Meaning of "Confirmatio" in relation to the Sacrament of Confirmation (Sacramentum Confirmationis)

I am an amateur in this subject and out of interest compiled these notes from references to which I have access. Therefore I am sure that there may be many inaccuracies lurking in them. Reader beware! Corrections would be appreciated.

The sacrament of Confirmation confirms and perfects the vow of faithfulness to Christ and his Gospel made by or on behalf of a recipient at his/her baptism, and confers on the recipient the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The Roman Catholic Church believes that the sacrament of Confirmation should be received after the person has reached the age of reason, having sufficient maturity to receive the Holy Spirit, which, according to Acts 8:14-17, is not conferred at Baptism.  It also provides an opportunity for the bishop of a church community to become personally acquainted with the new members of his flock when they reach the age of reason.

Following the  renewal of baptismal promises and the profession of faith by the confirmands, the bishop prays that the confirmands may be blessed with the gift of the Holy Spirit as described in Acts 8:14-17 and anoints them with the chrism (scented ointment), and lays his hands on them as described in Acts 8:14-17. In the Eastern Orthodox Church the Sacraments of Initiation, namely Baptism, Confirmation, and First Communion are usually celebrated together.

  Acts 8:14-17Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)

  14 Now when the apostles, who were in Jerusalem, had heard that
  Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and
  John. 15 Who, when they were come, prayed for them, that they might
  receive the Holy Ghost. 16 For he was not as yet come upon any of
  them; but they were only baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
  17 Then they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy
  Ghost.

Traditionally a Catholic should have received the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation (and Confession) before being allowed to receive First Communion, though relaxation of this order was subsequently authorised.

A clear overview of Confirmation is given in

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/ritesrituals/confirmation_1.shtml

The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives a detailed description of the Catholic sacrament of Confirmation. Since the Catholic Church considers the sacrament of Eucharist to be essential for the Catholic  Christian, and requires that it be received at least once a year, and given that the Catholic Christian is required to have received Baptism and Confirmation before receiving First Communion, it may be deduced that a Catholic Christian is required to be have received Confirmation in order to continue practicing his faith.

Regarding the history of the sacrament of Confirmation, the following seems to be a good starting point:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04215b.htm

In this it appears that St Ambrose of Milan was one of the first to use the term “Confirmation”. It is likely that before this term entered into usage the term “Chrism” as still used in the Eastern Orthodox Church and in the Catholic Church in some countries. In Italian the "Confirmation" sacrament is known as "Cresima", a word which is obviously derived from the Greek root of the word "Chrism".

  St. Ambrose addressing the catechumens who had already been baptized
  and anointed, says: "Thou hast received the spiritual seal, the Spirit
  of wisdom and of understanding . . . . Keep what thou hast received.
  God the Father has sealed thee; Christ the Lord has confirmed thee;
  and the Spirit has given the pledge in thy heart, as thou hast learned
  from what is read in the Apostle" (On the Mysteries 7.42).


What does inherit the earth mean in Matthew 5:5

It depends on which tradition you subscribe to.

Present Earth or New Earth?

Covenant theology (with an amillenial eschatology, this would include Presbyterians) would say that the meek are going to inherit the current earth, which will be renewed, while most dispensationalists (with a millenial theology, most Americans in Bible/Baptist backgrounds) would hold to the view that the current earth will be destroyed, and a new earth will be created.  2 Peter 3:13 says:

  But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new
  earth in which righteousness dwells.

The covenant theologian would say that this word for "new" really means "renewed" while the dispensationalist will argue that it means "new", as in a brand new creation, unrelated to the last.

Corporate or Individual?

I would have to argue that in both situations, it's saying that the meek will, corporately, inherit the earth.  The word for "meek" in the original Greek is rendered in the plural, so it's talking about a group of meek people, as opposed to a singular meek person.


It cannot be wrong to be discreet or to present a specific outward appearance to others for Jesus commands his disciples that when they fast they are to anoint themselves with oil and they are not to advertise the fact that they are fasting, Matthew 6:16.

Nor can it be wrong to deliberately adopt an appearance that is anonymous or that is unidentifiable for Jesus did so on the Emmaus road, maintaining that presence for quite some time until the two disciples realised to whom they had spoken, Luke 24:15.

But it is clearly wrong to deliberately put on an act in order to present oneself in a good light to others, deliberately enhancing oneself in order to give a false appearance since Jesus condemns such things as praying long prayers in public and deliberately displaying the physical effects of fasting, calling it 'hypocrisy', Matthew 5 and 6.

We are told to be honest one with another and to speak to anyone who has trespassed, privately, in order to avoid grudges, Matthew 18:15, not to pretend that nothing is wrong, if it is. There is no need to 'act' as if nothing was wrong, if indeed it is.


Was Jesus Christ crucified on the 14th of Nisan (April 3, 33) or the 15th (April 4, 33)?

Writing in The Mystery Of The Last Supper, Professor Sir Colin Humphreys, a scientist at the University of Cambridge, proposes a new solution, based on a combination of Biblical, historical and astronomical research. He urgues that Jesus used a different calendar and crucifixion took place in the 14th of Nisan (April 3, 33 CE) of the official post-exilic Jewish calendar. He explains:

" I have worked with an expert astronomer to investigate, for the first time, the possibility that a third Jewish calendar was in use in the first century A.D. The official Jewish calendar at the time of Jesus' death was that still used by Jews today: a lunar system in which days run from sunset to sunset. This was developed during the Jewish exile in Babylon in the sixth century B.C. Before that, however, the Jews had a different system. This is referred to in the Book of Exodus, in the Old Testament, when God instructs Moses and Aaron to start their year at the time of the Exodus from Egypt.

There is extensive evidence that this original Jewish calendar survived to Jesus' time. It was used by groups such as the Samaritans, Zealots, some Galileans and some Essenes. Under this pre-exilic calendar, Passover always fell a few days earlier than in the official Jewish calendar, and the days were marked from sunrise to sunrise, not sunset to sunset.

Using our reconstruction of this calendar we can see that in A.D. 33, the year of the Crucifixion, the Passover meal was on the Wednesday of Holy Week. From the clues they give, it's clear that Matthew, Mark and Luke all used the pre-exilic calendar in their description of the Last Supper as a Passover meal, whereas John uses the official calendar in which the Last Supper was before the Passover.

Holy Thursday is the well-known day on which Christians annually commemorate the Last Supper of Jesus. But my research shows that we should really be celebrating this on the Wednesday of Holy Week. A Wednesday Last Supper with the Crucifixion on Friday also allows just the right amount of time for all the events the Gospels record between the Last Supper and the Crucifixion".


Truth is in the 'eye of the beholder'.

What the other people thought about Abba Moses may not necessarily have portrayed him correctly. An alternative explanation is that Abba Moses had low thoughts about himself, according to the old saying:

  Mat 23:12 (NIV) "For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted".

The judge seems to have been taking it that way, anyway, which is reflected in the words of the storyteller: "the judge went away much edified".


What is meant by 'genuine affective' considering a homosexual relationship?

In traditional Catholic parlance, “affectivity” refers to the passions (in modern parlance: generally feelings or emotions) of love that one person might experience for another. It is roughly a synonym for the modern term “affection.”
We can see this usage, for example, in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologiae, I-IIae, q. 22, a. 2, sed contra:

Sed contra est quod Augustinus dicit, in IX de Civ. Dei, quod motus animi, quos Graeci pathe, nostri autem quidam, sicut Cicero, perturbationes, quidam affectiones vel affectus, quidam vero, sicut in Graeco habetur, expressius passiones vocant.
On the contrary, there is what Augustine said, in Book 9 of the City of God, that the movements of the soul, which the Greeks call pathe, some of our writers, such as Cicero, call disturbances; some call affections or emotions; whereas others, more accurately call them passions, as the Greeks would have it (my translation).

Affectivity includes the feelings that lovers have for one another, but also, for example, the feelings of children for their parents and parents for children, and so on.
The Catechism’s point is that there is no way to form a healthy emotional relationship based on same-sex attraction. Obviously, people who have same-sex attraction can have healthy friendships, but the friendships (and the emotions involved) would not be based on same-sex attraction as such (in particular, not in the way that the emotional relationship formed in marriage is based on the attraction to the opposite sex).


What is the meaning of 'is' in the context of the Trinity?

Divine Relations are depicted in green:

(original image source)

  The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God.

Here, "is" means "has the same essence as." (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica I q. 39 a. 1 question "Whether in God the essence is the same as the person?")

  the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, the Holy spirit is not the Father.

Understanding this relies on what is called "relative opposition." For example, there is a real opposition between the Father's relation to the Son (paternity) and the Son's relation to the Father (filiation). However, as Parente, Piolanti, & Garafolo say (Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology p. 240):

  Only active spiration is not in opposition to paternity and to filiation, and so it has as subject both Father and Son; but it is in opposition to passive spiration, which therefore demands a distinct terminus (the Holy Spirit).

  Of the four real relations in God, three are numerically distinct and, thus, constitute the three divine Persons: the Father, who is subsisting Paternity, the Son, who is subsisting Filiation, the Holy Spirit, who is subsisting Spiration of Love.

Think of a human example: a mother and daughter. No matter how united a mother and daughter may be, their relations are still opposed to one another; the mother→daughter and daughter→mother relationships can never meld into such a relationship where the daughter relates to her mother in the same way the mother does to her daughter (e.g., becomes her own mother, vice versa, or both!).

In God, each of the four Divine Relations is God, i.e., has the same Divine Essence (which is His existence). Three of these relations are opposed to each other: paternity, filiation, and passive spiration (cf. this).

In creatures, relations are extrinsic to the essence of the creature. For example, my essence* is humanness, but my relation to my father, mother, wife, friends, or even to God is not humanness; it's not my essence.

*Essence or quiddity is the answer to the question: "What is it?" ("Quid est?")

But in the Holy Trinity, the Divine Relations are the essence of God Himself. This is a consequence of the Trinity being supremely simple.

St. Thomas Aquinas writes, answering the question "Whether relation in God is the same as His essence?,"

  …in God relation and essence do not differ from each other, but are one and the same.

cf. Fr. Gilles Emery, O.P.'s The Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas ch. 5 "Relations" (p. 78 f.)

Also, see St. Thomas's answer to the question "Whether essential names should be predicated in the singular of the three persons?" will shed some light on this. He writes (Summa Theologica I q. 39 a. 3 c.):

  Some essential names signify the essence after the manner of substantives; while others signify it after the manner of adjectives. Those which signify it as substantives are predicated of the three Persons in the singular only, and not in the plural. Those which signify the essence as adjectives are predicated of the three persons in the plural. The reason of this is that substantives signify something by way of substance, while adjectives signify something by way of accident, which adheres to a subject. Now just as substance has existence of itself, so also it has of itself unity or multitude; wherefore the singularity or plurality of a substantive name depends upon the form signified by the name. But as accidents have their existence in a subject, so they have unity or plurality from their subject; and therefore the singularity and plurality of adjectives depends upon their "supposita." In creatures, one form does not exist in several "supposita" except by unity of order, as the form of an ordered multitude. So if the names signifying such a form are substantives, they are predicated of many in the singular, but otherwise if they adjectives. For we say that many men are a college, or an army, or a people; but we say that many men are collegians. Now in God the divine essence is signified by way of a form, as above explained (a. 2), which, indeed, is simple and supremely one, as shown above (q. 3 a. 7; q. 11 a. 4). So, names which signify the divine essence in a substantive manner are predicated of the three persons in the singular, and not in the plural. This, then, is the reason why we say that Socrates, Plato, and Cicero are "three men"; whereas we do not say the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are "three Gods," but "one God"; forasmuch as in the three "supposita" of human nature there are three humanities, whereas in the three divine Persons there is but one divine essence. On the other hand, the names which signify essence in an adjectival manner are predicated of the three persons plurally, by reason of the plurality of "supposita." For we say there are three "existent" or three "wise" beings, or three "eternal," "uncreated," and "immense" beings, if these terms are understood in an adjectival sense. But if taken in a substantive sense, we say "one uncreated, immense, eternal being," as Athanasius declares.

A suppositum is an individual substance.

And that the multiplicity of names applied to God does not contradict His supreme simplicity and oneness (Compendium Theologiæ cap. 24):

  This enables us to perceive the reason for the many names that are applied to God, even though in Himself He is absolutely simple. Since our intellect is unable to grasp His essence as it is in itself, we rise to a knowledge of that essence from the things that surround us. Various perfections are discerned in these things, the root and origin of them all being one in God, as has been shown. Since we cannot name an object except as we understand it (for names are signs of things understood), we cannot give names to God except in terms of perfections perceived in other things that have their origin in Him. And since these perfections are multiple in such things, we must assign many names to God. If we saw His essence as it is in itself, a multiplicity of names would not be required; our idea of it would be simple, just as His essence is simple. This vision we hope for in the day of our glory; for, according to Zacharias 14:9, “In that day there shall be one Lord, and His name shall be one.”


Doctrine of biblical inerrancy and Pope Benedict XVI questioning the historicity of passage in the Gospel of Matthew?

Scripture is inerrant. Man is not.

The Bible needs to be interpreted. Even a translation is an interpretation, because the translator needs to decide what a passage means in order to put it into another language to be read at a different point in history. It is also necessary to determine whether transcription errors have crept in over time.

The Catholic Church has Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation promulgated in 1965 by Pope Paul VI following the Second Vatican Council:

  ... There exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.6
  Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. Holding fast to this deposit the entire holy people united with their shepherds remain always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of the bread and in prayers (see Acts 2:42, Greek text), so that holding to, practising and professing the heritage of the faith, it becomes on the part of the bishops and faithful a single common effort. 7

  But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on8, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church9, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed.

  It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God's most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.

  cf. Council of Trent, session IV, loc. cit.: Denzinger 783 (1501).
  cf. Pius XII, apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, Nov. 1, 1950: A.A.S. 42 (1950) p. 756; Collected Writings of St. Cyprian, Letter 66, 8: Hartel, III, B, p. 733: "The Church [is] people united with the priest and the pastor together with his flock."
  cf. First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chap. 3 "On Faith:" Denzinger 1792 (3011).
  cf. Pius XII, encyclical Humani Generis, Aug. 12, 1950: A.A.S. 42 (1950) pp. 568-69: Denzinger 2314 (3886).

Thus the authentic interpretation of the word of God, showing how God has revealed himself through the efforts of man in attempting to act according to the will of the Spirit, is entrusted to the Magisterium. "This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed."

What this method of interpretation does is — to draw an analogy from mathematics and statistics — smooth out any "outliers" in the data. These may be singular passages in Scripture as here, or wacky individual teaching about Scripture.

It may well be that Matthew's account accurately reports what the writer heard at the time from those around him in the crowd; perhaps the Spirit wanted the writer to encourage his Jewish audience to consider Christ's fate at the hands of the mob, having adduced many Old Testament prophecies to prove him the Messiah, and that passage was the clumsy human result. It doesn't necessarily mean that God intends the entire Jewish people to be blamed in perpetuity — and for what? For bringing about salvation!

So one can say that the Bible is inerrant, because "all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16) But in order that it is profitable, it needs to be interpreted. The Catholic Church does it in one particular way.
In Protestantism, Richard Hooker (1554–1600) formulated the "three-legged stool" of Scripture, Tradition and Reason, with each of those concepts depending on the other two. There isn't the Magisterium in non-Catholic Churches, but it can be seen that in order to interpret Scripture, the deposit of Tradition is needed, together with the exercise of Reason to make sense of any apparent inconsistencies. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God", but it still requires human action to write it down in the first place — and that writing-down is limited by their own understanding and world-view — and to make sense of it thereafter.


Original Sin as described in The Poem of the Man-God

I apologize in advance for the huge wall of text.  I actually had to trim this down quite a bit to fit under the 30,000 character limit!

My own research and analysis

The first revelation (at least in the sequence they are presented in The Poem of the Man-God) to deal with God's creation of humans is part of the section titled Birth of the Virgin Mary.  In particular, Jesus speaks to Maria Valtorta of this in a revelation given on Sunday August 27th, 1944.  For the sake of convenience, I will refer to this as "Passage 1".

The revelation which relates to original sin is given in the context of clarifying the profound significance of the Annunciation and the Virgin Mary's role in God's plan for Salvation.  The Poem of the Man-God reports this revelation as having been given on Sunday March 5th, 1944, which was the Second Sunday of Lent.  The passage is titled The Disobedience of Eve and the Obedience of Mary, which (for the sake of convenience) I will refer to as "Passage 2".

Jesus brings up the topic of original sin in Passage 2.

  Jesus says:
  «To make you understand how grateful you must be to Him Who died to elevate you to Heaven and to defeat Satan's concupiscence, I wanted to speak to you, in this period of preparation for Easter, of what was the first link of the chain by which the Word of the Father was dragged to death, the Divine Lamb to the slaughterhouse. I wanted to speak to you about it, because at present ninety per cent of you are like Eve intoxicated by Lucifer's breath and words, and you do not live, to love one another, but to glut yourselves with sensuality, you do not live for Heaven but for filth, you are no longer creatures gifted with soul and reason, but dogs without soul and without reason. You have killed your souls and perverted your reason. I solemnly tell you that brutes surpass you in the honesty of their love.

  ...Do we not read in Genesis that God made man the overlord of everything on the earth, that is everything except God and His angelical ministers? Do we not read that He made the woman the companion of man in his joy and his domination over all living beings? Do we not read that they were allowed to eat of everything with the exception of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil? Why? What is the meaning of the words "that he might rule"? And what is the meaning of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil? Have you ever asked these questions, you man, who ask so many useless ones and never ask your soul about heavenly truths?»

Why did God create humans?

Genesis 1:27 --

  So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Passage 1 --

  Jesus says:
  «God desired to put a king in the universe that He had created out of nothing. A king, who by the nature of matter should be the first amongst all the creatures created with matter and endowed with matter. A king, who by nature of the spirit should be little less than divine, united to Grace as he was in his first innocent day. But the Supreme Mind, to Whom all the most remote events in centuries are known, incessantly sees what was, is and will be; and while It contemplates the past, and observes the present, It penetrates deeply with Its foresight into the most distant future and knows in every detail how the last man will die. Without confusion or discontinuity the Supreme Mind has always known that the king created to be demigod at Its side in Heaven, heir of the Father, would arrive adult in His Kingdom, after living in the house of his mother -the earth, with which he was made- during his childhood, as child of the Eternal Father for his day on earth...»

Passage 2 --

  Jesus says:
  «How many truths your soul would tell you, if you only knew how to converse with it, if you loved your soul that makes you like God, Who is a spirit, as your soul is a spirit.»

God has created humans to be the crowning jewel of Creation.  Having a soul, Man is the one thing on the Earth God has created that is most like Himself.  That being the case, it seems only fitting that Man should be permitted to rule over the Earth.

What does it mean for God to give dominion to humans?

Genesis 1:26 --

  ... and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

Passage 2 --

  Jesus says:
  «If you knew how to question your soul, you would be told that the true, extensive meaning -as comprehensive as creation itself- of the words "that he might rule" is this:

  "That man might dominate everything, that is his three states. The lower state, the animal one. The middle state, the moral one. The superior state, the spiritual one. And all three of them are to be directed to one sole aim: to possess God".

  To possess Him by deserving Him through a strict control which subdues all the power of one's ego and conveys it to one only purpose: to deserve to possess God.»

Apparently man's dominion over the Earth includes a sort of self-mastery.  It seems to me the implication is that free will is a necessary prerequisite for man's dominion over the Earth to truly be considered complete, since mastery of the self means having control over our own decisions and actions.

Where did evil come from?

Passage 2 --

  Jesus says:
  «Lucifer was an angel, the most beautiful of all the angels, a perfect spirit, inferior only to God, and yet in his bright essence a vapour of pride arose and he did not scatter it. On the contrary, he condensed it by brooding over it. And Evil was born of this incubation. It existed before man. God had hurled him out of Paradise, the cursed incubator of Evil, who had desecrated Paradise. But he is the eternal incubator of Evil and as he can no longer soil Paradise, he has soiled the earth.»

According to the revelation, Satan's pride is the source of evil.

This particular excerpt, I think, has great importance in that it explicitly identifies the Serpent as Satan.  Although , the identity of the Serpent is only implied to be Satan in Biblical verses like Wisdom 2:24 and Revelation 12:9, and titles applied to him like "The Tempter" in Matthew 4:3 and "The Ancient Serpent" in Revelation 20:2.

Additionally, this excerpt explicitly identifies Pride as the root of all evil, justifying classifications of Pride as the most foul of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Why did God forbid Adam and Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge?

Genesis 2:16 --

  And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;  17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

Passage 2 --

  Jesus says:
  «Your soul would tell you that God had forbidden the knowledge of good and evil, because He had already granted good to His creatures gratuitously, and He did not want you to know evil, because it is a sweet fruit to taste, but once its juice becomes part of your blood, it causes a fever that kills you and produces a parching thirst, so that the more one drinks of that false juice, the more thirsty one becomes...

  Also Eve knew what was good for her to know. But not more, because it is valueless to know what is not good.»

God has already given Adam and Eve each other's companionship.  God has given them dominion and made them King and Queen of the Earth.  He has even made them in His own image; Adam and Eve are -- in almost every way -- already like God, who is Perfect.

The reason for God's command not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil becomes clear: God has already given to Adam and Eve everything that is Good; indeed "every tree in the garden"!  The only thing that God has kept from them is Evil -- and even knowledge of what Evil is -- because Evil has no value, and God does not give gifts which have no value.

This is supported by the following from Passage 1:

  Jesus says:
  «He treats you as if you were good children, who are taught and granted everything so that their lives might be happier and more pleasant. What you know, you know by the light of God. What you discover, you discover through the guidance of God. In Goodness. Other knowledge and discoveries that bear the mark of evil, come from the Supreme Evil: Satan.»

Why did God put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden in the first place?

Passage 2 --

  Jesus says:
  «You may object: "And why did He put it there?" Because evil is a force that originated by itself like certain monstrous diseases in the most wholesome body.»

  «I said: "metaphorical tree". Now I will say: "symbolical tree". Perhaps you will understand better. Its symbol is clear: the inclination to good and to evil of the two children of God, would be understood by their behaviour towards the tree. Like 'aqua regia' that tests gold and the scales of the goldsmith that weigh its carats, that tree, by God's command, became a means of testing and it gave the measure of Adam's and Eve's symbolic metal purity.»

As we already know, God is Infinitely Just.  Having already received so much from God, Adam and Eve must prove themselves worthy of the may gifts God has bestowed upon them in His Infinite Magnanimity.  As previously established, Evil has already been brought about by the pride of Satan, but it has not yet corrupted the Earth.

The Tree of Knowledge is metaphorical; there is no literal fruit for them to eat.  The test of Adam and Eve, the command which God gives them -- the only command that God gives them -- seems to be that they are not to ask God for more than what He has already given them (viz. everything that is Good).

Inded, the statement "they were not to eat (viz. ask/take for themselves) of the Tree of Knowledge" would seem better expressed as "the act itself of eating (viz. asking/taking for themselves) was the Tree of Knowledge".

A revelation from the Virgin Mary in Passage 2 supports this idea:

  Mary says:
  «The tree: the means to test their obedience. What does obedience to God's commands imply? It implies all possible good, because God commands nothing but good. What is disobedience? It is evil, because it brings about a rebellious mental state in which Satan can be active.»

What exactly was the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge?

If God made Adam and Eve in His Image and gave them all that was Good, what was left that distinguished God from Man?

One of the distinguishing factors was obvious: Adam and Eve were creatures with flesh and physical form; God is Spirit.  But physical form is something that Adam and Eve already had.

The only thing remaining that distinguished them was that Adam and Eve were created by God, whereas God is Eternal, Infinite and Uncreated.  Before the Fall of Man, God was the sole Creator of human life.

Passage 2 --

  Jesus says:
  «That metaphorical tree proves this truth. God had said to the man and the woman: "You know all the laws and the mysteries of creation. But do not infringe on My right of being the Creator of man... I have given you everything. I am only keeping for Myself this mystery of the formation of man".»

What is the meaning of the symbolic eating of the fruit?

Genesis 3:1-7

  Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

To eat the fruit of the tree can mean only one thing: to take the one thing that God has reserved for Himself -- the knowledge and act of creating human life -- and to do it without Him or His involvement.  But Adam and Eve went one step further...

The previous excerpt, unabridged, reads (emphasis mine):

  «That metaphorical tree proves this truth. God had said to the man and the woman: "You know all the laws and the mysteries of creation. But do not infringe on My right of being the Creator of man. My love will suffice for the propagation of the human race and it will spread among you and will excite the new Adams of the race without any lust of the senses but with purely charitable pulsations. I have given you everything. I am only keeping for Myself this mystery of the formation of man".»

From other excerpts, it appears that sexual activity itself was not what went against God's Plan, but the fact that the first man and the first woman carried out the act with lust in their hearts.  The act was performed not for the purpose of creating life, but to satisfy the craving for sensual pleasures.  The creation of life became a mere afterthought, and in this the act of creating was profaned.

The passages further clarify that not only was the knowledge of how to create life something God meant to keep for Himself (or at the very least something that He planned to reveal to Adam and Eve at a time and in a manner that He pleased), but that the act of creation and the multiplication of human life was intended as a means for the multiplication of love.  Not the sensual or erotic things that we humans often confuse with love, but a love that would be deep and true and holy; a love that would be a reflection of God's Infinite and Perfect Love for his creatures, worthy of being called "love"!

Passage 1 --

  Jesus says:
  «God, the Father Creator, had created man and woman with such a perfect law of love that you cannot even understand its perfection any longer. And you become lost in wondering how the human species would have come to be, if man had not been taught by Satan how to obtain it.

  Look at the fruit and seed plants. Do they produce seed and fruit by means of fornication, by means of one fecundation out of one hundred copulations? No. The pollen emerges from the male flower and driven by a complex of meteoric and magnetic laws it proceeds to the ovary of the female flower. The latter opens, receives it and produces. It does not pollute itself and then refuse it, as you do, to enjoy the same sensation the following day. It produces and until the new season, it does not get pollinated and when it does, it is only to produce.

  Look at the animals. All of them. Have you ever seen a male animal and a female one approach each other for a sterile embrace and lascivious dealings? No. From near or far, they fly, crawl, jump or run, they go, when it is time, to the fecundation rite. Neither do they evade stopping at the pleasure, but they go further, to the serious and holy consequences of the offspring, the only reason that should cause a man, a demigod by his origin of Grace which I have made complete, to accept the animality of the act, necessary since you descended by one degree towards animals.

  You do not act as plants and animals do. You had as your teacher Satan. You wanted him as your teacher and you still want him. And the works you do are what one would expect of the teacher you wanted. Had you been faithful to God, you would have had the joy of children, in a holy way, without pain, without exhausting yourselves in obscene and shameful intercourses, which even beasts are unacquainted with, although beasts are without a reasoning and spiritual soul.»

Passage 2 --

  Jesus says:
  «Satan wanted to deprive man of this intellectual virginity and with his venomous tongue he blandished and caressed Eve's limbs and eyes, exciting reflections and a perspicacity which they did not have before, because malice had not yet intoxicated them.

  She "saw". And seeing, she wanted to try. Her flesh was aroused. Oh! If she had called to God! If she had hurried to Him saying: "Father! The Serpent has caressed me and I am upset". The Father would have purified and healed her with His breath, which could have infused new innocence into her as it had infused life. And it would have made her forget the snake's poison, nay it would have engendered in her a disgust for the Serpent, as it happens in those who bear an instinctive dislike for diseases of which they have just been cured. But Eve does not go to the Father. Eve goes back to the Serpent. The sensation is a sweet one for her. "Seeing that the fruit of the tree was good to eat and pleasing and agreeable to the eye, she took it and ate it".

  And "she understood". Now Malice was inside her and was gnawing at her intestines. She saw with new eyes and heard with new ears the habits and voices of beasts. And she craved for them with insane greed.

  She began the sin by herself. She accomplished it with her companion. That is why a heavier sentence is laid on woman. Because of her, man has become rebellious towards God and has become acquainted with lewdness and death. Because of her, he was no longer capable of dominating his three reigns: the reign of the spirit, because he allowed the spirit to disobey God; the moral reign, because he allowed passions to master him; the reign of the flesh, because he lowered it down to the instinctive level of beasts. "The Serpent seduced me" says Eve. "The woman offered me the fruit and I ate of it" says Adam. And the triple greed has ruled the three dominions since then.»

The Virgin Mary, too, gives explanation in Passage 2.

  Mary says:
  «The Spirit of God had informed Me of the pain of the Father because of the corruption of Eve, who had lowered herself to the level of inferior creatures, whereas she was a creature of grace...

  Disobedience was the beginning of the downfall: "Do not eat and do not touch of that tree" said God. And man and woman did not respect that prohibition, although as kings of creation they were allowed to touch and eat of everything except of that tree because God wanted them to be inferior only to angels.

  The tree: the means to test their obedience. What does obedience to God's commands imply? It implies all possible good, because God commands nothing but good. What is disobedience? It is evil, because it brings about a rebellious mental state in which Satan can be active.

  Eve goes toward the tree, which, if avoided, would have caused her welfare, if approached, would cause her ruin. She goes there led by the childish curiosity of seeing what is special about it, and by a rashness that makes her consider God's command a useless one since she is strong and pure, the queen of Eden, where everything is subject to her and nothing can hurt her. Her presumption is her ruin. Presumption is the yeast of pride.

  At the tree she finds the Seducer, who sings his song of lies to her inexperience, to her beautiful virginal inexperience, to her badly guarded inexperience. "You think there is evil here? No, there isn't. God told you because He wants to keep you as slaves under His power. You think you are king and queen? You are not even as free as wild animals. Animals can love one another with true love. You cannot. Animals are granted the gift of being creators like God. Animals generate little ones and see their families grow as much as they like. You do not. You are denied this joy. Why make you man and woman if you have to live thus? Be gods. You do not know the joy of being two in one flesh, that creates a third one and many more. Do not believe God when He promised you the joy of posterity seeing your children forming new families, leaving their father and mother for their families. He has given you a sham life: real life is to know the laws of life. Then you will be like gods and will be able to say to God: 'We are equal to You' ".

  And the allurement continued because there was no will to break it, on the contrary there was the will to continue it and to learn what did not belong to man. And the forbidden tree becomes really mortal for the human race because from its branches there hangs the fruit of bitter knowledge that comes from Satan. And the woman becomes a female and with the yeast of Satanic knowledge in her heart, she moves on to corrupt Adam. With their bodies and souls degraded and their morals corrupted, they became acquainted with sorrow and the death of both their souls deprived of Grace and of their bodies divested of immortality. And Eve's wound engendered suffering, which will not subside until the last couple on earth are dead.»

Jesus continues (bold emphasis mine):

  «Also the fruit that was offered and eaten was symbolical. It was the fruit of an experience they wanted to have at Satan's instigation to break God's command. I had not forbidden men love. I only wanted them to love each other without malice; as I loved them in My holiness, they were to love each other in the holiness of affections unsoiled by lewdness...

  But she [Eve] did not have faith in God's word, and was not faithful to her promise of obedience. She believed in Satan, she broke her promise, she wanted to know what was not good, she loved it without regret, she turned love into something corrupt and degraded, which I instead had permitted as something holy. A sullied angel, she wallowed in mud and litter, whereas she could have run happily amongst the flowers of the earthly Paradise and she could have seen her offspring flourish around her, like a plant that is covered with flowers without bending its leaves into the mire.»

Jesus goes on to explain that, by this first sin, Man permitted misery to enter the world:

  «...o Cursed One, who deprived God of the joy of being the Father of all men created!

  In vain you have corrupted them, who had been created innocent, leading them to knowledge and conception by means of the sensuousness of lust, depriving God, in His beloved creature, of being the benefactor of the children according to rules, which, had they been respected, would have kept a balance on earth between sexes and races, a balance capable of averting wars between peoples and calamities between families.

  By obeying, they would have also known love. Nay, only by obeying they would have known love and possessed it. A complete and peaceful possession of this gift from God, Who from the supernatural descends to the inferior, so that also the flesh may rejoice devoutly, since it is united to the spirit and created by Him Who created the spirit.

  Now, men, what is your love, what are your loves? Either lewdness disguised as love or an incurable fear of losing the love of your partner through her or other people's lewdness. You are never sure of possessing the heart of your husband or wife, since lust entered the world. And you tremble and cry and become overwrought with jealousy, sometimes you kill to avenge a betrayal, sometimes you despair, and sometimes you lack will or even become insane.

  This is what you have done, Satan, to the children of God. Those whom you have corrupted, would have known the joy of having children without suffering any pain and would have experienced the joy of being born without fear of dying.»

What does this mean for us, the descendants of Adam and Eve?

As the Church teaches, we have inherited the stain of original sin.  However, Jesus clarifies that although we bear the consequences of original sin (which are dissolved through Baptism), we do not share in Adam and Eve's original guilt:

  «I can already hear your objection: "Was the punishment not excessive and the means used to condemn them not childish?"

  Not so. Actual disobedience in you, who are their heirs, is not so grave as if it were in them. You have been redeemed by Me. But Satan's poison is always ready to rise again, like certain diseases that never disappear completely in the blood. The First Parents possessed Grace without ever even nearing Disgrace. They were therefore stronger and more firmly supported by Grace that generated love and innocence. The gift given them by God was infinite. Much graver is therefore their fall notwithstanding that gift.»

In effect, our disobedience to God when we sin (as bad as it is) is still not as bad as the disobedience of Adam and Eve since -- never having risen as high as them -- we have a much shorter distance to fall.


Why is God three persons rather than four or more?

This question is covered in other places such as here

The bible does not anywhere in it say that god is clearly three persons. That is a human perception of what is written. There are many scriptures such as John 1;1 that obscurely support it.  There are many more scriptures that suggest that God and Jesus are separate such as 1 Corinthians 11;2.

There is, however, no scripture that comes out and says directly Jesus, Jehovah, and the holy spirit are 1 being.


Wave offering; What exactly was the point?

From the other references to the same action (see here), it would appear that part of one (or more) of the sacrifices was to be held high and displayed before the gathered and before God that the offering was being made.

If you read further in the Leviticus passage, you get to this:

  but the breast shall belong to Aaron and his sons

As the breast was the portion "waved" before the Lord, it appears that it was to be a public showing of what had been brought, and after it had been consecrated it was to be given to the Aaronic priests for their use.


What does R. C. Sproul mean by the 'essence' of God?

To R. C. Sproul and many other Christians, the word essence is a near-synonym of being or substance in a philosophical sense.  It is the English word that he feels best conveys the meaning of the word that the Greeks used when describing unchangeable, ultimate reality: ousios (the present participle of the Greek verb "to be").
Sproul adopts a Platonic understanding of essence, as opposed to existence, saying that essence:

is the being element of something, the substance of it.

This he contrasts with existence, "which is the becoming element."  For Sproul, the key is that the word essence communicates immutability or changeless being.
Now, to your follow-up questions.  Regarding the word entity, we know from the above that Sproul doesn't regard it as close a synonym to ousious as essence.  As to why, we might speculate that in modern English entity tends to add a sense of separateness.  Historically, though both words are rooted in the concept of being, essence enters English earlier and is based on an earlier form of the Latin word esse (to be).
Sproul doesn't employ an example like "squirrelness" in this or his other teaching on the Trinity that I've been able to uncover.  But an analogy like that would likely have some merit, since he regards the essence of something as that which is unchanging and defining.  But the difficulty of understanding the "essence of a squirrel" is obviously magnified when attempting to understand the "essence of God."
Regarding the Trinity, Sproul contrasts essence with subsistence, with the latter term meaning "to stand under":

Thus, [subsistence] gets at the idea that while God is one in essence, there are three subsistences, three persons, that stand under the essence. They are part of the essence. All three have the essence of deity. [...]
There are distinctions between [the members of the Godhead], but the distinctions are not essential, not of the essence. They are real, but they do not disturb the essence of deity. The distinctions within the Godhead are, if you will, sub-distinctions within the essence of God.

For more of Sproul's teaching on this topic, see his booklet What Is the Trinity, chapter 4.  He goes into a bit more detail in a video lecture.  He also touches on the doctrine of the Trinity in other works, including Essential Truths of the Christian Faith.
Etymologies of essence and entity are from m-w.com.


When was the tripartite (body, soul, and spirit) view of man officially rejected by a church council?

Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Book 2, §14), directs us to relevant councils:

4th Council of Constantinople (869–70)
4th Lateran Council (1215)

The first of these rejects the idea that man has "two souls," which, if not completely rejecting trichotomy, at least gets close to it.  Canon 11 reads:

The Old and the New Testaments teach that man has one rational and intellectual soul, and all the Fathers speaking the word of God, and all the teachers of the Church declare the same opinion. (Denzinger, §338)
unam animam rationabilem et intellectualem habere hominem (Ott)

In the opening chapter of the 4th Lateran Council, we find a more explicit statement within a general expounding of God's nature and creative work:

By [God's] own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from nothing, spiritual, and corporal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally the human, constituted as it were, alike of the spirit and the body. (Denzinger, §428)
deinde (condidit creaturam) humanam quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore
constitutam (Ott)

So it turns out that the trichotomous doctrines were only officially rejected several centuries after Apollinaris, but still well before the Reformation.  Thus it makes sense that many major Protestant traditions continued to hold this view.


Calvinism vs Independent Fundamental Baptist

This is a difficult question to answer because IFB is not a denomination, and each church is independent, but there are Fundamentalist fellowships and congresses which have met on rare occasion and have mentioned Calvinism. You could look into resolutions by Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International or World Congress of Fundamentalists. You will find that there can be an acceptable spectrum of Calvinism among fundamentalism, but "hyper-Calvinism" is rejected by IFBs.
https://fbfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Complete-Resolutions-2010.pdf


All is vanity in the Book of Ecclesiastes

If Solomon claimed that All is vanity in this earth in the Book of Ecclesiastes, what's our purpose of living our lives on this earth?

That's what he tells you at the end of the book:

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 NKJV

  13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:

    Fear God and keep His commandments,
    For this is man’s all.
    14 For God will bring every work into judgment,
    Including every secret thing,
    Whether good or evil.

The idea in Ecclesiastes is that Solomon, being the richest man on earth at the time, tried every pursuit that people might seek for happiness and contentment in and found them all lacking, all vanity, all worthless, except for serving God.


Is there a twelfth word to be added to the eleven of the angelic host?

The only additional word that could reasonably be expected to be added, on our part, is Amen.

Those glorious sentiments absolutely deserve and receive my personal "Amen".


What is the historical basis for the claim that there were hundreds of eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus?

Below is a paragraph from Josephus’ ‘Antiquities of the Jews’ (18:63–64).  At first I was hopeful that it would provide you with a secular, historical source to support eye-witness testimony to the resurrection of Jesus.  However, it turns out that the comments in brackets may have been added by a later translator.

“At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man [if indeed one ought to refer to him as a man]. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who received the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. [He was the Messiah-Christ.] And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. [For on the third day he appeared to them again alive, just as the divine prophets had spoken about these and countless other marvelous things about him.] And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out.”

Then there is the curious matter of the testimony of women being recorded as evidence:

“When you understand the role of women in first-century Jewish society, what’s really extraordinary is that this empty tomb story should feature women as the discoverers of the empty tomb in the first place. Women were on a very low rung of the social ladder in first-century Israel. There are old rabbinical sayings that said, 'Let the words of Law be burned rather than delivered to women' and 'blessed is he whose children are male, but woe to him whose children are female.' Women’s testimony was regarded as so worthless that they weren’t even allowed to serve as legal witnesses in a Jewish court of Law. In light of this, it’s absolutely remarkable that the chief witnesses to the empty tomb are these women... Any later legendary account would have certainly portrayed male disciples as discovering the tomb - Peter or John, for example. The fact that women are the first witnesses to the empty tomb is most plausibly explained by the reality that - like it or not - they were the discoverers of the empty tomb! This shows that the Gospel writers faithfully recorded what happened, even if it was embarrassing. This bespeaks the historicity of this tradition rather than its legendary status." (Dr. William Lane Craig, quoted by Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998, p. 293)

Moving swiftly into the 21st century, you may find the following extract from this article worth considering: https://www.gotquestions.org/why-believe-resurrection.html

The late jurisprudential prodigy and international statesman Sir Lionel Luckhoo (of The Guinness Book of World Records fame for his unprecedented 245 consecutive defense murder trial acquittals) epitomized Christian enthusiasm and confidence in the strength of the case for the resurrection when he wrote, “I have spent more than 42 years as a defense trial lawyer appearing in many parts of the world and am still in active practice. I have been fortunate to secure a number of successes in jury trials and I say unequivocally the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.”

Allow me to leave you with this final quote:

The secular community’s response to the same evidence has been predictably apathetic in accordance with their steadfast commitment to methodological naturalism. For those unfamiliar with the term, methodological naturalism is the human endeavor of explaining everything in terms of natural causes and natural causes only. If an alleged historical event defies natural explanation (e.g., a miraculous resurrection), secular scholars generally treat it with overwhelming skepticism, regardless of the evidence, no matter how favorable and compelling it may be.


Will good, God-fearing people who don't believe in Jesus' divinity be excluded from Heaven?

Per Scripture, the only way to heaven is by putting our trust in Christ and accepting His free gift of salvation.

The question you pose is based on a common misunderstanding of the relationship between how "good" we are and whether or not we are "good enough" to get to Heaven.  The problem is that not one of us has ever kept the Ten Commandments, much less the hundreds of other laws in the Bible, and therefore not one of us is "good enough" to get to Heaven on our own merits.

There's a much more complete explanation of this here.

A longer version of the same answer would go like this:

First, everyone on earth has sinned, save Jesus.

  Romans 3:23 (KJV)

  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

When you examine it, every one of us has broken each and every one of the Ten Commandments, if not in deed, then in heart and in intent.  For example, perhaps we've never committed adultery physically, but as Jesus said, if we've looked at someone with lust, we've committed adultery in our hearts.

  Matthew 5:28 (KJV)

  But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in
  his heart.

We've all broken the other Commandments in spirit as well, but even if one of us has squeaked away with not committing all of them, it doesn't matter.  The Bible tells us that if we've broken even one, we're guilty.

  James 2:10 (KJV)

  For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point,
  he is guilty of all.

So, the none of these people are sinless by the standards laid forth in Scripture.

Romans 1 touches on the subject of whether or not we are held guilty if we've never heard the Gospel message.  It lays out a few truths:

God reveals Himself to us, and we are without excuse.
Our ancestors had access to the truth of God, and chose to turn from them.

  Romans 1:18. (KJV) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in
  unrighteousness;
  19. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
  20. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even
  his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
  21. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and
  their foolish heart was darkened.
  22. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
  23. And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and
  creeping things.

Their unbelief and rebellion against God meant that their children, their children's children, and so on were not taught about God.  It's not His fault, it's theirs.  Because they chose to rebel when they knew the truth, and didn't teach their children, they doomed their children to not knowing the truth of God.  This is one reason that Proverbs 22:6 is important.  (Again, KJV)

  Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will
  not depart from it.

In Romans 2 (KJV), we read:

  11. For there is no respect of persons with God.
  12. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by
  the law;
  13. (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
  14. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law
  unto themselves:
  15. Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while
  accusing or else excusing one another;)

These theoretical people you mentioned are guilty.  Scripture here tells us that "he shall perish without law". They will perish because they have sinned, and ignored the conscience that God has placed in each and every one of us.

Finally, it should be noted that even in civil, earthly law, ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law.

If I were to carry a concealed weapon in a state that doesn't allow concealed carry, for example, and I was arrested, would I be able to avoid the consequences by telling the Judge "I didn't know"?  No.  I'd be punished according to the law, whether I intentionally broke the law or not.

As we saw in Romans 2 (quoted above), the Bible tells us that God will not accept ignorance as an excuse.  They will perish without the Law, as God's word states, because they have sinned and broken the law, not because they have rejected Jesus.  Accepting Jesus is the only way to be saved.  He pays the penalty for our guilt.  However, the reason we are guilty is not because we didn't accept Him, it's because we chose to sin.

We can try to blame God all we want, and we can even try to blame the ancestors, but the simple fact remains that these people will be condemned because of their own sin.


Did the church use stories like the Holy Grail to attract pagans?

While I know nothing about how the Church perceived the stories concerning the Holy Grail (this answer claims that the Catholic Church has no official opinion), the answer is a solid no, simply because the Holy Grail was not invented by the Church in the first place.

The first appearance of such thing as the Grail was in the romance Perceval, by Chretien de Troyes (c. 1190). This poem mentions a grail and implies that it is some sort of dish or bowl. It is not called "holy" anywhere in the poem, and is not associated to any Christian relic.

This story was left unfinished by Chretien, and four continuations were developed by different writers and, as far as I can tell, the grail is never associated to the Holy Chalice.

Wolfram von Eschenbach adapted Chretien's work into his own romance Parzival (c. 1210), which has a very similar plot to the original story, but now the Grail is a precious stone that is the sanctuary of the angels that remained neutral in Lucifer's rebellion. The backstory of the Grail in Parzival draws heavily from Christian motifs, but, again, the Grail is never associated with the Holy Chalice.

The first time the Grail is associated to the Holy Chalice is in the romance Joseph d'Arimathe by Robert de Boron (c. 1200?), which is supposed to be a prequel to Chretien's Perceval (Boron also allegedly wrote his own version of Perceval's story, that survived in its prose adaptation Didot Perceval). In Boron's story, Joseph of Arimathea receives the Holy Chalice after Jesus was arrested, and his brother-in-law took it to Britain.

Boron's version of the Grail was incorporated into the Arthurian romances in which is called the Vulgate Cycle, with some modifications (for instance, Joseph himself took the Grail to Britain, and the knight associated with the Grail is Galahad instead of Percival), and was later re-adapted into the Post-Vulgate Cycle, whose most relevant and famous version is Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, from which most modern depictions of the Arthurian cycle and the Holy Grail derive from.

In conclusion, the association of the Holy Grail to the Holy Chalice did not originate in the Church, but in medieval romances. Whether the story of the Grail originated from the Chretien's imagination, by an unknown source or by elements of pagan mythology is still debated by scholars. Furthermore, it is worth noticing that the connection between the Holy Grail and to the hypothesized descendants of Jesus is quite recent and has no parallel in medieval literature (in which the Grail was originated).


Martin Luther's take on Roman Catholic clergy individuals living (immediately) before him

Luther viewed Thomas Aquinas as one of his adversaries. He saw him as someone who interpreted the Bible according to Aristotle. There are many references against Thomas in Luther's writings. Here is an example when speaking against indulgences:

  They are far more foolish than the Pythagoreans who assert only those things which Pythagoras has said. These, on the other hand, assert those things which the Pythagoreans doubted. But let us come to the source and fountains of these rivulets, that is SS. Thomas and Bonaventura. (Luther's Works Volume 31,  P146)

Catholic Saints, Monks and Nuns are generally viewed by Luther as totally lost as they relied on their own works for salvation. However, Luther had his own secret hopes that many of them still found faith on their deathbeds. After referring to St.'Francis, Dominic, and others', Luther says:

  I do believe, however, that the aforementioned monks recognized and acknowledged their error before they died and finally rested all their hopes on Christ, the true and only Light, through whom alone man is illumined, and not through any other. ...Had St. Bernard not died in this faith, he would have gone to the devil and into the abyss of hell with his monkery and monastic life. It is the same with all the monks in the papacy. No matter how holy and ascetic their life may have been, if they were saved, they must have come to this same realization. (Luther's Works Volume 22,  P52-53)

On the salvation of non-famous monks, etc. Luther said:

  I once saw a monk who took a cross into his hands and remarked while the other monks were boasting of their good works: “I know of no merit of my own but only of the merit of Him who died for me on the cross.” And in reliance on that merit he also died73 In the papacy it was customary to admonish a dying monk to be mindful of his own merits and works and of those of others. And in that faith they died. But just as the pious monk died a blessed death, relying solely on the merit of Jesus Christ, so many a wretched criminal on the gallows has been delivered from sin and saved through faith. That is how St. Bernard was saved. He was an exemplary monk. (Luther's Works Volume 22,  P359)


Why doesn't God remit everyone of original sin in Catholicism?

I know that in Catholicism, Mary didn't have the original sin. If God had the power to do this, why didn't he do this with other people?

The crux of this question lies in Man's purpose "to know and to love God, to do good according to [H]is will, and to go someday to heaven" (CCC 1-3, 358)

In Baptism, we "become members of the Body of Christ, sisters and brothers of our Redeemer, and children of God. We are freed from sin, snatched from death and destined from then on for a life in the joy of the redeemed" (CCC 1262-1274, 1279-1280)

However, to receive the benefits of Baptism, one typically must receive it Sacramentally, (cf. YouCat 199, Baptism of Blood and Baptism of Desire are beyond the scope of this discussion), and in a sense approach God, or open oneself to His presence.
   Now, if Original Sin was forgiven unilaterally, what need would there be to approach God, and to come to know and love Him?


Why are we given details about what the descendants of Cain did? Is there special significance to these details?

To me, it sounds like a recounting of early civilization: domestication of animals, music, metallurgy, city building. A secular anthropologist would tell a story of hominids evolving over millions of years culminating with emergence of homo sapiens in Africa. Then the story shifts into high gear as humans migrated all over the world and culture, technology and cities grew.

The first 11 chapters of the bible explain how we came to be and why we are the way we are. There are lots of similarities between the story the bible tells and what anthropologists think happened.


Does the latest Scofield Reference Bible delete or substantially alter any of the original notes?

In 1967, Oxford University Press published a revision of the Scofield Bible with a slightly modernized KJV text, and a muting of some of the tenets of Scofield's theology. The editors' introduction states that these revisions follow the same doctrine:

However, The Story of the King James Version, 1611-2011 (Oxford University Press, 2010) comes to the opposite conlusion regarding the alterations:

  "The continuing popularity of the 1917 notes may reflect the
  preference of the purchasers for the original and full-strength
  Scofield." Mangum & Sweetnam suggest the popularity of the 1917
  edition may also reflect a strong commitment to the KJV translation.
  Scofield was accused of promoting "two ways of salvation" with a
  dispensation of works before the death and resurrection of Christ and
  a dispensation of grace afterwards. In the revision of 1967,
  Scofield's note on John 1:17 "was rewritten, and now seemed to say the
  opposite of Scofield's original." Gordon Campbell, Bible: The Story of
  the King James Version, 1611-2011 (Oxford University Press, 2010),
  246-47.

Recent editions of the KJV Scofield Study Bible have moved the textual changes made in 1967 to the margin.


Who are the leaders of the Jehovah's Witnesses church?

The head of the Jehovah's Witness Church is known as the Watchtower Society.

Sorry for using Wikipedia as a reference, but apparently the JW website doesn't give out much information on them.

On the official Jehovah's Witnesses website, we can get the following information:

http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/congregations-organized/

  How Are Your Congregations Organized?

  A body of elders supervises each congregation. About 20 congregations
  form a circuit, and about 10 circuits are grouped into a district.
  Congregations receive periodic visits from traveling elders, known as
  circuit overseers and district overseers.

  Bible-based guidance and instructions are provided by a Governing Body
  made up of longtime Witnesses who currently work at the international
  offices of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Brooklyn, New York.—Acts 15:23-29; 1
  Timothy 3:1-7.

The information about the founder also helps to understand the organizational structure:

  The modern-day organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses began at the end of
  the 19th century. At that time, a small group of Bible students who
  lived near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States, began a
  systematic analysis of the Bible. They compared the doctrines taught
  by the churches with what the Bible really teaches. They began
  publishing what they learned in books, newspapers, and the journal
  that is now called The Watchtower—Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom.

  Among that group of sincere Bible students was a man named Charles
  Taze Russell. While Russell took the lead in the Bible education work
  at that time and was the first editor of The Watchtower, he was not
  the founder of a new religion. The goal of Russell and the other Bible
  Students, as the group was then known, was to promote the teachings of
  Jesus Christ and to follow the practices of the first-century
  Christian congregation. Since Jesus is the Founder of Christianity, we
  view him as the founder of our organization.—Colossians 1:18-20.

Russell founded the Watchtower Society, which is the head of the Jehovah's Witnesses Church.

It is very difficult to get official information about the governing body from sources within the organization, but if you trust Wikipedia as a source, they do have more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governing_Body_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses#Committees (and in this case, Wikipedia does seem to have plenty of footnotes and supporting links.)

Among other detailed information, it lists the current and past governing members, how the members have been selected, etc.  As a sample, here's what it's got listed for current members:

Governing Body members

  Jehovah's Witnesses began capitalizing Governing Body as a proper noun
  in 1971; The Watchtower that year announced "The present Governing
  Body comprises eleven anointed witnesses of Jehovah."[82] The original
  members of the 1971 Governing Body, all now deceased, are indicated in
  italics in the lists below.[83] Current

  As of September 2012, the following people are members of the
  Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses[7] (year appointed in
  parentheses):

  Samuel Herd (1999)[84]
  Geoffrey Jackson (2005)[85]
  M. Stephen Lett (1999)[84]
  Gerrit Lösch (1994)[86]
  Anthony Morris (2005)[85]
  Guy H. Pierce (1999)[84]
  Mark Sanderson (2012)[87]
  David H. Splane (1999)[84]


What is the basis from the Church's Sacred Deposit of the Faith for the concept of "gradualism"?

In Familiaris Consortio, (Latin roughly translated as "of family partnership"1, but titled in English On the role of the Christian Family in the Modern World), a postsynodal Apostolic Exhortation written by Pope St. John Paul II [the Great] and given on November 22, 1981, it appears that the saintly Pope set out clarify what is 'the law of gradualness' and contrast it with 'gradualness of the law,'

  "And so what is known as 'the law of gradualness' or step-by-step
  advance cannot be identified with 'gradualness of the law,' as if
  there were different degrees or forms of precept in God's law for
  different individuals and situations [...]".2

1. cf. Familiaris Consortio | Wikipedia. Online Latin to English has "family-company".

2. John Paul II, Homily at the Close of the Sixth Synod of Bishops (Oct. 25, 1980), 8: AAS 72 (1980), 1083.

This article - St. John Paul II and "the law of gradualness" by Province of St. Joseph | Dominican Friars - using an excerpt from a Zenit article by Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., explains “the law of gradualness”

  What John Paul called “the law of gradualness” does not refer to a
  “gradual” turning away from sin, but to the perennial Christian
  doctrine that we are not yet perfect in the first moment of our
  conversion.  When we receive a grace of conversion, we break
  definitively from evil and then gradually advance in holiness.  We may
  even fall back into grave sin, but, helped by grace, we repent and
  start anew.  Here, the sacrament of Penance has an important role to
  play: it calls us to renounce our sins definitively with a firm
  purpose of amendment.  In effect, he who will not yet repent, will not
  yet accept God’s mercy, and so is not forgiven.  (CCC no. 1451;
  DH 16763.)

The Zenit article continues

  As St. John Paul says, the “law of gradualness” presupposes this
  turning-away from evil, so that one can begin to walk “step-by-step”
  on the upward – that is, gradually ascending – path of good.  “What is
  needed is a continuous, permanent conversion which, while requiring an
  interior detachment from every evil and an adherence to good in its
  fullness, is brought about concretely in steps which lead us ever
  forward.”  (Familiaris Consortio no. 9.)  The ascent is gradual,
  but the renunciation of sin cannot be.

The law understood this way, is in harmony with Scripture

  Mark 1:14-15 (RSVCE) 14 [...] Jesus came into Galilee,
  preaching the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled,
  and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the
  gospel.”

  Acts 2:38 (RSVCE) 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent, and
  be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
  forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy
  Spirit.

First step is always, "break with sin", and then step-by-step advancement to the perfection that all have been called to.

3. cf. Sources of Catholic Dogma by Denzinger, Chap. 4. Contrition | Council of Trent, Session 14, the Decree regarding the Sacraments of Penance and Extreme Unction [Anointing of the Sick].
897 Contrition, which has the first place among the aforementioned acts of the penitent, is a sorrow of the soul and a detestation of sin committed, with a determination of not sinning in the future. This feeling of contrition is, moreover, necessary at all times to obtain the forgiveness of sins, and thus for a person who has fallen after baptism it especially prepares for the remission of sins, if it is united with trust in divine mercy and with the desire of performing the other things required to receive this sacrament correctly. The holy Synod, therefore, declares that this contrition includes not only cessation from sin and a resolution and a beginning of a new life, but also hatred of the old, according to this statement: "Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart and a new spirit" [Ezech. 18:31 ]. And certainly, he who has considered those lamentations of the saints: "To Thee only have I sinned, and have done evil before Thee" Ps. 50:6]; "I have labored in my groanings; I shall wash my bed every night" Ps. 6:7]; "I will recount to Thee all my years in the bitterness of my soul" [Isa. 38:15], and others of this kind, will readily understand that they emanate from a certain vehement hatred of past life and from a profound detestation of sins.

Looking at the point below from the 2014 Synod's "Relatio post disceptationem", one can see why His Eminence Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke says,  '[it] invokes repeatedly and in a confused manner principles which are not defined, for example, the law of graduality.'

  13 From the moment that the order of creation is determined by
  orientation towards Christ, it becomes necessary to distinguish
  without separating the various levels through which God communicates
  the grace of the covenant to humanity. Through the law of gradualness
  (cf. Familiaris Consortio, 34), typical of divine pedagogy, this
  means interpreting the nuptial covenant in terms of continuity and
  novelty, in the order of creation and in that of redemption.

From the Reports of Circuli Minores, Circulus Anglicus "A" responded

  We had serious questions about the presentation of the principle of
  GRADUALITY. We wished to show in our amendments that we are not
  speaking of the GRADUALITY of DOCTRINE of faith and morals, but rather
  the gradual moral growth of the individual in his or her actions. -
  Relatio (Synod 2014) - Circulus Anglicus "A" | Moderator:
  Em.mo Card. Raymond Leo BURKE | Relator: S.E. Mons. John Atcherley DEW

Please see also:

Rock of Ages    By David Warren, Friday, 17 October 2014 | The Catholic Thing.


Christmas Tree Angel holding bread in one hand and coal in the other?

This is an interesting question.  I’d wager that most readers initially make a contrast between the bread and coal in the angel’s hands as representing rewards for good and evil.  We know about the bread of the Covenant at the Last Supper.  And no doubt most of us have heard about getting a lump of coal or two in your stocking if you were a bad boy or girl.  Alternatively, as the OP stated, the two items may also represent a tradition between the well-to-do (bread) and the poor (coal).

There is a another historic symbolism of the bread and coal that is somewhat different.  The two items of bread and coal may essentially represent the same singular idea; that is, one of redemption.

CHRISTMAS TREE

The origins of Christmas trees are widely known and are not important to the question.  As to an angel tree topper, its first use apparently sources to the United Kingdom’s Victorian Era from about 1837 to 1901.

  The Illustrated London News published a picture of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their family around a Christmas tree topped with an angel, and by its influence the Christmas angel became the most common tree-topper.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree-topper

If you enlarge the picture of the angel on top, you find it dressed in red and white.  It appears to hold somethings in its hand and one could easily hazard a guess that it is bread (right) and coal (left).

Why an angel in the first place?  The idea is consistently one of a herald, a messenger.  What is the message?  The answer, the symbolism is in the bread and coal.

When did the angel first appear with two items in its hands?  The answer is more of a mystery, but one that is inferred from when it first appeared.

HEAVEN or HELL

Before looking at the bread and coal as the same metaphor, there are traditions that the two are very different states of mankind or even of Christians!  Keep in mind that apparently the angelic tree topper appeared about the same times as our sources.

Charles Spurgeon an English preacher (1834-1892) contrasts a type of bread and coal as in the same house, though different implications.

  I believe that most of God's children sometimes get down in the dumps. There is a coal cellar to God's house as well as a banqueting hall and, although I should like to always live in the banqueting hall, I have many a time been down in the coal cel-lar—and I have learned more, there, than I have learned upstairs!
  Spurgeon, Sermons 45

This idea of partaking of either bread (good) or coals (bad) may be traceable far back in time to Pseudo-Dionysius circa CE 600.

  This sacrifice [of Christ’s death], here celebrated, we commemorate to Thee, O Lord, and the sufferings which Thou didst endure on the Cross for us. Be propitious, O Good, and Lover of men, in that hour full, of fear and trembling, to this congregation of those adoring Thee, and to all sons of the holy Church, bought by Thy precious blood. May coals of fire be kept from those who are tinged with Thy blood, and sealed by Thy sacraments in Thy holy Name, as formerly the Babylonian flame from the youths of the house of Hanania;
  http://www.ccel.org/ccel/dionysius/works.i.v.ii.html

It is also interesting that Parliamentary Papers from that Victorian time period mentions tickets issued to the poor who could redeem them for both bread and coal.  With this, we find that the two items are essential symbols of life.  This too may have influenced our traditions.  See page 850.
https://books.google.com/books?id=mMNDAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA850&lpg=PA850&dq

Lastly, in keeping with the idea that the two items represent symbols for good, we may cite from the bible where Elijah is running from Jezebel.

  And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.
  1Kings 19:5-6

In this story we have the traditional evergreen, the angel, bread (cake) and coals.

REDEMPTION

In all of these traditions, the one constant is the angel heralding and holding or providing two items.  Were the items it held a contrast of bread for good and coal for bad or were they symbols of the same reality; that is, bread and coal as necessities for life?

The angel of course represents the heralding angel.  Hark, the herald angel sings, glory to the newborn king.  The bread of heaven had come to earth.

  And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
  Luke 2:10-12

  For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
  John 6:33

Hark Emmanuel, God with us.  But hark too our reaction.  Mine lips are deceitful and evil, I am a sinner, how can I receive this gift of life?  Religious traditions answer in different ways from universal salvation to working for salvation.  Again, this is unimportant to the question.  For this angel tradition though, there is only one answer.  The angel offers bread and uses the coal to one who acknowledges his/her sins.

  Then said I [the prophet Isaiah], Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.  Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
  Isa. 6:5-7

We have seen angel toppers clothed in either white or red to explain that symbolism.  Keep in mind that these were Protestant preachers.  So although he does not tie this with an angel topper necessarily, Scottish preacher George Adam Smith (1856-1942) will put it, bread represents redemption, but so too the coal as the means.

  [Isaiah’s vision] for so simple a process of atonement leaves out the most characteristic details of the Jewish ritual of sacrifice, while it anticipates in an unmistakeable manner the essence of the Christian sacrament. In a scene of expiation laid under the old covenant, we are struck by the absence of oblation or sacrificial act on the part of the sinner himself. There is here no victim slain, no blood sprinkled; an altar is only parenthetically suggested, and even then in its simplest form, of a hearth on which the Divine fire is continually burning. The glowing stone, not live coal as in the English version, was no part of the temple furniture, but the ordinary means of conveying heat or applying fire in the various purposes of household life.
  http://www.ccel.org/ccel/smith_ga/expositorisa1.v.iv.html

The stone/coal was applied, not something taken or achieved.

CONCLUSION

With these things in mind from the same period, we thus find traces of the different ongoing traditions of an angelic tree topper clothed in white or red or both who holds bread in one hand and coal in the other.

Those traditions offer different understandings that range from contrasting bread for good and coal for bad to finding both bread and coal as symbols of good or the necessity of life.  Lastly, we find the heralding angel who announces Christ the bread of life and the coal of simple application.  For this tradition, the angel with bread and coal is not a contrast of people or symbols, but a compliment of Christian reality foreshadowed and fulfilled.


Does the Bible indicate when the Ark of the Covenant officially disappeared?

No, the Bible does not. This is the last mention of the ark in the Old Testament:

2 Chronicles 35:3

  And said unto the Levites that taught all Israel, which were holy unto
  the LORD, Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David
  king of Israel did build; it shall not be a burden upon your
  shoulders: serve now the LORD your God, and his people Israel,

After that, it fades from sight for the rest of the Bible until the apostle John sees a vision of an ark in Heaven in the last book of the Bible:

Revelation 11:19

  And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his
  temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and
  voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

How it got there, or if it is the same ark, we don't know.


In Romans 3:1-8, what is God being faithful towards?

The unfaithfulness of the Jews in no way hinders or nullifies God's promises to Abraham and his seed.

"What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise."
(Galatians 3:17 NASB)

Despite their unfaithfulness, God has confirmed and fulfilled the promises made to Abraham by sending Jesus, the promised offspring of Abraham (Romans 15:8) so that what was promised might be given to those who believe (Galatians 3:22), not to those who work the works of the law.  Failure to keep the law does not negate God's faithfulness to his promise--the word of his oath--given to Abraham and his offspring.