Salaamu 3alaykum!
- I disagree with the concept of the Pope. I am wondering, why would God give total power to one corruptible man? To give two of my favorite historical examples of what I mean: Pope Alexander VI (The Borgia Pope) was known for his underhanded tactics and allegedly raped his niece. The Pope during the sacking of Constantinople at first condemned the Venetian Crusaders but once he heard about all the treasure they acquired he welcomed them back.
There have been really good Popes, I personally love Pope John Paul II. I respect him immensely for all the apologies he made and the example he showed. But, my question is, why would God rest so much power in the hands of one man? To give an example of what I think is a better example, in Sunni Islam there is no centralized authority besides some scholarly councils. But, if one scholar goes astray (which I assure you, many men from every religion go astray), the whole religion doesn’t lose its way.
If one is willing to believe in a perfect and omnipotent God, why does he allow suffering to continue? (Look at the recent case of Hamza al-Khatib in Syria.) This suffering, after all, will surely disillusion some humans so much that they will turn to despair, nihilism, and atheism–all of which, in one way or another, can include sinful conduct?
God’s failure to end all suffering once and for all is more of an indirect cause of such negative results than a pope setting a bad example and therefore leading others into sin, but it’s worth considering.
What we have to do is separate truth, which remains valid no matter who proclaims it, from action. Imagine that, during his spare time as head of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin had stumbled upon some great scientific discovery which has since been confirmed time and time again. The iron-fisted, bloodthirsty character of his rule wouldn’t detract in the least from the credibility of Stalin’s (accurate) claims about the world.
God uses sinful people to fulfill his plan for humanity–if we understood the logic behind some of the steps he’s taken, we wouldn’t be merely human anymore. If it can be shown that a pope’s sinful conduct affected the correctness of his teachings on faith and morals, not just posed the risk of causing scandal for the flock, then a valid case can be made against the notion of the papacy. Can you demonstrate that one sinful pope twisted or reversed a Catholic doctrine, partly or wholly, as a result of his personal lack of faithfulness to God?
- What great supporting evidence is there to show the Gospel accounts are valid? How do I know that the Gospel of Thomas isn’t valid for example? If they were divinely inspired, then how could Mark mess up the geography of Palestine (it was mentioned in my Scripture book, I go to a Catholic school)? Just to give perspective once again (I hope you don’t see this as preaching or bashing, just trying to show a comparison) in Sunni Islam we believe that the Qur’an is the direct word of God because of certain miraculous things about it.
Others have addressed your questions about the reliability of the New Testament. I would ask you to begin new threads to discuss
exhaustively all of the many arguments used to prove the miraculous nature of the Qur’an: literary, scientific, and otherwise.
I would simply note here that orthodox Muslims deny both the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ based on 4:157, which states something like, “Neither did they crucify him nor did they kill him.” This can be interpreted to mean either
“Jesus was not nailed to a cross, and he did not die.”
or
“Jesus was nailed to a cross, but he did not die.”
Orthodox Muslims, as far as I know, have always held to the first interpretation. I have heard that scholars generally believe that the best-attested fact about Jesus is that he indeed was crucified and did die on the cross. If the Qur’an is the word of God, how can this crucial, though inaccurate, claim within its pages be reconciled with the omniscient source behind it?
I would also warn you to be careful about relying on “Catholic” school books. Depending on the worldview of the author, it may look at the faith from a secular, modernist point of view, which is bound to lead almost any reader away from Catholicism, without giving the other side.
- The Saints make me feel a little bit uncomfortable. Okay, so these guys talk to God for you; I can sort of accept that. But when you start making them patrons of certain things, that disturbs me a bit. It makes me feel a bit too much like it’s a Pantheon and if I want more of x I just pray to a specific Saint.
I look at praying to the saints like this:
- Sin damages one’s soul and relationship with God.
- By the time anyone reaches heaven, the tendency to sin (concupiscence) that I still suffer from has been cleansed of them completely.
- Those in heaven are outside time, so we don’t have to wonder how they can hear the prayers of millions of fellow Christians on earth all at once.
- “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.” (James 5:16) This implies that those in heaven may have more success getting their prayers answered than I will.
As for patron saints, I’ll just note that, if I wanted to ask a friend on earth to pray about something for me, I’d go to the one that would be most concerned about the issue and would best understand it–a fellow student for getting a good grade on a test, a cancer survivor for an ill relative, etc.
Let me know what you think about all this.
