"Our earthly liturgies must be celebrations full of beauty and power: Feasts of the Father who created us—that is why the gifts of the earth play such a great part: the bread, the wine, oil and light, incense, sacred music, and splendid colors. Feasts of the Son who redeemed us—that is why we rejoice in our liberation, breathe deeply in listening to the Word, and are strengthened in eating the Eucharistic Gifts. Feasts of the Holy Spirit who lives in us—that is why there is a wealth of consolation, knowledge, courage, strength, and blessing that flows from these sacred assemblies." unknown source possibly YOUCAT Mal.1.11 For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith theLord of hosts.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Is the Catholic church Semi-pelagian?



also:
 " One might think that John Hendryx is unique in his claim that Trent repudiated Orange. But in fact R.C. Sproul makes basically the same claim in Michael Horton’s magazine Modern Reformation. In Sproul’s essay titled “The Pelagian Captivity of the Church” in the May/June 2001 issue of Modern Reformation, Sproul writes:
Ironically, the Church condemned semi-Pelagianism as vehemently as it had condemned original Pelagianism. Yet by the time you get to the sixteenth century and you read the Catholic understanding of what happens in salvation the Church basically repudiated what Augustine taught and Aquinas taught as well. The Church concluded that there still remains this freedom that is intact in the human will and that man must cooperate with-and assent to-the prevenient grace that is offered to them by God. If we exercise that will, if we exercise a cooperation with whatever powers we have left, we will be saved. And so in the sixteenth century the Church reembraced semi-Pelagianism.
 However, the Council of Trent in no place repudiates St. Augustine’s or St. Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on salvation. The very distinction between operative actual grace and cooperative actual grace, as well as the distinction between actual grace on the one hand, and on the other hand the sanctifying grace by which we are justified, are clearly laid out in St. Thomas drawing from St. Augustine, as I pointed out in footnote #1 above. It seems to me, from Sproul’s article, that he puts the label ‘semi-Pelagian’ on any position in which man cooperates in any way in coming to justification, that is, any position in which justification is not monergistic. But that would make both St. Augustine and St. Thomas (and all the Church Fathers, who all believed in baptismal regeneration and the need to prepare for baptism — see the link at footnote #4) “semi-Pelagian.” Sproul is therefore wrongly extending the definition of ‘semi-Pelagianism’ beyond the position condemned at Orange, by including in his definition of ‘semi-Pelagianism’ the very position affirmed at Orange."

from comment 16 bryan : http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/09/did-the-council-of-trent-contradict-the-second-council-of-orange/#comment-37868

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