I don't understand why this is so hard for protestants to understand. Can someone please explain to me why?

this

>muh rock

It says nothing about papal succession.

Can a person reject the grace of God?

Peter = Petros
Rock = Petra

In french it's:
...tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre...
In italian:
...tu sei Pietro e su questa pietra...
etc.

It's a wordplay.

I don't know what you mean by the grace of God. As I said I'm not religious. If you explain this to me I might be able to give you an answer. I suppose you have something more you want to say, though?

ceci n'est pas une papal succession

Yes, Peter is the rock. Bible says that much. It however says nothing about his successors.

According to the Bible, the decision to believe in God is not your own. It's God who makes you believe through his divine grace, which is irresistible. And once you believe, you will do good works, that's how true belief manifests outwardly.

youtube.com/watch?v=6KV6PXSODgE

So God picks and chooses who believes in him? Isn't free will a central tenant to Christianity?

Nope, it isn't, and honestly I don't understand where that meme even came from, considering so many people believe it's central to Christianity. You won't find free will in the Bible but you will find a lot of deterministic predestination.

Interesting. What are the ways in which God imposes his divine grace on you?

Don't listen to him. Free will is indeed an enormous part of christian philosophy. In fact, the very concept of free will never existed before christianism, and Saint Augustin, who's a major christian philosopher even according to Protestantism, was probably the one that worked the most about it. Sure, some schools of christianism are deterministic, but they are extremely minoritary. As for free will in the Bible, it is pretty obvious that it is everywhere, even in the Genesis with Eve's choice, and in the most important choice of Jesus Christ himself, being crucified.

God damn it, who do I believe? I suppose it doesn't matter.

Any thoughts on my argument? I made it with the thought in mind that it would get pummeled but nobody seems to be talking much about it. What are the common Protestant arguments for works not being required?

I'm I'm not a Protestant, and I think your argument is right

You know about the quarrel between Augustine and Pelagius, right? Neither protestants, nor Catholics, nor Orthodox think you can be saved through your free will. That's literally taking God's sovereignty away from him.

>What are the common Protestant arguments for works not being required?

You're looking at it wrong. Protestants (aside from some kooky new age American churches) generally don't believe that you can be saved without good works. However, the works are a byproduct of your faith, not the REASON for salvation.

Not at all. Catholics just think that you cannot be saved by your free will ALONE. Of course your free will is necessary. But the divine grace is absolutely necessary too.

Catholics are kind of half assed about it. For example they believe in foreknowledge, just like Arminians, but they reject predestination, although you cannot really have one without the other (see Newcomb's paradox).

From epistle to the Romans:

>Tose whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified

From the Gospel of John:

>No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him

>translations

Also, the Catholic position about it is pretty logical, it's simply occasionalism, there are two necessary criteria, none being enough alone; by the way, Malebranche didn't come from nowhere, he basically just rewrote Saint Augustin

>is pretty logical

Once again, Newcomb's paradox. You can't have perfect predictors and free will in the same setting.

You think as if God was a predictor. That's not the case at all. God is not IN the setting.

Of course he is, he himself put himself in the setting.

The Son. Not the Father. The Son is not all-powerful or omniscient, he even asks why God abandoned him.

>he
>h

The Son and the Father are both part of the Godhead.

>The Son is not all-powerful or omniscient, he even asks why God abandoned him.

Well that doesn't explain how he knew he would die on the cross, that Judas would betray him and that Peter would deny him three times.

Sorry user.

>all-powerful
>somtimes-powerful
>omniscient
>mostly scient
As expected of Christos

The Father transcends all of existence, including time. Therefore he is not a predictor, he's just outside of our linear causality.He's the Absolute.

The Son is a man. God made himself a man to experience all of our suffering. This absolutely includes being a victim, that is to say lacking power and knowledge. However, as the Son of God (and God himself), he still is more than a simple man, which explains your examples.

>he
>h

>being so insecure about your faith that you have to put capitals everywhere

>everywhere

Is this belief not shared by Anglican protestants?

Fuck, 2:19 makes a lot of sense. Did any of the major protestant theologians comment on this?
The only justification I can think of is that it can be taken to mean that non christians can go to heaven so long as they live good lives.

>LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?

>He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.

-Psalms 15v1-5

your faith produces a Christ-like character, which is observable by the effect it has on others... it generates persecution from the wicked, ridicule and scorn from the fence-sitters, and love from fellow-believers.

Paul talks about Abraham's faith which was counted for righteousness - this was at the point in Abraham's life, when, although he was 100 years old and his wife was well past the age of child-bearing, he believed God when God told him he was going to have a Son. He was justified before God by his belief.

...

almost all the Early Church Fathers including Augustine are in agreement that the "rock" refers to Peter's confession of faith not to Peter himself.

christiantruth.com/articles/mt16.html

>You won't find free will in the Bible

"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live"

>Did any of the major protestant theologians comment on this?
Yep. Not true faith, as the only true faith comes from grace. Demons are not blessed with grace. There's a distinction between spiritual and intellectual faith.

Jesus said you know the tree by its fruit. In this case the tree is the saved believer and its fruit are the good works. So by dismissing people who don't do good works, James is saying they weren't true believers.

>The Orthodox have decided to ignore apostolic succession
Top kek just become Prots already you niggers

The Son has existed since before the foundation of the world, and the world (time included) has come to be through him.

God didn't "make himself a man", God's Logos (Word) BECAME flesh he didn't "make himself" a flesh. There's a difference.

I am a prot.

To clarify the protestant view:

You aren't saved because you do good works. You do good works because you are saved.

>just become Prots already you niggers
but Protestanism is an outgrowth of Catholicism. Think about it. All the original Prots were born Catholics haha.

And so were all the Orthodox

And how are you saved? Faith? What is Faith to you?

Nah. The Orthodox are far more like the early Church Fathers than the Catholics who hardly resemble them at all. Nice try, though.

The result of grace.

Nope

Is it allotted randomly? Do you believe in free will? Does grace come to people who do good works (generally)?

>Is it allotted randomly?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_election

>Do you believe in free will?

Not when it comes to salvation. You can't will yourself to heaven.

>Does grace come to people who do good works (generally)?

Other way around, good works come to people who are blessed by grace.

...

whynotcatholicism.net/view/the-early-church-was-catholic

So what's the point of his commandments? Why command people to do things if grave will cause them to do it anyway?

Don't listen to that proddy.

Watch this:
youtube.com/watch?v=K_4RFoknrwc

That's literally impossible from a gramattical standpoint. Jesus in no was indicates he's talking about something several sentences earlier. He calls Peter Keffa and then says on that Keffa he'll build his church.

>inb4 b-but in the Greek :(
Petra is feminine and Petros is masculine. Christ and the apostles spoke Aramaic to each other so Keffa would have been used and it would be used both times for Peter and "Rock" (see St. Paul calling Peter Cephas later on which is just a transliteration of Keffa into Greek)

My post here
addresses the selective quotations in your link.

devinrose.heroicvirtuecreations.com/blog/2012/11/26/an-eastern-orthodox-christian-looks-west/
Try not to shoot yourself after reading this

>Why command people to do things if grave will cause them to do it anyway?

You're implying those two things contradict each other, but they really do not.

See

Not him but what is it about?

Protestant hates Catholicism, starts reading the early church fathers and doesn't like how it shits on Protestantism, then starts reading Orthodox polemics against Catholicism and is happy he can be traditional and still hate Catholicism, then starts reading Catholic writings, and things from the latin fathers and saints and basically comes to the conclusion that Catholicism is right. His final conclusion that neither side needs to convert because we're in communion by way of us both having the Eucharist is wrong though. For starters that's flatly against Orthodox doctrine because he acknowledges Catholic sacraments as valid (which the Orthodox officially don't) and the Catholic church still holds that we're in schism.

Well, did he still convert to Catholicism?

No
>His final conclusion that neither side needs to convert because we're in communion by way of us both having the Eucharist

I read that, but did he become Orthodox then?

He became Orthodox after reading their Polemics (He literally admits everything he learned about Catholicism came from them). Which is why he says he doesn't need to become Catholic. Because dude we both have Eucharist schism over XD. He gets BTFO in the comments actually

He's probably a hipster.

He seemed more like a devout Lutheran that learned traditional apostolic Christianity was correct, but still hated Catholicism because he was raised to (which he admits), but gets lazy at the end when he finds out it's right. Then again I have no idea how long it would take for an Orthodox Christian to switch over.

He's probably an actual hipster though in the sense that he prefers to call himself ''Orthodox'' because it ''sounds patrician'' and because Catholicism is ''more popular''.

Possibly that
It could also be his community is still one full of anti-Catholics like he was. Protestants for the most part have either a). Never heard of Orthodoxy or b). Have, but don't know what it is and just assume they believe in the same principals that Protestantism is founded on
So becoming Orthodox would be easier for his place in the community than becoming Catholic.
But really I don't know anything for sure other than what he wrote.

Actually many Lutherans aren't that opposed to re-joining Catholic church (especially confessionalists), the problem is the RCC unwilling to budge and change their doctrines that contradict the Scripture.

Then they aren't interested in joining the Catholic church. They're interested in making the Catholic church just a larger version of their Lutheran church. I'm not particularly interested in my church abandoning the traditions and faith of the apostles in favor of the book of concords

What seems to be the problem is a lot of your traditions are made up and not actually apostolic.

Jesus is the Christ is the foundation(rock) of my saving faith.

Jesus was specifically asking Peter about who He (Jesus) was. Peter via divine revelation said Jesus is the Christ. To this statement Jesus replied. He said upon this rock (The divine and unshakable truth that Jesus is the Messiah) will I build my Church. The central message and focus of the Church is that Jesus is the Christ, our savior. If you believe Jesus was referring to the man Peter as that Divine foundation of Christs Church, then you'd probably end up following some old virgine in a dress and a funny hat! Haha, as if THAT would happen.... oh wait.

If in english it were ''Pravoslavian'' instead of ''Orthodox'', that it were common all over East Asia, that South America were Protestant and that Catholicism were concentrated only in Southern Europe, I bet my balls that he'd have converted already.

>He said upon this rock (The divine and unshakable truth that Jesus is the Messiah) will I build my Church
No.

Rock = Peter

>some old virgine
If you think virginity is bad or something to be mocked you aren't a Christian
Christ says "and I will call YOU Keffa and on this Keffa on will build my church"
No indication that he's not talking about Keffa 1 (Cephas, Peter)

*I will

Possibly, but I have no way of knowing.
Whatever his reasons he doesn't give an adequate reason to not join the Catholic church by the end. He acknowledges that it's correct and that papal authority isn't just something real as the Catholic church teaches it but is vitally important to the unity of the church (this is something the Orthodox like to sweep under the rug. The sheer amount of disunity between Orthodox churches is near Protestant tier).

It’s a matter of interpretation, neither side can conclusively prove from this verse their view is correct, so we must look to Scripture to determine who is the rock and who the church is built on.

And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ
himself being the chief corner stone;
-Eph 2:20

And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
-1Co 10:4

Clearly the scriptures show that the rock is Christ

>neither side can conclusively prove from this verse their view is correct,
kek maybe you can't
Keffa = Keffa

>the scriptures show that the rock is Christ
No.

Rock = Peter

Hence the wordplay What don't you understand?

>Clearly the scriptures show that the rock is Christ
You may be surprised but English wasn't the original language the Bible was written in.

Now I understand why arabs are so heavily against translating Quran, thanks for showing me.

The last time I checked Bible wasn't written in French.

To think that the Church is built on Peter is funny to me. Peter wasn't what you could call the most stable foundation. He is rebuked by Christ as satan for not having in mind the things of God but rather the things of man, he denies Christ,then he denies Christ,then again he denies Christ, and ostracizes gentiles from the faith if they don't adhere to Jewish law and then is rebuked by Paul for doing so. To me, this is NOT what I'd call a solid rock of foundation.

On the other hand we have the divine and saving revelation of Jesus being the Savior. Now, lets look at that as the foundation rock for all Christianity to be based upon. Here, Jesus is the focus. God gets the glory. The priority of our attention is Christ centered, not man centered and therefore our personal relationship with the Father and the strength we receive from it is secure.

See what this user said

>To think that the Church is built on Peter is funny to me. Peter wasn't what you could call the most stable foundation
You are biblically illiterate.

youtube.com/watch?v=6KV6PXSODgE

It was written in Greek.

see
>Peter = Petros
>Rock = Petra
[unsurprisingly - french and latin use greek loanword for "rock"]
He is right, it's a wordplay.

>As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence.

I'm sorry but these guys have nothing to do with Peter.

>Unironically believing in a God in 2016

>Unironically believing that everything sprung from nothing, thus breaking the laws of physics, completely on its own
>Unironically believing 0+0=1

>Unironically believing 0+0=1
this, 0+0 does not equal 1. I'll start saying this now since ''everything can't come from nothing'' triggers atheists who don't understand why it's illogical and try to make you feel stupid for saying this.