Four Marks Of The True Church

[swimstud]

The Catholic Answer’s booklett states the following: " If we wish to locate the church founded by Jesus, we need to locate the one that has the four chief marks or qualities of his Church. The Church we seek must be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. I am fully Catholic and trust in the Church. But how can I explain to my friends WHY these are the four marks of the true church? A protestant could easily say that there are different marks of the true church like the fundamentals established during the reformation.

 

[elvisman]

The answer is in the Nicene creed - a creed that even Protestants accept as orthodox - although they will debate you on the meaning of “catholic”.

"We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church . . . . "

“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ” - St. Jerome

 

[germys9]

swimstud:

The Catholic Answer’s booklett states the following: " If we wish to locate the church founded by Jesus, we need to locate the one that has the four chief marks or qualities of his Church. The Church we seek must be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. I am fully Catholic and trust in the Church. But how can I explain to my friends WHY these are the four marks of the true church? A protestant could easily say that there are different marks of the true church like the fundamentals established during the reformation.

Show your friend all of it from scripture. You can use scripture to show that Jesus intended to begin one church, that the one church was meant to be holy, that the church was to be universal and contain the whole truth, and that the apostles were to have successors. It’s all in there. If you need some help with verses, just say so and I will help you out.

 

[RobedWithLight]

swimstud:

The Catholic Answer’s booklett states the following: " If we wish to locate the church founded by Jesus, we need to locate the one that has the four chief marks or qualities of his Church. The Church we seek must be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. I am fully Catholic and trust in the Church. But how can I explain to my friends WHY these are the four marks of the true church? A protestant could easily say that there are different marks of the true church like the fundamentals established during the reformation.

Protestantism’s weakest link is the fourth mark, Apostolicity. Apostolicity simply means that the true Church Jesus founded must be able to trace its history back to the apostles in one long uninterrupted sequence.

No Protestant denomination can historically trace its lineage back to the apostles themselves, but only to Luther and Calvin, in the 16th Century.

Only the Catholic Church can.

Gerry

 

[jeffreedy789]

maybe i missed something. why would the prot accept that there are four points to begin with?

 

[Tanais]

jeffreedy789:

maybe i missed something. why would the prot accept that there are four points to begin with?

It typically would only work with the more conservative thoelogically ones. However nonetheless you can use with others to show with the points of the marks that the Church is indeed the true one, although you may not say “These are the marks of the Church therefore the Catholic Church is the true one” Just use the bible to cite verses where draw our conclusions that the Church is one, holy, etc. And say “There, the Bible says … and the Catholic Church is the only one that fits that criteria.”