Do modern Protestants know what they are protesting?

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Per_Crucem said:
It is, only inasmuch as relying on the statement “I have certainty about the canon because X is infallible,” only moves it back one step. You’d still have to demonstrate that X is infallible without referring to a fallible authority. Otherwise you’d be in the same position as the Protestant who relies on fallible authorities.
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Not at all, my friend.

As a Catholic, I rely on the deposit of faith delivered once and for all to the Church. Before the New Testament. While there is a small margin of fallibility in the history of the Church, our Bishops have been directly named in succession of the Apostles. I embrace the Traditions and traditions of the Church, Her history - the good and the bad. It is from this one deposit that the New Testament is given.

As a Protestant, I rely on consensus and emancipation. I allow the New Testament - deposited to the Church - to guide me apart from the Church. I receive the very same New Testament that the Church uses. But I use it away from the Church. I take away the Traditions and make new traditions based on this deposit. Not only that but I am able to emancipate myself from any Church authority that does not conform to what I believe to be the correct interpretation of Scriptures.

As a Catholic, I surrender part of this emancipation. I still do plenty of private interpretation. I just don’t make it a doctrine. The consensus as a Catholic is different because of where it comes from: The Magisterium. Not an individual (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Wesley, etc).

Some Protestant bodies work in many different ways. Thus, it cannot be called a single of anything.

But infallibility is not something I throw around. As far as I am concerned the Trent declaration on the Canon is authoritative and a matter of faith (De Fide). I don’t know if it’s declared to be infallible. Again, I will not take an apologist’s opinion on it. Nothing less than Rome to declare it.

Declaration in the manner of: “If anyone says…” then “let him be anathema.” Are canonical (Thus they are called Canons). Meaning they are to be held by the faithful. Are they infallible? I think they could.
 
Isaiah45_9 said:
Not at all, my friend.

As a Catholic, I rely on the deposit of faith delivered once and for all to the Church. Before the New Testament. While there is a small margin of fallibility in the history of the Church, our Bishops have been directly named in succession of the Apostles. I embrace the Traditions and traditions of the Church, Her history - the good and the bad. It is from this one deposit that the New Testament is given.
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Exactly. But this is not the same thing as the infallibility argument, which is all that I am addressing in my previous posts.
As a Protestant, I rely on consensus and emancipation. I allow the New Testament - deposited to the Church - to guide me apart from the Church. I receive the very same New Testament that the Church uses. But I use it away from the Church. I take away the Traditions and make new traditions based on this deposit. Not only that but I am able to emancipate myself from any Church authority that does not conform to what I believe to be the correct interpretation of Scriptures.
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I think this addresses several different types of Protestants to be sure. As you said, though, this is by no means all Protestants or even a majority of Protestants historically. A majority of American Protestants, probably.
 
Per_Crucem said:
I think this addresses several different types of Protestants to be sure. As you said, though, this is by no means all Protestants or even a majority of Protestants historically. A majority of American Protestants, probably.
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Right. We would need to do a new thread for each denomination and even further - in each geographical region for the same denomination.

And yes, I was referring to American Protestantism. And strictly from my fallible opinion as well 😛
 
Per_Crucem said:
That particular book? Sure, in the sense that the church has recognized it as such over the first few centuries of Christian history, using what tools were at the church’s disposal to determine that it was apostolic, agreed with the rest of the (more well-attested) NT books, etc.
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Excellent.

So you are using the same paradigm that we (Catholics) do.

And the answer to the questions you’ve asked me is: I know the same way you do–I give submission to the authority of the CC.

We wouldn’t know ANYTHING about the Word of God, except that the Catholic Church told us so.

So it’s curious that you reject the authority of the CC in everything else, yet somehow believe that my Church got it right in discerning the 27 book canon of Scripture.

Paraphrasing Mark Shea, you knock the miters off our bishops, burn our vestments, attack our altars, yet steal our book and claim it an an infallible oracle.

(Here, “you” is a rhetorical “you”. Not a personal “you”).
 
PRmerger said:
Excellent.

So you are using the same paradigm that we (Catholics) do.

And the answer to the questions you’ve asked me is: I know the same way you do–I give submission to the authority of the CC.

We wouldn’t know ANYTHING about the Word of God, except that the Catholic Church told us so.

So it’s curious that you reject the authority of the CC in everything else, yet somehow believe that my Church got it right in discerning the 27 book canon of Scripture.

Paraphrasing Mark Shea, you knock the miters off our bishops, burn our vestments, attack our altars, yet steal our book and claim it an an infallible oracle.

(Here, “you” is a rhetorical “you”. Not a personal “you”).
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Yes and no. I don’t have any qualms saying that the canon is known to us because it was revealed to the church. In that sense, I would agree wuth the Vicentian principle. However, I wouldn’t identify that church with your particular communion exclusively, nor does it mean the church’s authority is equal to Scripture anymore than Christ’s divinity being revealed to Peter makes Peter an equal authority to Christ.
 
FathersKnowBest said:
People who choose their faith community based entirely on their own beliefs are making God in their image.
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I find that to be such an overworn weak argument here that I put no stock in it whatsoever anymore. It’s no different than Catholics choosing their faith community or whether to remain in the practice of the faith they were adjoined to as a child, based on their belief in their church’s interpretations including its interpretation of ECFs. I don’t care what faith community we are talking about. The bottom line truth is it takes faith to belong to any one of them.
 
Sy_Noe said:
I find that to be such an overworn weak argument here that I put no stock in it whatsoever anymore. It’s no different than Catholics choosing their faith community or whether to remain in the practice of the faith they were adjoined to as a child, based on their belief in their church’s interpretations including its interpretation of ECFs. I don’t care what faith community we are talking about. The bottom line truth is it takes faith to belong to any one of them.
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If any Catholic chooses the Catholic Church because it conforms to her own ideology, then she is guilty of the same.

That’s why no one ought to be a Cafeteria Catholic.
 
Per_Crucem said:
And it takes pride to think that every other Christian simply chooses what to believe and then picks a church that conforms to those beliefs, and especially to confirm them in their sin.
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Only the ones who have church shopped.
 
Some very fundamental Christian questions go un-answered.

Is Christ a person or a book?
Is Christ the head of a body, united to him, that really exists in time and space, or is Church only a concept?
Can Christ be the author of division?
Is his presence and dominion continuous throughout history, or is Christ’s kingdom subject to breaks and ruptures?
Are the more than one Way, Truth, or Life?

Before any words were written in the New Testament…
the Son of God, who exists from all eternity to all eternity… outside of time… came into human flesh… and took human nature.

He is revealed as a defenseless child entrusted to a human woman, who is the first bearer and proclaimer of The Word of God. This Word of God spoke words but is beyond words, “supra-literal” if you will. His first expression is in the silent relationship between Mother and Child.

Christ is a divine person, entrusted to human persons in his humanity, given to us so that we might LIVE and KNOW the Gospel as a person, through persons, and not merely through words on a page.

Check it out…before -a word- was written, -The Word- existed in His fullness as a person. That is what’s known as Tradition. Tradition is what exists between God and people, ongoing through time and space. Tradition is Him, it’s inseparable from Christ. If you don’t accept Tradition, you can’t possibly accept Christ, because he didn’t hatch out of a book.
 
Per_Crucem said:
If history, universality, and Scripture are fallible (going on Scripture as only a fallible historical document that requires the infallible church to say it is infallible) sources for your knowledge of the infallibility of the church, would you say you have fallible certainty that the church is infallible, or something else?
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The Catholic Church doesn’t believe that Scripture is fallible.

What it believes is that individual interpretation of the Scriptures is fallible.

This is readily demonstrated by the 30,000 or so competing and conflicting non-Catholic churches, sects, and cults with wildly divergent views of what Scripture allegedly infallibly teaches.

.
 
dronald said:
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Further proof that my Church does not submit to the Catholic Church’s authority.
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Hardly.

It merely demonstrates that your community submits to The Church on some issues, but submits to Martin Luther on other issues.
 
Rob_Arnzen said:
The Catholic Church doesn’t believe that Scripture is fallible.

What it believes is that individual interpretation of the Scriptures is fallible.
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We weren’t discussing what the church believes about Scripture. Rather, I was asking PR a question regarding epistemology.
This is readily demonstrated by the 30,000 or so competing and conflicting non-Catholic churches, sects, and cults with wildly divergent views of what Scripture allegedly infallibly teaches.
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Source for that number?
 
Infallibility is not something the Church invented, so that it might assert its own ideas. Infallibility is a sharing in the person of Christ, a sharing in who He is, as a divine person who takes on human nature and entrusts his mission to human beings.
889 In order to preserve the Church in the purity of the faith handed on by the apostles, Christ who is the Truth willed to confer on her a share in his own infallibility. By a “supernatural sense of faith” the People of God, under the guidance of the Church’s living Magisterium, "unfailingly adheres to this faith."417
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890 The mission of the Magisterium is linked to the definitive nature of the covenant established by God with his people in Christ. It is this Magisterium’s task to preserve God’s people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. Thus, the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates. To fulfill this service, **Christ endowed **the Church’s shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. The exercise of this charism takes several forms:
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Infallibility expresses who God is, in relationship with mankind. Because God is truth, when he shares himself with, through, and in, his unified Church, he does not deceive. And in relationship with God, the physical and human element of the Church is very much a part of God’s kingdom. Christ healed people, anointed them with oils and mud etc…, entrusted them authority, gave them mission. He breathed on people to give them his “pneuma”.

That must be a meaningful thing, that Christ breathes on human beings, giving them his Spirit, giving them authority in his name. He didn’t tell them, “go write a book now”, right?

The Church is flesh and blood people receiving charism from Christ. He is not a book.
 
Per_Crucem said:
Source for that number?
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It’s an estimation, based on math, logic and observation.

If you believe that 30,000 is incorrect, then I will use whatever number you think is correct, provided you provide your source and it is a valid, reasonable estimation.

Incidentally, I was just at a cute little small town this summer and snapped this pic as I was walking to an ice cream shoppe.

Make sure your source includes this church, as well as all the other churches in every other cute little small town in the world.
 
Per_Crucem said:
I wasn’t asking for your source, though 😛
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I am asking: what is the correct number of Christian denominations in the world?

I use the estimation of tens of thousands.

If you don’t like this estimation, please tell me the correct number.

And cite your source.

And make sure it includes every single storefront church in every single small town in every country on the planet.
 
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