/lit/ - Literature

>>20099963
>This is literally just paganism
Your misunderstanding of this phenomenon seems to be the result of what ancient cultic practices were in the ANE and pre-Christian non-Judaic world. The belief that the statues themselves actually contained the spirit of the god itself, and was thus deserving of worship in-itself (ie. not as a representation, but a present reality). This is why we have things like the opening-of-the-mouth ceremony, the feeding of cultic idols in the ANE, etc. This practice was what God was commanding the Israelites not to engage in - the True God was beyond all form, and could not be contained within any image. Even in the Solomonic temple, though His presence (shekinah) was present in a unique and substantial way, it was not believed that the fullness of God dwelled there - He was not "only" in the temple, but was "more" present in the temple than in other places (transcendent divine omnipresence was a core tenet of Judaism). Understanding this, it should be obvious why the idea of Christian iconography of God being licit due to the fact that it is only a representation of the True divinity intended to invoke to mind the depicted prototype, and is not actually given the veritable adoration given to God alone (no apostolic Christian "worships" the literal wooden image, they use to image to focus their consciousness on that which they worship, eg. the prototype depicted thereupon). This is all made clear in the Seventh Ecumenical Council writings.

>>19463903
>its just a coincidence that all catholic clergy are dead inside from the moment they profess their vows
Completely untrue, I know many Catholic priests who are on fire with love for the Lord, and are in the priesthood. Your bias and hatred against the Catholic church is clouding your judgment. Christian writers for centuries before your man-made churches were created wrote on how God allows spiritual desolation for our development, just as Jesus cried out to the Father why He had forsaken Him in His lowest moment, on the cross. You really do not know what you speak about. I hope you come to allow the Holy Spirit to dwell in you by leaving behind your man-made tradition and hatred, and allow Him to lead you where He wants, not where you want.

>>19463916
>Roman Catholicism was formed out of a great apostasy that took place in the late 4th century
I guess it still was not apostate when it gave you the Nicene Creed, the canon of the New Testament in 382, the declaration that Christ has two natures, protected the apostolic faith against the Arians, etc. etc. Typical Protestant ignorance of history.
>As is typical for Roman Catholic apologists, too much later Roman Catholic doctrine is read into too little information from the Fathers
Hey, don't take our word for it, literally just begin reading the Fathers themselves with an unbiased a lens as possible. I don't mean going on Pastor Jim's website and reading prooftexts, I mean pick up the Apostolic Fathers collection, and start reading chronologically from there. Tell me how much Protestantism you find there, I'll be excited to hear back from you.

>>19463953
>>19463946
>>19463995
You literally don't understand our doctrine (as is typical). We don't believe that THROUGH baptism we come to have saving faith in the Lord, we believe that being baptized we CONFIRM our saving faith in the Lord, as a visible sign of an invisible grace which existed beforehand, like how the Ethiopian Eunuch asked to be baptized after coming to know that Jesus is Lord. Please, before you start spamming our thread, at least do the due diligence of reading a couple paragraphs of our catechism. These types of elementary misunderstandings could easily be dispelled by doing research before wasting your time typing our such garbage. Really try and ponder what St. Peter means when he says, "In the ark a few people, only eight souls, were saved through water. 21And this water symbolizes the baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ". What is he trying to say here? Why do many Protestants believe in baptismal regeneration? All are good questions to meditate on while you do your research.

>>19135174
>Millions of years
>before humanity existed, plants withered and died
>animals were destroyed
These are common falsehoods believed in modernity, but it has nothing to do with Christianity, which teaches that death entered the world as a result of sin.

>>19135196
>our actual phenomenological experience
Our actual phenomenological experience is that of a fallen creation with entropy. But we know from revelation (from a non-fallen Being) that it was not always so. Naturally you cannot deduce this just from observing the fallen world itself with fallen intellect.
>It is entailed by free-will that Adam had the capacity to do wrong.
Adam did not believe the action to be wrong. This is not the same as being able to choose evil while knowing such a category exists as apart from good. If you tried to seduce Adam into blaspheming God, he would never choose that, but only a natural good contrary to God's will.