How would you counter this arguement?

[Sir_Knight]

I quoted Matthew 16:19 - I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." as one of the bases for the Catholic Church’s authority and was told the following …

It seems this is indeed a comandment of such and not a granting of power. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind (declare to be improper and unlawful) on earth a]must be what is already bound in heaven; and whatever you loose (declare lawful) on earth **(“Matthew 16:19; AMP - I will give you the keys (authority) of - Bible Gateway”)]must be what is already loosed in heaven.(A)

 

[michaelgazin]

So therefore, whatever Peter says, it is true and has been already established as true in Heaven? Sounds like that is what this person is claiming.

Therefore, the Church and Peter are incapable of teaching error. 1 point for the Catholics!

 

[VociMike]

In a sense they’ve got it right. The Church can never force heaven (God) to accept evil or falseness, or reject good or truth. Therefore, the power of binding and loosing is indeed a guarantee of freedom from error, not a power to manipulate heaven (God).

 

[UKcatholicGuy]

Sir Knight:

I quoted Matthew 16:19 - I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." as one of the bases for the Catholic Church’s authority and was told the following …

Notice the words “shall” in each phrase. Shall is future. It could easily read like this: “Whatever you declare to be sin on earth will then be bound in heaven, etc.”

If Jesus were giving Peter a commandment to only teach things that were already true in Heaven (which, by the very nature of the Church, it does!!), the sentence structure would be reversed. Jesus would’ve said: Whatever is bound in heaven shall be bound on earth, etc.

Also, the context of the sentence points to the Catholic interpretation: Jesus is giving the “keys” or the authority to Peter. By telling Peter that whatever he binds on earth shall be bound in heaven, Jesus is showing just how much authority He has given Peter and the Church Militant.

Furthermore, Jesus tells His apostles that “As the Father sends Me, so I send you.” Whoa! Talk about authority! Jesus says that He is sending the apostles with in the same way that the Father sent Jesus. What did Jesus have authority on earth to do? Forgive sins, bind sins, turn bread and wine into His body and blood, heal the sick, perform exorcisms, ordain followers (apostles), seal people with the Holy Spirit, baptize . . .

Sound familiar?

Tell your friend to quit fighting the Church and come join!

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Your friend has reversed the sense of the passage, for it goes from what is on earth to what is in heaven. Not only to make things sin, but to loose them from sin.

But if one can loose things and bind them, then there is a temporal question: Can one bind for a time? Clearly the passage supports change, and since heaven is eternal (all at once as opposed to changing), the power applies to earth indipendant of heaven.

Eg. Peter can’t make proclimations about marriage in heaven.
(There are none).

So some things are not bound and loosed from heaven, that are bound and loosed on earth.

This means that heaven backs the authoirity of the Pope more than anything else.

I am not sure how I would argue the point in an actual debate, for I think that insufficient scripture and reasoning has been applied to the problem to really understand it and the limitations of it.

I do agree with all the posts preceeding ming, particularly the infallablility stance. Chalk one up for the church even with your friend’s interpretation.

 

[neophyte]

See Isaiah 22:20-25. The keys of the kingdom were a sign of the office of Chief Steward in the Davidic Kingdom. This was a position of supreme authority, delegated by the King and having a line of dynastic succession.

 

[thessalonian]

Most of what I would say has already been covered. You have to remember that when Popes and councils make decrees with their binding authority they are not coming up with new doctrine. They are explicitly stating what has always been held true by the Church such that what was doctrine is not dogma. As others have stated the truth has always been known and binding in heaven.

I have seen this inteprutation stated on other websites. I think perhaps the issue may be that the tranlastion in to English does not capture the whole sense of the Greek and so in the Greek likely the time frame spoken is more of a continum that is hard to express in English. I would like sometime to see someone who knows these languages check this out. This inability to capture the complete meaning of the Greek and Hebrew seems like a rather large problem in sola scriptura protestantism. Eseentially if the English does not capture all the meaning then they have an incomplete Bible. This sounds like a thread. Common over.

Blessings