I kinda do and kinda am unsure about it. Do Catholic's have to believe in the devil.
2007-11-15 16:01:50 · 30 answers · asked by ♥Tami 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
You don't have to believe anything you do not want to believe, but it IS in the Bible (Yes even the Catholic Bible). I can not tell you if every single doctrine of faith needs to be believed for salvation, only God knows for sure. I do know you need Jesus as your savior. This is revealed in Scripture and IS mandatory. If you believe that part of the Bible, what evidence do you have that other parts are not true? Even Jesus spoke of the devil. To doubt the existence of the devil is to doubt what your Savior himself said. Or maybe you actually do believe in the devil. You seem unsure. Maybe the following texts will help. They were all said by Jesus.
If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? Matt. 12:26
Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Mark 4:15
He (Jesus) replied "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." Luke 10:18
see also John 12:31, John 14:30, John 8:44, and John 13:2
With whom was Jesus contending in Luke chapter 4, if not the devil? Please look at this!
Matt 6:13 (the Lord's prayer) in the original Greek is "deliver us from the evil one" (ahpoe tu pawnayroo)
These are just a few of the references in the gospels. There is more throughout the Old and New Testament.
I hope this helped and God Bless.
2007-11-15 16:49:29 · answer #1 · answered by Dr. Paul 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You don't have to believe air exists, but it does.
You don't "have" to do anything you don't want to do.
However, the catholic religion teaches there is a devil so you should be asking yourself if you believe in the teachings.
If you don't, then you really aren't catholic.
I used to be catholic and I found that most catholics do not follow the catholic church at all and just do what they feel like doing anyway.
If you believe in God, then why is it so hard to grasp the concept of a devil?
A few things to consider...
If you believe in God, then you should believe He is all powerful and wise.
If that is true, then you should believe He was able to preserve His holy Word so we would have something to use to follow Him.
If that is true, then His Word must be true.
His Word says there is a devil so you should believe there is one or you don't even believe God's Word is true, therefore you really don't believe in God. You just trust what you believe over having faith in God's Word.
If you don't have faith in God's Word, then you cannot follow Him, because the bible becomes just another book and not the Holy Scriptures which should be followed in order to serve Him.
Then you're just following God on your own terms and not how He instructed us to follow Him. Which means you're not a christian and you're serving the devil which you're not sure exists.
One of the truest quotes I've ever heard was "The biggest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist".
Think about that and relook at how you serve God and ask yourself are you really serving Him. I suspect you have bigger faith issues than just doubting the existence of the devil.
2007-11-16 00:16:24 · answer #2 · answered by IL Padrino 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I guess your question is whether failure to believe in the devil constitutes a heresy. Or, another way to ask is the existence of the devil a Catholic Dogma.
A dogma is a truth pertaining to faith or morals, revealed by God, transmitted from the Apostles in the Scriptures or by tradition, and defined by the Church for the acceptance of the faithful. The deliberate denial of one of these dogmas involves the sin of heresy.
The Old and New Testaments mention the devil in several instances. The authoritative teaching of the Church on the devil was established by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. It appears that the Church authoritatively defined the existence of the devil, and thus to deliberately reject this teaching is heresy.
2007-11-16 20:19:57 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Technically, if you can say you believe everything that is the Nicene creed and if you believe in the apostolic authority of the Church, you can be Catholic.
Regarding the devil, though, Jesus appears to believe in the devil, according to Scripture. So to say you don't believe in the devil means believing either Jesus was wrong or that He was speaking metaphorically, which is kind of hard to support from a scholar's perspective.
If you mean to say that you believe each person is responsible for his/her own choices and the whole "devil made me do it" thing is a cop-out, that's probably perfectly acceptable.
2007-11-16 10:47:12 · answer #4 · answered by sparki777 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Believe in what you want to believe. Forget about religion and focus on doing good, on doing the things that God teaches us, not on the specifics created to limit men and women. A good movie to watch about this is Dogma. Look for the real message in it. Another movie is Stigmata. Both movies have a message regarding the institution of the Church (in these two cases, the Catholic Church, but it could apply to any Church) and the real church which is the people and the simplicity (and complexity) of God.
I am Catholic too (and my dad is a deacon), but I don't just believe in what people or the Church tell me. Read, listen and then think for yourself. Make your own mind. People cannot believe that I am Catholic and that I am pro-choice. Or that I am against a lot of the things that the Catholic Church says. Some say, join another Church then, but it is all the same, you will find things you don't believe in them too. Definitely, as someone very wise said: religion is the drug that makes people numb (I am paraphrasing of course).
But, if there is goodness in the world, don't you think there is also badness?
2007-11-16 00:18:32 · answer #5 · answered by ivelisse 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
This is what you are saying. I believe in light, but i dont belive in darkness. Its black and white. Theres good, theres evil. If you belive god is good, then where does evil come from? It's from the devil. No offense, i dont mean it in a bad way, but you sound like a wineing child. If there is no devil, then we should be in heaven by now. If there was no devil, there would be no sin, and no need for Jesus to die on the christ, therefore there would be no virgin mary, or any other saints. So therefore your whole religion is useless. There is a devil whether you belive it or not. Think about it.
2007-11-16 00:23:36 · answer #6 · answered by sofik I 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Satan (devil) is real and if your church is not teaching you about the adversary you better get to a church that does. He is here to kill, steal and destroy. You must know his tactics so that you are ready when he attacks and this is so real you cannot remain ignorant of his schemes. He is known as the enemy of the brethren, when you are knowledgeable (seek wisdom) of Satan you are armed and as Christians we need to be. "Put on the full armor of God, in which you can stand against the wiles of the devil". The bible has many scriptures to prove that Satan is real, you must be reading your bible to gain wisdom and not be off guard when you go through the trials of life. I hope you are encouraged.
see: Ephesians 6:10-20
2007-11-16 02:04:45 · answer #7 · answered by valiant 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
In Christian mythology the Devil (or Satan) is the fallen angel who was kicked out of heaven for feeling 2 (I think) of the so-called deadly sins pride and I think it was jealousy.
He was kicked out because he refused to repent for feeling these human emotions.
The symbol representing the Devil is taken from the Horned God of the Pagans who being the god of the underworld, was the god of death, decay , fertility and rebirth. When anything in life dies (whether it be animal or plant), it's body decays and becomes nutrients in soil for the next season's growth.
When Christianity spread through Europe, they took many of the traditional Pagan gods and vilified them into devils and demons and accused the people of devil worship and the elder women with their knowledge of herbal remedies as being witches.
The Puritans then took it further by vilifying all human emotion and pleasure. They even stripped the churches bare of their art work and smashed the sculptures. The also removed all mention of sex and procreation out of the bible and made that a sin to.
What is left is a hypocritical, contradictory mess where people are told to love their enemies and everyone they meet. This completely devalues the emotion of love which should be kept for ones nearest and dearest and certainly not for some despotic, misogynist who wants to harm you or your loved ones.
2007-11-16 00:19:25 · answer #8 · answered by serenityredflowers 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Pretty much.
"But deliver us from evil."
The last petition to our Father is also included in Jesus' prayer: "I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one." (Jn 17:15)
In this petition, evil is not an abstraction, but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God.
The devil is the one who "throws himself across" God's plan and his work of salvation accomplished in Christ.
The Bible teaches that Satan is a fallen angel. Scripture sees in this being a fallen angel, called "Satan" or the "devil". (Cf. Jn 8:44; Rev 12:9)
Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: "The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing."
Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. (2 Pet 2:4) This "fall" consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign.
The devil "has sinned from the beginning"; he is "a liar and the father of lies." (1 Jn 3:8; Jn 8:44)
It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels' sin unforgivable. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death."
Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls "a murderer from the beginning," who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father. (Jn 8:44; cf. Mt 4:1-11)
"The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." (1 Jn 3:8)
The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite.
He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature.
He cannot prevent the building up of God's reign.
For more information, see Catechism of the Catholic Church, sections 391-395: http://www.nccbuscc.org/catechism/text/pt1sect2chpt1art1p7.htm#391
With love in Christ.
2007-11-16 23:48:39 · answer #9 · answered by imacatholic2 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
no u don't HAVE to, if u feel like u don't want to believe in the devil then don't, as long as u still practice the catholic religion u are catholic
2007-11-16 00:22:14 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋