The following was posted on the Catholic Answers forum on the topic of Peter as the foundation of the church. This quote represents fairly well the Catholic understanding of what the foundation of the church is. Out of everything discussed on that particular thread, this, believe it or not, was the most in-depth any Catholic ever got.
Thou art Peter [Kipha, Cephas] and on this rock [Kipha, Cephas] I will build my Church, cannot be understood save of building the Church on this man Peter (Cephas), otherwise the point of the phrase disappears. Jesus was called the cornerstone (1 Peter 2:4-8; Ephesians 2:20), but He could not be indicating Himself here: it would have been rather like a bad joke, if I may venture to say so: Thou art Peter, but it is on quite another Peter that I am going to build! Some try to return indirectly to this superannuated Protestant interpretation by making out the Rock to be Peter’s faith in the Messiahship of the Lord. It was indeed Peter’s faith that introduced the promise, but the promise is given to the person whose faith has just been displayed. If the building is a group, the foundation is their head: Jesus, says St. John Chrysostom, exalts Peter’s declaration, He made him pastor. The position of Peter in the Church is that of the rock on which the building is erected; thanks to this foundation the building will stand firm; thanks to this head the community will be well ruled.
My response:
Was it Peter’s faith that introduced the promise, or was it the collective faith of all the apostles? Let’s look at what took place there in Philippi.
Jesus wanted His disciples (the twelve) to see something they hadn’t noticed before. He wanted them to realize the uniqueness of there confession that Christ is the Son of God. He asked them, “Who do men say that I am?” There were a variety of answers but none that confessed Christ to be the Son of God. So He then asked them, “Who do you say I am?”
Note: keep in mind, Peter’s answer to this question is not new information, Nathaniel confessed it when he met Jesus, they all confessed it in the boat when Jesus walked on the water, and Peter, speaking for them all, confessed it when Jesus asked if they too would walk away like the unbelieving disciples. (Jhn. 6) It should also be understood that unless Judas understood this, Jesus would not have said of him, “Woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.” (Mar. 14:21)
So Peter answered Jesus just as he did before, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered, “Blessed are you Simon Barjona, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in heaven.” Also, In His discourse with the Jews on the bread of life, Jesus told them, “No one can come to Me unless the Father draw him.”
As we continue to read Jesus’ answer to Peter, we cannot discard the context of the discourse. Jesus continues with an important conjunction, “kago.” Kago is typically rendered as “also,” this word means “in like manner.” “You are Peter (i.e. stone, petros), and on this rock (i.e. greater stone, petra) I will build My church.”
Peter’s confession is the confession of all the apostles, and Peter’s name implies his part in the foundation of the church. The foundation of the church, upon which we are built, is the collective testimony of the apostles in unison with Christ the chief cornerstone. Others can only share the confession that Christ is the Son of God if they hear the apostles’ testimony (the Gospel). And that is the foundation upon which we are built. (Compare Isa. 28:16, Luke 6:47-48, 1Cor. 3:10-17, Eph. 2:20-22, 2Tim. 2:19)
Then take a look at Revelation 21:9-14.
What is described in these verses is the bride of Christ, the church. “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” (v9) The description is a city, spiritual Jerusalem (Christ’s church), built upon 12 foundations bearing the names of the 12 apostles of Christ (v14). This is a clear image of what the church of Christ is built upon; the testimony of the twelve apostles.
That is why Origen said that the promise was not only to Peter, but to every Peter who confesses that Christ is the Son of God. And it is why Irenaeus declared that the foundation of the church is the Gospel of Christ.
Now take a look at a few Catholic comments my post inspired. Notice how no one ever attempted to rebut my post biblically or historically but focused instead on what they learn from their apologists.
This shows a complete ignorance of the fact that Jesus wasn’t speaking in Greek – he was speaking in ARAMAIC, a cousin language of Hebrew.
In Aramaic, there is no distinction between large and small rocks – they are ALL Kepha. What Jesus said was, “…you are Kepha and on this Kepha, I will build my church.”
Nice try – but even a rudimentary investigation into the linguistics involved here should have been a huge red flag . . .
That was the extent of opposing views generated by my biblical exegeses. However, it did spark an offshoot discussion (sort of) on the language of Matthew’s Gospel.
The following is from a Catholic named, Carl W. Betts.
Matthew’s Gospel, in my honest opinion, was written in Aramaic by Matthew. There are no extant copies of the Aramaic Gospel, but there is a homily by Pope Leo the Great, where he quotes Matthews Gospel as saying “And you are Cephas…”, which would indicate he had access to the Aramaic Gospel. The Gospel was either written first, or alternately, the Q source (a non-extant source composed of Jesus’ sayings in Aramaic) was written first, with other details added later. At some point, it was transcribed into Greek, which would explain the Aramaic “peeking through” such as in Matthew 16:17 (the Bar-Jona reference, which is obviously NOT Greek, but Aramaic.) Now, you may not accept the Two Source Hypothesis. There is also the Two Gospel Hypothesis, which is the minority view, and the Augustinian Hypothesis, which is held by very few. At any rate, Matthew provided the earliest material. So what was your point? Unless you are one of those who erroneously hold that only the material in Q and Luke are reliable, and everything else is a fabrication?
My response to Carl:
There is absolutely no way Leo had access to an Aramaic Gospel; your opinion is completely unfounded.
My point is, just about every early ecclesiastical writer that talked about the New Testament believed Matthew’s Gospel was originally written in Hebrew. What is interesting is that they said they knew this from tradition, which probably originated with Papias. That means the Hebrew transcript was not extant in there time. The people I am referring to are Irenaeus and Origen, both Greek-speaking, Greek-writing ECFs. It is obvious from the evidence of their writings that Matthew’s Gospel existed only in Greek at the time they wrote.
If the tradition is correct (and I know how you Catholics love tradition) the Greek was translated from Hebrew not Aramaic. So however petros and petra in Matthew 16:18 might have appeared in Hebrew, they were understood as distinctly different words when translated to Greek. If the early church believed Jesus said, “You are Peter and on you Peter I will build my church,” why would they render it differently in the Greek? And furthermore, why would Irenaeus not acknowledge Peter as the foundation if, as Catholics say, the Greek is wrong?
Origen wrote a commentary on Matthew’s Gospel, and it he talks in detail about the “rock” upon which Christ builds His church. I hope you read this; it refutes your idea of Roman authority springing out of Jesus’ promise to Peter.
“For all bear the surname of rock who are the imitators of Christ, that is, of the spiritual rock which followed those who are being saved, that they may drink from it the spiritual draught. But these bear the surname of the rock just as Christ does. But also as members of Christ deriving their surname from Him they are called Christians, and from the rock, Peters. And taking occasion from these things you will say that the righteous bear the surname of Christ who is Righteousness, and the wise of Christ who is Wisdom. And so in regard to all His other names, you will apply them by way of surname to the saints; and to all such the saying of the Saviour might be spoken, You are Peter, etc., down to the words, prevail against it. But what is the it? Is it the rock upon which Christ builds the church, or is it the church? For the phrase is ambiguous. Or is it as if the rock and the church were one and the same? This I think to be true; for neither against the rock on which Christ builds the church, nor against the church will the gates of Hades prevail; just as the way of a serpent upon a rock, according to what is written in the Proverbs, cannot be found. Now, if the gates of Hades prevail against any one, such an one cannot be a rock upon which Christ builds the church, nor the church built by Jesus upon the rock; for the rock is inaccessible to the serpent, and it is stronger than the gates of Hades which are opposing it, so that because of its strength the gates of Hades do not prevail against it; but the church, as a building of Christ who built His own house wisely upon the rock, is incapable of admitting the gates of Hades which prevail against every man who is outside the rock and the church, but have no power against it.” (Origen, Commentary on Matthew 12:11)
In addition, Eusebius claims exactly what we have been claiming all along; that the apostles laid the foundation of churches and moved on to other locations. They did not sit as bishops anywhere; they appointed bishops before they moved on.
“And when they had only laid the foundations of the faith in foreign places, they appointed others as pastors, and entrusted them with the nurture of those that had recently been brought in, while they themselves went on again to other countries and nations, with the grace and the co-operation of God.” (EH 3:37:3)
Peter was never a bishop in the church in Rome, but he did lay the foundation there with Paul.
Now one would think that my response would offer the opportunity for educated Catholics to discuss the history behind the their church’s claims. Instead I received this response from Carl:
Why should we believe your flawed, fallible interpretation, especially since it is obviously poisoned with anti-Catholic hatred.
And later…
No further evidence of your hatred is needed than your unceasing diatribe consisting of nothing more than poor scholarship and twisted “facts.” You have never made a completely honest statement.
To be fair, Carl did post a list of six biblical reasons the Catholic position is the right one.
Any time a list of the Apostles is given, Peter is always first Peter is mentioned by name more than all the others combined Peter acts as the head of the Church when he suggests the office of Judas must be filled with another
Peter preaches at PentecostPeter presides at the Council of Jerusalem It is Peter upon which Jesus says He will build His Church
Did I mention that Carl is a postgraduate theology student?
Quite informative, I’d like to add this commentary from the Dake’s study Bible(NT pg 536): According to Hislop’s “The Two Babylons” which quotes 260 sources, the ancient Babylonian cult, started by Nimrod and his queen Semiramis spread among all nations. The objects of worship were the Supreme Father, the Incarnate Female or Queen of Heaven and her son. The cult claimed the highest wisdom and the most divine secrets. Besides confessions to priests there were many mysterious rites. Julius Caesar became head of the Roman branch of the Babylonian Cult in 63 BC Other emperors held the office until 376 AD when the emperor Gratian, for Christian reasons refused it because he was that Babylonianism was idolatrous. Demasus, bishop of the Christian church at Rome was elected to the headship in 378 AD and from here on Babylonianism and organized Christianity became one. The rites of Babylon were soon introduced into the Christian church. Heathen temples were restored, beautified, and their rituals encouraged. Worship and veneration of images, saints, relica, private confessions, penances, scourgings, pilgrimages, sign of the cross Christmas, Lady Day, Easter, Lent and other pagan rites and festivals, little by little, became a part of christian worship.
Absolutely amazing!
To balance this viewpoint up perhaps you would care to look at the following web page?
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0505fea4.asp a
Did the Catholic Church have its Origins in Paganism? A response from Ralph Woodrow author of “Babylon Mystery Religion” a preferred book over “The Two Babylons”
God bless
Now, Sir, if you truly read the Bible, you would soon become Catholic, the original and universal Church of Jesus Christ.
It was reading the Bible that lead out of Catholicism. Studying church history didn’t hurt either.
Hi Brian,
But as a Catholic you were required to read the Bible and to interpret the passages correctly, in line with the Church’s authoritative teachings, not just read the Bible and come to your own personal and private interpretation of it. And on this site you bring this same private interpretation to Church history..
The Catholic Church doesn’t take a scripture verse/passage out of context, lift it out to the absolute and detriment of others, but takes all of sacred scripture together and places it within its proper context.
But what does the Bible think about private interpretations of scripture?
2 Peter 1:20 20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. 21For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
For this reason, we must avoid the temptation to evaluate passages by simply asking, “What do I think this verse means?” Christ gave the Holy Spirit to the Church to teach, and he did so for a very specific reason: to assist people in how to understand scripture and its teachings. Therefore, rather than simply looking to private interpretations (and the fruit that brings), we must look to the Church’s interpretation of Scripture.
2 Peter 2:1-2 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute
St Peter warns from listening to false teachers (those without the Churches authority to teach).
2 Peter 2:10 10This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature[a] and despise authority.
St Peter warns not to despise authority.
2 Peter 3 14-17 “So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 15Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.“
He is saying that scripture contains things which are hard to understand. There are those who do not understand sacred scripture (ignorant) or resist the teaching/authority (unstable) of the Church and so distort the scriptures to their (and perhaps others?) destruction.
Be very careful brother of the protestant position of private interpretation. We have had nearly 500 to evaluate its fruit and as you can see it has splintered congregations and set denomination against denomination. If nothing else please ponder on that.
God bless Brian
Andrew.
I agree with the premise that Catholics who are impressed with their apologists need to start reading the source of truth, and stop resting their faith on these men. Carl assumes much. Scripture gives no indication at all that Peter was supreme over the other apostles. The Bible, to the contrary, indicates that none of the apostles enjoyed any authority at all over the others. Just read Luke 22:24-30, and you’ll see the argument they had just before Christ’s crucifixion. They didn’t feel at all that Peter had a supreme hand. Why not? How is it that Catholics today know for sure that Peter was supreme, but the apostles at that time did not?
There is no epistle in the NT where we see Peter called “pope”, and no mention of any papacy at all. We find instead group effort from all at an equal level. We find no admonishment from Peter instructing that anyone should follow any successor in Rome.
Paul affirms in 2 Corinthians 12:11 that he is not inferior to any of the others. Why did he not acknowledge the papacy at the time of his writing this astonishing rebuttal of the Catholic doctrine of Peter’s supremacy?
Peter is not prominent in the first 12 chapters of the Book of Acts – Paul is. Paul does not acknowledge any papacy at all in any of these writings.
It is clear that Peter was not infallible. Paul opposed some of his teachings. His mistakes were in matters of faith, analogous to teachings ex cathedra of today’s popes.
On top of this we find that the Bible claims for itself infallibility, while it’s clear that the Roman Catholic Church fails. Consider the Galileo incident, or the fact that Pope Honorius I, was condemned for teaching heresy by the Sixth General Council?
It is clear that Peter was not qualified to have the church “built upon him.” Only Christ is qualified for such a thing.
Answers taken from Catholic.com I hope this helps:
1. Galileo
Many misunderstandings have grown up around Galileo, so it’s hard for some people to distinguish between historical reality and later myth. To understand Galileo’s encounter with the Church, we must distinguish between two separate historical events and work hard at understanding them from the point of view of the participants, not from our current-day perspective.
the first event is the condemnation of March 5, 1616, by the Congregation of the Index. Galileo precipitated this condemnation, but none of his works were mentioned in the text itself. The document condemned the belief in the motion of the earth as contrary to good reason and to Scripture. It prohibited Copernicus’s book On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres “until corrected” and completely condemned several other books by theologians who advocated that the earth’s motion was not contrary to Holy Scripture. Galileo had written a similar letter in early 1615 arguing that Holy Scripture did not teach anything about the motion of the earth, either positively or negatively.
Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, himself an accomplished Jesuit scientist, informed Galileo on March 6, 1616, of the Congregation’s decision to prohibit the Copernican or heliocentric system. We have no reliable document of this conversation, but it is generally agreed that the Cardinal told Galileo that he could discuss the Copernican system as a scientific hypothesis, offering astronomical and physical arguments for and against it, but that he must not advocate the theory. Any teacher knows this common distinction. You can and must discuss theories that are questionable, but that’s different from advocating a theory. Galileo agreed to follow the Congregation’s injunction. He continued to work on arguments for and against the theory, but he did not advocate it, even though he still believed that it was true and that good arguments would be forthcoming.
As Galileo developed arguments for the heliocentric system after the condemnation by the Congregation of the Index in 1616, he was greatly encouraged when an old friend of his was elected to the chair of Peter in 1623. Maffeo Barbarini mounted the papal throne August 6, 1623, as Urban VIII. The new pope invited Galileo to visit him, and the two talked together as they walked in the papal gardens. Reportedly, Urban told Galileo that the 1616 decision was an unfortunate one, but that it could not be revoked—or at least that it was not prudent to do so. Urban encouraged Galileo to write a new book on the heliocentric system, but he warned him to be careful not to advocate the new theory, only to offer arguments for and against it.
For the next seven or eight years Galileo wrote the famous Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems, which was published in 1632. The censor of Florence, where Galileo lived, approved this book, but it was condemned by certain other clerics. This is where historical opinion divides. Some thought that Galileo was not advocating the Copernican theory, while others thought that the book clearly did. In essence, the question at the trial of 1633 was whether Galileo had in fact disobeyed the injunction of 1616. Galileo maintained at his trial that he did not advocate the theory in the Dialogue. The official readers of the book concluded differently.
In the end, Galileo was found guilty for disobeying the earlier order. I personally think his abjuration—on June 22, 1633—was motivated by his belief that he should submit to the judgment of the Church because he consistently said of himself that he was a faithful son of the Church. He was placed under house arrest in his villa in Arcetri, just across the river from Florence, for the remainder of his life as his penance. He died in 1642 at 78 years of age. But he was not hindered in his work, since he published his greatest work of science in 1638, The Discourse on the Two New Sciences.
we must work hard at thinking historically. Most people today would not use the Bible in a scientific controversy, but that wasn’t the case in the seventeenth century. Many leading thinkers of that day believed that the Bible taught that the earth cannot move. For example, the great observational astronomer Tycho Brahe, himself a Lutheran, thought this way. He believed that this agreed with the physics of motion as then understood. And remember, there was simply no compelling evidence of the earth’s motion. For people at that time, if physics and the Bible seemed to agree, that constituted strong reasons to reject the motion of the earth.
The Church recognizes that the decision was wrong, but that recognition took place long before John Paul II made the formal apology in 1992. Copernicus’s book and thus the heliocentric system was removed from the Index of Prohibited Books in the eighteenth century. The Church, long before the past two decades, accepted Galileo’s approach to the reconciliation of science and Scripture as well founded. For example, Pope Leo XIII issued an encyclical Providentissimus Deus (November 18, 1893) in which he basically endorsed Galileo’s approach to the reconciliation of apparent conflicts between the Catholic faith and science. I say “apparent conflicts” because neither Galileo nor the official Church ever believed that there could be true conflicts between the Christian faith and science. Leo in the nineteenth century, Galileo and Bellarmine in the seventeenth, all affirmed the ultimate agreement between truths of faith and truths of science.
The infallibility of the Church attaches to its officially proclaimed dogmas, such as Christ’s two natures or Mary’s Immaculate Conception. These are matters of the highest authority. The Church cannot be wrong in these matters. But in matters of empirical science or anything that is not what is called de fide, the Church can and has made many reversals. The decisions in the Galileo case were disciplinary or procedural, not doctrinal matters at all, even though some individuals in the Church at the time thought they were. If these had been matters of dogma, the Church could not have reversed itself.
The pursuit of knowledge is always a humbling process. And that is good, because humility is one of the greatest virtues
2. Pope Honorius I
According to some fundamentalist commentators Pope Honorius specifically taught Monothelitism, a heresy that held that Christ had only one will (a divine one), not two wills (a divine one and a human one) as all orthodox Christians hold.
But that’s not at all what Honorius did. Even a quick review of the records shows he simply decided not to make a decision at all. As Ronald Knox explained, “To the best of his human wisdom, he thought the controversy ought to be left unsettled, for the greater peace of the Church. In fact, he was an inopportunist. We, wise after the event, say that he was wrong. But nobody, I think, has ever claimed that the pope is infallible in not defining a doctrine.”
Knox wrote to Arnold Lunn (a future convert who would become a great apologist for the faith—their correspondence is found in the book Difficulties): “Has it ever occurred to you how few are the alleged ‘failures of infallibility’? I mean, if somebody propounded in your presence the thesis that all the kings of England have been impeccable, you would not find yourself murmuring, ‘Oh, well, people said rather unpleasant things about Jane Shore . . . and the best historians seem to think that Charles II spent too much of his time with Nell Gwynn.’ Here have these popes been, fulminating anathema after anathema for centuries—certain in all human probability to contradict themselves or one another over again. Instead of which you get this measly crop of two or three alleged failures!” While Knox’s observation does not establish the truth of papal infallibility, it does show that the historical argument against infallibility is weak.
The rejection of papal infallibility by “Bible Christians” stems from their view of the Church. They do not think Christ established a visible Church, which means they do not believe in a hierarchy of bishops headed by the pope.
This is no place to give an elaborate demonstration of the establishment of a visible Church. But it is simple enough to point out that the New Testament shows the apostles setting up, after their Master’s instructions, a visible organization, and that every Christian writer in the early centuries—in fact, nearly all Christians until the Reformation—fully recognized that Christ set up an ongoing organization.
One example of this ancient belief comes to us from Ignatius of Antioch. In his second-century letter to the church in Smyrna, he wrote, “Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 8, 1 [A.D. 110]).
If Christ did set up such an organization, he must have provided for its continuation, for its easy identification (that is, it had to be visible so it could be found), and, since he would be gone from earth, for some method by which it could preserve his teachings intact.
All this was accomplished through the apostolic succession of bishops, and the preservation of the Christian message, in its fullness, was guaranteed through the gift of infallibility, of the Church as a whole, but mainly through its Christ-appointed leaders, the bishops (as a whole) and the pope (as an individual).
It is the Holy Spirit who prevents the pope from officially teaching error, and this charism follows necessarily from the existence of the Church itself. If, as Christ promised, the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church then it must be protected from fundamentally falling into error and thus away from Christ. It must prove itself to be a perfectly steady guide in matters pertaining to salvation.
Of course, infallibility does not include a guarantee that any particular pope won’t “neglect” to teach the truth, or that he will be sinless, or that mere disciplinary decisions will be intelligently made. It would be nice if he were omniscient or impeccable, but his not being so will fail to bring about the destruction of the Church.
But he must be able to teach rightly, since instruction for the sake of salvation is a primary function of the Church. For men to be saved, they must know what is to be believed. They must have a perfectly steady rock to build upon and to trust as the source of solemn Christian teaching. And that’s why papal infallibility exists.
Since Christ said the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church (Matt. 16:18b), this means that his Church can never pass out of existence. But if the Church ever apostasized by teaching heresy, then it would cease to exist; because it would cease to be Jesus’ Church. Thus the Church cannot teach heresy, meaning that anything it solemnly defines for the faithful to believe is true. This same reality is reflected in the Apostle Paul’s statement that the Church is “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). If the Church is the foundation of religious truth in this world, then it is God’s own spokesman. As Christ told his disciples: “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16).
From Catholic Answers:
Wow! Yet Galileo was punished by the church for advocating a scientific fact. And speaking of facts, the Roman Catholic Church has been teaching heresy since Leo I secured Roman primacy back in the fifth century. The gates of hell will not prevail against Christ’s church that is certainly true, but the Roman Catholic Church is not Christ’s church. So for CA and other Catholic apologists to spout these ridiculous assertions amounts to nothing more than a display of pure baseless arrogance.
Hi Brian,
Here’s a link to a MP3 from a Baptist Minister who became a Catholic Priest
http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/download
But if you don’t want to listen to it that’s fine, just take it from me he talks about how in his small town there was five (from memory I believe it was this number) Baptist churches all born from division after division over its teachings (all led by the Holy Spirit?). If you get that division within a small community (yet all were aligned to the Baptist denomination) and there are over 30k+ protestant denominations, which one church should I attend? Which church (since even denominations of a particular church disagree with each other) is the right one?
Jesus founded a visible and authoritative Church, since its apostles have passed onto the invisible it loses its authority to pass down direction to its followers unless it is still visible (through succession). I used the example last time of Stem Cell research, is it moral? Do we have to wade through our Bibles looking for the answer (even if we did would we all come to the same conclusion?), is the Holy Spirit going to announce to all Christians if it is or isn’t moral and has He been announcing decisions such as this since the apostles left us? If that were true then why all the divisions within the Protestant churches? The invisible church system with no clear authoritative and overarching belief can cause division and lead people into either truth or error.
If you explored it you would probably find significant differences in your theology from mepatri (post below), what you do have in common are your protests over the Catholic faith/system (and perhaps even some of these views will differ).
The truth is important (no less for me, than you, or mepatri). So let me ask a basic question, if you were to find the Truth was contained within the Catholic system (let’s set aside the point for just one minute that you will categorically say it doesn’t have it – that is your opinion, as is your views on Catholic apologists), but if you were to find the Truth was contained there, would you go back to the Catholic Church Brian? Would you mapatri become a Catholic?
Thanks and God bless
Andrew
It’s funny; I was recently suspended from the Catholic Answers forum when I caught a former Baptist minister in a lie. Rather than face the truth he reported my post and they suspended me for trolling, whatever that means.
I listened to the former pastor on the link you provided and the first impression I had was that he seemed awfully naive before he entered seminary and confused when he left. I was particularly struck by what he said about the Eucharist.
Bean said, “I cannot become Catholic unless I know for sure they [the Catholics] are right on this Eucharist thing [transubstantiation].” He asked the Lord to show him unequivocally that the Catholic Church is right about their teaching on the Eucharist. He gave Jesus an ultimatum, “I’m not leaving until I get an answer.” After several hours he thinks of John 6 and decides to read it. He said he read it many times before but now he suddenly understands it for the first time, so it must be the Holy Spirit telling him what it means.
Do you know that is exactly how people convert to Mormonism too? How is it that he can criticize others for personally interpreting Scripture yet claim that the Holy Spirit confirmed to him the true interpretation of John 6? Sounds hypocritical to me.
Leading into his comments on the Eucharist he admirably mentioned eucharistic adoration; he also claimed that the early church was Catholic with respect to the Eucharist. I have asked this question many times and never has anyone come up with an answer: where do we find evidence that the early church worshiped the bread of the Eucharist?
At the end of his speech he said that the pope has called all Catholics to preach the Gospel to the nations. Perhaps the pope could take his own words to heart the next time he meets with Muslim leaders and actually preach the Gospel instead of praising them for their faith. Can you imagine Peter telling the Muslims, “We worship the same God, keep it up”?
Hi Brian,
I can’t seem to reply to your post below, it doesn’t have a “reply” link? So I’ve quickly replied to myself :)
I don’t know what trolling is either but even if others might not appreciate debating with you, I do.
With regards to Father Bean it (whatever he experienced) seems to have been enough to move Him but I’m not sure we can, nor should, attribute naivety or confusion to him.
Thanks and God bless.
Andrew
P.S. 7Ib 2oz – another girl, praise God.
“Since Christ said the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church (Matt. 16:18b), this means that his Church can never pass out of existence.”
_________________________________
Catholic Answers means well, but they often get off on the wrong foot – very often.
Although I agree that the true church will never pass away, this Scripture seems to be speaking more of the power of Christianity, and how it will aggressively defeat the enemy by active force. Look at it again:
“I also say that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church;and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”
This not a passive term of defense, but an active term of assertion. It’s the “gates of Hades” that are trying to defend and not be taken out of existence from the onslaught of Christianity.”Gates” are a defensive mechanism. It’s the “gates” that will fail. This would suggest that something is breaking the gates down – in this case – the Church. Jesus is telling Peter that it is His word and Church that will successfully overcome evil by moving against it. He suggests it will break down the “gates” (as they will not prevail.) He doesn’t appear to be suggesting that there will be an attack on the Church (although we all know that was to be, and is in fact true) in this instance. He does suggest it elsewhere, but not here.
So, to suggest that it is somehow the Church that cannot teach heresy from this passage suggests you may be missing the mark because of a misunderstanding of the Scripture given.
It is God’s word that teaches the truth, and it stands no matter what. We see this with Paul admonishing Peter himself for giving wrong teaching and misleading information. All of this just years after Christ walked with Peter. If you look at most of Paul’s epistles, they are geared to churches that have sprung up from Christ, but are failing in teaching, and other areas. So the notion that a church founded by the Christian movement would never give bad teaching, or that all of it’s teachings (other than those correctly based on Scripture)would always be perfect is not borne out by history. It is here we see the importance of the Scriptures to keep things on track.
The statement that the Church is the “pillar and foundation of the truth” in no way suggests that the Church cannot make mistakes. It merely means that it has the truth, in the form of the Holy Word of God, that it is responsible for keeping and relaying to the world – not that it will never be mistaken. It is the Holy Word of God that is perfect, breathed from God Himself, and is the foundation of all truth, because it is living, powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. Many Catholics build their spiritual lives with the Catholic Church, so when if fails, their world is crushed. They have built their relationship on the church, and not necessarily on Christ. Christians, however, build their spiritual lives with Christ, who cannot fail. Satan has power over men and churches, but he has no power over your personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus saw to that when He died on the cross.
Hello mepatri,
Catholics, who are the original Christians, believe the gates of Hades is actually an idiom referring to death and not an actual gate. This is the context, Jesus promising that his Church would never die and would remain on earth till the Second Coming. Context further shows that Jesus was speaking of an earthly, authoritative Church with internal disciplinary structures (Matt 16:19 with Matt 18:17–18).
Jesus stated that he would create one earthly, institutional and authoritative Church that would never pass out of existence. So this Church must still be in existence today, which is why some denominations go to such great lengths to try and place their Christian churches in the first century and not beginning at the reformation.
As presumably an outsider to the Church does it not set you thinking that the Catholic Church does seem to be fulfilling Jesus’ promises of His Church? Even with all the trials and the threats that has come up against it throughout the ages, not least the protestant revolution, it is still here.
I heard on the TV that the Catholic Church is the oldest surviving institution in the world and dwarfs all others who have long fallen by the wayside, now I don’t know if that’s true (and no it wasn’t Catholic TV it was a mainstream financial program), but the point is the Catholic Church does seem to have a great survival instincts and God doesn’t seem to be pulling the plug anytime soon. Does it not set you thinking when the Catholic Church can and has produced such great saints, even lately such as Padre Pio (whose miracles are well recorded) and can exhume them and show their bodies hardly touched by time or decay?
Does it not set you thinking?
It does me.
God bless
Andrew
Hello mepatri,
Catholics, who are the original Christians, believe the gates of Hades is actually an idiom referring to death and not an actual gate. This is the context, Jesus promising that his Church would never die and would remain on earth till the Second Coming. Context further shows that Jesus was speaking of an earthly, authoritative Church with internal disciplinary structures (Matt 16:19 with Matt 18:17–18).
__________________________________________
I think it’s clear that the word “gates” is a metaphor, not an idiom, and it is indicative of a defensive measure or effort, not an indication that His Church would never die, but that the gates would not be sufficient to negate the influence of the Church. If we take it your way, we need to “change horses in mid stream” from Christ speaking about His Church, to some abstract concept about death, and then back again. This is poor apologetics. It was understood then, as it is now, that a gate is made to keep something out. In this case the gates of Hades will not prevail, or stand up to the force of Christianity. Matthew 16:19 does nothing to support your point, since the context there is the keys to heaven, and are not related to the subject at hand. The context is not the same, so this Scripture fails to support your assertion. Matthew 18:17-18 also fails to provide support for your claim in any way, and is related to another subject all together.
I know some people actually believe that today’s Roman Catholics are somehow connected to the early Christian group called “the Way.” This may or may not be the case. However, this point is severely diluted when we recognize that today’s Roman Catholic Church is very, very different from the early Christian church, and I would argue Christ’s true church today is nothing like the RCC. To be credible in your “we go all the way back to the first Christian church, you must hold to the early teachings completely, and this is not the case for the RCC, who has introduced many new and varied teachings and doctrines over the years that the early church hand never heard of. Merely declaring that there is a direct link associated with today’s RCC is weak, since that claim is not readily apparent. In addition, one must ask – “so what if it does have that connection, what does that mean?” I would argue not much, swince it is not where you come from, but where you are today that counts. Christ Himself stated the following:
“Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Matt: 7:22-23.
This seems to indicate that it is a personal relationship with Christ that counts, not where you came from.
__________________________________________
Jesus stated that he would create one earthly, institutional and authoritative Church that would never pass out of existence. So this Church must still be in existence today, which is why some denominations go to such great lengths to try and place their Christian churches in the first century and not beginning at the reformation.
____________________________________________
Being placed in the first century is not important. What is important is that Christs’ Church does exist. It does, but not as a hierarchy of men that have self-declared their position to the world as the Pharisees did for all to see and be impressed with. It takes more than self-declaration, it takes the hand of God upon His spiritual congregation. That is why we see Jesus telling us that we will “know them by their fruits” not “you will know them because they will have a special pedigree.” Christs’ true church cannot be defeated by Satan, precisely because it is not a physical institution that can be manipulated and become corrupted. It is by recognizing when corruption is present, that we can identify the false churches.
___________________________________________
As presumably an outsider to the Church does it not set you thinking that the Catholic Church does seem to be fulfilling Jesus’ promises of His Church?
__________________________________________
To the contrary, it is obvious (given Scripture) that the RCC is fulfilling the warnings of Matthew I give above. Jesus said of little children “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” Mark 9:42
The question is better put to you as “Does it not set you thinking as to why you still follow a church that has, at its very core, been riddled with corruption, deceit, and sin, and why you still believe Christ is in it?”
__________________________________________
Even with all the trials and the threats that has come up against it throughout the ages, not least the protestant revolution, it is still here.
________________________________________
Your point?
________________________________________
I heard on the TV that the Catholic Church is the oldest surviving institution in the world and dwarfs all others who have long fallen by the wayside, now I don’t know if that’s true (and no it wasn’t Catholic TV it was a mainstream financial program), but the point is the Catholic Church does seem to have a great survival instincts and God doesn’t seem to be pulling the plug anytime soon. Does it not set you thinking when the Catholic Church can and has produced such great saints, even lately such as Padre Pio (whose miracles are well recorded) and can exhume them and show their bodies hardly touched by time or decay?
Does it not set you thinking?
It does me.
__________________________________________
Yes, it does me too. It sets me thinking about this:
Christ told us: “But small is the gate and narrow it the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:14. It gets me to thinking how it is that Roman Catholics take comfort in the fact that so many have turned to Roman Catholicism when Christ says “few find it.”
If you’re impressed with age, why not be a Jew? After all, Judaism predates Christianity by quite a bit. Or how about being a pagan? After all, paganism predates them both! No, the age of a thing is not impressive to me. This argument is used by Catholic radio apologists often to lead people into thinking there is something special about the age of the Catholic Church. There is not.
It also gets me to thinking as to why many Roman Catholics are impressed with men they think are somehow greater than my High Priest – Christ. I’m not impressed with men such as Padre Pio. I don’t believe he performed any miracles. The miracles Jesus performed, on the other hand, were great. With my priest, Jesus Christ, we will find no bones to exhume, because He is risen. No, for me, I’ll follow Christ who is still alive today. You can follow father Pio if you like. God gives you the free will choice to do so.
Blessings,
Mike
http://www.martignonirevealed.com
___________________________________________
God bless
Andrew
One other point here: I’m not suggesting that the “gates of Hades” are not speaking of death at all, but in the sense that even death cannot overcome the influence of the Church, since Christ Himself has overcome death. It’s the influence of the Church, not the survival of the Catholic Church, that is the focus.
Hello Mike,
I’m having difficulty reconciling your statements:
1) Mike wrote “If we take it your way, we need to change “horses in mid stream” from Christ speaking about His Church, to some abstract concept about death, and then back again. This is poor apologetics”
2) Then Mike wrote: “…I’m not suggesting that the gates of Hades are not speaking of death…”
The first statement seems to contradict the second. So I’m sorry, maybe you can help me understand your point better? Since the second statement suggests you do believe it is speaking of death, but if you believe that, have you not then also changed “horses in mid stream”?
~~~ Mike wrote: “I think it’s clear that that the word “gates” is a metaphor, not an idiom”
An idiom is a group of words whose meaning considered as a unit is different from the meanings of each word considered separately. Or in other words it’s a word, or phrase whose sense means something different from what the words literally (and that’s the important bit don’t miss the word literally here) imply. When a speaker uses an idiom, the listener might mistake its actual meaning, if he or she has not heard this figure of speech before.
For example a modern day idiom might be “to kick the bucket”, a figure of speech for dying, whereas a metaphor might be “his face was as round as a bucket”; as you can see a metaphor is an expression that describes a person or object by referring to something that is considered to possess similar characteristics.
The “gates of hades” is therefore not a metaphor it’s an idiom and your dissection of the phrase is akin to taking “to kick the bucket” and being unfamiliar with the idiom reading much more into it. As an example saying “Well, what the author is actually saying here is that buckets were used for carrying water, water is associated with life throughout the Bible, kicking it would spill the water and therefore life” No, none of that, I just used a well known figure of speech (idiom) to mean death. However, if you don’t wish to accept Catholic scholarship let’s take a look at some Protestant scholars.
A) IVP New Testament Commentaries by Craig.S.Keener states “The gates of Hades is a familiar Semitic expression for the threshold of the realm of death.”
B) Exposition of the Bible by John Gill states “Again, the gates of “Hades”, or hell, sometimes seem to design no other than the gates of death, and the grave, and persons going into the state of death”
C) The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 7. by D.A. Carson states “Gates of Hades is most likely to mean “the power of death.”
Even on the protestant scholarship side I can’t see a reference to this “defensive measures or effort“ theory you have provided us with but every indication that this is indeed a reference to Christ saying his Church will not die. Further scripture references which support this idiom are Job 17:16; 38:17; Psalm 9:13; 107:18; Isa. 38:10 and there are others which if you want you could take the time to look up.
~~~ Mike wrote: …today’s Roman Catholic Church is very, very different from the early Christian Church, and I would argue Christ’s true Church today is nothing like the RCC. To be credible in your “we go all the way back to the first Christian church, you must hold to the early teachings completely”
If the Holy Spirit so directs the Churches path to greater or deeper understanding of a subject why must we hold to an earlier teaching? Is that how the early Church worked? Did the early Church not think their message was for the Jews until Peter got his revelation about the gentiles? Did the early Church not set down new rules for the gentiles at the first council of Jerusalem i.e. to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood? So did not the early church learn and adapt as directed by the Holy Spirit and did it not have the authority to do so?
And the Catholic Church can indeed trace its history as well as Papal Authority, quoting Fathers Rumble and Carty: In the year 96, Pope Clement of Rome, wrote to the Corinthians. His letter was official, written in his capacity as successor of St. Peter, and it gave not only advice but definite commands. After his instructions he wrote, “if you obey what we have written by the Holy Spirit, you will be our joy and consolation. But if some do not obey what God has said by us, let them know that they will be involved in no small sin and danger” The protestant scholar Harnack, admitted that this letter of Clement proves that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome was an accepted fact even in the first century. Again, we have the testimony of St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch from 69-107 A.D. He writes that the Church at Rome “presides over the whole assembly united in charity.” And he asks for prayers for the Church in Syria confided to him subject to Christ and the supreme authority of Rome. This testimony of St. Ignatious has particular value, for St. Peter had been Bishop of Antioch. If St. Peter had remained and died at Antioch, the Bishop of Antioch would have obtained the supremacy. But St. Ignatius expressly rejects the idea that he had authority over the Christians at Rome, and admits that the Bishop of Rome is the principal and presiding bishop. Thirdly, St. Irenaeus, 130-202 A.D.. Bishop of Lyons in Gaul, wrote as follows of the Roman See: “On account of its supremacy it is necessary that every Church in which is the tradition of the Apostles should be in harmony or unity with this Church.” Fourthly, St Cyprian, 210-258 A.D. an African bishop, writing of certain heretics says, “They even dare to invade the See of Peter and the principal Church whence the unity of the priesthood has its source.” Again he writes, we exhort all to acknowledge and hold that Rome is the mother and root-source of the Catholic Church.”
The Church is perpetual and so the Primacy is perpetual, and therefore, to be transmitted by Peter to his successors. Those who deny this must face the formidable consequence that the Church for nearly 2000 years has been heretical, leading the overwhelming majority of Christians through all ages into error, so the gates of hell have indeed prevailed against the Church that Christ established and guaranteed. They must also concede that the Church has no single visible head on earth; that unity in faith and worship is not necessary; and that division amongst the churches with all their variations of discipline and indiscipline is quite in accordance with the mind of Christ. And that is indeed a reduction to the absurd.
~~~ Mike asked “Does it not set you thinking as to why you still follow a church that has, at its very core, been riddled with corruption, deceit, and sin, and why you still believe Christ is in it?”
I reject your personal description of the Catholic Church. There have been abuses of which members of the Church have undoubtedly been guilty. But to transfer the guilt from recalcitrant members or officials to the Church they disgraced is not only monstrous but unchristian. If you have a great respect for Christ then you must consider as necessary what Christ considered as necessary. To wish to believe in Christ without believing in His Church is folly itself, As a matter of fact, Jesus did not preach to the first converts; the Church preached Jesus to the people, and on the testimony of the Church, they believed in Christ. And the first fact for the early Christians was belief in the mission of the Church. Through their acceptance of the Church and her authority they were led to faith in Christ. Why do I believe Christ is still in the Catholic Church? Because he promised He would be.
~~~ Mike stated “It also gets me to thinking as to why many Roman Catholics are impressed with men they think are somehow greater than my High Priest – Christ.”
Is this a serious statement? Are we to chalk this up to a prejudicial attack on Catholics? I don’t know a single person Catholic, or otherwise, who thinks Padre Pio is somehow greater than Christ, but if it is a serious statement perhaps you would care to offer us some names of those who do think this? The saints are a sign, a visible reminder to His Church to look towards God and to strive for holiness. You are free to believe as you will about the miracles of Padre Pio, and the other saints of the Catholic Church, but none the less they are well documented.
Thanks and God bless Mike
Andrew.
Andrew:
Wow – quite a bit here!
First, I added the tag at the end because I realized it sounded like I was claiming that
I had an absolute understanding of the Scripture in question. While I believe I do understand it, there may be more to it. It may well be that death is being spoken of here, and if it is, I think it is in the context of the influence of the Church overcoming it (by breaking the gates) through Christ’s work and power over death. The notion of it speaking of death is the popular one. Even so, how is it that the case can be made that it speaks of the church not dying as you suggest (a passive action of survival from attack) when Jesus uses the term “gates will not prevail” as if to suggest there is an active movement being taken by the Church against the fortitude of Hades, in which it is Hades that is not going to triumph over the Church?” My view is that it is much more than the Church living on. However the disconnect in thought that is required to reach your conclusion makes your position (that the Church will never go away )a little simplistic and questionable. It’s similar to when Catholics claim that when Christ speaks to Peter about building His church, The whole context of the exchange is about Christ, not Peter. Yet Catholics require that the context abruptly change from Christ to Peter, and then immediately back again to Christ, in an nonsensical exchange.
Thanks for the English lesson. The reason the word “gates” is best described as a metaphor and not an idiom, is exactly for the reason you give – an idiom is typically a phrase, not just a word as you suggest. It is also typically a common phrase known to others, such as (in our modern day phrasing) “a dime a dozen”, or “a piece of cake.” It’s clear to me that Jesus’ reference to the gates was not a common phrase, used only once by Him as analogy, or symbol. hence my correction of your statement. Sorry if that offended you.
A metaphor, as you correctly point out, is an analogy between two objects or ideas. I think in this case, my correction stands, as the word “gates” (which was the word I directed my comments to) I would argue can be seen as an analogy to the defense that evil will put up against the influence of the Church – but will fail. Maybe the Scripture is making both points. Even so, I argue further that it is the real Church Christ instituted that will prevail, not the RCC.
But we digress…
You wrote:
“If the Holy Spirit so directs the Churches path to greater or deeper understanding of a subject why must we hold to an earlier teaching?”
Because you’re directed to by Scripture, if that teaching adds to, takes away, or changes anything that rests in the Scriptures. It’s those things I object to. Especially if it teaches “another gospel” as Paul pointed out, or if it goes against the known character of God Himself as revealed in the Scriptures. Go by the example of Jesus when He tied all of his rebukes against Satan in the wilderness to Scripture – not tradition, and not the teachings of anything or anyone else. The idea is that the Holy Spirit, being the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow will not introduce any new or varied teachings. You can see this problem with the Jehovah’s Witnesses cult, who claim that “the light grows brighter with the passing of every day” to give credence to their altered teachings. God gave us all we need to know in the Scriptures, and it’s the Holy Spirit who protects the writings, and doesn’t alter or add to them. The book of Hebrews tells us that the Word is complete and sufficient as written. It’s the RCC that suggests otherwise. Where is your basis for believing the Holy Spirit would add to the Word or change it? Where is the Word insufficient?
Your examples are not examples of “greater insight” to Scripture, but are examples of correction to misunderstanding. Where is the correction to misunderstanding in the fairly new adopted doctrine of the RCC regarding the immaculate conception – an Islamic tradition that predates the RCC? How is it not simply leading people astray with another gospel, if such an important idea, which is fairly easy to communicate, was not taught in the original Scriptures plainly? After all, Jesus’ sinless state was easily communicated right from the start in order to make Christianity work – why not Mary’s, if she is truly sinless, and your mediator to Christ? Even she claimed the opposite by plainly stating she needed a Savior, yet the RCC decided (presumably through its “greater insight”) to not clarify, but to actually change her statement. It’s truly unbelievable.
With regard to your statements on the history of the RCC:
The fact is that the RCC tracing its history back to Christ is debatable, since it means nothing to do so if the message has been altered to where the original point of it all has largely disappeared or changed. Examine your logic – if the RCC started today to claim that Jesus Christ never lived, what would their claim to trace their heritage all the way back to Christ matter? Your point (which I don’t agree with by the way) that the RCC has a special connection to Christ (presumably through apostolic succession) is meaningless. Does that direct connection keep them from sin (reference their recent and on-going sex scandals)? If not, then how does direct decent matter? How does it protect them from giving false teaching, if it doesn’t even keep the higher levels of leadership from such severe levels of wrong behavior and wicked actions? I believe it’s all a case of “you will know them by their fruits.”
Your wrote:
“I reject your personal description of the Catholic Church. There have been abuses of which members of the Church have undoubtedly been guilty. But to transfer the guilt from recalcitrant members or officials to the Church they disgraced is not only monstrous but unchristian”
Then tell it to Paul – I’m surprised you would suggest he was unchristian. Paul admonished the church early on to throw out those who sin unrepentantly – especially sexual sin, because he saw it as a corruption that would spread through the whole Church. He stated “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” Gal 5:9 when speaking against incest in the Church. Paul did not allow for a few bad apples as you do, because he knew it would rot the whole barrel, and because it was the barrel Paul was concerned with, and not the bad apples, he took serious action. What do we see with the RCC? Corruption that is allowed to go on without abatement. In fact, it’s nurtured and protected. It’s not nearly as important that the priests did what they did (that was bad enough), as it is how the RCC leadership reacted. They did nothing for years, and very little only after the heat was turned up. When exposed, the pull the “we’re being attacked” defense as you do below. Even now we see next to nothing being done, with no bishop, cardinal, or other high official held accountable. What amazes me is how Catholics can sacrifice their morals and Christian beliefs on the sacrificial alter of RCC protection – at any cost. It’s disheartening, and is indicative of Catholics building their spiritual lives not on Christ, but on the church. It causes children to be hurt, otherwise good Christian people to stumble, and others to not turn to Christ at all. It’s sad. Again, how is it the “gates of Hell” are not prevailing within the RCC?
You wrote:
“If you have a great respect for Christ then you must consider as necessary what Christ considered as necessary. To wish to believe in Christ without believing in His Church is folly itself…”
Agreed,which is why I do believe in His true church. Tell me, how is it you claim to follow the Church Christ instituted by remaining in the RCC with all of its wickedness being so apparent? How do you claim Christ is in it? Where? Again, how are the “gates of Hell” not prevailing against it with such evil? What good does it do for a church to survive, if it’s legacy is that of the RCCs? I suspect that Catholics really deep inside believe that many Catholics need to get something out of the Church, namely the sacraments and continuing grace, rather than give to it as God instructs. It’s all about them and what they need. So, renouncing their church because of its wicked ways is unthinkable, especially since they believe they can only find grace through it. It’s the true Christian, who is willing to walk away from such wickedness, and turn to Christ alone as He instructs us to do that has everlasting life. What will you tell Christ when asked why you stayed with such an organization, and stood up for it, even to the point of hurting children? Will it be:
“Because I saw you there Lord – in the back rooms as the priests molested children, and in the upper rooms of the Vatican as you instructed the leaders who contrived to hide the sin that was rampant in your church. It was about me Lord, and what I thought I needed, and what they said they alone could give me – not about what you wanted.”
I’m comfortable that if I tell Christ I was not a Roman Catholic because of all that I saw, how I knew it was wrong, and how I realized it was not within His character as it is revealed in His word that He would understand and forgive me. How could He do otherwise?
You wrote:
“Is this a serious statement? Are we to chalk this up to a prejudicial attack on Catholics?”
You can if you want to. I prefer to look at it as calling it as I see it. You brought up Pio, not me. It appeared that you were genuinely impressed with the “miracles” you say he performed, and how his bones were “hardly touched by time or decay.” How was I supposed to take these statements? You now turn to the tried and true escape that many Catholics who feel convicted turn to – namely the “Catholic prejudice” argument. We’ll I don’t see what prejudice has to do with it. I’m sorry if you’re hurt by it, but that’s how the Spirit works.
You wrote:
“I don’t know a single person Catholic, or otherwise, who thinks Padre Pio is somehow greater than Christ, but if it is a serious statement perhaps you would care to offer us some names of those who do think this?”
I would say you do – you at least put Pio on par with my Lord. After all, you bring up Pio’s alleged “miracles”, a method Jesus used to indicate His unique deity and power. Something He did to show us his true God nature. Why did you bring it up if not to show Pio’s “gift” of deity? You also implied that somehow Pio was so holy, that either Pio (presumably through his miracle powers) or God Himself is preserving his bones for some reason. You seemed impressed with that. How was I supposed to take it? What were you implying by writing all of it?
You wrote:
“The saints are a sign, a visible reminder to His Church to look towards God and to strive for holiness.”
Really? This is a strange statement, since Christ Himself, when asked what signs would be given to those who cared about such things stated: “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there will be no sign given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.” Mat 16:1-4. It doesn’t appear the signs you list are the sing of the prophet Jonas – so you may want to rethink that one. No offense, but I would respectfully suggest that you are looking more toward the teachings of the Catholic Church, than anything Jesus had to teach you.
You wrote:
“You are free to believe as you will about the miracles of Padre Pio, and the other saints of the Catholic Church, but none the less they are well documented.”
Thank you for allowing me to debate you.
Blessings to you and your family,
Mike
Andrew, please see my latest post, “False Claims of Roman Supremacy” for answers regarding your claims of Roman supremacy.
1) Mike Patrick “However the disconnect in thought that is required to reach your conclusion makes your position a little simplistic and questionable” then went onto write “Its clear to me that Jesus’ reference to the gates was not a common phrase”
It is not only my position, but that of the Church, and as demonstarted, your own protestant scholarship. It is therefore “clear to you” that both the Church and the protestant scholarship conclusions on this are questionable and simplistic.
2) Mike Patrick “Because you are directed to by Scripture, if that teaching adds to, takes away, or changes anything that rests in scriptures. Its those things I object to ”
So you object to Sola Scriptura since its not taught in the Bible? No biblical passage teaches that Scripture is the formal authority or rule of faith in isolation from the Church and Tradition.
There is nothing in the Catholic faith which is contrary to the Bible. It is only a fallible interpretation of the scriptures that may lead one to believe it does, or a lack of understanding about what the Catholic Church actually teaches.
3) Mike Patrick “God gave us all we need to know in the Scriptures, and it’s the Holy Spirit who protects the writings, and doesn’t alter or add to them.”
And yet, it was Martin Luther, the initiator of the Protestism Refromation that both added and took away from Holy scripture. It was Martin Luther who tossed out seven books considered canonical. He also rejected the epistle to the Hebrews and the book of Revelation. He also called the epistle of James “an epistle of straw” because James 2:14–26 conflicted with his personal theology on good works. He also added the word (in his German translation) only in Romans 3:20 and Romans 4:15 and he inserted the word alone in Romans 3:28.
4) Mike Patrick “After all, Jesus’ sinless state was easily communicated right from the start in order to make Christianity work – why not Mary’s, if she is truly sinless, and your mediator to Christ? Even she claimed the opposite by plainly stating she needed a Saviour, yet the RCC decided (presumably through its “greater insight”) to not clarify, but to actually change her statement. Its truly unbelievable.”
I’m glad you’ve brought it up. The Church does not hesitate to profess that Mary needed a saviour. It was by the grace of God, and not the work of Mary, that she was saved from sin in a most perfect manner. Mary was preserved from sin at the time of her natural conception. Just as John the Baptist was sanctified in the womb prior to his birth (Luke 1:15), Mary was sanctified at her conception.
God can “save” a person from a sin by forgiving them, or by providing them the grace never to fall into that particular sin (by the Grace of God there go I). An ancient analogy is often useful to explain this: A person can be saved from a pit in two ways; one can fall into it and be brought out, or one can be caught before falling into it. Mankind is saved in the first manner and Mary in the second. Both are saved from the pit of sin.
Besides historical evidence and the authority of Tradition, several biblical texts can be offered. One of them is Genesis 3:15, God states that there is to be an enmity between the “woman” and the serpent, and this enmity is shared between her seed and its seed. Her seed is the messiah, who stands in opposition to the seed of the serpent. The mother of the messiah is said to share the same enmity—total opposition—with Satan. If Mary, “the woman” had any sin, then she would not be in complete opposition to the devil.
Pope Pius IX officially defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. When Fundamentalists claim that the doctrine was “invented” at this time, they misunderstand both the history of dogmas and what prompts the Church to issue, from time to time, definitive pronouncements regarding faith or morals. They are under the impression that no doctrine is believed until the Pope or an ecumenical council issues a formal statement about it. (For abundant evidence that the sinlessness of Mary is not a new idea in the Church, visit http://www.catholic.com/answers/tracts/_fullgra.htm).
5) Mike Patrick “How does it protect them from giving false teaching, if it doesn’t even keep the higher levels of leadership from such severe levels of wrong behaviour and wicked actions? I believe it’s all a case of “you will know them by their fruits”
Let’s deal with the Pope first. The Catholic Church’s teaching on papal infallibility is one which is generally misunderstood by those outside the Church. The charism of papal “infallibility” is often confused with “impeccability.” They imagine Catholics believe the pope (or other members of the clergy) cannot sin. Others, who avoid this blunder, think the pope relies on some sort of amulet or magical incantation when an infallible definition is due.
Infallibility is not the absence of sin. Nor is it a charism that belongs only to the pope. Indeed, infallibility also belongs to the body of bishops as a whole, when, in doctrinal unity with the pope, they solemnly teach a doctrine as true. Christ instructed the Church to preach everything he taught (Matt. 28:19–20) and promised the protection of the Holy Spirit to “guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). That mandate and that promise guarantee the Church will never fall away from his teachings (Matt. 16:18, 1 Tim. 3:15), even if individual Catholics might.
6) Mike Patrick “Then tell it to Paul – I’m surprised you would suggest he was unchristian.”
In what way did I suggest Paul was unchristian? I said “transferring the guilt from recalcitrant members or officials to the Church they disgraced is not only monstrous but unchristian”. Where does Paul teach us to transfer the guilt of an individual onto the whole Church?
The RCC does indeed excommunicate individuals, just as prescribed by Paul, in fact here’s a published link about it if you would care to read up on it http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05678a.htm and perhaps you would be so kind as to send me a link to your churches excommunication process?
7) Mike Patrick “They did nothing for years, and very little only after the heat was turned up. When exposed, the pull the “we’re being attacked” defense as you do below. Even now we see next to nothing being done, with no bishop or cardinal, or high official held accountable”
This is not the first time that the Church has had to deal with scandal and sin within its ranks; nor is the Church unique in this regard, every church, every school, every human organisation of any size faces similar issues. Moreover, we must always remember that the vast majority of bishops and priests are in no way involved in these scandals. There will always be saints and heroes as well as offenders and cowards in the Church.
Even in the Old Testament, Israel, God’s chosen people, was often compared by the prophets to Sodom, Babylon, and other pagan nations. In fact, the prophets sometimes said that Israel was more wicked than these other nations. Yet they were still the chosen people, and their institutions, the Jerusalem Temple, the Levitical priesthood, the Davidic monarchy, the Law of Moses, were still divinely ordained.
Likewise, abuses and scandals within the Church can never undo Christ’s institution of the seven sacraments or his giving of the keys to Peter, the rock on which the Church was built.
7) Mike Patrick “I’m comfortable that if I tell Christ I was not a Roman Catholic because of all that I saw, how I knew it was wrong, and how I realized it was not within His character as it is revealed in His word that He would understand and forgive me. How could he do otherwise?”
Do you think that might not place judgment on His whole Church (His body) for the sins of the few and judge His Church (His body) through a lack of understanding about what it actually teaches (as opposed to what you think it teaches).
8) It appeared that you were genuinely impressed by the “miracles” you say he performed, and “how his bones were hardly touched by time”. How was I supposed to take these statements?
You may take my words as written.
“MANY Roman Catholics are impressed with men they think are somehow greater that my High Priest – Christ”. This statement is addressed to the many and not to the individual. Apart from me who else do you claim believes this?
“I would say you do – you at least put Pio on par with my Lord”, I have already expressed that I don’t know a single person Catholic or otherwise, who thinks Padre Pio is somehow greater than Christ (or even on a par) and yet you continue to accuse me (and probably the MANY) of this.
However, I will gladly accept your apology, not only for myself but the MANY Catholics you may have “misunderstood” in this manner.
9) Mike Patrick “Really? This is a strange statement…”
You are taking Matt 16:1-4 out of context, I have not asked for sign. Jesus said signs accompany those who believe. No offense taken and no need for a rethink.
Thanks Mike and also for the debate.
P.S. Brian, I’ll have a read of your latest post when I can, I don’t have a lot of spare time at the moment but I will get around to it.
FYI: Comments that contain two or more links are automatically held for moderation. Doing this helps keep spam off the blog. Please keep this in mind when commenting. You are welcome to have as many links as you like, but your comment will not appear until I am able to log on and approve it.
Hi Andrew!
You wrote:
1) Mike Patrick “However the disconnect in thought that is required to reach your conclusion makes your position a little simplistic and questionable” then went onto write “Its clear to me that Jesus’ reference to the gates was not a common phrase”
It is not only my position, but that of the Church, and as demonstarted, your own protestant scholarship. It is therefore “clear to you” that both the Church and the protestant scholarship conclusions on this are questionable and simplistic.
Response: I disagree that this is “everyone’s” position. I think it’s a little reckless to suggest so, especially without proper citation, which I think would be impossible to find, since no one could possibly know what everyone, everywhere has to say on the subject. I hope that’s not what you’re suggesting.
2) Mike Patrick “Because you are directed to by Scripture, if that teaching adds to, takes away, or changes anything that rests in scriptures. Its those things I object to ”
So you object to Sola Scriptura since its not taught in the Bible? No biblical passage teaches that Scripture is the formal authority or rule of faith in isolation from the Church and Tradition.
There is nothing in the Catholic faith which is contrary to the Bible. It is only a fallible interpretation of the scriptures that may lead one to believe it does, or a lack of understanding about what the Catholic Church actually teaches.
Response: I disagree – it is taught in the Bible. Hebrews 4:12 explains it well enough. Scripture is “sufficient” to equip us all. Nothing else is needed. Not surprisingly, I can find no similar scripture ascribing this definition to tradition – oral or otherwise. I understand your belief about tradition and the lack of sufficiency of the Scriptures is derived from your Catholic teaching. I hold that view is not Biblical.
3) Mike Patrick “God gave us all we need to know in the Scriptures, and it’s the Holy Spirit who protects the writings, and doesn’t alter or add to them.”
And yet, it was Martin Luther, the initiator of the Protestism Refromation that both added and took away from Holy scripture. It was Martin Luther who tossed out seven books considered canonical. He also rejected the epistle to the Hebrews and the book of Revelation. He also called the epistle of James “an epistle of straw” because James 2:14–26 conflicted with his personal theology on good works. He also added the word (in his German translation) only in Romans 3:20 and Romans 4:15 and he inserted the word alone in Romans 3:28.
Response: I disagree with the Roman Catholic view on the apocryphal texts. In this case, I defer to the insufficiency of the texts, their errors and omissions in matters such as chronological errors, errors in numbers, historic error and the like. There is no conflict in James. Catholics misread the text – as did Luther, if they see genuine conflict. If there were genuine conflicts as you suggest between the different books, then what the Bible says about itself would be in error. This cannot happen. If you suggest it does, then you should trash the entire Bible as unreliable, and rest your faith fully and publically on the RCC teachings alone apart from the Bible. The problem then would be that the RCC itself rests many of its teachings on the Biblical text. You seem to have a conundrum Andrew.
4) Mike Patrick “After all, Jesus’ sinless state was easily communicated right from the start in order to make Christianity work – why not Mary’s, if she is truly sinless, and your mediator to Christ? Even she claimed the opposite by plainly stating she needed a Saviour, yet the RCC decided (presumably through its “greater insight”) to not clarify, but to actually change her statement. Its truly unbelievable.”
I’m glad you’ve brought it up. The Church does not hesitate to profess that Mary needed a saviour. It was by the grace of God, and not the work of Mary, that she was saved from sin in a most perfect manner. Mary was preserved from sin at the time of her natural conception. Just as John the Baptist was sanctified in the womb prior to his birth (Luke 1:15), Mary was sanctified at her conception.
God can “save” a person from a sin by forgiving them, or by providing them the grace never to fall into that particular sin (by the Grace of God there go I). An ancient analogy is often useful to explain this: A person can be saved from a pit in two ways; one can fall into it and be brought out, or one can be caught before falling into it. Mankind is saved in the first manner and Mary in the second. Both are saved from the pit of sin.
(I see you either read Scott Hahn, or you listen to Catholic Answers on the radio. His explnation is clever, but has absolutly nothing to do with the subject. It might be a way someone could explain away the Catholic problem of Mary’s alleged sinless state, but is it in fact true?)
Besides historical evidence and the authority of Tradition, several biblical texts can be offered. One of them is Genesis 3:15, God states that there is to be an enmity between the “woman” and the serpent, and this enmity is shared between her seed and its seed. Her seed is the messiah, who stands in opposition to the seed of the serpent. The mother of the messiah is said to share the same enmity—total opposition—with Satan. If Mary, “the woman” had any sin, then she would not be in complete opposition to the devil.
Pope Pius IX officially defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. When Fundamentalists claim that the doctrine was “invented” at this time, they misunderstand both the history of dogmas and what prompts the Church to issue, from time to time, definitive pronouncements regarding faith or morals. They are under the impression that no doctrine is believed until the Pope or an ecumenical council issues a formal statement about it. (For abundant evidence that the sinlessness of Mary is not a new idea in the Church, visit http://www.catholic.com/answers/tracts/_fullgra.htm).
Response: No need to take up so much space. I’m well aware of the Catholic position on thes subject. In the interest of expediency, let’s just say that it’s bad apologetics to speak about what “could” happen. Your case on Mary is nonsense (no offense intended.) The Catholic view on Mary is quite clearly the limited human view that somehow God was not capable of preserving Jesus from sin, so He needed to make Mary sinless in order to insure Jesus was born sinless. The problem is it makes no sense, and is not supported by God’s Word. God was perfectly capable of keeping Jesus sinless while being carried in the womb by sinful Mary. God is God, case closed. It’s man’s view that introduces the problem. Your argument breaks down because you can give no reasonable “cutoff” point for this sinless requirement of Mary to cease. In other words, was Mary’s mother “sinless” in order to preserve Mary from sin so that she could then maintain that sinless state for Jesus? How about Mary’s great, great grandmother, or her mother, or hers, or hers, and on and on and on, all the way back to eve? No, the doctrine of the immaculate conception, given its untenable premise, and how it came into being in the first place, coupled with the obvious omission of the idea in Scripture, Mary’s explicit rejection of the idea, and the fact that there is virtually no mention of the concept at all in the Scriptures that Jesus, the apostles, or anyone else had the RCC view can only mean one thing – it’s a false doctrine.
5) Mike Patrick “How does it protect them from giving false teaching, if it doesn’t even keep the higher levels of leadership from such severe levels of wrong behaviour and wicked actions? I believe it’s all a case of “you will know them by their fruits”
Let’s deal with the Pope first. The Catholic Church’s teaching on papal infallibility is one which is generally misunderstood by those outside the Church. The charism of papal “infallibility” is often confused with “impeccability.” They imagine Catholics believe the pope (or other members of the clergy) cannot sin. Others, who avoid this blunder, think the pope relies on some sort of amulet or magical incantation when an infallible definition is due.
Infallibility is not the absence of sin.
Response: Understood. It’s not that difficult of a topic. It’s well documented what the RCC believes on the subject, and I believe I understand it.
Nor is it a charism that belongs only to the pope. Indeed, infallibility also belongs to the body of bishops as a whole, when, in doctrinal unity with the pope, they solemnly teach a doctrine as true. Christ instructed the Church to preach everything he taught (Matt. 28:19–20) and promised the protection of the Holy Spirit to “guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). That mandate and that promise guarantee the Church will never fall away from his teachings (Matt. 16:18, 1 Tim. 3:15), even if individual Catholics might.
Response: Yes, I agree with you. Which is why it is so difficult to see how the RCC bishops, cardinals, and possibly even the pope in his early days were all involved in the cover-up, and promotion of such evil acts. What’s even more unbelievable is many (not all) of today’s Roman Catholics still defend the institution. It’s heartbreaking for them, the laity, and the victims of abuse. Christ’s promise you mention was given to the apostles alone.
6) Mike Patrick “Then tell it to Paul – I’m surprised you would suggest he was unchristian.”
In what way did I suggest Paul was unchristian? I said “transferring the guilt from recalcitrant members or officials to the Church they disgraced is not only monstrous but unchristian”. Where does Paul teach us to transfer the guilt of an individual onto the whole Church?
The RCC does indeed excommunicate individuals, just as prescribed by Paul, in fact here’s a published link about it if you would care to read up on it http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05678a.htm and perhaps you would be so kind as to send me a link to your churches excommunication process?
Response: Yes, they do excommunicate people. But have they yet to date done so to any of their own higher authorities as Paul directed? I have only seen the priests and the laity suffer through excommunication. I guess the oath of the blood red robe surpasses Paul’s admonitions. Since my church is not a “club”, there is no formal excommunication process that I know of. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one, it’s just that it’s never been used while I’ve been attending. Then again, none of our pastors, deacons, or elders have ever been accused of, or convicted of child molestation either.
7) Mike Patrick “They did nothing for years, and very little only after the heat was turned up. When exposed, the pull the “we’re being attacked” defense as you do below. Even now we see next to nothing being done, with no bishop or cardinal, or high official held accountable”
This is not the first time that the Church has had to deal with scandal and sin within its ranks; nor is the Church unique in this regard, every church, every school, every human organisation of any size faces similar issues. Moreover, we must always remember that the vast majority of bishops and priests are in no way involved in these scandals. There will always be saints and heroes as well as offenders and cowards in the Church.
Even in the Old Testament, Israel, God’s chosen people, was often compared by the prophets to Sodom, Babylon, and other pagan nations. In fact, the prophets sometimes said that Israel was more wicked than these other nations. Yet they were still the chosen people, and their institutions, the Jerusalem Temple, the Levitical priesthood, the Davidic monarchy, the Law of Moses, were still divinely ordained.
Likewise, abuses and scandals within the Church can never undo Christ’s institution of the seven sacraments or his giving of the keys to Peter, the rock on which the Church was built.
Response: I agree that this is not the first time scandal has come up in the church. I mentioned Paul’s admonition to the church as an example. It goes to show how sin can infiltrate the man made organizations that are set up to reach out to God, such as the RCC. It doesn’t appear that Paul shares your sentiments that sin could not undo things. It is only the church that Christ setup that will not fall to such things. It’s disingenuous to compare God’s people Israel to the RCC. The RCC is not made up of God’s chosen people, and therefore there is no comparison. However, God’s record of dealing with His people shows that He will extract justice. Still, that is no reason to hold to a church that has not only sinned, but continues to do so at its highest ranks. The problem is compounded by the RCC’s characterization of itself. It declares it is the one true church, sets the stage for it’s own self-declared authority to administer grace through the sacraments, and changes the Word of God through the different doctrine it teaches. These are clearly offenses for which there appears to be no remedy until and unless the church authorities truly repent. To date there is no apparent sign of repentance, or sincere change of direction in the RCC.
7) Mike Patrick “I’m comfortable that if I tell Christ I was not a Roman Catholic because of all that I saw, how I knew it was wrong, and how I realized it was not within His character as it is revealed in His word that He would understand and forgive me. How could he do otherwise?”
Do you think that might not place judgment on His whole Church (His body) for the sins of the few and judge His Church (His body) through a lack of understanding about what it actually teaches (as opposed to what you think it teaches).
Response: I don’t think that’s placing judgment, I think it’s being discerning. We are directed to separate truth from error in the Bible, and “rightly divide the word of God.” We are not to judge a persons standing with God regarding their salvation, but that doesn’t mean we are to check our brains at the door and refuse to call sin sin. “Judging” people wrongly is a popular tactic used to discourage us from exercising Godly discernment. I don’t judge these people, God does.
I’m not speaking of what the RCC teaches here, as much as I am of what has come to light publically about their wicked behavior. In Isa. 1:18, God says: “Come, let us reason together.’ What is reasonable about brushing aside lightly the actions of the RCC as “actions of a few bad apples?” What is unreasonable about drawing the line in the sand? It think it is much more unreasonable to defend it, refusing to decide what is wrong out of fear of judging, and looking the other way to the problems in the church looking out for its interest at any cost.
It appeared that you were genuinely impressed by the “miracles” you say he performed, and “how his bones were hardly touched by time”. How was I supposed to take these statements?
You may take my words as written.
Response: Very well. So taken.
“MANY Roman Catholics are impressed with men they think are somehow greater that my High Priest – Christ”. This statement is addressed to the many and not to the individual. Apart from me who else do you claim believes this?
“I would say you do – you at least put Pio on par with my Lord”, I have already expressed that I don’t know a single person Catholic or otherwise, who thinks Padre Pio is somehow greater than Christ (or even on a par) and yet you continue to accuse me (and probably the MANY) of this.
However, I will gladly accept your apology, not only for myself but the MANY Catholics you may have “misunderstood” in this manner.
Response: You say you were misunderstood, yet you do not clarify. My assumption stands.
9) Mike Patrick “Really? This is a strange statement…”
You are taking Matt 16:1-4 out of context, I have not asked for sign. Jesus said signs accompany those who believe. No offense taken and no need for a rethink.
Thanks Mike and also for the debate.
Response: I don’t believe Matt. 16 is taken out of context. I noted that within the context in which the question was asked of Jesus… He answered it rightly, and it applies to your example. Jesus did speak of signs, but not in that context. If we take your position, then Jesus would have had to have spoken for signs, and against signs in the same context. This is silly. So, it’s reasonable to conclude there is a misunderstanding on your part somewhere.
Blessings,
Mike
I am flattered. I have never been smeared on an anti-Catholic Blog before. I stand by every statement I made, as I believe them to be true. I have actually written an exegetical paper on Matthew 16:13-20, one of the most ignored passages in all of Scripture. If anyone wants a copy, just ask, I would be more than happy to e-mail you a copy. In the interest of charity that is all I will say, other than to express my extreme disappointment that Brian feels that there is nothing wrong with slamming someone on a public forum without the decency to notify them be e-mail, if for no other reason to allow for rebuttal. I see that fairness is of no concern here.