Argument for authority of Catholic Church over Protestant churches

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Polak

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I’m sure there are many good arguments that could be used to support why the Catholic Church is the one true Church and has the authority to create law.

The reading today sounded like one of those strong arguments.
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven
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Jesus telling one of his disciples he is the rock that he will build his church on and then saying he (and future Popes) has the keys to the Kingdom of heaven, is quite a strong argument for why the Catholic Church is the true church and has authority.

It is difficult to argue with, although I’m sure many protestants still will.

I don’t recall any passage anywhere talking about how there will be a book called the Bible and that’s all you need to determine what God wants from us and how we should live our lives (not trying to undermine the Bible by the way. Just emphasising the authority of the Church). It’s ironic that those following sola scriptura probably wouldn’t be able to find a scripture that supports the sola scriptura argumentation.
 
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Does the Catholic Church have authority over Protestant churches? I don’t think so.

Pope Francis went to Sweden in 2016 to address a joint meeting of Lutherans and Catholics, but he didn’t claim to have any authority over the Lutheran churches, did he?
 
I’m not saying in today’s world it has authority over them, but that it should, or more precisely, that those churches shouldn’t even exist, and that this Bible passage suggests that.
 
The Catholic Church has authority over the deposit of faith from Jesus Christ. The Pope holds the keys (temporarily) of Christ’s earthly kingdom. Many Protestants are outside the walls of the kingdom with things that they took from the inside, such as Baptism and the Bible. While they might not recognize the authority of the Church, any and all truth they do posses comes from the Catholic Church.
 
MarkRome said:
While they might not recognize the authority of the Church, any and all truth they do posses comes from the Catholic Church.
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More accurately, the truth they have comes from God, but in human terms was publicly identified for them as Truth through the Catholic Church.
 
The Church (magisterium) is like a lighthouse. It doesn’t create the landmarks but makes them visible. Some ship captains are explicitly guided by the lighthouse towards that specific port.

But there are other ships whose captains take the lighthouse into account, consciously or not. They may not want to go exactly to the lighthouse port, but will never stray too far either.

It’s not so much that Protestants are guided by the current pope, but they are guided by a thousand past decisions of the Magisterium. This includes
  • Should there be a New Testament?
  • Which books should be in it?
  • Is Tradition authoritative?
  • What gets considered Sacred Tradition, as compared to traditions?
Since 1960 many Protestant groups (mainline) have been de emphasizing the lighthouse and more obedient to the secular culture.
 
Protestant churches aren’t under Catholic Church’s authority because they denied Pope authority.

The modern protestantism claim be the early church from the first century to deny the Church autority, because they recognize themself like church and nobody else, that why they live in anarchy instead communion.
 
Polak said:
It’s ironic that those following sola scriptura probably wouldn’t be able to find a scripture that supports the sola scriptura argumentation.
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That is correct and the oral tradition of the Church precedes the canon anyway. The canon was put together as a matter of convenience and to combat heresy.
 
Just as we humans aren’t forced to recognize God’s authority, Christians aren’t forced to recognize the God-given authority of the earthly leader of Christianity.
 
Polak said:
. It’s ironic that those following sola scriptura probably wouldn’t be able to find a scripture that supports the sola scriptura argumentation.
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I would say they actually try…but of course they have to cherry pick the passages, like ignoring V14 in the often cited 2Tim3:16. But when you ask them to include v14, the whole context changes and they will try to wiggle from it.
 
fhansen said:
Just as we humans aren’t forced to recognize God’s authority, Christians aren’t forced to recognize the God-given authority of the earthly leader of Christianity.
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Untill they start reading and studying early church history. 😀
 
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