

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Take, for example, the Council of Nicaea, which rejected Arianism. Did the Church, up to that point, not teach the divinity of Jesus and then suddenly invent it in 325 AD? No, rather, in response to a widespread heresy, it reaffirmed what it had already taught, namely, what the scriptures taught. That Jesus is fully God.

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The problem with Arianism as an example was that there was a strong current in favor of it, and arguably, most of the Church agreed with it. Athanasius fought bravely against it and even against Pope Liberius, which is where the famous phrase, Athanasius contra mundum came from, because it was Athanasius "against the world" on the subject of Arianism.

I think it would be better stated that the Scriptures refuted Arianism, and eventually the Church came around and acknowledged that fact.

Regardless, there was great disputes about the canon, and not just what books belonged, but what the nature of those books were. As I stated, many viewed the Deuterocanonical books as helpful to the Church and therefore that they should be read and used in the liturgy and in discipling those in the Church, while at the same time not being canonical as the Spirit-breathed Word of God. Even in the Council of Trent, it wasn't a unanimous vote for declaring what the canon was.

I with I could upvote you a thousand times because you are absolutely correct.

This is not necessarily directed at you, but as a general response.

Here is a fact…in the 4 gospels Jesus never once says “worship me”. He does however, say follow me something like 36 times.