Church Authority: Is it really just a guy in a hat?

[noma]

kinda answered your own question there didn’t you?

The power of taking things out of context.

Just because St. Paul wrote only to the Romans doesn’t mean that what he wrote applies only to the Romans.

Furthermore, just becasue St. Peter was given the keys to the kingdom first doesn’t mean we don’t all get the keys, if we have faith. Just that Peter was the first for the gift.

 

[Nick]

[Take 2]

How is this statement any more meaningful than:

all those outside Christ’s Church, who positively reject Christ, when they speak in accordance with His will, speak without error

?
tee

This is a good point. The Church does not claim to have a monopoly on the truth. Everyone who conforms to the will of God speaks without error, but unfortunately because of our fallen nature many of us pervert scripture, nature and reason to make them say what we want them to say, and try to force these things to conform to our sinfullness. So God in His infinite mercy gave authority to His Church to proclaim doctrine without error so that we may not go astray. If man’s nature was not fallen then we would not have needed this special charism to be given to an elect few, because we would all be able to be perfectly conformed to scripture, nature and reason, but in the fallen state that we live in we absolutely must have an authority to lead us to God’s will. The infallability of the Church is such an awesome gift that really protects us from ourselves and leads us home to Heaven.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

With respect, noma, if Catholicism is “what you had been believing for 2 years”, even though you are questioning it now (God be with you in your time of struggle), do you not think that it deserves more respect than your equating its authority with “a guy in a hat?”

I know it’s hard for me to express myself sometimes–and heaven knows I’ve not only been tempted to be ‘amusing’, I’ve given into that temptation more often than not. . . So please don’t think I’m holier-than-thou, because I surely am not. I hope you’ll ‘rethink’. I know you can’t edit this thread’s title but you could open up a new thread since this one is still fairly small.

 

[BlazingBolt]

How does this not satisfy you?

Matthew 16:18 ‘And I also say to thee, that thou art a rock, and upon this rock I will build my assembly, and gates of Hades shall not prevail against it; 19 and I will give to thee the keys of the reign of the heavens, and whatever thou mayest bind upon the earth shall be having been bound in the heavens, and whatever thou mayest loose upon the earth shall be having been loosed in the heavens.’

Christ is establishing a Church. He did this for a reason. Why would he do it if he didn’t want you to be apart of it. It is in scripture that the Chruch will be a pillar of truth.

Clearly the everyone can bind and loose on their own make no sense, clearly people do not agree. How can everyone have this authority? It is not real authority then.

This is especially true when it come to the difficult questions. Christ said the way would be difficult. Just look at what is happening here. This path of scripture is pretty clear, yet you are trying to twist it to say something that make it easier for you. If Christ meant what you are trying to say then it makes no sense for him to say what he said. He wouldn’t have even been establishing a Church, he would have written the Bible and said to read it and worship individually.

I think that if you search your conscience you will find that you are rejecting the Church’s authority and making excuses because it has become difficult. Before it became difficult you believed.

 

[Eden]

St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican is literally built on St. Peter.

As far as all believers speaking without error on the faith, isn’t the amount of differing theologies within Christianity enough to prove your conclusions false?

 

[noma]

With respect, noma, if Catholicism is “what you had been believing for 2 years”, even though you are questioning it now (God be with you in your time of struggle), do you not think that it deserves more respect than your equating its authority with “a guy in a hat?”

If the magisterium be not infallible, then the Roman Church declares as heretics those who accept Truth. That is a very serious thing right there!

And if the Magisterium of the Roman Church would declare people heretics without the authority of the Truth, does it really deserve to be seen as anything more than “a guy in a hat”?

 

[noma]

St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican is literally built on St. Peter.

As far as all believers speaking without error on the faith, isn’t the amount of differing theologies within Christianity enough to prove your conclusions false?

They speak without error only when they speak in alignment with the will of Christ; in other words, their words are without falsehood when they speak from Scripture. And so we can only see these proclamations as likely true (the closer they are to Scripture), not definitely true.

We will know in heaven.

 

[Eden]

If the magisterium be not infallible, then the Roman Church declares as heretics those who accept Truth. That is a very serious thing right there!

And if the Magisterium of the Roman Church would declare people heretics without the authority of the Truth, does it really deserve to be seen as anything more than “a guy in a hat”?

And if you would declare the Magisterium of the Roman Church as heretical without the authority of Truth, do you deserve to be seen as anything more than “a guy on a computer”?

 

[Eden]

They speak without error only when they speak in alignment with the will of Christ; in other words, their words are without falsehood when they speak from Scripture. And so we can only see these proclamations as likely true (the closer they are to Scripture), not definitely true.

We will know in heaven.

How do you know what is in alignment with Scripture? All of the theologies in Christianity claim to be aligned with Scripture. The problem is the human element interpreting what the Scriptures say. We all agree Scripture is inerrant.

 

[Cardinalsong]

Furthermore, just becasue St. Peter was given the keys to the kingdom first doesn’t mean we don’t all get the keys, if we have faith.

Where does it say we all get the keys to the Kingdom?

 

[noma]

How does this not satisfy you?

Clearly the everyone can bind and loose on their own make no sense, clearly people do not agree. How can everyone have this authority? It is not real authority then.

Again, I do disagree. I do not see this as clear or obvious at all. The authority is Christ. The sign of His authority is Scripture. The sign of the truth of Scripture is the love of those who follow what it truly says. This is real authority.

The proclamations of the Roman Church, since they are made by people, when they have no grounding in Scripture, or little grounding, should be taken with just as much seriousness as the statements of crackpots at science conferences, when they have little or no grounding in evidence from nature.

I think that if you search your conscience you will find that you are rejecting the Church’s authority and making excuses because it has become difficult. Before it became difficult you believed.

I cannot deny that this could be the case. But even so, there is too much of the Roman Church that I disagree with to return, as I am. I would probably have to lose my faith in Christ in order to find a way back to the Roman Church. And I don’t see that happening.

 

[Eden]

The proclamations of the Roman Church, since they are made by people, when they have no grounding in Scripture, or little grounding, should be taken with just as much seriousness as the statements of crackpots at science conferences, when they have little or no grounding in evidence from nature.

The Catholic Church determined the Canon of Scripture. You cannot trust in the authority of the Church to determine which books were inspired and at the same time reject the Church’s authority to interpret it.

 

[noma]

Where does it say we all get the keys to the Kingdom?

I argue that for this passage there are but three reasonable interpretations.

1. That this message was meant only for Peter.

If this is true, then Peter is dead, and so the authority is forever lost. This I reject.

1. That this message was meant for Peter and his successors.

I accept this.

1. That the Scriptures are in error.

This I reject.

So we follow from 2. How do we know who are the successors of Peter? Since we are talking about infallibility, we need an infallible source to establish who these successors will be.

This infallible source is scripture, for we see that Peter was given these keys as a result of his proclaiming Christ.

So I accept that we are given the keys as an effect of our proclaiming Christ.

Christ may not tell everyone this out loud. But this is the answer to: “How do I know that, when I am proclaiming the Gospel, I am proclaiming the Truth?” And the answer: “Because you have been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven.”

 

[Eden]

Noma - I really don’t understand your claim to authority. You claim you have authority through Jesus Christ and the Scriptures, yet you are Anglican. If you see the pope as just a guy in a hat, why do you not see the founder of your religion as just a corpulent guy in a crown who wanted a new wife?

 

[noma]

The Catholic Church determined the Canon of Scripture. You cannot trust in the authority of the Church to determine which books were inspired and at the same time reject the Church’s authority to interpret it.

Fair point. So I accept the authority of the Christian Church (which was at this time primarily the Roman and Orthodox Churches) to determine the books of Scripture.

I reject the authority of the Roman Church to exclusively interpret. I will read their interpretations, but I do not accept them as infallible.

Why do I accept these books as infallible, and not others, as it could be that those that produced the Canon erred? Faith.

After all, if I were still a member of the Roman Church, how could I accept its authority to declare what is scripture or not except by faith?

Both systems (the Roman Church gives scripture, we know scripture as a first principle based on faith) have the exact same problems.

 

[noma]

Noma - I really don’t understand your claim to authority. You claim you have authority through Jesus Christ and the Scriptures, yet you are Anglican. If you see the pope as just a guy in a hat, why do you not see the founder of your religion as just a corpulent guy in a crown who wanted a new wife?

I entirely agree. So we have a murdering guy in a crown, or a pretty nice guy in a hat.

Both can speak infallibly if they are speaking in accord with the Will of Christ.

So both infallibly proclaim the Gospel. It is just that the nice guy in the hat proclaims a whole ton of other things I think are wrong. The murdering guy in a crown is ignored by the church he founded. Not too much is made of his statements.

Too much is made of the pope’s.

 

[Nick]

This infallible source is scripture, for we see that Peter was given these keys as a result of his proclaiming Christ.

So I accept that we are given the keys as an effect of our proclaiming Christ.

Christ may not tell everyone this out loud. But this is the answer to: “How do I know that, when I am proclaiming the Gospel, I am proclaiming the Truth?” And the answer: “Because you have been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven.”

How can scipture be infallible? Doesn’t infallibility require the active making of a choice between two or more things? How can a book do this? The scriptures are inerrant, they do not contain error, but they are not infallible, because they are not capable of choosing. That is why we have an infallible Church. After all the inerrant scriptures clearly say that the Church is the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

 

[BlazingBolt]

How do we know these scriptures are infallible? Jesus did not write them. Did Christ ever say that infallible scriptures would be written?

Christ established this authority precisely to avoid this kind of confusion.

Why did he establish a Church? Why would Peter explicitly pass on this authority to specific successors that were recognized by all the faithful originally?

Again, how is it authority at all if everyone has it? If everyone who proclaims Christ can bind and loose with authority than how come they contradict each other so much?

Why do the Anglicans contradict themselves in saying ABC is evil, but when it got to hard they decided that it wasn’t evil. As long as they proclaim Christ they have this authority? What is to stop them from having the authority to make abortion licit?

 

[noma]

How can be scipture be infallible? Doesn’t infallibility require the active making of a choice between two or more things? How can a book do this? The scriptures are inerrant, they do not contain error, but they are not infallible, because they are not capable of choosing. That is why we have an infallible Church. After all the inerrant scriptures clearly say that the Church is the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

You are absolutely correct. That was a mistake in my post that I should have corrected, and would correct now, if I could.

Thank you.

 

[Verita]

The power of taking things out of context.

Just because St. Paul wrote only to the Romans doesn’t mean that what he wrote applies only to the Romans.

Furthermore, just becasue St. Peter was given the keys to the kingdom first doesn’t mean we don’t all get the keys, if we have faith. Just that Peter was the first for the gift.

Let me try to use a more relatable example. I say to my best friend, “I’m going out of town for a while. Here are my keys. Could you take care of my cat?” Would you assume, as my best friend, that this meant that all of my friends had free access to my house, or that I only meant you to enter?

Personally, I would assume the later.