Catholic vs Protestant Spirituality: Lets compare faith walks

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Gab123 said:
The problem with Protestant Reformers is that they were all self-appointed individuals, no different than if Larry or Curly decided to start teaching new doctrines apart from the Church. Moe and the rest of them have to realize that Christianity is not founded on the Bible, and that the Bible did not fall out of the sky.
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Heh. Good analogy.
 
Lenten_ashes said:
That the church is actually teaching error.
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It all comes down to belief. I don’t believe much of what the Catholic church teaches was what was delivered by Christ and the Apostles to the early church. In other words, the Catholic church added to the “deposit of faith” that was given. Infallability of the church is one of those things it added.

Much of it comes down to perspective. I can say that no evidence of many of the teachings of the Catholic church were present in the early church and you will say there were there they just hadn’t been written about or discussed because there was not controversy over the teaching.

We do see, however, examples of how the church deviated from the practice of the Apostles. The New Testament testimony is clear that people were baptized very quickly after being converted. Yet, by the middle of the 2nd Century the church was waiting a long time to baptized converts. Sometimes as long as 2 years or more.
 
lanman87 said:
Infallability of the church is one of those things it added.
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I don’t see it as “added” as much as clearly defined. If the church were not infallible, then it could end up teaching heresy, and that would mean that the gates of Hell would prevail against it, something that Jesus said would not happen. There has to be infallibility in one respect or another.
 
Here is a post that I made last February on how “Papal Infallibility” became a thing.

Keep in mind this information doesn’t come from a Protestant Historian. It comes from Brian Tierney, who is the past president of the American Catholic Historical Association and was given an honorary doctorate by Catholic University, awarded the Quasten Medal of Catholic University for excellence and leadership in religious studies.
 
lanman87 said:
I don’t believe much of what the Catholic church teaches
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The Catholic Church defined the Canon of Scripture and assembled the Bible, so if you don’t trust the Church, how can you trust the Bible? The Bible in inerrant, however t=one;d interpretation is not infallible; for this you need the guidance of the Church in the context of Sacred Tradition.

“So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.” 2 Thess. 2:15
 
Gab123 said:
The Catholic Church defined the Canon of Scripture and assembled the Bible, so if you don’t trust the Church, how can you trust the Bible?
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The early reformers also examined the the early writings and agreed with Catholics as to what is the New Testament. That is why the “Protestant” New Testament is the same as the Catholic New Testament. There were discussions about some of the books but ultimately, they kept the New Testament the same. The didn’t agree about all of the Old Testament. Basically, they agreed with Jerome instead of Augustine on what constitutes the Old Testament.

To me, it just shows the hand of God in the forming of the New Testament Canon.
 
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lanman87 said:
It comes from Brian
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Again, the authority is given to the Church.

In Scripture, Keys are the symbol of authority given to someone. In Isaiah 22 Eliakim is master of the palace. Eliakim possesses the key of the kingdom not as its owner, but as one deputed to oversee the king’s affairs.

Now compare what Jesus said with what the Prophet Isaiah said.

Jesus said:

“And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 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.”

Isaiah 22:20-22said:

“In that day I will summon my servant, Eliakim son of Hilkiah. I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him. He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the people of Judah. I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.

“Pope” means “papa” or father figure.
 
Here’s my response to your posts:

One of the things that led me to reject the Protestant traditions was the inconsistency of Protestant doctrine and that it changed over time.

A: If the Protestants were teaching the truth, then why are there so many different denominations that teach different things? The only things they seem to agree on is Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide and the Catholic Church is wrong.

Beyond that, Protestants are all over the place in other areas of doctrine and most importantly: Their doctrine has changed over time as was noticed in areas of contraception from 1930 on.

Thereby, I conclude Protestant denominations aren’t guided by the Holy Spirit.

To address your criticism of the Church:

Doctrine hasn’t changed; it’s only been clarified and defined. The Church is consistent; intellectually and Scripturally. Always has been. The problem in the 16th century that provoked the Protestant explosion was corruption, abuse, ill trained clergy and ill catechized laity.

Doctrine itself was sound. It was how it was abused in practice that was the problem.

The intellectual consistency and uniformity of teaching shows to me the hand of God and that the Holy Spirit guides the Church and protects her from error.

As for papal infallibility: I’m only a layman, but from my understanding, papal infallibility is true because when the Pope exercises it ( and that’s rarely ) it’s due to his authority as the successor of Saint Peter.

And that the Holy Spirit guides the Church and protects her from error.

As for the Deposit of Faith: the Church hasn’t added anything to the Deposit since the death of the last Apostle.

As for the canon of Scripture:

Scripture came from Tradition as all Church teaching prior to it’s codification was a combination of oral teaching, the writings of the Early Church Fathers, the Councils and the texts of the catechumen schools.

When you look at the historical record; you see that the Church depended on Tradition and Tradition gave birth to Scripture.

In the Protestant denominations, you see the reverse. Scripture first, then tradition built up from one man or a small group of men’s interpretations of Scripture.

But a cut down version of Scripture that was edited.

To deny the Tradition that gave birth the the Scripture you guys focus on so heavily is to me is just… idk.
 
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lanman87 said:
The early reformers also examined the the early writings and agreed with Catholics as to what is the New Testament.
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Again, these were self-appointed individuals with no more authority than you or I, or Curly and a Moe for that matter. What’s more, Luther denigrated the Book of James and didn’t believe the Book of Revelation was inspired. He went on to invent new doctrines and discard others. Much like today you have self-appointed freelance Bible interpreters declaring that hell is not eternal, and that the Holy Trinity is a phony doctrine invented by the Catholic Church.

It comes down to authority. Protestants have put their faith in the hands of a German monk who invented Sola Scriptura, which is itself, un-biblical.
 
As a former protestant who converted to Catholicism, I would say the biggest change in my faith walk was the sheer number of writers and teachers I missed out on because I was taught that the Catholic church was wrong and nothing that comes from it is good. The thing I miss from Protestantism, yet I am finding it again, is the study of the Holy Bible.
The awe I felt during Mass is amazing. That is just my story.
 
Gab123 said:
Much like today you have self-appointed freelance Bible interpreters declaring that hell is not eternal, and that the Holy Trinity is a phony doctrine invented by the Catholic Church.
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Could you please point me to a few of these guys? I’d like to learn more about them (I haven’t run into many in my time as a Protestant - at least in the mainline denominations). Thanks.
 
Michael16 said:
As for papal infallibility: I’m only a layman, but from my understanding, papal infallibility is true because when the Pope exercises it ( and that’s rarely ) it’s due to his authority as the successor of Saint Peter.
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When did the church start promoting and teaching Papal Infallibility? The Catholic Historian I reference gives historical evidence that it did not start until the late middle ages, and was the invention of Franciscan Monks who were afraid of losing their privileges by a later pope. If this is the case, then Papal Infallibility is not a clarification of something old, it is the creation of something new.
 
Tell you what, Ianman87: Could you post a link to the author? I’d like to go over his material and his position so I can have a better informed idea.
 
You bring up a matter that I’ll admit that I’m not quite well informed on.
 
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