"Catholic" thinking Protestants?

[Namesake]

So why did you say that we have “very little” in common?

And this is more important than the Trinity and the Incarnation? Perhaps you should “get real”?

Furthermore, who is to say that we must remain Protestants, or that Catholics must remain Catholics? Isn’t the point of being a Christian to follow Christ wherever He leads? And He’s made it very clear that He wants us to be one. So if we are not one, someone is not following Christ and needs to repent. Most likely both sides do.

Edwin

You are pretty good at jumping to conclusions and putting words in my mouth. Shame on you.

Catholics and Protestants do not share very critical beliefs such as transubstantiation, Papal authority, sola scriptura, justification by faith alone, purgatory, etc. Which of those ideas would Catholics give up their beliefs about to come closer to Protestants in the name of unity?

 

[Stratiotes]

This does not follow. The visible church is made up of all who profess the true religion. They may or may not be among the elect. You seem to be assuming that all members of the visible church are members of the invisible, but this is a completely illogical assumption.

The distinction between the whole company of the elect and the visible church (which contains tares among the wheat) goes back to Augustine, though Augustine didn’t call the elect an “invisible church.”

Because he professes the true faith. As long as he doesn’t fall into open heresy or immorality and thus show his profession to be a lie, it’s none of your business whether he’s in the invisible church or not. This is no different from the Catholic view. You’re making an issue out of thin air, because you seem unwilling to accept that classical Protestants really do believe in the visible Church!

It really isn’t that I do not want to accept that they really do believe in a visible church, but I think they do have a problem in defending their version of the visible church in a way that doesn’t make it sound like they’re confusing the two ideas. As I said, as soon as the question of authority comes up, it ultimately comes back to an invisible church issue. There is no visible “authority” - if anyone had asked me as an elder where I got my authority, I would have said it was handed down to me by the session laying on of hands - and where did the session get its authority? From the session that handed it down to each of them - and so on back to Calvin or Zwingli - but it could go no further than that. And Calvin and Zwingli and Luther are not equal to the Apostles in anybody’s eyes. To get back to the Apostles, we would have to get back the Catholic church first.

Edwin - I understand that the Episcopal church makes a claim of Apostolic succession - can they claim the connection without the Catholic church? I’m just curious how they would respond to that question.

And again - it goes back too to the Matt 18:17 dilemma I gave earlier about if you and I disagree (as we do on this point) which Church would we appeal to? To which Bishop should we plead our case? Is this really the state which Jesus intended us to be in? Is it really something that would have seemed even remotely possible to the early Fathers? If your church is visible and mine is too - then does Jesus have more than one church? How can we all then say the same creed asserting “one holy catholic and apostolic church” when we cannot even agree that it is “one” or what “apostolic” implies?

 

[Truthstalker]

It really isn’t that I do not want to accept that they really do believe in a visible church, but I think they do have a problem in defending their version of the visible church in a way that doesn’t make it sound like they’re confusing the two ideas. As I said, as soon as the question of authority comes up, it ultimately comes back to an invisible church issue. There is no visible “authority” - if anyone had asked me as an elder where I got my authority, I would have said it was handed down to me by the session laying on of hands - and where did the session get its authority? From the session that handed it down to each of them - and so on back to Calvin or Zwingli - but it could go no further than that. And Calvin and Zwingli and Luther are not equal to the Apostles in anybody’s eyes. To get back to the Apostles, we would have to get back the Catholic church first.

Edwin - I understand that the Episcopal church makes a claim of Apostolic succession - can they claim the connection without the Catholic church? I’m just curious how they would respond to that question.

And again - it goes back too to the Matt 18:17 dilemma I gave earlier about if you and I disagree (as we do on this point) which Church would we appeal to? To which Bishop should we plead our case? Is this really the state which Jesus intended us to be in? Is it really something that would have seemed even remotely possible to the early Fathers? If your church is visible and mine is too - then does Jesus have more than one church? How can we all then say the same creed asserting “one holy catholic and apostolic church” when we cannot even agree that it is “one” or what “apostolic” implies?

The authority is in and from Christ acting through men. If you are worried about the laying on of hands, Farel was a Catholic priest, as was Knox, not that this is the emphasis in Reformed theology. The laying on of hands goes back to the apostles. But more importantly, the Reformers sought to restore church teaching, to be faithful to the actual teaching of the apostles as opposed to centuries of scholastic speculations and inferences that were being passed as inspired tradition, at a time when the official teaching apparatus of the Catholic church had been silent for centuries on issues that, had it not been asleep at the switch, they would have ruled on. Protestants argue that their teaching was, before Trent, at least as valid as what Trent accepted. Paul commanded that Timothy appoint faithful men. When the Catholic church became a political organization, that certainly wasn’t done. Popes such as John XII, Leo X, among a host of others, exemplified a church that, in the eyes of the reformers, required a “root and branch” reformation.

There is only one Church: the universal church. Some have seized power in part of that church, demanded allegiance to that part from all Christians and insisted that the rest of the church is invalid. Arrogant ahistorical power plays like an insistence on infallibility don’t help the cause of unity. They threw us out and then condemn us for being outside. Really.

 

[Contarini]

It really isn’t that I do not want to accept that they really do believe in a visible church, but I think they do have a problem in defending their version of the visible church in a way that doesn’t make it sound like they’re confusing the two ideas. As I said, as soon as the question of authority comes up, it ultimately comes back to an invisible church issue. There is no visible “authority” - if anyone had asked me as an elder where I got my authority, I would have said it was handed down to me by the session laying on of hands - and where did the session get its authority? From the session that handed it down to each of them - and so on back to Calvin or Zwingli - but it could go no further than that.

That’s not how the Reformers saw it. They would have argued that authority comes from the Word, not from a succession of human leaders. They would not have seen this as “invisible” because they thought it was objectively testable–i.e., if the elders of a church fall away from the truth of the Word (in a fundamental way, as opposed to simply falling into some error or other) then clearly they no longer have authority within the visible Church. This is what they thought had happened to the Catholic hierarchy.

They also believed that elders and bishops are essentially equal, so they wouldn’t have been as certain as you are that any chain of succession ended with the Reformers, most of whom were priests though they were not bishops. I’ve heard this argument used most often by Methodists, but one also sometimes encounters it among the Lutherans and Reformed. (One embarrassing fact for the Reformed is that Calvin was never a Catholic priest and doesn’t seem to have ever been ordained by anyone, as far as we can tell. But he was the exception.)

Edwin - I understand that the Episcopal church makes a claim of Apostolic succession - can they claim the connection without the Catholic church? I’m just curious how they would respond to that question.

That’s one of those questions that I can’t answer without making Mannyfit mad! Because we think we are part of the Catholic Church. Anglicans typically see what you call the “Catholic Church” as just another (albeit very important) communion of particular churches. Of course we think that our apostolic succession comes through the united pre-Reformation Catholic Church–indeed this is very important to us.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

You are pretty good at jumping to conclusions and putting words in my mouth. Shame on you.

Instead of getting angry, respond to the point. If I’m putting words in your mouth that you do not profess, then tell me what you do think. If the Trinity and Incarnation are very important, how can it be true that we agree on “very little”? Logically you are saying that the Trinity and the Incarnation are “very little.” I don’t see how you can escape this, and no amount of indignation on your part will cover up your dilemma.

Catholics and Protestants do not share very critical beliefs such as transubstantiation, Papal authority, sola scriptura, justification by faith alone, purgatory, etc.

I never said that the differences were minor. You said that the agreements amount to “very little.” That is what we are arguing about.

Which of those ideas would Catholics give up their beliefs about to come closer to Protestants in the name of unity?

If Catholics are wrong on points of dogma, as you believe (I’m less sure), then they need to repent. There are a number of Catholics who are willing to make major doctrinal compromises–you just don’t find them on this board! And without actually giving up their beliefs, many Catholics have found ways to nuance these beliefs.

Protestants, of course, do not claim infallibility and thus could quite possibly renounce our views on all of the issues you mention, if we turn out to be wrong.

The question is not whether reunion is possible without repentance on one or both sides. Of course it isn’t. You’re creating an argument over nothing, because you apparently don’t believe in the possibility of repentance.

Edwin

 

[Namesake]

Instead of getting angry, respond to the point. If I’m putting words in your mouth that you do not profess, then tell me what you do think. If the Trinity and Incarnation are very important, how can it be true that we agree on “very little”? Logically you are saying that the Trinity and the Incarnation are “very little.” I don’t see how you can escape this, and no amount of indignation on your part will cover up your dilemma.

I never said that the differences were minor. You said that the agreements amount to “very little.” That is what we are arguing about.

If Catholics are wrong on points of dogma, as you believe (I’m less sure), then they need to repent. There are a number of Catholics who are willing to make major doctrinal compromises–you just don’t find them on this board! And without actually giving up their beliefs, many Catholics have found ways to nuance these beliefs.

Protestants, of course, do not claim infallibility and thus could quite possibly renounce our views on all of the issues you mention, if we turn out to be wrong.

The question is not whether reunion is possible without repentance on one or both sides. Of course it isn’t. You’re creating an argument over nothing, because you apparently don’t believe in the possibility of repentance.

Edwin

Wrong on most all of the points you list.

I am arguing that Catholics and Protestants do not and will never agree on a whole bunch of critical stuff. You have made an (Edited) argument that I don’t value some of the things that Catholics and Protestants agree on. You have assumed far too much.

I certainly do believe in repentance, you can’t find any indication that I do not. (Edited).

What I do not believe in is the possibility of unity between Catholics and Protestants because of the core beliefs that separate the two. If Catholics give up those beliefs they cease to be Catholics, and the same for Protestants. Never gonna happen and it shouldn’t happen. This isn’t a contest to see who is right. Ecumenism isn’t a very noble goal. IMO.

 

[Michael_Francis]

Please remember to assume the best of each other and maintain the highest level of charity.
MF

 

[Stratiotes]

I was lying awake last night thinking how poorly I was making the point about the visible church problem so I was going to give it another try though I am tiring at my own inability.

The problem I have is this. I am a believer who wants to submit myself to the visible church. I go to the Presbyterian minister and ask what it means to profess the true faith and he says, among other things, that it is imperative that I have my baby baptized by sprinkling. But I talk to the Baptist minister and he says, among other things, that it is imperative that I not baptize my baby and that I be baptized by dunking. I talk to the Jehovah’s Witness who came to my door and he says it is imperative that I not listen to those polytheists and that I confess only Jehovah. What makes it confusing is, all of them used the same bible to prove the others wrong. So much for the authority of the Bible alone - it is, I think, a well established fact that that leads to as many “true gospels” as there are people. So the authority cannot lie there. And, in the end, the “visible” church is still, for all practical purposes, invisible to me.

 

[Stratiotes]

There is only one Church: the universal church. Some have seized power in part of that church, demanded allegiance to that part from all Christians and insisted that the rest of the church is invalid. Arrogant ahistorical power plays like an insistence on infallibility don’t help the cause of unity. They threw us out and then condemn us for being outside. Really.

Not too long ago I would have agreed with you on this. But it is a position that has the burden of proof and I could not prove my assertions about the Catholic church. History is more than a passing fancy to me - it is an obsession. And I could not support the “fallen” church paradigm from history. Interestingly enough, the best challenge to the fallen-church paradigm I have seen is from a Baptist professor - See Retrieving the Tradition by Williams. The Catholic church may be a lot of things but this thread is to the point that “ahistorical” is a very poor descriptor.

 

[JustaServant]

I was lying awake last night thinking how poorly I was making the point about the visible church problem so I was going to give it another try though I am tiring at my own inability.

The problem I have is this. I am a believer who wants to submit myself to the visible church. I go to the Presbyterian minister and ask what it means to profess the true faith and he says, among other things, that it is imperative that I have my baby baptized by sprinkling. But I talk to the Baptist minister and he says, among other things, that it is imperative that I not baptize my baby and that I be baptized by dunking. I talk to the Jehovah’s Witness who came to my door and he says it is imperative that I not listen to those polytheists and that I confess only Jehovah. What makes it confusing is, all of them used the same bible to prove the others wrong. So much for the authority of the Bible alone - it is, I think, a well established fact that that leads to as many “true gospels” as there are people. So the authority cannot lie there. And, in the end, the “visible” church is still, for all practical purposes, invisible to me.

Sola Scriptura is like taking the engine out of your car, placing it on the garage floor and saying: ‘Behold my car’.
In order for that engine to work, it has to be placed into the correct automoble. Without a car around it, the engine doesn’t go anywhere.
The Bible only works when attached to the Church. Without it, you have caos and it goes nowhere. That’s why my town has a church on every corner with it’s own ‘Pope’ with a Bible.

 

[Stratiotes]

What I do not believe in is the possibility of unity between Catholics and Protestants because of the core beliefs that separate the two. If Catholics give up those beliefs they cease to be Catholics, and the same for Protestants. Never gonna happen and it shouldn’t happen. This isn’t a contest to see who is right. Ecumenism isn’t a very noble goal. IMO.

Even assuming it is a lofty goal - Ecumenism without honest acknowledgement of where we differ is no ecumenism at all - it would be an ecumenism based upon a lie and that is no foundation for unity. None of us can take the option of just ignoring the issue. The fact that the church is torn apart is no small matter. when I was a Presbyterian, we celebrated the reformation every year…how incredibly arrogant is that?! And, interestingly enough, we discussed whether we should be acknowledging Christmas and Easter because no such holidays were mandated by scripture - yet we celebrated Reformation Sunday without question! It is not something to celebrate, it is something we should be repenting and weeping for. The Reformation was one of the saddest events in Christian history, not one of the glorious…for Protestant AND Catholic.

Another comment was that the Catholic church kicked the Protestants out… I know, this can go back and forth - Protestants were kicked out vs. they left on their own accord… It is a debate that goes nowhere. Truth be told, the leadership of the Catholic church did not respond well to the Reformation and may not have fully recovered their dignity in the Counter-Reformation. At the same time, I’m certain most Protestants would agree that the “reformers” were far from perfect and at times hotheads themselves…sortof like most of us in this forum . But all that is immaterial - it is not the mistakes that our parents made, its what we are going to do about those mistakes now that matters.

 

[Janet_S]

The authority is in and from Christ acting through men. If you are worried about the laying on of hands, Farel was a Catholic priest, as was Knox, not that this is the emphasis in Reformed theology. The laying on of hands goes back to the apostles. But more importantly, the Reformers sought to restore church teaching, to be faithful to the actual teaching of the apostles as opposed to centuries of scholastic speculations and inferences that were being passed as inspired tradition, at a time when the official teaching apparatus of the Catholic church had been silent for centuries on issues that, had it not been asleep at the switch, they would have ruled on. Protestants argue that their teaching was, before Trent, at least as valid as what Trent accepted. Paul commanded that Timothy appoint faithful men. When the Catholic church became a political organization, that certainly wasn’t done. Popes such as John XII, Leo X, among a host of others, exemplified a church that, in the eyes of the reformers, required a “root and branch” reformation.

There is only one Church: the universal church. Some have seized power in part of that church, demanded allegiance to that part from all Christians and insisted that the rest of the church is invalid. Arrogant ahistorical power plays like an insistence on infallibility don’t help the cause of unity. They threw us out and then condemn us for being outside. Really.

How does one go about restoring and recontructing a Church that was started over a thousand years earlier? That would be like someone who is fed up with our government (USA) breaking away and starting a new country (called reformed USA) based on the writings of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. I can understand their reasons and sincerity, but it couldn’t be done. It would be like me waking up tomorrow and deciding that, since I had totally screwed up my Iife, I would start over and become a baby again. Churches still continue to do this today though, and that’s probably why we have non-denominationalism. There seems to be a tendency among Christians to want to break away, reconstruct, and purify the Church back to it’s original state. This would be impossible to do, and so far it has led only to division in the Church.

As far as the reasons for the Reformation, there were other forces at work other than heroic men (reformers) going up against the big, bad, corrupted Church. Politics, pride, money, and original sin are reasons you can throw in as well.

One of the reasons behind the Reformation which you rarely hear about (but which Fr Benedict Groeschel mentioned in a talk I heard) is disease–particularly the plague. Priests, monks, and nuns took care of the sick and therefore died from the plague at alarming rates. Sometimes whole communities of religious would be wiped out. This problem contributed a lot to the sometimes poor training of the religious around the time of the Reformation.

 

[JustaServant]

One of the reasons behind the Reformation which you rarely hear about (but which Fr Benedict Groeschel mentioned in a talk I heard) is disease–particularly the plague. Priests, monks, and nuns took care of the sick and therefore died from the plague at alarming rates. Sometimes whole communities of religious would be wiped out. This problem contributed a lot to the sometimes poor training of the religious around the time of the Reformation.

Never considered that. Interesting analysis.

 

[Stratiotes]

Never considered that. Interesting analysis.

Two great works that are absolutely essential for Reformation history:

The Story of Civilization: The Reformation: A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin by Will Durant
And
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barb Tuchman

Neither author had a real axe to grind like most of us in this forum. Both make the point of how the plague affected the church. Both mentioned that the “best” priests often contracted the plague and died because they were so closely attending the sick themselves and that left fewer qualified/”good” priests. Both authors also point out the growth of the idea of personal holiness and the demand that priests live up to their vows – Amen to that from all here I’m sure. Another force was the growing nationalist identity of the people – especially in northern Europe – after the decay of the Roman empire had run its course. Yet another is the rationalism of the renaissance that rejected faith as so much superstition-for instance, transubstantiation challenges rationalist thinking. The factors were far too complex to call it simply a religious reformation. It was also a power struggle between rising nations and the authority of the church as much as rising Augustine monks against their Bishops. This is one reason the entire “fall of the church” paradigm is problematic – its an overly simplistic and shallow view of history.

 

[JustaServant]

Two great works that are absolutely essential for Reformation history:
The Story of Civilization: The Reformation: A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin by Will Durant
And
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barb Tuchman
Neither author had a real axe to grind like most of us in this forum. Both make the point of how the plague affected the church. Both mentioned that the “best” priests often contracted the plague and died because they were so closely attending the sick themselves and that left fewer qualified/”good” priests.

Makes one wonder of the future effects of abortion around the world.

 

[Truthstalker]

How does one go about restoring and recontructing a Church that was started over a thousand years earlier? That would be like someone who is fed up with our government (USA) breaking away and starting a new country (called reformed USA) based on the writings of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. I can understand their reasons and sincerity, but it couldn’t be done. It would be like me waking up tomorrow and deciding that, since I had totally screwed up my Iife, I would start over and become a baby again. Churches still continue to do this today though, and that’s probably why we have non-denominationalism. There seems to be a tendency among Christians to want to break away, reconstruct, and purify the Church back to it’s original state. This would be impossible to do, and so far it has led only to division in the Church.

So in despair you defend the status quo? Pfui.

As far as the reasons for the Reformation, there were other forces at work other than heroic men (reformers) going up against the big, bad, corrupted Church. Politics, pride, money, and original sin are reasons you can throw in as well.

I agree the causes of the Reformation were many, and that there was reformation both within and without the Catholic Church, with varying degrees of success. One of CAF’s most nauseating features for me is the utterly vapid oversimplification of the Reformation as a revolt by the Protestants against a church that had its act together. Ignorant polemic overstatement to the point of absurdity angers me. The only thing worse on CAF than that is when I force myself to go back and read my own posts. Humble pie time. I wrote that? Double pfui.

At the same time I will continue.

The appeal of the Catholic Church as a solution to the problem of uncertainty has faded for me. I see looking to it for infallible solutions as only, as I think Contarini pointed out, removing the problem of interpretation one step further away. Instead of having to fallibly interpret an infallible document, one must fallibly interpret an infallible Church, which is saying all sorts of things, when it says anything at all, in all sorts of directions. At the same time the Church isn’t always clear when what it says is to be taken as infallible, or simply to be believed as a matter of faith, or something else. In any case my fallible interpretation is immensely complicated by the introduction of such an instrument of authority. In other words, it doesn’t help.

But it’s worse than that. I can easily remove my God-given responsibility for my conscience and faith and place it on and in the Church, so that I am no longer responsible before God. Instead of trusting God I trust men, instead of believing His word I trust an institution, and I find myself trading the of the freedom of the kingdom of God for the slavery of a legalistic system of outward acts. I put myself back under the Law, as Paul warned of in Galatians. “God have mercy on their souls,” I said last Easter at Vigil, seeing converts coming into the Catholic Church, and I wondered why I said that, because I had been spying out the path I had intended to take. I had thought I would let these priests and teachers take responsibility for my spiritual growth. But these bozos? I have heard them preach and teach, and I would not let them take care of my pet hamster, let alone the sheep of God, or my soul.

Then there is the insistence on finality, on having arrived at truth on all issues, as if the Holy Spirit has finished, finally, teaching us something, so that it can be declared with finality and surety (in practice this is the case, despite the protests). Thus ends the journey of faith, that we are called to, in the surety of the pronouncements of the Magisterium. Instead of walking by faith you would have us walk by sight, and that sight that of the Pope, not even our own sight. If he be blind, we would be blinder.

The Catholic Church is still deeply in need of a Reformation, and its erroneous declaration of its own infallibility is one, if not the chief, of those things standing in the way of its own recovery.

Are Protestants and Catholics that close to each other? Every time I think there is some sense of closure, I find a new canyon between us.

 

[Janet_S]

So in despair you defend the status quo? Pfui.

No, the Church is in continual need of reform and renewal. But this should be done from within, the way St Francis of Assisi did it.

 

[Stratiotes]

The Catholic Church is still deeply in need of a Reformation, and its erroneous declaration of its own infallibility is one, if not the chief, of those things standing in the way of its own recovery.

Are Protestants and Catholics that close to each other? Every time I think there is some sense of closure, I find a new canyon between us.

The church was deeply in need of reformation from the beginning - as the fact that most epistles were written as letters of correction would attest. It is constantly in need of reformation. No surprise there.

As for infallibility, its claims come from the very source you would suggest - scripture. The church has drawn her conclusions from what Jesus taught - scripture being the primary source of that teaching. Perhaps the problem is your interpretation and not the church’s. Perhaps it is that you have not really honestly looked at the question from any direction but your own presuppositions. That was the discovery I made anyhow.

Protestants seem to be under this delusion that catholics never read the bible and that they just make things up as they go along. But, do a little study and you’ll find that whatever they teach does indeed have roots in scripture. You will certainly disagree with the interpretation at times - no surprise there. Protestants seldom agree with other Protestants on interpretation - that’s the point that has been made over and over again. If you’re really interested in this topic, there is a very nice website on this topic: Scripture Catholic.

 

[Contarini]

Two great works that are absolutely essential for Reformation history:

The Story of Civilization: The Reformation: A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin by Will Durant
And
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barb Tuchman

Neither author had a real axe to grind like most of us in this forum.

The argument about the plague is an interesting one and probably has some merit. And I like Tuchman, though she’s a journalist rather than a professional historian. Durant, however, is a supercilious secularist who dismisses whole civilizations with a wave of his hand. Writing a one-man multivolume history of civilization was incredibly ambitious, and maybe the faults of the word are inevitable when you try something like that. But whenever I read Durant writing about anything I actually know about, I find him to be extremely misleading.

Edwin

 

[Stratiotes]

There is no historian we would all agree upon, of course. I considered including Hilaire Belloc’s history of the Reformation but I’m sure there would be rejections of that one out of hand

Edwin - I suspect from your posts that you would be open enough to admit that the founding of the Anglican church would have at least something to do with King Henry VIII’s divorce and the power struggle between secular and ecclesiastical authority as well. And I doubt that there would be many Lutherans who would deny a similar influence on 16th century Germany. It is far too complex to call it a religious reformation alone and I think that’s where secular historians as opposed to “Protestant” or “Catholic” historians can help us step back and take a more honest look at those issues. Granted, they (secularlists) have their own axe to grind but it is one we see rather easily - it is far more difficult to see the plank in our own eyes.