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Prodigal_Son
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Yes, I most definitely agree! The best things in life aren’t conclusively provable.
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steve_b
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Antioch is the first place disciples were called “christian” [Acts 11] Ignatius was Bishop of Antioch from ~69 to ~107. In his letters he refers to Christian & the Catholic Church. Which means both terms are used during apostolic times, since Ignatius was ordained by apostles and was a direct disciple of John.
Ignatius isn’t going to call himself a Catholic and John not do the same. Ignatius doesn’t belong to the Catholic Church and John doesn’t.
iow the Church ἐκκλησίατῆς] throughout all καθ’kata ὅληςholos] is the Kataholos Church = Catholic ChurchThe English word catholic is a transliteration of the Greek katholikos which is a compound word from kata, which means according to, and holos, which means whole. catholic.com/tracts/what-catholic-means
- St IgnatiusBp of Antioch, ~69 a.d. - ~107 a.d., ordained by apostles, disciple of St John the apostle, called the Church the Catholic Church Epistle to the Smyrnæansof which schismatics won’t be going to heaven Epistle to the Philadelphians
- St Polycarp, Bp Smyrna, disciple of St John called the Church the “Catholic Church” The Martyrdom of Polycarp
- Muratorian canon earlychristianwritings.com/text/muratorian.html
- Irenaeus ~180 a.d. wrote “Against Heresies” called the Church the “Catholic Church” Adversus haereses [Bk 1 Ch 10 v 3], and also Irenaeus who was taught by Polycarp, teaches all must agree with Rome [Bk 3, Ch 3, v 2-3]Chapter 3
- Cyprian~250 a.d. Epistle 54
- The Nicene Creed, 325 a.d., it’s a matter of faith to believe in the “One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church”
- Augustine ~395 There are many other things that most justly keep me in her * bosom. . . . The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep, down to the present episcopate. And so, lastly, does the name itself of Catholic, which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house.Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental
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Prodigal_Son
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thenobes
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You are missing the fact that just because a catholic authors something, that does not automatically makes it a work of the church.
What makes it a work of the church is that the church has discerned that the Holy Spirit was writing the books using these men as instruments. This work of the Holy Spirit necessitates these men be Catholics; however this is secondary effect of the Holy Spirit, who is the primary reason for the catholic work of making the Bible.
So we should say, the Bible is the work of the Catholic Church because the Church discerned that the Holy Spirit, who is the Life of the Church, has Himself written it.
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steve
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ericc
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Thaladan, I think you missed the point entirely. Your so-called endless circle never existed before the Bible was finally compiled, which was a few hundred years later of which I pointed out in my previous post. The Church was the authority then and still is 2000 yrs later. The Church’s authority came from Christ himself, not the Bible as it didn’t existed yet. Your assertion of endless-circles has never been a contentious issue for the past 2000 yrs in the Catholic Church. The Bible is a product of the Church and not the other way round. Perhaps someone have planted that idea of circular logic in you and you perceived that to be a problem. If you are still in doubt, project yourself 2000 yrs ago when there was no Bible and there was only the persecuted Church and you will come to realization that all along it was the Church that was there teaching the people. The Bible probably became necessary afterwards when apostles died and their immediate successors too died and questions started to pop up who said what, are you sure you heard that correctly, are you sure you understood that correctly etc.To gain a better understanding, perhaps you may want to read up on the history of the Bible, how it came about. It is not just any book you pick up from the printers. And no, it is not the one with 66 books. And I am not spewing Catholic propaganda. You can check the historical facts yourself. If after checking your historical facts and you think there are issues you like to discuss in the forum, I (and others more informed than me) will try our best to assist you. The Bible eventually is mere documentation. Remember this, when Jesus sent out the 72 disciples, they didn’t carry Bibles. It was all verbal. After Jesus ascension, the apostles preached verbally most times except for some letters written here and there to Churches/persons. They definitely were not carrying their bibles with them.
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Prodigal_Son
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I’m fine with all of this. I was criticizing steve b’s argument, not his conclusion.
Although one might ask the question to what you have written above: how do we know that the Church discerns rightly?
Look: justification has to stop somewhere, and it never stops in a place where skeptics are satisfied. That’s why it’s possible for a person like Descartes to doubt that the external world exists. So I don’t think these circular arguments are a terrible thing. But I do think that we should understand that the deposit of faith is not guaranteed by open-and-shut arguments – it is guaranteed by a Person. If people do not accept that Person, then they certainly can’t be convinced by our arguments.
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steve_b
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That’s the way I’m reading your argument
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You have to contradict what I wrote with contradictory evidence. That’s the way it works.
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Prodigal_Son
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I was saying that your argument for the identity of the 1st century church with the Catholic church was a bad argument.
That is MILES away from denying your conclusion.
Consider the following argument: (1) Apples are tasty. (2) Therefore, God exists.
Now surely we both believe that this conclusion is true, that God exists. But the argument is a bad one.
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steve_b
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Don’t say it, prove it with contradictory evidence
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Your example doesn’t even respond to what I wrote.
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Randy_Carson
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Nope. We know that the Catholic Church has authority because the Catholic Church says so, and we can depend on that because we have historical evidence that Jesus founded the Church and promised to preserve it from error.
Here’s a better way of looking at this:
Proving Inspiration
catholic.com/library/Proving_Inspiration.asp
The Catholic method of proving the Bible to be inspired is this: The Bible is initially approached as any other ancient work. It is not, at first, presumed to be inspired. From textual criticism we are able to conclude that we have a text the accuracy of which is more certain than the accuracy of any other ancient work.
Next we take a look at what the Bible, considered merely as a history, tells us, focusing particularly on the New Testament, and more specifically the Gospels. We examine the account contained therein of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
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.
A Spiral Argument
Note that this is not a circular argument. We are not basing the inspiration of the Bible on the Church’s infallibility and the Church’s infallibility on the word of an inspired Bible. That indeed would be a circular argument! What we have is really a spiral argument. On the first level we argue to the reliability of the Bible insofar as it is history. From that we conclude that an infallible Church was founded. And then we take the word of that infallible Church that the Bible is inspired. This is not a circular argument because the final conclusion (the Bible is inspired) is not simply a restatement of its initial finding (the Bible is historically reliable), and its initial finding (the Bible is historically reliable) is in no way based on the final conclusion (the Bible is inspired). What we have demonstrated is that without the existence of the Church, we could never know whether the Bible is inspired.
The advantages of the Catholic approach are two: First, the inspiration is really proved, not just “felt.” Second, the main fact behind the proof—the reality of an infallible, teaching Church—leads one naturally to an answer to the problem that troubled the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:30-31): How is one to know which interpretations are correct? The same Church that authenticates the Bible, that attests to its inspiration, is the authority established by Christ to interpret his word.
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Randy_Carson
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Steve and Prodigal-
Consider the following:
The book of Acts records that the followers of Christ were first called “Christians” at Antioch. And around 107 AD, a man named Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, wrote the following:
“You must all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the presbytery as you would the Apostles. Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the bishop. Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, A.D. 107, [8,1])
Note that Ignatius does not introduce the term “Catholic Church”; he uses it as if it were a term that his readers would already be familiar with. This suggests that the Church was already called “Catholic” much earlier than the date of his letter. Since the last of the original apostles, John, died of natural causes as late as 95-100 A.D., it may well be that the early body of believers was collectively known as the “Catholic Church” within the lifetime of the beloved Apostle.
So, the followers of Christ were known as the “Catholic Church” almost from the beginning, and the Catholic Church penned, preserved, protected and preached the books that later came to be known as the Bible.
Consider the following:
The book of Acts records that the followers of Christ were first called “Christians” at Antioch. And around 107 AD, a man named Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, wrote the following:
“You must all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the presbytery as you would the Apostles. Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the bishop. Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, A.D. 107, [8,1])
Note that Ignatius does not introduce the term “Catholic Church”; he uses it as if it were a term that his readers would already be familiar with. This suggests that the Church was already called “Catholic” much earlier than the date of his letter. Since the last of the original apostles, John, died of natural causes as late as 95-100 A.D., it may well be that the early body of believers was collectively known as the “Catholic Church” within the lifetime of the beloved Apostle.
So, the followers of Christ were known as the “Catholic Church” almost from the beginning, and the Catholic Church penned, preserved, protected and preached the books that later came to be known as the Bible.
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steve_b
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Hi Randy
I completely agree
I used somewhat a similar analogy earlier when I wrote
"Antioch is the first place disciples were called “christian” [Acts 11] Ignatius was Bishop of Antioch from ~69 to ~107. In his letters he refers to Christian & the Catholic Church. Which means both terms are used during apostolic times, since Ignatius was ordained by apostles and was a direct disciple of John.
Ignatius isn’t going to call himself a Catholic and John not do the same. Ignatius doesn’t belong to the Catholic Church and John doesn’t…newadvent.org/fathers/0109.htm."
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11003962&postcount=22
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Prodigal_Son
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I don’t dispute that they were known as the Catholic Church. But that is not the type of evidence we could use to convert clever Protestants. If the early Church had been Protestant in their actions and devotions, it would mean little that they used the term “Catholic” to describe themselves. Protestants often describe themselves as part of a church that is catholic (universal). The use of the term by the early Church proves nothing.
I like the mention of bishops, as a better piece of evidence (although some Protestant denominations have bishops). Or consider the fact that virginity was the characteristic sign of the early Church – that does not look very Protestant. Or consider the earliest versions of the mass that we have, which look like Catholic or Orthodox liturgies today.
That’s the type of evidence that I think holds real weight. I don’t think it conclusively proves anything, although maybe a large enough accumulation of such evidence would be conclusive.
I’m just concerned that we consider the real educated views of our Protestant brothers and sisters, and not fight straw men.
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Randy_Carson
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Convert? Probably not in one sitting.
But the argument is useful for building your case for Catholicism one brick at a time. So, despite their claim to be members of the "c"atholic church, they must concede, if they are intellectually honest, that the earliest Christians believed themselves to be members of the "C"atholic Church, and that Church still exists to this very day.
One Protestant author who is honest about this is the renowned early-Church historian J. N. D. Kelly, who has written, “As regards
Catholic,' its original meaning was universal’ or `general’ … As applied to the Church, its primary significance was to underline its universality as opposed to the local character of the individual congregations. Very quickly, however, in the latter half of the second century at latest, we find it conveying the suggestion that the Catholic is the true Church as distinct from heretical congregations. . . . What these early Fathers were envisaging was almost always the empirical, visible society; they had little or no inkling of the distinction which was later to become important between a visible and an invisible Church” (J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 5th ed. [San Francisco: Harper, 1978], 190f).The attempt by non-Catholics to claim “catholic” for themselves is not new. Heretics and schismatics in the fourth century tried to claim the term, yet their attempts proved unsuccessful. In 397 Augustine pointed this out using an illustration from everyday life. "[T]he very name of Catholic . . . belongs to this Church alone . . . so much so that, although all heretics want to be called
catholic,' when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house" (Against the Letter of Mani Called The Foundation’ 4:5).Augustine also remarked that the Church “is called Catholic not only by her own members but even by all her enemies. For when heretics or the adherents of schisms talk about her … with strangers . . . they call her nothing else but Catholic. For they will not be understood unless they distinguish her by this name which the whole world employs in her regard.” [The True Religion 7:12, ca. A.D. 390]. Thus the fact that the Church is generally or universally (catholically) called “Catholic” forms part of its title to that name.
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Prodigal_Son
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This all makes a lot more sense to me, since it faces the question of what “Catholic” meant in the early Church head on.Convert? Probably not in one sitting.
But the argument is useful for building your case for Catholicism one brick at a time. So, despite their claim to be members of the "c"atholic church, they must concede, if they are intellectually honest, that the earliest Christians believed themselves to be members of the "C"atholic Church, and that Church still exists to this very day.
One Protestant author who is honest about this is the renowned early-Church historian J. N. D. Kelly, who has written, “As regardsCatholic,' its original meaning wasuniversal’ or `general’ … As applied to the Church, its primary significance was to underline its universality as opposed to the local character of the individual congregations. Very quickly, however, in the latter half of the second century at latest, we find it conveying the suggestion that the Catholic is the true Church as distinct from heretical congregations. . . . What these early Fathers were envisaging was almost always the empirical, visible society; they had little or no inkling of the distinction which was later to become important between a visible and an invisible Church” (J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 5th ed. [San Francisco: Harper, 1978], 190f).
The attempt by non-Catholics to claim “catholic” for themselves is not new. Heretics and schismatics in the fourth century tried to claim the term, yet their attempts proved unsuccessful. In 397 Augustine pointed this out using an illustration from everyday life. "[T]he very name of Catholic . . . belongs to this Church alone . . . so much so that, although all heretics want to be calledcatholic,' when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house" (Against the Letter of Mani CalledThe Foundation’ 4:5).
Augustine also remarked that the Church “is called Catholic not only by her own members but even by all her enemies. For when heretics or the adherents of schisms talk about her … with strangers . . . they call her nothing else but Catholic. For they will not be understood unless they distinguish her by this name which the whole world employs in her regard.” [The True Religion 7:12, ca. A.D. 390]. Thus the fact that the Church is generally or universally (catholically) called “Catholic” forms part of its title to that name.
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Randy_Carson
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:tiphat:This all makes a lot more sense to me, since it faces the question of what “Catholic” meant in the early Church head on.
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mdcpensive1
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There is a problem with logic in the argument. It involves lines one and three. If you read them you have authority coming from two different places, Christ and the bible. It can’t come from both. It is from Christ so the argument has to be framed differently.
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Thaladan
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Randy Carson, thank you for that explanation. I think others here have been saying the same thing, but you did so with much more clarity. I still don’t find it entirely satisfying, but perhaps that’s just something I have to put up with.
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Randy_Carson
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:tiphat:
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