i kinda wanna hear what you say tho like not in a confrontational way, but just bc i'm curious and love learning
despite the fact that my best friend in high school was catholic i still have a fairly flimsy grasp on its differences w protestantism
........and i should probs get educated bc i work at a christian chain store lol and we have dedicated catholic departments
sure! curiosity is good. i have a lot of protestant friends and i like getting to hear about the theological differences
"Sin is basically the default moral condition of every human being. The natural inclination of humanity is to act against what God tells us to do"
I definitely agree that the inclination to sin is part of our nature thanks to Original Sin (thanks eve), but I wouldn't say it's "default". After all, God also gave us a conscience, which is as much a part of our nature as Original Sin (I'd argue more, since OS was an unwanted inheritance while consciences are a gift).
The problem is that our bodily desires fight against our spiritual thirst, which creates the conflict. Our bodies want us to do whatever pleases them, physically or mentally. Our soul wants us to do whatever pleases God. So, in point,
original sin inclines us to act against God by pleasing ourselves, but we also have a natural inclination by our spirit to follow His will.
"The problem with this is that God cannot allow any sin into His presence. It goes against His very nature. Therefore, anyone with sin in them cannot go to heaven and be with God. Instead, they must be separated from God forever."
I think it was more of the
wording of this one and how it could be perceived from the outside, rather than what I know it's trying to say. I guess this passage comes off as a bit...overly simplified for my taste. People don't go to hell because God can't stand unclean things (he's with us sinners every days of our lives, no matter how unclean we are). Idk, I guess the analogy bothers me. It's sounds to me like an adult picking qualified kids for a team, and whoever they deem unqualified just doesn't "make it" and goes somewhere else for those who didn't make it. But hell is a punishment, not a holding place.
Again, I get what is meant by the passage. I just worry that those who don't quite understand Christian belief would be confused by this.
Also, "anyone with sin in them cannot go to heaven"....nevermind, I'm not gonna touch the Purgatory doctrine xD
"I won't even try to explain [the Trinity] using analogies or whatever."
//gestures wildly at St. Patrick//
not really a disagreement but
"The idea was that humanity deserved eternal death for their sins, but if Jesus, being both eternal and human, died in their place, the sacrifice would be enough to appease God's righteous nature and allowed humans to be with Him."
tbh I don't know how to go about this one in a succinct way. So I'm just gonna make a statement of Catholic belief, but not gonna try and explain it rn because it'd take awhile.
(a) Catholics don't believe that God made all of humanity deserve eternal death in hell for sins. He simply
locked Heaven, in a sense, because nothing unclean could enter it. And because there was no perfect sacrifice until Christ, no sins could be absolved for a loooong time. For those who lived righteously on earth until Christ's coming, they went neither to Hell (for the wicked) nor Heaven (still locked to them), but what's known as the Bosom of Abraham (it's fascinating tale, look it up). By its acknowledged existence, therefore, we know that God did not intend eternal death for ALL who sinned (just those who were not remorseful).
(
The second sentence comes off as if God demanded a sacrifice in exchange for forgiveness, which wasn't the case. It's just the natural order of good and evil: in order to remedy the purest of sins (one made before the now-natural inclination we have due to OS), we must have the purest of sacrifices to take the burden of the consequences.
which Im preeeetty sure is what was being said here but just in a confusing way
"Jesus was the only person ever to live an entirely a sinless life"
well...
nevermind, not gonna touch this one lol
"The Jewish leaders of His time didn't like him very much"
Again, not an argument, very true. But I think it's important to explain /why/ they didn't like him.
Briefly: the pharisees and chief priests were basically treated as kings among the Jews at the time. They took on many airs and graces, unnecessary ordination. Whenever they made personal sacrifices, they did so publicly so everyone would know how "holy" they were (i.e. not hiding their fasting). Everyone listened to the religious leaders; they were often judge, jury, and executioner when it came to Jewish morals. In fact, they had a lot of secret pacts with the Romans, agreements to keep their sects under control and subdue any rebellions in exchange for Roman favor.
Obviously, not what God intended for the Jewish pharisees. Christ publicly ridiculed these things, and pointed out how hypocritical they were in their "holier than thou" attitude. People were listening to Christ, more to him than the pharisees, so the chief priests obviously didn't like Christ because he was a threat to their power.
"For the first time in eternity, the Father separated Himself from the Son. He turned His back on Jesus. In that moment, Jesus went through the worst pain possible: separation from God."
I'm....not entirely sure what this is trying to say. This is the first I've ever heard of such an idea. How can part of the Trinity separate itself completely from the other when they are separate persons to begin with, while remaining one God? This bit is confusing me.
"That's what hell is: eternal separation from God. Jesus went through literal hell in those final moments on the cross."
YES FINALLY SOMEONE SAYS IT RIGHT
i always hate it when people are like "yeah hell is painful bc of fire and hellhounds and such" and no.
"No good deeds or impressing God necessary."
Catholics disagree.
We agree that good deeds alone aren't enough. But we also think just believing in God's mercy is not enough. You have to believe in his offered salvation, and then obey his will. And part of his will is for us
to do good deeds. He says such things himself in the Gospel. I.e: "Whatever you do for one of your brothers, you do for me." there's a bunch others but honestly im too lazy to post a bunch, i just remember that one off the top of my head lol
and honestly it doesn't make logical sense? "Believe in me but you don't have to do anything good"
tbh this is probably the part in the paragraphs that i would go so far as to see as anti-Catholic. cause a lot of protestants violently disagree with catholicisms "obsessions" with good works and i can't think of any other reason this would be stated. It's not a matter of "impressing" God for us. We do good works because God told us to take care of our brothers and sisters.
Also, frankly, the entire end part...it's not just Catholics, but other High Church protestants (Episcopalians, Orthodox, and Anglicans, I believe, and I think Lutherans but idk about that) believe in the need for reconcilliation with a priest/minister for absolution.
So yeah.
I didn't mean this as a critique or anything, I think Treestar did a really good job explaining all this stuff!! There's just a few parts that Catholicism disagree with. The rest is A+++++