Statement of Faith: Mario O Sujanto

I believe in YHWY (Ex 3:13-15): the only true living God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. (Ex 3:6)  He is God outside space and time; the only true eternal God since eternity (Is 44:6).  I believe that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another. Thus, in the words of the Athanasian Creed: "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God." In this Trinity of Persons the Son is begotten of the Father by an eternal generation, and the Holy Spirit proceeds by an eternal procession from the Father and the Son. Yet, notwithstanding this difference as to origin, the Persons are co-eternal and co-equal: all alike are uncreated and omnipotent. This, the Church teaches, is the revelation regarding God's nature which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came upon earth to deliver to the world: and which she proposes to man as the foundation of her whole dogmatic system. 

I believe the consubstantiality of the Persons, as it was asserted by St. Irenaeus when he tells us that God created the world by His Son and His Spirit, "His two hands" (Adv. haer., IV, xx, 1). The purport of the phrase is evidently to indicate that the Second and Third Persons are not substantially distinct from the First.  The consubstantiality is affirmed on the ground that the Son and Spirit, proceeding from the Father, are nevertheless not separated from Him; while they again, with all their perfections, can be regarded as contained within Him.

As the Greek Fathers regarded the Son as the Wisdom and power of the Father (I Cor., 1:24) in a formal sense, and in like manner, the Spirit as His Sanctity. Apart from the Son the Father would be without His Wisdom; apart from the Spirit He would be without His Sanctity. Thus the Son and the Spirit are termed "Powers" (Dynameis) of the Father. But while in creatures the powers and faculties are mere accidental perfections, in the Godhead they are subsistent hypostases. Denis of Alexandria regarding the Second and Third Persons as the Father's "Powers", speaks of the First Person as being "extended" to them, and not divided from them.

I believe that the sonship of the Second Person implies that He has received the Divine Nature in its fullness, for all generation implies the origination of one who is like in nature to the originating principle. The Divine Essence is not capable of numerical multiplication; it is therefore, they reasoned, identically the same nature which both possess. A similar line of argument establishes that the Divine Nature as communicated to the Holy Spirit is not specifically, but numerically, one with that of the Father and the Son. Unity of nature as was also understood by the Greek Fathers as involving unity of will and unity of action (energeia). This they declared the Three Persons to possess (Athanasius, "Adv. Sabell.", xii, 13; Basil, "Ep. clxxxix," n. 7; Gregory of Nyssa, "De orat. dom.," John Damascene, "De fide orth.", III, xiv).

I believe as St. Cyril of Alexandria says that the Son is called the Word and Wisdom of the Father "because of the reciprocal inherence of these and the mind" (dia ten eis allela . . . ., hos an eipoi tis, antembolen). Follow by St.Cyril, I believe also as St. John Damascene assigns a twofold basis for this inexistence of the Persons. In some passages he explains it by the doctrine already mentioned, that the Son and the Spirit are dynameis of the Father (cf. "De recta sententia"). Thus understood, the Circuminsession is a corollary of the doctrine of Recapitulation. I also understands it as signifying the identity of essence, will, and action in the Persons. Wherever these are peculiar to the individual, as is the case in all creatures, there, he tells us, we have separate existence (kechorismenos einai). In the Godhead the essence, will, and action are but one. Hence we have not separate existence, but Circuminsession (perichoresis) (Fid. orth., I, viii).

By believing this magisterium, It is easy for me to see that the Greek system was less well adapted to meet the cavils of the Arian and Macedonian heretics than was that subsequently developed by St. Augustine. Indeed the controversies of the fourth century brought some of the Greek Fathers notably nearer to the positions of Latin theology. I have seen that they were led to affirm the action of the Three Persons to be but one. Didymus even employs expressions which seem to show that he, like the Latins, conceived the Nature as logically antecedent to the Persons. He understands the term God as signifying the whole Trinity, and not, as do the other Greeks, the Father alone: "When we pray, whether we say 'Kyrie eleison', or 'O God aid us', we do not miss our mark: for we include the whole of the Blessed Trinity in one Godhead" (De Trin., II, xix).

I believe in the nature and attribute of God, which we human can know by reasons or/and by revelation. 

I. As I known through Natural Reason

A.      I believe in the Infinity of God

B.      I believe in the Unity or Unicity of God

C.      I believe in the Simplicity of God

D.      I believe in His Divine Personality

II. As I known through Faith

A. Eternity
B. Immensity and Ubiquity, or Omnipresence
C. Immutability
D. The Divine Attributes

1. Divine Knowledge
2. The Divine Will
3. Intellect and Will (Providence, Predestination, and Reprobation)

I believe that Jesus is Christ is the incarnated Word of God, and this Incarnation implies three facts:

(1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ

I believe in the historicity, of Jesus Christ -- i.e. that He was a real person of history; the Messiahship of Jesus; the historical worth and authenticity of the Gospels and Acts; the Divine ambassadorship of Jesus Christ established thereby; the establishment of an infallible and never failing teaching body to have and to keep the deposit of revealed truth entrusted to it by the Divine ambassador, Jesus Christ; the handing down of all this deposit by tradition and of part thereof by Holy Writer; the canon and inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures--all these questions will be found treated in their proper places. Moreover, the Divine nature and Divine personality are one and inseparable. The historical person, Jesus Christ, is really and truly God, --i. e. has the nature of God, and is a Divine person. The Divinity of Jesus Christ is established by the Old Testament, by the New Testament and by tradition.

(2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ;

I DON’T believe as the Gnostics believe that matter was of its very nature evil, somewhat as the present-day Christian scientists teach that it is an "error of mortal mind"; hence Christ as God could not have had a material body, and His body was only apparent. As the Church called them a heretic of doketae, and this included Basilides, Marcion, the Manichaeans, and others. I also deny what Valentinus and others admitted that Jesus had a body, but a something heavenly and ethereal; hence Jesus was not born of Mary, but His airy body passed through her virgin body. Furthermore, I also not believe in the Apollinarists doctrine that admitted that Jesus had an ordinary body, but denied Him a human soul; the Divine nature took the place of the rational mind. Against all these various forms of the heresy that denies Christ is true Man stand countless and clearest testimonies of the written and unwritten Word of God. The title that is characteristic of Jesus in the New Testament is Son of Man; it occurs some eighty times in the Gospels; it was His Own accustomed title for Himself. The phrase is Aramaic, and would seem to be an idiomatic way of saying "man". The life and death and resurrection of Christ would all be a lie were He not a man, and our Faith would be vain. (I Cor., xv, 14). "For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Tim., ii, 5). Why, Christ even enumerates the parts of His Body. "See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have" (Luke, xxiv, 39). St. Augustine says, in this matter: "If the Body of Christ was a fancy, then Christ erred; and if Christ erred, then He is not the Truth. But Christ is the Truth; hence His Body was not a fancy' (QQ. lxxxiii, q. 14; P. L., XL, 14). In regard to the human soul of Christ, the Scripture is equally clear. Only a human soul could have been sad and troubled. Christ says: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Matt., xxvi, 38). "Now is my soul troubled" (John, xii, 27). His obedience to the heavenly Father and to Mary and Joseph supposes a human soul (John, iv, 34; v, 30; vi, 38; Luke, xxii, 42). Finally Jesus was really born of Mary (Matt., i, 16), made of a woman (Gal., iv, 4), after the angel had promised that He should be conceived of Mary (Luke, i, 31); this woman is called the mother of Jesus (Matt., i, 18; ii, 11; Luke, i, 43; John, ii, 3); Christ is said to be really the seed of Abraham (Gal., iii, 16), the son of David (Matt., i, 1), made of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom., i, 3), and the fruit of the loins of David (Acts, ii, 30). So clear is the testimony of Scripture to the perfect human nature of Jesus Christ, that the Fathers held it as a general principle that whatsoever the Word had not assumed was not healed, i. e., did not receive the effects of the Incarnation.

(3) The Hypostatic Union of the Human with the Divine Nature in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ.

I believe that this union is a fact; the nature of the union will be later taken up. The Divine nature was really and truly united with the human nature of Jesus, i. e., that one and the same Person, Jesus Christ, was God and man. I explaining here of no moral union, no union in a figurative sense of the word; but a union that is physical, a union of two substances or natures so as to make One Person, a union which means that God is Man and Man is God in the Person of Jesus Christ.

I believe in the Holy Ghost, which is the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. Though really distinct, as a Person, from the Father and the Son, He is consubstantial with Them; being God like Them, He possesses with Them one and the same Divine Essence or Nature. He proceeds, not by way of generation, but by way of separation, from the Father and the Son together, as from a single principle.

I believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ, the mother of God.  I believe in the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, that Pope Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin."  I believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary and her assumption to heaven as the dogma declared.

I believe in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ himself as the Nicene Creed declares the Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.

Thus, the Church of the apostles was definitely one: "There is one body and one spirit," Paul wrote, "just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all" (Eph. 4:4-5). Paul linked this primitive unity to the Church's common Eucharistic bread: "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of one bread" (1 Cor. 10:17). Jesus had promised at the outset that "there would be one flock, one shepherd" (John 10:16).

Similarly, the Church of the apostles was holy. When we say that, we mean among other things that it had the all-holy God himself as author. We do not mean that all of its members have ceased to be sinners and have themselves become all-holy. On the contrary, the Church from the beginning, on her human side, has been composed of sinners: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim. 1:15). The Church was founded for no other reason than to continue Christ's redemptive and sanctifying work with them in the world.

One of the things implicit in the appellation "holy" as applied to the Church, then, is that the Church from the beginning has been endowed with the sacramental means to help make holy the sinners who are found in her ranks. The Church has been given the sacraments along with the word precisely in order to be able to help make sinners holy.

It was in this sense that Paul was able to write, "Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25-27). The holiness of the Church, of which the creed properly speaks, has always had reference to her divine Founder and to what the Church was founded by him with the power and authority to do, not with the condition of her members.

The third great historic mark or note of the one true Church was that this Church was Catholic. "Catholic" means "universal." It refers as much to the fullness of the faith which it possesses as it does to the undeniable extension in both time and space which has characterized it virtually from the beginning. At the very beginning, of course, it was no doubt difficult to see how the "little flock" (Luke 12:32) of which the Church then consisted could by any stretch of the imagination qualify as "universal." Still, just as the embryo contains in germ the whole human being, so the Church already contained the universality that would quickly begin to manifest itself.

It is not without significance that the Holy Spirit came down upon the Church at Pentecost at a time when "there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven" (Acts 2:5). It was to them that the Holy Spirit temporarily enabled the apostles to speak in the languages of all these various nations--a powerful sign that the Church was destined for all men everywhere, represented at that first Pentecost in Jerusalem by those of many nations who had come there from afar. Many accepted the faith then and there and presumably began forthwith carrying "the Catholic Church" back to the four corners of the earth.

The Catholicity of the Church in any case resides as much in the fact that the Church is for everybody at all times as it does in the fact that it was indeed destined to spread everywhere throughout the whole world. Within a few years of the foundation of the Church, Paul was writing that "the word of truth . . . in the whole world . . . is bearing fruit and growing" (Col. 1:5-6).

Finally, the Church that issued from the commission of Christ to the apostles was necessarily apostolic. Christ founded the Church upon the apostles and in no other way: "Did I not choose you, the twelve?" he asked them (John 6:70). The apostles of all people understood perfectly well that they did not set themselves up in their own little community, as we sometimes today see "gospel churches" set up in store fronts or in the suburbs. The New Testament teaches, "One does not take the honor upon himself" (Heb. 5:4).

Nothing is clearer, then, that the Church started out as "apostolic." The question is whether the apostles had the power and authority to pass on to others what they had received from Christ. They very definitely did have this power and authority; the New Testament evidence is clear about that. The subsequent historical evidence is equally clear that they did pass it on to successors (the bishops). Indeed there are already references in the New Testament itself to the appointment of bishops by the apostles, as well as to the appointment of further bishops by them (Titus 1:5-9). I believe that any entity or body claiming to be the Church of Christ would have to be able to demonstrate its apostolicity by demonstrating an organic link with the original apostles on whom Christ manifestly established his Church. Nothing less than this could qualify as the "apostolic" Church which Jesus founded. As much for our instruction as for the assurance he intended to give to the apostles to whom he was actually speaking, Jesus said, "He who hears you, hears me" (Luke 10:16).

I believe in the primacy of St.Peter over the other Apostles.  I believe the Bishop is the successor of the Apostle, and this including the Roman Pontiff, Bishop of Rome as the successor of St.Peter, the prince of the Apostles. As I believe St.Peter’s infallibility, I also believe in the infallibility of his successors and their primacy as the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth and the leader of the universal Church.  I acknowledge that the New Testament contains five different metaphors for the foundation of the Church (Matt. 16:18, 1 Cor. 3:11, Eph. 2:20, 1 Pet. 2:5–6, Rev. 21:14). One metaphor that has been disputed is Jesus Christ’s calling the apostle Peter "rock": "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). I also acknowledge that some have tried to argue that Jesus did not mean that his Church would be built on Peter but on something else, even though the Greek word for "this" (touto) means "this very."  Other people argue that in this passage there is a minor difference between the Greek term for Peter (Petros) and the term for rock (petra), yet they ignore the obvious explanation: petra, a feminine noun, has simply been modifed to have a masculine ending, since one would not refer to a man (Peter) as feminine. The change in the gender is purely for stylistic reasons.  These critics also neglect the fact that Jesus spoke Aramaic, and, as John 1:42 tells us, in everyday life he actually referred to Peter as Kepha or Cephas (depending on how it is transliterated). It is that term which is then translated into Greek as petros. Thus, what Jesus actually said to Peter in Aramaic was: "You are Kepha and on this very kepha I will build my Church."   The Church Fathers, those Christians closest to the apostles in time, culture, and theological background, clearly understood that Jesus promised to build the Church on Peter, as the following passages show.

Tatian the Syrian

"Simon Cephas answered and said, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah: flesh and blood has not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee also, that you are Cephas, and on this rock will I build my Church; and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it" (The Diatesseron 23 [A.D. 170]).

Tertullian

"Was anything withheld from the knowledge of Peter, who is called ‘the rock on which the Church would be built’ [Matt. 16:18] with the power of ‘loosing and binding in heaven and on earth’ [Matt. 16:19]?" (Demurrer Against the Heretics 22 [A.D. 200]).

"[T]he Lord said to Peter, ‘On this rock I will build my Church, I have given you the keys of the kingdom of heaven [and] whatever you shall have bound or loosed on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. . . . What kind of man are you, subverting and changing what was the manifest intent of the Lord when he conferred this personally upon Peter? Upon you, he says, I will build my Church; and I will give to you the keys" (Modesty 21:9–10 [A.D. 220]).

The Letter of Clement to James

"Be it known to you, my lord, that Simon [Peter], who, for the sake of the true faith, and the most sure foundation of his doctrine, was set apart to be the foundation of the Church, and for this end was by Jesus himself, with his truthful mouth, named Peter" (Letter of Clement to James 2 [A.D. 221]).

The Clementine Homilies

"[Simon Peter said to Simon Magus in Rome:] ‘For you now stand in direct opposition to me, who am a firm rock, the foundation of the Church’ [Matt. 16:18]" (Clementine Homilies 17:19 [A.D. 221]).

Origen

"Look at [Peter], the great foundation of the Church, that most solid of rocks, upon whom Christ built the Church [Matt. 16:18]. And what does our Lord say to him? ‘Oh you of little faith,’ he says, ‘why do you doubt?’ [Matt. 14:31]" (Homilies on Exodus 5:4 [A.D. 248]).

Cyprian of Carthage

"The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ he says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. And to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven . . . ’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. On him [Peter] he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep [John 21:17], and although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair [cathedra], and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was [i.e., apostles], but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. . . . If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?" (The Unity of the Catholic Church 4; 1st edition [A.D. 251]).

"There is one God and one Christ, and one Church, and one chair founded on Peter by the word of the Lord. It is not possible to set up another altar or for there to be another priesthood besides that one altar and that one priesthood. Whoever has gathered elsewhere is scattering" (Letters 43[40]:5 [A.D. 253]).

"There [John 6:68–69] speaks Peter, upon whom the Church would be built, teaching in the name of the Church and showing that even if a stubborn and proud multitude withdraws because it does not wish to obey, yet the Church does not withdraw from Christ. The people joined to the priest and the flock clinging to their shepherd are the Church. You ought to know, then, that the bishop is in the Church and the Church in the bishop, and if someone is not with the bishop, he is not in the Church. They vainly flatter themselves who creep up, not having peace with the priests of God, believing that they are
secretly [i.e., invisibly] in communion with certain individuals. For the Church, which is one and Catholic, is not split nor divided, but it is indeed united and joined by the cement of priests who adhere one to another" (ibid., 66[69]:8).

Firmilian

"But what is his error . . . who does not remain on the foundation of the one Church which was founded upon the rock by Christ [Matt. 16:18], can be learned from this, which Christ said to Peter alone: ‘Whatever things you shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth, they shall be loosed in heaven’ [Matt. 16:19]" (collected in Cyprian’s Letters 74[75]:16 [A.D. 253]).

"[Pope] Stephen [I] . . . boasts of the place of his episcopate, and contends that he holds the succession from Peter, on whom the foundations of the Church were laid [Matt. 16:18]. . . . [Pope] Stephen . . . announces that he holds by succession the throne of Peter" (ibid., 74[75]:17).

Ephraim the Syrian

"[Jesus said:] ‘Simon, my follower, I have made you the foundation of the holy Church. I betimes called you Peter, because you will support all its buildings. You are the inspector of those who will build on earth a Church for me. If they should wish to build what is false, you, the foundation, will condemn them. You are the head of the fountain from which my teaching flows; you are the chief of my disciples’" (Homilies 4:1 [A.D. 351]).

Optatus

"You cannot deny that you are aware that in the city of Rome the episcopal chair was given first to Peter; the chair in which Peter sat, the same who was head—that is why he is also called Cephas [‘Rock’]—of all the apostles; the one chair in which unity is maintained by all" (The Schism of the Donatists 2:2 [A.D. 367]).

Ambrose of Milan

"[Christ] made answer: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church. . . . ’ Could he not, then, strengthen the faith of the man to whom, acting on his own authority, he gave the kingdom, whom he called the rock, thereby declaring him to be the foundation of the Church [Matt. 16:18]?" (The Faith 4:5 [A.D. 379]).

"It is to Peter that he says: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church’ [Matt. 16:18]. Where Peter is, there is the Church. And where the Church is, no death is there, but life eternal" (Commentary on Twelve Psalms of David 40:30 [A.D. 389]).

Pope Damasus I

"Likewise it is decreed . . . that it ought to be announced that . . . the holy Roman Church has not been placed at the forefront [of the churches] by the conciliar decisions of other churches, but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, who says: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it; and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. . . . ’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. The first see, therefore, is that of Peter the apostle, that of the Roman Church, which has neither stain nor blemish nor anything like it" (Decree of Damasus 3 [A.D. 382]).

Jerome

"‘But,’ you [Jovinian] will say, ‘it was on Peter that the Church was founded’ [Matt. 16:18]. Well . . . one among the twelve is chosen to be their head in order to remove any occasion for division" (Against Jovinian 1:26 [A.D. 393]).

"I follow no leader but Christ and join in communion with none but your blessedness [Pope Damasus I], that is, with the chair of Peter. I know that this is the rock on which the Church has been built. Whoever eats the Lamb outside this house is profane. Anyone who is not in the ark of Noah will perish when the flood prevails" (Letters 15:2 [A.D. 396]).

Augustine

"If the very order of episcopal succession is to be considered, how much more surely, truly, and safely do we number them [the bishops of Rome] from Peter himself, to whom, as to one representing the whole Church, the Lord said, ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer it.’ Peter was succeeded by Linus, Linus by Clement.
. . . In this order of succession a Donatist bishop is not to be found" (Letters 53:1:2 [A.D. 412]).

Council of Ephesus

"Philip, the presbyter and legate of the Apostolic See [Rome], said: ‘There is no doubt, and in fact it has been known in all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, pillar of the faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the human race, and that to him was given the power of loosing and binding sins: who down even to today and forever both lives and judges in his successors’" (Acts of the Council, session 3 [A.D. 431]).

Sechnall of Ireland

"Steadfast in the fear of God, and in faith immovable, upon [Patrick] as upon Peter the [Irish] church is built; and he has been allotted his apostleship by God; against him the gates of hell prevail not" (Hymn in Praise of St. Patrick 3 [A.D. 444]).

Pope Leo I

"Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . has placed the principal charge on the blessed Peter, chief of all the apostles. . . . He wished him who had been received into partnership in his undivided unity to be named what he himself was, when he said: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church’ [Matt. 16:18], that the building of the eternal temple might rest on Peter’s solid rock, strengthening his Church so surely that neither could human rashness assail it nor the gates of hell prevail against it" (Letters 10:1 [A.D. 445]).

Council of Chalcedon

"Wherefore the most holy and blessed Leo, archbishop of the great and elder Rome, through us, and through this present most holy synod, together with the thrice blessed and all-glorious Peter the apostle, who is the rock and foundation of the Catholic Church, and the foundation of the orthodox faith, has stripped him [Dioscorus] of the episcopate" (Acts of the Council, session 3 [A.D. 451]).

I believe in the resurrection of the Body, which is the rising again from the dead, the resumption of life.  The Fourth Lateran Council teaches that all men, whether elect or reprobate, "will rise again with their own bodies which they now bear about with them" ("Firmiter"). In the language of the creeds and professions of faith this return to life is called resurrection of the body (resurrectio carnis, resurrectio mortuoram, anastasis ton nekron) for a double reason: first, since the soul cannot die, it cannot be said to return to life; second the heretical contention of Hymeneus and Philitus that the Scriptures denote by resurrection not the return to life of the body, but the rising of the soul from the death of sin to the life of grace, must be excluded. 

"No doctrine of the Christian Faith", says St. Augustine, "is so vehemently and so obstinately opposed as the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh" (In Ps. Ixxxviii, sermo ii, n. 5). This opposition had begun long before the days of St. Augustine: "And certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics ", the inspired writer tells us (Acts, xvii, 18, 32), "disputed with him [Paul] ...and when they had heard of the resurrection of the dead, some indeed mocked, but others said: We will hear thee again concerning this matter. " Among the opponents of the Resurrection we naturally find first those who denied the immortality of the soul; secondly, all those who, like Plato, regarded the body as the prison of the soul and death as an escape from the bondage of matter; thirdly the sects of the Gnostics and Manichaeans who looked upon all matter as evil; fourthly, the followers of these latter sects the Priscillianists, the Cathari, and the Albigenses; fifthly, the Rationalists, Materialists, and Pantheists of later times. Against all these we shall first establish the dogma of the resurrection, and secondly consider the characteristics of the risen body.

I believe in 7 sacraments in their necessity and nature.  I believe that sacraments not mere signs; they do not merely signify Divine grace, but in virtue of their Divine institution, they cause that grace in the souls of men. "Signum sacro sanctum efficax gratiae"—a sacrosanct sign producing grace, is a good, succinct definition of a sacrament of the New Law. Sacrament, in its broadest acceptation, may be defined as an external sign of something sacred. In the twelfth century Peter Lombard (d. 1164), known as the Master of the Sentences, author of the manual of systematized theology, gave an accurate definition of a sacrament of the New Law: A sacrament is in such a manner an outward sign of inward grace that it bears its image (i.e. signifies or represents it) and is its cause—"Sacramentum proprie dicitur quod ita signum est gratiae Dei, ei invisibilis gratiae forma, ut ipsius imaginem gerat et causa existat" (IV Sent., d.I, n.2). This definition was adopted and perfected by the medieval Scholastics. From St. Thomas we have the short but very expressive definition: The sign of a sacred thing in so far as it sanctifies men - "Signum rei sacrae in quantum est sanctificans homines" (III:60:2).

The Council of Trent solemnly defined that there are seven sacraments of the New Law, truly and properly so called, Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Orders, and Matrimony. The same enumeration had been made in the Decree for the Armenians by the Council of Florence (1439), in the Profession of Faith of Michael Palaelogus, offered to Gregory X in the Council of Lyons (1274) and in the council held at London, in 1237, under Otto, legate of the Holy See. According to some writers Otto of Bamberg (1139), the Apostle of Pomerania, was the first who clearly adopted the number seven (Tanquerey, "De sacr."). Peter Lombard (d. 1164) in his fourth Book of Sentences (d. i, n.2), he defines a sacrament as a sacred sign which not only signifies but also causes grace, and then (d.ii, n.1) enumerates the seven sacraments. It is worthy of note that, although the great Scholastics rejected many of his theological opinions (list given in app. to Migne edition, Paris, 1841), proof positive that he did not introduce a new doctrine, but merely expressed in a convenient and precise formula what had always been held in the Church. Just as many doctrines were believed, but not always accurately expressed, until the condemnation of heresies or the development of religious knowledge called forth a neat and precise formula, so also the sacraments were accepted and used by the Church for centuries before Aristotelian philosophy, applied to the systematic explanation of Christian doctrine, furnished the accurate definition and enumeration of Peter Lombard. The earlier Christians were more concerned with the use of sacred rites than with scientific formulae, being like the pious author of the "Imitation of Christ", who wrote: "I had rather feel compunction than know its definition" (I, i).

I believe in human salvation through the Grace of God.  I believe as Council of Trent declared that the process of salvation from sin in the case of an adult with great minuteness.   It begins with the grace of God which touches a sinner's heart, and calls him to repentance. This grace cannot be merited; it proceeds solely from the love and mercy of God. Man may receive or reject this inspiration of God, he may turn to God or remain in sin. Grace does not constrain man's free will.

This disposition is followed by justification itself, which consists not in the mere remission of sins, but in the sanctification and renewal of the inner man by the voluntary reception of God's grace and gifts, whence a man becomes just instead of unjust, a friend instead of a foe and so an heir according to hope of eternal life. This change happens either by reason of a perfect act of charity elicited by a well disposed sinner or by virtue of the Sacrament either of Baptism or of Penance according to the condition of the respective subject laden with sin. By the merit of the Most Holy Passion through the Holy Spirit, the charity of God is shed abroad in the hearts of those who are justified.

            I believe in the communion of Saints. The communion of saints is the spiritual solidarity which binds together the faithful on earth, the souls in purgatory, and the saints in heaven in the organic unity of the same mystical body under Christ its head, and in a constant interchange of supernatural offices. The participants in that solidarity are called saints by reason of their destination and of their partaking of the fruits of the Redemption (I Cor., i, 2-Greek Text). The damned are thus excluded from the communion of saints. The living, even if they do not belong to the body of the true Church, share in it according to the measure of their union with Christ and with the soul of the Church. St. Thomas teaches (III:8:4) that the angels, though not redeemed, enter the communion of saints because they come under Christ's power and receive of His gratia capitis. The solidarity itself implies a variety of inter-relations: within the Church Militant, not only the participation in the same faith, sacraments, and government, but also a mutual exchange of examples, prayers, merits, and satisfactions; between the Church on earth on the one hand, and purgatory and heaven on the other, suffrages, invocation, intercession, veneration. These connotations belong here only in so far as they integrate the transcendent idea of spiritual solidarity between all the children of God. Thus understood, the communion of saints, though formally defined only in its particular bearings (Council of Trent, Sess. XXV, decrees on purgatory; on the invocation, veneration, and relics of saints and of sacred images; on indulgences), is, nevertheless, dogma commonly taught and accepted in the Church. It is true that the Catechism of the Council of Trent (Pt. I, ch. x) seems at first sight to limit to the living the bearing of the phrase contained in the Creed, but by making the communion of saints an exponent and function, as it were, of the preceding clause, "the Holy Catholic Church", it really extends to what it calls the Church's "constituent parts, one gone before, the other following every day"; the broad principle it enunciates thus: "every pious and holy action done by one belongs and is profitable to all, through charity which seeketh not her own".

Pacem meam vobiscum

Ad Jesum per Mariam,

-Mario O Sujanto-

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