I will propose this idea here, on a board of reasonable people, as opposed to the other forums which I have discussed it (with baptists, fundamentalists, etc. who seem a bit close-minded): how can any Christian deny the Catholic Church as the one true church? Didn’t Jesus found a Chruch when he was here on earth and create Peter as the head of it in Mt 16:18? Doesn’t Mt 16:18 also say that the gates of hell will not prevail against that church? Doesn’t the succession of bishops directly from Peter and apostolic succession (found in 1 Tim 4:14) affirm that there will be a straight line of bishops? This is not necessarily meant to spark a debate on Catholic doctorine, but the fact is, every other church was founded by a man, while the Catholic church was founded by Jesus and its dogma has been unchanged since (cite).
Well, on one level, I feel constrained to agree – I am, after all, a practicing Roman Catholic, and I would not be one if I did not remain convinced that the Church is, in fact, the one established by Jesus and headed first by Peter.
But there are reasonable cases to be made for the Orthodox churches, for example, who retain the theology of Rome but do not accept the idea of papal supremacy. As I understand it, they believe that Peter, and suceeding Bishops of Rome, were “first among equals,” and that no man can lay claim to ultimate legislative and executive authority in the church.
I don’t know enough about the various Protestant faiths to offer rationale for their existence, but I feel certain some cogent spokesperson can do so.
- Rick
I would guess that most Protestants… (possibly some followers of orthodox and other denominations,) view the remarks about ‘the catholic church’ and succession of bishops as being symbolic. Obviously the roman catholic church has not been unchanged since the time of Jesus… it didn’t exist in anything like its present form in the time of jesus.
Most of this I’m guessing at… I know from growing up in protestant churches that they tend to think of ‘the catholic church’ when it appears in the bible as ‘the sum total of all true christians in the world.’ Not necessarily bound together by any one hierarchy… or by anything other than the true nature of their faith. :]
Read my words a bit more carefully please, chrisk. I did not say that the Church has remained unchanged-the Church has grown a great deal; and witht he way that humans experience things over time, it is necessary for it to develop this way as opposed to all at once. What I did say was that it’s dogma has remained unchanged. Perhaps one of the best testaments to the Church’s infallibility while at the same time one of the most misunderstood concepts, the dogma of the Church has had to be affirmed and explained over time, but it has never contradicted itself. Again, see my cite above.
The proof of Peter’s claim to the head of the Church is evident throughout Acts, where he heads the meeting which elects Matthias, leads the apostles in preaching on Pentecost, receives the first converts, performs the first miracle after pentecost, excommunicates the first heretic (Simon Magnus), receives the revelation to admit the Gentiles into the Church, leads the first council in Jeruselam, and pronounces the first dogmatic decision. Peter’s name also always heads the list of apostles, while at the same time occuring 195 times (which is more than the rest of the apostles put together).
As support for my initial argument, I will also point to 1 Cor 1:10 and 12:13 which support the Church as one. One can logically conclude that if Christ intends to have one Church, it would be the Church which he founded and gave the Holy Spirit to.
What, you mean the Roman Catholic Institution? The one Jesus hates? The Great Whore of Babylon? 
Let Jack Chick explain what’s wrong with that:
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0071/0071_01.asp
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0082/0082_01.asp
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0040/0040_01.asp
A lot of Protestant denominations say (if less vehemently than Jack Chick), that the current Catholic Church isn’t the one that Jesus founded, but that sometime after its founding it got corrupted from the ideals of what Christianity should have been. Whether that’s true or not, I have no opinion, but that’s what they’ve said.
Well, how about the unbroken line of succession? Let’s take that. Has there truly been an unbroken line? I seem to recall a number of times when the Papacy was split.
The boards are going spastic on me right now, but I’d like to break down this gentleman’s list of questions. It might prove interesting.
E-Sabbath, the various anti-popes have no bearing on the apostolic succession, which refers to the chain of bishops back to the apostles, not to an unbroken chain of popes. If that were the case, then the chain would be broken whenever a pope dies, and would remain broken until a new pope was chosen.
I am pretty familiar with Jack Chicks arguments, BrainGlutton. They have proven great entertainment for me here at the seminary. I am very glad to know that all of the Jews and Rock Stars will be accompanying us Catholics in hell.
As for the splits in the line of succession, E-Sabbath, as soon as the boards start working for you then go ahead and post them.
By the way, I am getting a lot of my premisses from Catholic.com (as seen by my cite) and my supporting Bible verses from the Apologetics Concordance 1999 from San Juan Catholic Seminars, which I have found to be extremely helpful. You can order a copy by calling 505-327-5343.
Urgh.
Catholicism doesn’t require Roman supremacy. At one time, there were five major bishops, or patriarchs, in ancient Christendom: the bishops of Jerusalem, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, & Rome. All of these were fallible men, not angels. Sooner or later, each diocese had an apostate bishop. The Romans split with the others, claiming that they were the only ones untouched by by apostasy, which was itself apostasy.
Ever since, it’s been justified that the Bishop of Rome is the one true Holy Father, or “Pope,” because he’s never been apostate, he has never been wrong. And that he has never been apostate, we take on faith, because he is infallible. This is circular logic. It’s also disproven by history. The current Pope contradicts previous Popes right & left. Don’t believe me? I’m pretty sure he doesn’t favor exterminating Jews as the killers of Christ. There were some God-awful Popes in the Middle Ages who advocated that exact thing.
Not for nothing do Protestants see some man calling himself “the Holy Father” & see hubristic self-aggrandizement. If they remember the condemnation in John’s Apocalypse of a man calling himself God in Rome (which was originally about the Caesars), well, good! The Roman Church is too full of itself.
If there is a true church catholic, it’s leaders would appear to be in the good old-fashioned Orthodox churches, east of the Adriatic.
Catholics don’t believe that every word uttered by the Pope is infallible. If the Pope walked outside, lifted his hands to the 4 winds and said, “Tut, tut, it looks like rain,” catholics all over the world are not going to be breaking out the umbrellas. Infallibility has only been invoked rarely, and only on issues of doctrine. And rather dull doctrine, incidentally, that I’ve not heard Protestants fussing about–when was the last time you heard someone discussing those wacko catholics and their beliefs about the Assumption? But I’d be a rich person if I had a nickel for every time someone told me that I have to agree with everything the Pope says “because you think he’s infallible.” <snort>
Depending on what you mean by
, find me a Church without corruption or human pride infecting it. The issue is whether or not that affects the dogma (a word I’m almost getting tired of saying) of the Church. It has not.
Claiming that all of the bishops were apostate is faulty in that they would still need a Church that is not apostate to split from. Apostasy means abandonment of one’s beliefs. If the Bishop split with the others to maintain his beliefs, then that was not apostasy.
Orthodox here…
Very easily, in fact.
Of course.
Well, kind of. The Orthodox believe that Peter was the first among equals, but that all bishops are sacramentally equal. The Pope of Rome was the patriarch of the western Church, nothing more, and had no more canonical authority over Ioseph K. Byzantine than the Catholicos of Georgia does. As for Mt. 16:18, we hold the words of Christ to be referring to Peter’s confession, not Peter himself. As long as the See of Rome held to the true faith, it could be considered the “head” of the Church, but only inasmuch as they had the greatest honor and prestige among all the sees. The Pope was never the head of the Church in the sense that every person was subject to him. Of course, now that the Roman church has departed from Orthodoxy, the Pope of Rome has no more authority than the head of any other heterodox body.
Yes, and they haven’t. The Orthodox Church is still alive and kicking. 
The apostolic succession is from all the apostles, not just Peter. And the Orthodox have maintained apostolic succession from them; whether the Catholics have or not is unknown at this time.
But the Orthodox claim that they have preserved the true faith unchanged, and that the Orthodox Church is the church founded by Christ. From our perspective, Catholics have made several innovations in doctrine (such as the filioque, papal supremacy and infallibility, the immaculate conception, created grace and the denial of hesychasm, inherited guilt, and the general juridical worldview first originated by Anselm).
Indeed. It just happens to be the Orthodox Church. Certainly, the Roman Church was once part of the Church, and they can be again, if only they will repent of their errors and once again confess the true faith.
Not everyone will agree that Catholic doctrine has remained unchanged. Not everyone will agree that every other church was founded by a man, either. The LDS Church, for example, claims Jesus Christ as its head, and that it was founded upon divine revelation. I’m sure there are others as well, which I just don’t know about.
As I understand it, the Protestants were rebelling against a Catholic Church that was so corrupted it could no longer be tolerated by many devout and loyal Catholics, and which refused absolutely to reform. Luther and others were trying to get back to a more scripture-based religion, more like the first-century Christians had. In many cases, they only left after trying for years to bring about reform within the Church.
BlueMit11, I hope you do well in your courses, but this is really not a good line to pursue. If no one could deny that the RCC is the One True Church there would not be any other churches. Obviously, people have disagreed on that point (and a lot of “good Christians” shed a lot of blood disputing the point).
It is also rather counter-produtive to announce that you don’t really want to debate an issue, then post a provocative statement that begs to be challenged.
Good luck.
What a blatantly disenguous OP!
:rolleyes:
What a blatantly disengenuous OP!
:rolleyes:
Seems as though the Church has “reformed” now, so what is keeping them away still? When the fathers of protestant Churches split away, they did not just make a purer version of Catholicism, they actually changed some doctrine. If they did not have multiple intentions in mind, this argument might work. But they changed things that were unrelated to the corruptions.
The Catholic Church is very much scripture-based, though many would care to argue. Of course, it does use Tradition, but I would argue that scripture and tradition rely on each other. Tradition is apparent in Scripture, and Scripture arose from Tradition.
As far as Orthodoxy goes, I may just just have to expand my argument to them as well in order to keep this in the original perspective. My point was mainly to seperate Catholicism from Protestantism, which does not even claim Apostolic Succession. Might I add, in support of Papal infallibility, though, Jn 16:13, Luke 10:16, and Mt 28:18-20?
Disingenuous, even.
Damn it, what a waste of hamster power.
I’m sorry, folks. I’ll go away now.
No, not at all. No one is even sure Peter even died in Rome, let alone that he became the bishop of Rome. The last time we hear of him in the Gospel is when he is in Antioch. As for the succession, what proof is there really that there is even a direct line. Early church historians were not even sure how many popes there were, and their dating of the bishops of Romes reigns are conflicting. Lastly it is nowhere evident in the new testament that Peter’s position as that rock on which (he) will build his church is a position that could be handed down to anybody. You could of course ignore all of this and say that its church tradition and therefore it is valid. But thats just it, you’re Catholic and Protestants are not.