Dominus Iesus and William Webster's passages

HEADER FOR Expressions

(Click picture to go back to Table of Contents)

Welcome

Enjoy... But remember
"Don't give in to winning the argument
and losing one of your eternal crowns..."

God bless you...

Dominus Iesus and William Webster's passages

Forum: Theological Expressions
Re:

Reconciliation, Towards Unity - Anglicans: With Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Orthodox, Baptists, Pentecostals, etc (Matthew Tan Yew Hock)
Re:

Read between the lines. A case of the Anglican-RC dialogue. (Christopher Yip)
Re:

Time for Anti-Catholic Mr. Yip to wake up from his out-dated-ness
Re:

I agree with unity for the churches (Jason S)
Re:

Jason - I too agree unity is important BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF BIBLICAL TRUTH (Christopher Yip)
Date: 2001, Jun 12
From: Matthew Tan Yew Hock MatthewTan

My reply to Mr. Yip on those texts taken from William Webtser is found here:
http://www.antioch.com.sg/cgi-bin/Agora-Pub/get/expressions/164.html
--
Dominus Iesus.
This is an internal Catholic document, intended to assist Catholics in the self-definition and self-understanding of the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church has its own definition of what a Church is. The definition says that the Church of Jesus Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. It also recognises that other baptised Christians are joined to the Catholic Church through the Holy Spirit, and there is an "ecclesial reality" outside herself whereby other Christians may be saved through their faith in Christ.
The main point is that there is ONLY ONE CHURCH - visible society governed by Apostolic successors. Yet, outside of her there are true ecclesial communities. Since there is only ONE CHURCH of Christ, these ecclessial communities are joined to this ONE CHURCH, but in themselves they are not "churches" in the proper sense. Otherwise, we will not have ONE Church, but thousands of churches in contradiction to one another. This is Rome's theology (Ecclessialogy).
The term "sister Churches" has been used since the first millenium to refer to apostolic Churches. Rome wants to be consistent in its internal document and usage, so that there will not be confusion in terminolgies.
Again, this is an internal document.
When Rome dialogs with other churches, Rome respects their terminology and will continue call them "churches". Rome understands Protestants have different ecclessialogy.
Ecclessialogy is certainly going to be a major topic for ecumenical discussion in the days to come.
One key question to be addressed in Ecclessialogy includes:
Is the Church of Christ ONE CHURCH, or a collection of churches in contradictions with each other?