Roman Catholic doctrine teaches that Mary remained a virgin her entire life, even after marrying Joseph. It would seem that Joseph and Mary, at their betrothal, had likely expected to have, and anticipated having marital relations with each other in marriage. So, according to Roman Catholic teaching, when and how did Mary and Joseph learn that marital relations would be denied them? Did they just never desire that, or did they specifically have to battle the temptation? It admittedly seems strange to me that this would be withheld from them. Is it even right to say they were not supposed to have marital relations? Or should it be said that they never even desired that?

Prompted by a Meta conversation this question asks if there are any Christian denominations which teach that God cannot heal our physical bodies in the here and now. I am not asking after teachings regarding when, if, or how God may or may not heal. I am asking if any Christians officially, denominationally teach that God cannot ... that it is impossible for Him. Not that He "does not" but that He "cannot".

Since the original Great Schism, the Orthodox church has seemed pretty unified (at least compared to the Catholic Church). During the radical reformation, Anabaptists were persecuted throughout Germany and Switzerland. This led to some settling in present day Russia and Ukraine. Was there any point where a similar movement occurred in the Eastern Orthodox church?

> [**1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (KJV)**](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2013:1-3&version=KJV) > > 1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. > 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. > 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Those verses are commonly interpreted to mean that charity is also necessary for salvation, even "though I have all faith." That interpretation opposes the doctrine of Sola Fide. How then do Sola Fide adherents interpret this passage?

I apologize if this question has been asked before. I haven’t been able to find something that deals specifically with what I need the answer to. To start, I do believe in the Trinity and I believe a Unitarian God is lacking, especially in Christianity, and scripture does teach the Trinity, so my question isn’t about if or can the Trinity exist/s. ——— My question is how can three persons (I know not separate gods) all be omnipotent? I know the three are all one in will, mind, and essence, but the fact that they are three distinct persons makes it difficult for me to understand this. Wouldn’t one be more powerful than the other two? When I try to find solutions I can only come up with two ways and they can’t fully satisfy my question: 1. The first is that the Son and Spirit derive the nature of God from the Father since eternity. The problem with that for me is that the Son and Spirit don’t seem like God if they depend on the Father to be God. I can see someone saying that God is ontologically dependent on Himself, and the Son and Spirit are God because they proceed from the Father, so they are dependent on their own nature which is God. Since they are uncreated that could make sense. 2. The second is that all three persons are able to “use” the omnipotent attribute within the essence of God. In my head it’s like them picking an apple from a tree. And this one seems so wrong. It makes it seem like the essence of God is a circle and the three persons live/exist within that circle and get their power from that essence, the circle. It’s like the essence is inanimate and the three persons live in it and are able to use the omni attributes because of it. I know it’s wrong but I’m just trying to give my thought process. I keep trying to understand it by saying they share omnipotence, but I can’t wrap my head around it. If the Father is the source, then He alone is omnipotent. But since the Son and Spirit are uncreated, they would also be omnipotent by definition? Maybe it’s as simple as saying “All three are one God and they all are of one essence, so they are just omnipotent.” Maybe I’m just overthinking it, I’m not sure. It kind of sounds like I’m talking about polytheism the way I’m describing it and that maybe the problem.

I was reading the Office of Readings this morning and the reading was from the beginning of Habakkuk (assuming I'm on the right week, which I might not be). In any event, it was the first chapter of a book I'd never really paid much attention to and I was reflecting on it and it seemed to draw out a lot of motif's from the life of St. Peter 1. He scoffs at kings (when St. Peter says that Jesus shouldn't go to Jerusalem or wash his feet) 2. He gathers fish, like men 3. He is the rock readied for punishment (although Rock refers to God in _this_ passage) 4. He brandishes the sword and might have slayed without mercy. 5. He was the rash man, but was justified because of his faith. I don't see any intertext references in the New American Bible that suggest it, but I couldn't help but see it this morning and was wondering if there was anything to it.

Were the Pharisees being sarcastic in John 7:52, when they claimed that "no prophet ever came out of Galilee"? It is written that Jonah came from Gath-hepher, in Galilee (2 Kings 14:25).

Luke 4:18 reads: "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; However the passage in Isaiah 61:1 does not mention recovery of sight...did Jesus add this?

I am convinced that none of Aquinas's arguments for the existence of God are sufficient to proving his being. All of these have been thoroughly destroyed, underwritten, decimated by secular philosophers, starting with Hume, and then Kant, who argued that the concept of God must be believed only because he wanted moral stability within society. Kant was right in saying that the idea of a 'metaphysical science' is absurd. This might be a contested statement, but I believe the bible affirms this too, by giving no real understanding to the reader of metaphysical concepts except through vague sentences. So, because I was so discouraged with the knowledge that I cannot prove God's existence, I realized that he is not the same as I first envisioned Him to be. I approach the issue with a look at truth. I think there is one statement that we can, universally, regardless of dispute, agree upon. This I lay before the reader: Truth is. There are no implications of this statement. There ought to be no disagreement over this statement. I am not arguing that “Truth is existent”. Nor am I arguing that “Truth is non-existent”. Neither of these arguments are possible to argue. Truth is; but what it is, how it is, when it is, even who it is, is irrelevant. To add anything to this statement is like adding a paper tag to a metal airplane and arguing that the paper tag is the airplane. It simply is ridiculous. Thus, the conclusion of this argument about truth is not that we can recognize its ‘particulars’, nor that we can somehow cross the barrier of the noumena to access it. Rather, we settle upon this, a modest yet incredibly profound idea. If the only thing we can say about truth is that ‘I don’t know’, then what shall I say? Shall I argue about it at all? Shall I simply fall back on the centuries old maxim created by Kant that subjects our whole study of philosophy to the study of cognitive structures? Shall we follow the path of Plato, arguing that there exists a world of forms that is beyond our understanding, but is perceived by a select few; a world whose existence is totally impossible to prove? Should we simply trust God, and believe, as Locke and Descartes did, that our senses are good enough to find the truth? Or should we completely subject ourselves to skepticism, relativism, and nihilism? What shall we say? What is truth? We hardly know if we know that we do not know anything. Notwithstanding the uncertainty of defining truth, of showing that it is, or is not, there is one more thing, a simple thing, a thing that is impossible to prove, but a thing that is necessary: Truth is. God is. These are one and the same. Perhaps this is a bold assertion. The words I use to make it are certainly not enough to encapsulate what I am trying say. I think it is impossible to fully encapsulate with words what I am trying to say. I think it is impossible to fully understand what I mean by saying this. Yet I think this one statement, this one idea, which no one can really understand, is so necessary, so critical, to our knowledge, to our purpose, to our existence, that nothing can more fully show this. That truth is, is both undeniable and unproveable, but necessary; that God is one and the same with this truth, is foundational, I think, to not just theology, but philosophy. When Abraham spoke to the burning bush, he asked it, “Who are you?” And God answered, I AM THAT I AM. The importance of this cannot be overstated. It cannot even be understated. It is something profound, unknowable, unreachable; yet it is something that is. It is something that cannot be overstated because it is so necessary; but it is also something that cannot be understated because that is simply impossible. In dealing with the idea of God, we ought not to subject it to any rational or empirical review; there is no ‘transcendental logic’ robust enough to evaluate this. But, by taking this theory, that ‘Truth is. God is. These are one and the same’, are we subjecting ourselves to Simon Blackburn’s critique that we are “stepping outside our own skins and essaying the mythical transcendental comparison” (Blackburn 180)? Are we evaluating truth by proposing a “second-order, philosophical, subtle and elusive theory called realism to explain [truth’s] success” (Blackburn, 180)? No; rather, we take the same view as Blackburn, who, notably, said “Science explains the success of science” (Blackburn 181). The only thing that differs in my argument is my choice of words. Truth is only ‘mystical’ in the sense that we cannot understand it. About truth we can only say ‘it is’. Perhaps this is because ‘it works’. Perhaps ‘science explains the success of science’ in the same way ‘truth explains the success of truth’; or we could simplify this to say, ‘Science is science’ and ‘Truth is truth’. And this I put a label on and call God--that is, ‘God is God’. God is merely a label put on truth. In many instances it is put on something that is not really what it is. An enormous misconception of God has beleaguered all attempts of God-believing people to prove the existence of God. There is this odd idea that God is merely an ‘all-powerful, all knowing, all-good’ being as if God were a human granted superhuman powers. Simon Blackburn, in the book, ‘Truth’, referencing an analogy Bertrand Russel composed, compared the idea of a deity to the possibility of a teapot floating in orbit around the sun. “Bertrand Russel…[compared] religious belief with…factual kinds of belief, which were as improbable, scientifically, as anything could be: the belief there is a china teapot floating around the sun, for example…Now imagine, however, that this teapot undergoes a sea change. Suppose it becomes an authority (out of its spout come forth important commands and promises) …it answers prayers, adopts babies, consecrates marriages and closes grief…Is there a difference between animation and belief? Is there really a space for theology without onto-theology, and if so, how does one tell the difference?” (Blackburn, 19). Blackburn and Russel rightly question the trustworthiness of religious belief. Why is a ‘belief’ or a ‘feeling’ enough to prove the idea that God exists? Religious belief, in these men’s minds, is an imagined, cultlike fantasy. What is the difference between a deity and an imaginary friend? This is my personal opinion: Secularists, which dominate the educational community, have dismissed the significant implications of a deity by replacing the true deity with a fake one, a straw man that was put in place so that atheism could easily topple it. Theists, however, have actually given to atheists the strawman that atheists have used to deride theism. Atheists are only right in their denial of God because theists have failed to aptly define God. How should Christians define God in light of these issues?

Genesis 4:3-4; Leviticus 3:2; Leviticus 16:5; Ezekiel 44:1;Numbers 6:10-11; and Exodus 29:10-14 are some of the many places in the Bible that speak of God requiring animal sacrifices or sacrifices being made to God for expiation of sins or for thanks. If God's plan all along was that Jesus would come as a perfect sacrifice to atone for the sins of all of humanity; why were animal sacrifices required of the people of those "Old Testament" times, but not of our time; yet Jesus was destined to die for the sins of both ("groups")? My question is not restricted to the purpose of animal sacrifice as asked in this post: (https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/842/what-was-the-purpose-to-animal-sacrifices) ; but I ask why we no longer have to offer them when they were required of earlier generations despite the fact Jesus would die for their sins as well as our sins.

My previous question https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/103139/76145 got closed, but it prompted some users to post this question https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/103149/76145 and this meta conversation https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/q/7544/76145 . So, to ensure I adhere to the guidelines of this site, I would like to ask now if there is a Christian denomination that teaches that God heals Alzheimer's disease—not just that He has the power to do so "in theory" or "in principle", but that He actually does. Thanks.

The Bible teaches that God created everything and when He beheld what he had created, ***it was good.*** Since the animals were created before us, and God beheld them and saw that every animal was ***good.*** I understand good in this context meant that every animal was good and they lived together in harmony, where the lion would pass close by the impala and would not attack. Is it safe to conclude that the original sin committed by Adam and Eve caused wild animals to be evil inherently and hence wild? This is because everything God created was good. *Genesis 1:31* >God saw everything he had made: it was supremely good

Most Christians use the Gregorian Calendar which puts us in 2024. According to the Hebrew calendar its 5784. Most of us ( the church) believe the Messianic Prophesies/ the second coming being soon (around 2,000 years). Although the Jews don’t believe in Jesus as the Messiah I understand we are actually in the year 5784. How should we view the second coming in terms of years? I know that for God one day can be a thousand years for men. Does that then mean we are wrong to say 2,000 years? *An overview of all Christian positions is needed for this question* The Jews believe that the Messiah will come 6,000 years after creation which is how they started their calendar years to begin with so their years seem far more accurate regardless of if Jesus isn’t their Messiah.

In doing research primarily online, I have been seeing conflicting claims about how deuterocanonical books were inserted into the Vulgate by Jerome. * Some say that in the original manuscripts of the Vulgate, Jerome put the deuterocanonical books into their own section. * Other sources say that Jerome interspersed the deuterocanonical books and segments into the rest of the Bible, similar to (but maybe not exactly as) the Catholic Bible integrates them now. This question is **not** asking what Jerome's opinions were on the deuterocanonical texts or if he "approved" of the Apocrypha or anything like that. This question is **strictly about how the deuterocanonical texts were placed in the original Vulgate.** Thanks!

[Stephen Colbert's wikipedia bio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert#Personal_life) states: > **Colbert is a practicing Roman Catholic** and a Sunday school teacher **and an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery**. These two (bolded) things, according to various media reports and the blogsite of the Universal Life Church Monastery are factually correct, so I'm not asking if they are possible, but whether according to official Catholic doctrine the two are reconcileable? By way of background information: > The Universal Life Church Monastery (ULC) is a non-denominational, non-profit religious organization famous worldwide for its provision of free, legal ordinations to its vast membership over the internet. The ULC, recognizing the importance of maintaining open hearts and minds, embraces any individual, no matter his or her spiritual background, who wishes to become a member of this family of faith. Since its founding, the Universal Life Church has ordained more than 20 million ministers. - [www.themonastery.org/aboutUs](http://www.themonastery.org/aboutUs) The Picture is of Colbert officiating at the wedding of Mike Cassesso and MaiLien Le using a licence granted to him in the state of New York on the basis of his ULC credential. Clearly Colbert was not officiating as a priest in the Catholic sacrament of marriage, but do his actions in conducting a non-Catholic wedding violate any particular Church teachings? If so, would it be regarded as a venial sin or a mortal one?

It is a well-known fact that after Augustine, and partially due to his influence, amillennialism became the dominant framework for eschatology within Christendom until after the Reformation. The modern Catholic Church expressly rejects premillennialism ([CCC 676](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/676.htm)) . I have often heard premillennialist blame the Catholic Church for suppressing premillennialism from the time of Augustine until the Reformation. I am wondering **at what time the Catholics first rejected premillennialism officially**, and whether they have ever declared it heretical.

When God cursed Cain for killing Abel, did that curse extend to Cain's offspring, to Cain alone, or to everyone? God tells Cain: > "And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Genesis 4:11-12 ESV Later in Genesis, when tracing the genealogy of Cain's younger brother Seth, this next verse seems to indicate that the ground was cursed for everyone, not just Cain or his direct descendants? >"When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” Genesis 5:28-29

Did Judas believe and profess that Jesus is the Son of Man? **Matthew 26:24** (New American Standard Bible): >The Son of Man is going away just as it is written about Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” Jesus is specifically saying, woe to that man who will betray Him as the "Son of Man". Did Judas believe that Jesus is the Son of Man? Looking further at the passages, Judas looked upon Jesus only as "Rabbi". **Matthew 26:23–25** (Berean Standard Bible): > **23** Jesus answered, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with Me will betray Me. **24** The Son of Man will go just as it is written about Him, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed. It would be better for him if he had not been born.” **25** Then Judas, who would betray Him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” Jesus answered, “You have said it yourself.” In Matthew 26:23, Did Judas dip his hand into the bowl? And in Matthew 26:25, Judas denied that he is the Son of Perdition. And Jesus said, "You have said it yourself", as if saying, it is not you Judas. Judas, all throughout Jesus ministry, looked upon Jesus only as "Rabbi". **Did Judas believe and profess that Jesus is the Son of Man?**

Do any Protestant Christian movements/denominations believe that acceptance of the 39 book 'Old Testament/27 book 'New Testament', and **only** those 66 books as scripture is an essential doctrine of faith? Do any Protestant denominations require such a declaration? Why or why not? For instance, is there a theological problem in Protestantism if a clergy member/lay person sincerely believed the academic consensus that the Second Epistle of Peter was not scripture? Or would protestants believe there a problem if the same person sincerely believes that 1/2 Maccabees are scripture?

There are a lot of differing opinions on when the rapture will take place (pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, or mid-tribulation). From my own attempts to research the topic and look at Scripture from outside my presuppositions, I have found good arguments for all sides of the issue. What did the early church actually believe about the "rapture"? Note: This question is (obviously) not a duplicate of the question "What view of eschatology did the early church believe? " — I wrote that question and, seeing that I needed to be more specific about the different aspects of eschatology, I wrote this question that specifically dealt with the "rapture." The other question, by contrast, mentions nothing about the "rapture" in any of the answers.