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Author Topic: Do Protestants Have Faith?  (Read 4329 times)

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Offline ByzCat3000

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Re: Do Protestants Have Faith?
« Reply #90 on: July 05, 2021, 02:17:48 PM »
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  • Answer to the question posed by OP is quite simple and rooted in Catholic dogma.

    No, Protestants don't have faith.

    Are there some individuals living among the Protestants who still have the faith?  Possibly.  But then these are Catholics and not Protestants.  End of thread.
    I technically agree with this but it demands greater specificity when you get into the details.  

    For instance what exactly is the minimum criterion for "having the faith."

    For example, let's go with the baseline case of a 7 year old who goes to a Presbyterian church with his parents, he was baptized as an infant, he was taught about the Trinity and the Incarnation, he doesn't know what the word "Catholicism", or "Pope" means, he hasn't rejected any dogmas.  I assume you'd agree that he's actually a Catholic and not a Presbyterian, even if we might erroneously say he or his family is Presbyterian in common parlance.

    So let's say he turns 8 and someone tells him the Pope declared that Mary was sinless and he has to believe that or he'll be condemned to Hell.  If his initial reaction isn't "of course" but "huh, what, that's not what I was taught" or something like that, does that automatically mean he's obstinate?  What if he was taught a total strawman of the doctrine like "The Roman Church teaches that Mary is the fourth member of the Trinity" and he rejects that... I guess you could technically say he has the "wrong rule of faith" but he's actually just being rational by not accepting a blatant falsehood.