A question of Authority

[broski234]

Sorry for the repost! Don’t know how that happened.

 

[OneTrueCathApos]

Says who? The Church? It’s a circular argument.

Like the Pope declaring the Pope infallible. It’s very arrogant to make that declatration and then to assume that it’s from God.

Says who? The Church?

It’s a circular argument.

Like the Pope declaring the Pope infallible. It’s very arrogant to make that declaration and then to assume that it’s from God.

The church still stands, because it’s run by humans. The church is made up of the people, the body of Christ.
If they choose to listen to one man proclaiming his own infallibility, that’s their problem.

**The church still stands because of not the cleverness of the bishops, but of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The DOCTRINES of the church are infallible. Protestants always tend to misunderstand the Catholic church and therefore will never learn anything… **

 

[dcana]

Show me an organization that has lasted almost 2000 years that because of the failings of some of its members does not need reforms at some point. Of course, no other organization has lasted for anything near 2000 years, which is an indication of her Divine establishment. This country is not even 1/8th as old and she has had many times when “reform” was needed.

 

[NDfan]

I beg to differ here. First of all, you need to name the sight where over “half” of the Catholics in the world do not believe in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and purgatory , and the teachings about the Blessed Mother. Don’t just sit at your computer and utter false words here because unless you can come up with some evidence, that you yourself know this, and your sources are credible, because, quite frankly, you are full of it.

Sighs Religious polls show maybe 44% of Roman Catholics believe in the doctrines I cited. Since you are so knowledgeable and BEG to differ why don’t you show me how you are right and I am wrong. Don’t just sit at your computer and utter responses because you are irritated at my post. Quite frankly you are full of it.

There are a million converts every year just in Africa alone, there are Chinese bishops, Iraqi Catholics, thousands of them. Catholics are all over the world. If you can tell me you know of these people in other countries (since you said half of all Catholics, which is half of 1.5 billion), do not believe in the Body and Blood of Our Savior, Jesus Christ, then I will convert to Protestanism.

You have no clue here do you You think the church was that organized and unified 2000 years ago? NOT!!

 

[NDfan]

People within the Church were abusive, corrupt and apostate - the the Church herself wasn’t. If she was, Jesus was a liar. (Matt. 16:18)
Are you prepared to make that claim?

Elvis that’s a great point. The church will always be pure. But individuals within will be corrupt. So then how do you propose cleaning out the corruption? How can you be sure the corruption doesn’t impact the authority?

 

[NDfan]

Where did you get your info from? Could you site your source? How do you, as a protestant, know that a “large percent think the church has gone down the wrong path when it comes to the teachings on Mary”? By what authority do you make these claims? Please site your sources? And by the way, I readily admit that there are many Catholics who don’t practice their faith the way they should. However, that has no bearing on the Church. It’s not the Church’s fault these people don’t pray more, go to church more, or live by the teachings of the church. Why do you condemn the Catholic Church. We have all seen your threads and know the things you have said with regards to the Catholic Church. Would you call Jesus a bad teacher because Peter denied him 3x’s, or because Judas betrayed him, or because many of his disciples walked away from him because they found one of His teachings too hard to accept (Eucharist-I know you don’t agree with us on this subject)? I doubt you would! So why condemn His Church?

I don’t condemn the Catholic church or Jesus’ church. But then again I don’t define Jesus’ church as the Roman Catholic church. You do. Therefore anyone who doesn’t concur with their doctrines is going against church authority, hence Jesus’ authority. As far as citing my sources I could easily do that but then of course you would claim that it’s a biased religious survey. So why bother? Do some research yourself broski and show me evidence that completely counters what I am saying. If you can’t find anything then PM me and I will give you plenty. Seriously.

As far as the Eucharist yes we have had discussions on this before. I believe in the real presence but not transubstantiation. About 5 years ago a religious poll showed that about 33% of RCs believed this doctrine. Did that survey cover every single RC in the world? Probably not that would be impossible. But statistically speaking a sufficient sampling can show accurate trends. I believe the latest figure has moved up over 40%. But still less than half. Many don’t even understand it because it makes no sense. The church denies it’s taken from Greek Philosophy yet Aquinas uses Aristotelian Physics to define it which (HELLO) is Greek Philosophy. Go figure.

The same poll showed that the Protestant movement in the US has dropped to less than 50%. Roman Catholicism has shown growth in the US in the Southwest recently but because of immigrants coming in from Mexico. In the Northeast the RCC is in a decline and in fact many parishes are closing their doors because of a lack of funds to maintain the buildings. Overall across the US alone something like 95% of all Christian churches are either stagnant in growth or losing membership. Do you want to refute all these stats because you think I’m condemning the RCC? That would just mean you are in denial.

 

[SSTeacher]

I think the biggest problem Protestants have with Catholicism is authority. They cannot accept the authority of the Church established by Christ. They will site other things, but it comes down to authority.

That’s rather too much of a generalization for anybody to be able effectively to address it. However, an alternative generalization might be to suggest that Protestants have no problem whatsoever with authority, “they” simply do not recognize the authority that the Catholic Church claims for itself.

They wish to do what they want. They want to be able to interperet the Scriptures in their own way, and in essence become their own Pope.

That’s so much of a generalization as to seem very unfair to those within Protestant Christendom who are doing their best to live in a way that is pleasing to God in accordance with the light that they have been given.

Am I wrong?

From a Catholic point of view, I guess not.

Sadly,
Mick
:sad_bye:

 

[ricko]

Religion Population Percent(%) Rank (1-10)​

1. Christians (total 2-6) 1,955,229,000 33.7 1
2. Roman Catholics 981,465,000 16.9
3. Protestants 404,020,000 7.0
4. Orthodox 218,350,000 3.8
5. Anglicans 69,136,000 1.2
6. Other Christians 282,258,000 4.9
7. Muslims 1,126,325,000 19.4 2
8. Non-religious 886,929,000 15.3 3
9. Hindus 793,076,000 13.7 4
10. Buddhists 325,275,000 5.6 5
11. Atheists 222,195,000 5.6 6
12. Chinese folk religionists 220,971,000 3.8 7
13. New Religionists 106,016,000 1.8 8
14. Ethnic Religionists 102,945,000 1.8 9
15. Sikhs 19,508,000 0.3 10

These are figures from 1996, so it would be safe to assume the figures for the Catholic Church would be 1.2-1.5 billion.

Sorry about the out of line columns, the program won’t let me fix them.

 

[ricko]

That’s so much of a generalization as to seem very unfair to those within Protestant Christendom who are doing their best to live in a way that is pleasing to God in accordance with the light that they have been given.

Some seem to have different lights given to them and some not at all. But all claim that they are guided by the Holy Spirit even though they believe different things. It would then seem that everyone practices religion as they see it instead of the way that God sees it.

 

[ricko]

First off, growth rates are no indication of truth, and religious affiliation should be based on truth. This is really the bottom line. It doesn’t matter how many adherents a religion has. Whether it’s true is the real test for whether one should join. Back in the ancient world, before the time of Christ, the true religion of the day—Judaism—had only a tiny percentage of the world’s population adhering to it. Monotheism was so uncommon that the pagans of the Roman world kept mistaking monotheists for atheists. But the monotheists were right, irrespective of how popular their religion was.
catholic.com/thisrock/2000/0005chap.asp

 

[SSTeacher]

Some seem to have different lights given to them and some not at all. But all claim that they are guided by the Holy Spirit even though they believe different things. It would then seem that everyone practices religion as they see it instead of the way that God sees it.

Interesting analysis. Did you intend to apply the idea contained within your final sentence to Catholics or only to everybody else?

Curiously,
Mick

 

[broski234]

I don’t condemn the Catholic church or Jesus’ church. But then again I don’t define Jesus’ church as the Roman Catholic church. You do. Therefore anyone who doesn’t concur with their doctrines is going against church authority, hence Jesus’ authority. As far as citing my sources I could easily do that but then of course you would claim that it’s a biased religious survey. So why bother? Do some research yourself broski and show me evidence that completely counters what I am saying. If you can’t find anything then PM me and I will give you plenty. Seriously.

As far as the Eucharist yes we have had discussions on this before. I believe in the real presence but not transubstantiation. About 5 years ago a religious poll showed that about 33% of RCs believed this doctrine. Did that survey cover every single RC in the world? Probably not that would be impossible. But statistically speaking a sufficient sampling can show accurate trends. I believe the latest figure has moved up over 40%. But still less than half. Many don’t even understand it because it makes no sense. The church denies it’s taken from Greek Philosophy yet Aquinas uses Aristotelian Physics to define it which (HELLO) is Greek Philosophy. Go figure.

The same poll showed that the Protestant movement in the US has dropped to less than 50%. Roman Catholicism has shown growth in the US in the Southwest recently but because of immigrants coming in from Mexico. In the Northeast the RCC is in a decline and in fact many parishes are closing their doors because of a lack of funds to maintain the buildings. Overall across the US alone something like 95% of all Christian churches are either stagnant in growth or losing membership. Do you want to refute all these stats because you think I’m condemning the RCC? That would just mean you are in denial.

I don’t think it is necessary to have to PM you. You can cite your sources right here. And you still didn’t answer my questions. Your being evasive. Aquinas came long after the Church defined Transubstantiation. However, the Church didn’t use science to prove their beliefs. The Holy Spirit guides His Church. Again, just because many Catholics do not believe or find it a hard teaching and do not understand how this happens (which you don’t either), doesn’t mean the Catholic Church isn’t the One True Church.

 

[ricko]

The Catholic Church is the only Church that Jesus established 2,000 years ago, not 2,000 different churches teaching different beliefs. The Catholic Church is entrusted by Jesus to teach the true Word of God and he promised the Holy Spirit to guide it until the end of the world. The doctrines of His Church are clearly spelled out for all the faithfull.

 

[OneTrueCathApos]

The Catholic Church is the only Church that Jesus established 2,000 years ago, not 2,000 different churches teaching different beliefs. The Catholic Church is entrusted by Jesus to teach the true Word of God and he promised the Holy Spirit to guide it until the end of the world. The doctrines of His Church are clearly spelled out for all the faithfull.

Exactly! But NDfan has such a hard time maintaining this and as a result is extremely insulting toward my church.

 

[elvisman]

Elvis that’s a great point. The church will always be pure. But individuals within will be corrupt. So then how do you propose cleaning out the corruption? How can you be sure the corruption doesn’t impact the authority?

Whenever there has been corruption within the Catholic Church, it has been dealt with and they have been “outed”.
This is the guarantee that Jesus gave his Church in Matt. 16:18 and John 16:13-18.

When reform is needed, the Holy Spirit takes care of it. God will not be mocked.

 

[elvisman]

Jesus does not lie.
Your interpretation of Jesus said does lie.

This is the interpretation of the Church.
What’s your interpretation of Matt. 16:15-19? This, I gotta hear.

 

[Erich]

The church is infallible.

Sir Frederic Kenyon, in The Story of the Bible, notes that “For all the works of classical antiquity we have to depend on manuscripts written long after their original composition. The author who is the best case in this respect is Virgil, yet the earliest manuscript of Virgil that we now possess was written some 350 years after his death. For all other classical writers, the interval between the date of the author and the earliest extant manuscript of his works is much greater. For Livy it is about 500 years, for Horace 900, for most of Plato 1,300, for Euripides 1,600.” Yet no one seriously disputes that we have accurate copies of the works of these writers. However, in the case of the New Testament we have parts of manuscripts dating from the first and early second centuries, only a few decades after the works were penned.

Not only are the biblical manuscripts that we have older than those for classical authors, we have in sheer numbers far more manuscripts from which to work. Some are whole books of the Bible, others fragments of just a few words, but there are literally thousands of manuscripts in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, and other languages. This means that we can be sure we have an authentic text, and we can work from it with confidence.

Using what is in the Gospels themselves and what we find in extra-biblical writings from the early centuries, together with what we know of human nature (and what we can otherwise, from natural reason alone, know of divine nature), we conclude that either Jesus was just what he claimed to be—God—or he was crazy. (The one thing we know he could not have been was merely a good man who was not God, since no merely good man would make the claims he made.)

We are able to eliminate the possibility of his being a madman not just from what he said but from what his followers did after his death. Many critics of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection claim that Christ did not truly rise, that his followers took his body from the tomb and then proclaimed him risen from the dead. According to these critics, the resurrection was nothing more than a hoax. Devising a hoax to glorify a friend and mentor is one thing, but you do not find people dying for a hoax, at least not one from which they derive no benefit. Certainly if Christ had not risen his disciples would not have died horrible deaths affirming the reality and truth of the resurrection. The result of this line of reasoning is that we must conclude that Jesus indeed rose from the dead. Consequently, his claims concerning himself—including his claim to be God—have credibility. He meant what he said and did what he said he would do.

Further, Christ said he would found a Church. Both the Bible (still taken as *merely a historical *book, not yet as an inspired one) and other ancient works attest to the fact that Christ established a Church with the rudiments of what we see in the Catholic Church today—papacy, hierarchy, priesthood, sacraments, and teaching authority.

We have thus taken the material and purely historically concluded that Jesus founded the Catholic Church. Because of his Resurrection we have reason to take seriously his claims concerning the Church, including its authority to teach in his name.

This Catholic Church tells us the Bible is inspired, and we can take the Church’s word for it precisely because the Church is infallible. Only after having been told by a properly constituted authority—that is, one established by God to assure us of the truth concerning matters of faith—that the Bible is inspired can we reasonably begin to use it as an inspired book.

Note that this is not a circular argument!

 

[Erich]

NDfan:

Yes you are wrong.

You have problems right within the RCC itself. Over half of the RCC membership do not believe in transubstantiation or purgatory. A large percent think the church has gone down the wrong path when it comes to the teachings on Mary. This is not just isolated to the laity but exists right within the leadership. Do they have a problem with authority too??

Where did you get your info from? Could you site your source? How do you, as a protestant, know that a “large percent think the church has gone down the wrong path when it comes to the teachings on Mary”? By what authority do you make these claims?

The OP is correct. It all comes down to authority, as this article makes abundantly clear.