We hear Jesus saying in Jn 14:15: >If you love Me, keep My commandments. Elsewhere, we see Jesus telling the rich man, in Mtt 19:17,before naming some of the Ten Commandments: >..if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches about two types of contrition under the Sacrament of Reconciliation : (i)Perfect contrition – An act made out of love for God, and.. (ii) Imperfect contrition – An act made for some other motive such as fear of Hell. The Catechism further explains that either type of contrition is sufficient in order to make a confession and have our sins forgiven. Now, read Jn 14:15 in the reverse order and we have : "If you keep My commandments, you love me ; if you do not keep my commandments, you do not love me ." Doesn't that put a limitation on Imperfect Contrition which does not examine the breach of love for Jesus ? My question therefore, is : How is Imperfect Contrition of Catholic Catechism justified with reference to Jn 14:15 ?

One might claim that catholic liturgy is heavily based on scripture. And in deed, e.g. the liturgy of the mass is full of direct and indirect quotes (or other allusions) from biblical texts. Some of the more obvious ones are > Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. (Direct quote from Joh 1,29) or > Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed. (Mostly from Math 8,8) A more indirect one might be > The Lord be with you. -- And with your spirit. (The first part might be found similarly in several verses, such as Ruth 2,4; 1. Chr 22,11. The response might allude to 2. Tim 4,22) My question is: **Is there an annotated text of the liturgy of the mass (or at least the ordinarium) which gives all these direct and indirect quotes and maybe also the more indirect allusions from scripture?** Since there is substantial overlap in the liturgic texts between the ordinary form of the mass and the traditional latin rite, an annotated text of the vetus ordo might also be helpful.

Do all Christians believe in predestination? If not, for those who don't, how do they explain Romans 9:14 - 9:24? > 14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. > > 19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? 22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. The passage says some are "vessels of wrath prepared for destruction," and others are "vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory..." Also when it says "He hardens whom he desires," the implication is that when a person's heart becomes hardened, it is hardened by God in which case they did not do so of their free will. Both of these support the idea of predestination (the former more than the latter) and I want to know how a Christian who doesn't believe in predestination (or one who somehow harmonizes predestination and free will) would interpret this passage, particularly the things I mentioned.

Sorry if I'm a bit wordy, I'm a bit new to apologetics and am trying to understand church history. This is something I struggle to understand a bit. With Catholicism, you have the Pope as a unifying force and a lot of ecumenical councils that lay out the rules of infallibility. So it's usually easy to determine if someone agrees with "Catholic theology" or not. With Lutherans and other Protestant groups, the rules are less strict, and they tend to see "the church" as more universal. But then there's Orthodox, a group that believes they are the one true church and even in some form of "no salvation outside the church." But how does the Orthodox church decide which teachings one must accept to be Orthodox? Oriental Orthodoxy accepts three councils as infallible, and I think most Orthodox accept seven. But I don't really see explicit Orthodox doctrine on which parts of these councils are infallible the way that later Catholic councils have. (The canons of the councils themselves that I've read don't use the word "infallible", and Lutherans see the councils as authoritative but below scripture.) Orthodoxy has a specific view of the trinity and a specific view on salvation that differ from Lutheranism, despite both groups generally agreeing with those councils. **So what it it that determines these Orthodox beliefs, if they don't consider anything outside 3-7 ecumenical councils and scripture to be infallible?** If Orthodox consider their view of the trinity to be fallible, why? Doesn't the Catholic view also follow the Nicene creed? As an application of my question, how does the Orthodox church decide what the "one true church" is when making statements like "no salvation outside the church"? If Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy are the same church, despite doctrinal disagreements, then what makes Eastern Orthodoxy and Lutheranism not the same church, despite many similarities? In the early church, weren't there different congregations with bishops that were considered the same church, despite having different practices? Where's the line, according to Orthodoxy?

I’ve been a follower of Christ for five years now, and as a former Muslim, I’ve learned a lot about the hypocrisy of people and how religion can sometimes be used as a tool for personal gain. There’s a question that’s been on my mind for a long time, and I feel I need to express it. If these so-called “holy fathers” are truly doing God’s work, why don’t they live and work like everyone else? They’re being paid to preach, so isn’t it essentially just a job for them? It makes me question their sincerity when they’re compensated for what is supposed to be a divine mission. Take the Pope, for example. Living in a palace, surrounded by servants, and having his hand kissed by common people doesn’t exactly convey a message of humility or authenticity. To me, it feels contradictory to the values they claim to represent.

Why did Abraham ignore God's command while in Mesopotamia and choose to make a turnaround to Haran instead of going to the land God would show him?

Let's say that someone with DID (dissociative identity disorder) has 2 alters: an atheist and a faithful Christian. Where would that person go? To Heaven? To Hell? To some third place? This question is pretty important as it is estimated that 1.5% of the global population (or 121 million people) suffer from DID, many of whom are faithful Christians.

The council of Nicea was held in A.D. 325 a few hundred years after the early church. Yet it contained church leaders from all over, and it reached a wide consensus on a number of issues. Some of these decisions seem contradictory with Protestantism, specifically the seeming appeal to bishops and the church community as a final authority. For example, the council refers to itself several times as "the great and holy Synod," implying that these decisions are binding to some extent, not just suggestions. It refers to penance, which Protestants typically don't practice. It also heavily implies that church custom ought to be followed: > It has come to the knowledge of the holy and great Synod that, in some > districts and cities, the deacons administer the Eucharist to the > presbyters, whereas **neither canon nor custom permits** that they who > have no right to offer should give the Body of Christ to them that do > offer. And this also has been made known, that certain deacons now > touch the Eucharist even before the bishops. They also state: > It is by all means proper that a bishop should be appointed by all the > bishops in the province which seems to appeal to church consensus in a way that seems to contradict Protestant beliefs. Together, the most clear implication seems to be that believers everywhere are bound to follow the teachings given by ecumenical councils or decisions made by a consensus of bishops. I suppose Protestants could argue that humans are capable of error and that these teachings were a modern invention, not something believed by the early church. But if that were the case, then why would bishops from *all* across the continent be able to agree on these declarations? I'm open to arguments that large swaths of the church had fallen into error by AD 325, or that this contradicts things agreed on in the early church. But I'm not sure how to make that argument. On the one hand, there's a lot here that we don't see said by Ignatius or early writers. On the other hand, I don't see Ignatius *contradicting* what's written here, and a consensus by successors of the apostles could indicate that the apostles themselves did believe these things and passed them on as tradition. Ignatius also writes : > Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop...It is not lawful > without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast That doesn't directly imply everything said at Nicea, but the similarity in what's said at Nicea and by Ignatius seems to strengthen the case that Nicea was based on tradition passed down from the apostles. Why would the tradition change so much and so broadly?

I was having a Bible discussion with my Christian brother this morning and we happened to bump into this verse in Revelation chapter 22 that actually confirms Jesus is God indirectly. Our subject is on the identity of the sender who sent his angel to show John this vision. If we look at the statement made by the angel to John and the corresponding affirmative statement made by Jesus then we can infer that the sender who is the **God of the prophets** is actually **Jesus Christ**. *Revelation 22:6* > And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place *Revelation 22:16* >I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches So from both verses it can be concluded that the **sender** is **God** aka **Jesus Christ**, is this the case?

In the usual schema, there are four views of the Lord's Supper: 1. The **Memorialist/Zwinglian/Baptist** view. Jesus is not present in the elements, but believers reap a spiritual benefit from partaking because they remember his death. 2. The **Calvinist/reformed/"spiritual presence"** view. Christ's body and blood are spiritually consumed by the communicants as they physically partake of the bread and wine. 3. The **Lutheran/"consubstantiation"/"in, with, and under"/sacramental union"** view. Christ is united to the elements. 4. The **Catholic view ("transubstantiation")**. When the elements are blessed, they become Christ's body and blood. Sometimes a fifth view is considered, that of the **Orthodox**, who are close to Catholicism but don't like to explain it in Aristotelian terms. (If you feel any of these descriptors are inaccurate, you're probably right. Please don't get too hung up on any of these definitions. If you're unfamiliar with any of these views, please research them for yourself.) My question is, which of these did John Wesley believe? I suppose it's possible that he would be hard to categorize here; if that's the case, I'll be satisfied with an answer stating which view he's *closest* to, and how his views differ from that one. A good answer will include direct quotes from Wesley.

I have heard of **the Historicist view** [see](https://www.gotquestions.org/historicism-historicist.html) and **the Futurist view** [see](https://www.gotquestions.org/futurist-Revelation.html) of interpreting the book of Revelation. As far as I know, the Historicist view follows a straight line of continuous fulfillment of prophecy which starts from the time of Daniel, through the time of the writing of the Book of Revelation, all the way to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The Futurist view of interpreting Revelation is very popular today, particularly among dispensationalists. Those who hold this view generally believe that everything after Revelation 3 will be fulfilled in the future. Clarence Larkin, an American Baptist pastor, apparently claimed that the literal fulfilment of the Church in Laodicea (in Revelation chapter 3) happened in 1990. [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Larkin) . Would that be an Historicist view, or a Futurist view? I would like to know if Clarence Larkin was the first minister to pin a date of 1990 to the start of the Laodicean church age, or if the commencement of the fulfilment of this particular church age happened earlier. P.S. Found some interesting and useful information here: https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/104065/what-is-the-biblical-basis-for-a-historicist-reading-of-the-seven-churches-in-re

Jehovah's Witnesses, as one example of a group who denies that Jesus is God, claim that Revelation 22:13 is a reference to Jehovah God and not Jesus: > I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”  It is spoken to John by an angel and not directly by either Jehovah God or Jesus (Rev. 22:8) Revelation 22:6 says that **God sent this angel** to John: > And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”  The "he" in the above verse is the angel from verse 22:1 and 8: > Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb - v.1 > > I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me - v.8 Later in verse 22:16 Jesus himself confirms to be the one who sent the angel: > “**I, Jesus, have sent my angel** to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” What exegetical proof is there that the Alpha and Omega statement of verse 13 is not applied equally to both Jehovah God and Jesus since **both sent the same angel in the same instance** to proclaim it? Or put another way, how can this be reconciled with the non-trinitarian belief that Jesus is not God? 

After the Fall, was the protoevangelium transmitted to all men so much so that all men have knowledge of the protoevangelium even if that knowledge was distorted? Every mythology has something analogous to the protoevangelium. Also, everyone descends from Adam and Eve, so Adam would have told his offspring about the protoevangelium.

St. Catherine of Siena recommended perpetual continence ("angelic continence" or spiritual marriage ) to at least two married couples: 1. Giovanni Trenta of Lucca & Monna Tora of Lucca in 1376 (*Letters* vol. 2, pp. 51-4) 2. Ristoro Canigiani & Alessandra (Sandra) Quaratesi in 1378 (*Letters* vol. 3, pp. 209-12) Did other saints recommend perpetual continence to married couples? cf. "Do married couples need to live sexually? "

[See my other question first](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/14769/in-what-language-was-the-book-of-matthew-written) . I have heard it taught in several places that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew and its intended audience was the Jew (which does help explain why it seems a bit more vague on key Christian concepts). But recently I have been told that there are no Hebrew manuscripts of this text. I assume at least that he meant there are no Hebrew manuscripts that out date the Greek ones. So this makes me wonder that if there are no Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew why would one argue this point? Essentially the question is then, who is the intended audience? *** Ultimately it's everybody, right, but I mean were a specific people in mind when it was written?

I have heard it taught in several places that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew and its intended audience was the Jews (which would help explain why it seems a bit more vague on key Christian concepts). But recently I have been told that there are no Hebrew manuscripts of this text. I assume at least that the person who told me this meant that there are no Hebrew manuscripts that outdate the Greek ones. So in what language was Matthew written?

What is the Catholic interpretation of a married couple's need to be living sexually if they don't feel the need for it? Let's say both of them don't feel the need to live romantically. They got to the point they are ok to live together like brother and sister. They love each other and they don't need sex. It's not an act of sacrifice or any kind of mortification, basically, they lost a desire to have sex and both are ok with it. They are both still fruitful though. Are they still required to perform sex within marriage so they can keep procreating or this is accepted as ok by the Church's teaching?

*De Fide* is the highest [Theological Note](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma_in_the_Catholic_Church#Theological_certainties) used by the Catholic theologians prior to the mid-20th Century. Of the sentences proposed for belief, there is that which comes directly from God (*de Fide Divina*) and that which comes from the Church (*de Fide Ecclesiastica*) and if a truth has been infallibly defined by a Pope or Ecumenical Council, it is *de Fide Definita*. [traditionalcatholic.net](http://traditionalcatholic.net/Tradition/Information/Dogmas_of_the_Church.html) lists All the *sententiae* that Ludwig Ott labels *De Fide*. My question is: **Which of those dogmas are NOT infallibly defined?**

I'm guessing there are other publishers, but I'm speaking specifically about the Catholic Book Publishing English version of the Liturgy of the Hours. I was on a retreat last weekend where we used the Shorter Christian Prayer books and I only got a little tripped up when I used my regular Christian Prayer book. After the retreat, my wife got really into it and she wants to pray with me morning and evening prayers, but I only have one set of the 4-volume set as well as one large type and one regular Christian Prayer book. So, just to simplify things and so we might know what to expect throughout the year when praying together or with the parish (using Shorter Christian Prayer), what are the differences between the "Christian Prayer", "Shorter Christian Prayer" and the 4-volume liturgy of the hours sets?

Is there a catholic teaching or guidance on whether it is OK to visit and sleep over at someone's house who is not in a valid marriage? Can this act show the approval of their marriage and create a sin of scandal? For example: validly married couple with their children visiting grandma who is invalidly married with her partner(from a Catholic perspective)?