The Philosophy Now Forum

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 7:51 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 6:51 pm So there's no such thing as a Catholic? Or all Catholics are mafia linked?

For my part there are two levels to my personal interest in these questions.
Your *questions*, IC, are insulting.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 7:54 pm ...none of it have you nor will you respond to.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 7:43 pm If it's neither, then just say what your definition of "Catholic" is.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 7:59 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 7:54 pm ...none of it have you nor will you respond to.

I have swallowed none of your red herrings. That is true.

Fanman wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 7:13 pm In my experience, metaphysics doesn't operate in a domain where we can say a certain event or outcome is actually metaphysical. If we claim something is metaphysical, it usually collapses into another subject, such as religion, spirituality, or esotericism.

Consequently, when someone claims to be a metaphysicist, from my perspective the label carries no more practical meaning than witch or wizard.

However, I could be mistaken. If I am, can any of the interlocutors provide a sound example of a distinctly metaphysical conclusive answer?

AJ wrote:In this sense we all have links with "the Mafia". To the degree that we are invested in earthly enterprises, we are invested inevitably in injustice. Full stop. As I have pointed out: even cultivating a field, as an act, involves displacement of life. Similarly, all human construction from large civic projects to the establishment of a nation, involve acts that are defined as antithetical to Christian values. All ownership (in affairs of the world) involve compromises of values. To be in a position of ownership, or to be invested in one’s nation, involve consequential actions that at a strict ethical level cannot be defended without amazing rhetorical back-flips and compromising justifications.

What Protestantism demands and what it means to be a Christian within that tradition can be understood through the reforms of the sixteenth century, which sought not to invent a new faith but to restore what reformers believed was the original Christianity obscured by centuries of tradition.

At the center of classical Protestantism are the Five Solas, which function less as slogans and more as demands placed upon belief and life.

The first demand is Sola Scriptura, that Scripture alone is the final authority. A Protestant Christian is therefore required to submit conscience and doctrine to the Bible over and above popes, councils, or personal revelation. The Church may teach and tradition may guide, but neither can bind the conscience where Scripture does not. This implies a duty of personal engagement with the Word, not merely secondhand faith.

The second is Sola Fide, faith alone. Protestantism demands that a person trust not in his own moral progress, religious observance, or merits, but solely in the finished work of Christ for justification. Good works are not rejected; they are reordered. They are not the root of salvation but its fruit. The demand, then, is not perfection but reliance — a continual turning away from self-justification.

This leads to Sola Gratia, grace alone. Salvation is understood as an unmerited gift. A Christian, in this view, cannot earn or cooperate in his initial acceptance before God. He can only receive. This strips away any ground for spiritual boasting and places all initiative with God.

Solus Christus, Christ alone, demands exclusive mediation. There is no other priest, saint, or system that stands between God and man. Christ is prophet, priest, and king. Therefore every believer has direct access to God, which is the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. The Christian is not dependent on a sacerdotal class to hear his prayers or dispense grace.

Finally, Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone be the glory, demands that the entire life be oriented toward worship, not just Sunday observance. Vocation, family, work, and rest are all to be lived coram Deo, before the face of God.

What then is a Christian according to Protestantism?

A Christian is not first defined by membership in an institution, by baptism as a ritual act alone, or by moral behavior, though all of these matter. A Christian is one who has been justified and is being sanctified.

Justification is forensic and immediate. God declares the sinner righteous because the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him through faith. It is a status granted, not a process achieved.

Conversion therefore involves repentance, an acknowledgement of sin and inability, and faith, a personal trust in Christ's life, death, and resurrection as substitutionary atonement. This new birth is attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit, who regenerates the heart.

Because of that new birth, a Christian is expected to bear evidence of transformation. Protestantism insists on the necessity of sanctification, a lifelong, often uneven, growth in holiness. The true Christian will love the Word, love the Church, hate sin while still struggling with it, and practice repentance as a way of life. Assurance is not found by looking inward at one's own consistency, but by looking outward to Christ's promises, while inward fruit serves as confirming evidence.

In short, the Protestant demand is radical dependence: believe the Scriptures, trust Christ alone, live by grace, and give God all glory. And a Christian, in that framework, is not one who has achieved holiness, but one who has been claimed by Christ and is learning, by faith, to live as if it were true.

To understand what Catholicism demands and what it means to be a Christian within it is to understand a faith that sees itself not as one denomination among many, but as the original and continuous Church founded by Christ himself.

Catholicism is both more institutional and more sacramental than Protestantism in its demands. It does not separate faith from the visible Church that bears it.

The first demand is communion. A Catholic Christian is required to be in full communion with the Catholic Church, which is understood to be the Mystical Body of Christ. This is not merely a voluntary association but the ark of salvation. Christ established Peter and the apostles as its foundation, and their authority continues through apostolic succession in the Pope, the successor of Peter, and the bishops. Therefore to be Christian is to accept the teaching authority, or Magisterium, of the Church to authentically interpret Scripture and Tradition. The Bible is essential, inspired, and inerrant, but it does not stand alone. It is interpreted within Sacred Tradition, the living transmission of apostolic teaching.

The second demand is sacramental life. Catholicism teaches that grace is not only declared but infused and communicated through objective channels instituted by Christ, the seven sacraments. To be Catholic is to live through them. One must be baptized for regeneration and the removal of original sin. One must be confirmed for the strengthening of the Holy Spirit. One must confess sins to a priest in the sacrament of Penance, fulfilling the words "whose sins you forgive are forgiven." And above all, one must participate in the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is the source and summit of Catholic life. The Church teaches transubstantiation, that bread and wine truly become the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. To attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, to receive Christ himself, is not an optional devotion but the central obligation of a Christian.

The third demand is faith formed by charity. Unlike the Protestant formula of faith alone, Catholicism teaches that justification is a process in which God makes the sinner righteous, not merely declares him so. Faith is foundational, but it must be, in the words of Paul, "faith working through love." This means grace plus free cooperation. Good works, almsgiving, fasting, prayer, and acts of mercy are not mere evidence of salvation but, empowered by grace, truly merit increase in grace and contribute to one's salvation and sanctification. One can lose salvation through mortal sin — grave sin committed with full knowledge and consent — and must be restored through confession.

What then is a Christian according to Catholicism?

A Christian is a person incorporated into Christ through baptism, who remains in a state of grace. He is someone who believes all that the Church proposes for belief, participates in the sacramental life, and keeps the commandments of God and of the Church.

This includes a moral life that is quite demanding. It includes assent to the Creed, belief in the Trinity and Incarnation, the veneration of Mary as Theotokos and Mother of the Church and the communion of saints, not as mediators replacing Christ but as intercessors in him. It includes respect for human life from conception to natural death, for marriage as an indissoluble sacrament, and for a formed conscience that seeks to conform itself to Church teaching.

In essence, if the Protestant definition of a Christian emphasizes a personal trust received, the Catholic definition emphasizes a personal life incorporated. To be Christian is to be grafted onto a living Body, nourished by its sacraments, taught by its voice, and transformed interiorly by grace so that one may actually become holy, in order that at the end of life, purified if necessary in Purgatory, one may enter into the beatific vision of God.

Fanman wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 7:13 pm In my experience, metaphysics doesn't operate in a domain where we can say a certain event or outcome is actually metaphysical. If we claim something is metaphysical, it usually collapses into another subject, such as religion, spirituality, or esotericism.

Consequently, when someone claims to be a metaphysicist, from my perspective the label carries no more practical meaning than witch or wizard.

However, I could be mistaken. If I am, can any of the interlocutors provide a sound example of a distinctly metaphysical conclusive answer?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 7:33 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 6:47 pm

As far as your Christianity goes, the very essence of it gleaned from what you write, resolves to exactly what I stated: You believe you are 'saved' (i.e. in a state of Grace)

I wondered if this old O.P. might be of use. It speaks to the immorality of grace. It used to draw good questions when people cared. Apologies for the length.

Are non-believers doomed by Divine Design?

Scriptures say that God decides if a person will be a believer or non-believer. Those scriptures are shown in this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byHYeHN4ZUQ

Those quotes seem to really screw up the free will notion that Christians say God gives us.

The free will that God offers is kind of a joke anyway given the number of people whose free will to live is ignored in the billions of adults, children and babies that God is shown to torture and murder in scriptures.

If the bible and Yahweh are to be believed, and as a non-believer, I, of course, cannot believe it, thanks to God, by God’s design and will against me, then why did God deny me belief or faith?

Even more important to believers, might be to answer the question of; did God make you a believer in things that you can only hope exists and can never confirm?

Are you happy with God ignoring or negating your free will to think as you please?

I have assumed that God’s work of creating both believers and non-believers is working. If that is so, and you believers must think it so, just as I as a non-believer cannot think it is working, --- and Jesus said that those with faith could do all he did and more, --- then there is not even one believer or person of faith that has ever existed.

Either the bible and Christianity is all a lie, or there must be some who can do what Jesus did.

What is your choice of those two options?

Is the bible and Christianity a lie, or is God just not creating any people with faith, --- which would make all Christians who say they have faith, --- liars.

I mean no insult here but someone is definitely lying, if we read what is written and look at reality and listen to Christians.

What do you think is the truth?

Is it just for God to create people doomed to hell even if they wanted to believe?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 8:03 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 7:59 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 7:54 pm ...none of it have you nor will you respond to.

I have swallowed none of your red herrings. That is true.

Have it your way.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 8:29 pm Your move, IC!

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 9:45 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 8:03 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 7:59 pm
I have swallowed none of your red herrings. That is true.

Have it your way.

Oh no. "My way" would be for you to answer a simple question with an honest answer. So it looks like it will be "your way," which is to avoid clarity and to pile up irrelevancies until the question is forgotten.

So I shall cease. It is enough for me to know that you cannot really explain what you think you mean by "Catholic" or "Christian." I was pretty sure that was going to turn out to be the case, anyway.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 9:46 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2026 8:29 pm Your move, IC!

I celebrate your ability to use somebody else's explanation in the place of your own. It's so much easier than having a clear idea oneself.