IVA vs. the Jehovah's Witness, Round 2

Amazingly and inexplicably, our JW commentator returned to clarify his polymic. This was very thoughtful of him, and it is only fitting to reciprocate by responding effectively to his comments. We should forgive our commentator's language skills, although perhaps not the social services in the Philippines.

first, am not saying that you are a catholic apostate. w[h]at i am saying is the catholic, is itself an apostate religion, teaching differently from what the true christians thought us as recorded in the bible.

This is a very interesting, and not a very new, assertion. Let's look at it. Who were these "true Christians" who taught us and whose thoughts are recorded in the Bible? I'm honestly not sure what being a "true Christian" in the eyes of a JW entails, but the context of the comment seems to indicate that it requires having been an apostle (or Christ). So, would that include St. Peter, the first pope, to whom Christ granted supreme ecclesiastical authority on earth (including the power to grant this authority to others through the apostolic succession and the sacrament of ordination)? Or would this include the fathers of the Church who preached and handed down to us such "radical" and "apostate" notions as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, the Immaculate Conception, and the sacrificial nature of the Blessed Sacrament? Would that be the same Christ who said "This is my body, which shall be given up for you -- do this in memory of me" and "He who does not eat of the flesh of the Son of Man shall not have life within him"?

If the Church is itself apostate, how then can it alone, of all Christian (or quasi-Christian) denominations, trace its roots to Christ Himself and His followers? Every Protestant denomination, every odd sect, all who are not members of the Catholic Church must accept that a particular individual at some point decided for himself that he knew better than God's appointed servants and departed from the Tradition of the Church. Nowhere in Catholicism do you find an individual, or even a council, saying "the way that people have been doing things since the time of Christ was wrong, and even though God spoke to the apostles and doesn't speak to me, I/we will change it." In order to be apostate, there has to be a preexisting institution for you to leave. No such organization exists in relationship to the Church.

Furthermore, who wrote and compiled the Bible? Uhm, well, the Church did. The Canon is only the Canon because the Church said it is. WIthout the Church and its authority, the Bible could be anything -- you could have St. Matthew in there, but you could also have "Bob's Account of What This Jesus Guy Did, Maybe." So to say that the Church is unbiblical is really quite funny, since it requires once again that the Church violate the boundaries of something to which it is an antecedent and a creator. As for what the Bible actually does say in regards to Catholicism, I'll direct all of our interested readers to Scripture Catholic.

secondly, i can't say that you go to hell instead, no because hell is not a fiery place as you knew. it is a cemetery, jesus was there for three days so as lazaruz.

Ahh, now we get some rather interesting theological differences. This requires actually knowing a thing or two about Jehovah's Witnesses. Apparently, they do not believe in an eternal system of rewards and punishments in the same fashion as the rest of us. They maintain that the soul dies with the body at death, and as a consequence use the word hell to refer rather mundanely to the physical ground in which the corpse is interred. On the last day, God will supposedly re-create all those who have died (since you stopped being at the time of death this seems to be the necessity), and the evil will go...somewhere unhappy that, well, isn't hell. The righteous at that time will have a new earthly paradise and wear flannel shirts.

This is the sort of idea that is so silly we weren't even taught how to combat it when growing up. I could go there, but it would only involve me rambling more, which is generally an undesirable thing. But Scripture Catholic has a whole page on Hell that includes both Bible passages and the writings of "true Christians."

I'll leave commentaries on whether or not Jehovah's Witnesses themselves are actually Christian (there's that whole Trinity thing they don't believe in) for another time. Maybe we'll get another visit from our Pacific friend that will occassion that.

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