Peter as the Rock

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Bluegoat said:
No, really, it isn’t. The point, I think, he is trying to make, is proof-texting isn’t really a very good way to operate, and none of the Biblical “proofs” of Peter’s Primacy, is. They are all pretty ambiguous as far as their meaning goes. In and of themselves, they don’t do much to prove or disprove the Catholic Church’s modern claims about the papacy. What they show pretty conclusively is that Peter was the leader of the Apostles, and was kind of special in some way, and maybe even that what made him special was going to be important to the Church somehow. If you want more than that you have to go beyond the bare Biblical texts.

Exactly my point. It’s pretty clear that we see Peter as the leader, but we never see Peter as Supreme and Infallible. That clearly doesn’t come from Scripture.
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pritchard85 said:
Exactly my point. It’s pretty clear that we see Peter as the leader, but we never see Peter as Supreme and Infallible. That clearly doesn’t come from Scripture.
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Wait so you see Peter as the leader but not supreme or infallible?

First of all, Supreme? Care to elaborate on what you mean by supreme?

Second, not infallible? You read the Scriptures he wrote and take them as the Written Word of God wihle at the same time denying that he exercised infallibility? That’s interesting and kind of contradictory.

See if Peter wrote infallible scriptures and is recognized as the leader, then what you have is an infallible leader aka The Pope.
 
QUOTE=Saint Anonymous;8266559]Wait so you see Peter as the leader but not supreme or infallible? They are not one in the same. You are making a leap that is clearly not in Scripture.
First of all, Supreme? Care to elaborate on what you mean by supreme?
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Let’s not play word games here. Your church proclaims Peter to have been such. Scripture does not support that. Enough said.
Second, not infallible? You read the Scriptures he wrote and take them as the Written Word of God wihle at the same time denying that he exercised infallibility? That’s interesting and kind of contradictory.
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Well, then every author of every book of Scripture would then be Infallible by your reasoning then. We know that this isn’t true.
See if Peter wrote infallible scriptures and is recognized as the leader, then what you have is an infallible leader aka The Pope./QUOTE
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Huge leap. Not at all Biblical or real.
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pritchard85 said:
It says nothing about the Pope which would be the Supremacy and Infallibility we have been talking about. Where is it in Scripture??
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What good is Scripture if its not the written word of God? I mean you said it yourself that the Bible is not infallible.
 
Saint_Anonymous said:
What good is Scripture if its not the written word of God? I mean you said it yourself that the Bible is not infallible.
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Then are you saying that every single writer of every single book of Scripture is Infallible by the definition of your church??
 
pritchard85 said:
Then are you saying that every single writer of every single book of Scripture is Infallible by the definition of your church??
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Is the Bible the written word of God? If not why not? If yes then what makes it the written word of God?
 
Saint_Anonymous said:
So the Bible is infallible?
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The Bible is the inherent Word of God. It doesn’t parallel the pope as you are trying to point out. Infallibility is the notion of the pope being without mistake when speaking in ex cathedra. This has nothing to do with Scripture.
 
pritchard85 said:
The Bible is the inherent Word of God. It doesn’t parallel the pope as you are trying to point out. Infallibility is the notion of the pope being without mistake when speaking in ex cathedra. This has nothing to do with Scripture.
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The Bible is without error yes or no?

Did Peter write Scripture yes or no?
 
Well it appears that you left, so I’m going to take off but I will be back later

weeeeeeeeeee :takeoff:
 
pritchard85 said:
Your arguments are merely cookie cutter arguments used over and over again to throw at anything that refutes Catholic doctrine. You have yet to show me one single Bible verse to prove that Peter is supreme and he was the first pope. You showed me 50 verses where Peter was a leader and how he shared authority amongst all the Apostles. Show me where the Bible says that he is the Supreme and Infallible head of the Church and the Vicar of Christ. Show me…
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You say that you believe in Apostalic tradition yet I keep seeing “Show me from the Bible”
 
pritchard85 said:
The Bible is also not a Catholic book. It was compiled by the Early Church, East and West together. In fact look at where those councils ended up. Carthage and Hippo both became part of the Orthodox church. So, if we wanted to be technical here, we could say that the Bible is an Orthodox book, but then we have another problem. Your canon isn’t the same as the Orthodox canon. Why?? There’s just too many voids to cover to make the Catholic argument to work.
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Pritchard85, you’ve sure gathered some attention in this forum! I must admit that it is interesting, and I appreciate you’re answering all of us back.

First, The Orthodox Church didn’t come into existence until roughly the eleventh century. It distinguished itself from the Roman Church gradually up to that time for several reasons that aren’t especially relevant here. But the councils of Carthage and Hippo, while only regional councils, none the less expressed the opinion of the universal church at that time. And at that time, the universal Christian church resided solely under the banner of Catholicism. There simply wasn’t any other kind of Christianity. It didn’t exist. The most noted citizen of Hippo, who is a favorite among Protestants to quote, was also the one who said, “When Rome has spoken, the matter is closed”–Augustine, a citizen of Hippo, was a Roman Catholic, as were all Christians of Carthage and Hippo at that time. So it really is a straw-man argument I’m afraid when you say that because Carthage and Hippo reside in the east, they were always Orthodox. It’s not true. It’s like saying that Muslims shouldn’t have to grant any rights to Christians around Jerusalem because those lands they occupy are now Muslim.

Therefore, the only Church that would have, or could have compiled the canon of Scripture at that time was the Roman Catholic Church. But please, don’t take my word for it–I urge you to check for yourself. The Orthodox Church today accepts with great congruity the canon of the Catholic Church. They certainly accept every book that the Catholic
Church accepts as Scripture. And with only a couple of exceptions do our canons differ. The reasons for the difference has to do largely with the acceptance of the Septuagint as a final go-to authority in determining canonicity. But just as the Bible can not authenticate its own canonicity, neither can the Septuagint based solely on it’s ancient pedigree.

But one thing is true. The new testament canon of all three Christian understandings are identical. So there is something that must be allowed if not outright admitted, and that is an exterior authority to the Bible that determined for Catholics and Protestants what the Bible (or at least the new testament) actually is. Like others have said on this forum, there is no inspired table of contents. So while Catholics are comfortable with that, because as I’ve mentioned above, that the Catholic Church was the only game in town–the non-catholic is left in a quandary. Because if you admit that the Bible is true, then you must admit that the authority that determined what the Bible is, is also true–at least for the Scriptural canon.

So how does a Protestant do that? Even if I conceded that there were two Churches at the times of Carthage and Hippo, (which I obviously don’t) then why aren’t you at least Orthodox?
 
Bluegoat said:
No, really, it isn’t. The point, I think, he is trying to make, is proof-texting isn’t really a very good way to operate, and none of the Biblical “proofs” of Peter’s Primacy, is. They are all pretty ambiguous as far as their meaning goes. In and of themselves, they don’t do much to prove or disprove the Catholic Church’s modern claims about the papacy. What they show pretty conclusively is that Peter was the leader of the Apostles, and was kind of special in some way, and maybe even that what made him special was going to be important to the Church somehow. If you want more than that you have to go beyond the bare Biblical texts.
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Bluegoat, I respect your opinion on this matter, and I understand how you could come to this view. The biblical evidence for the Papacy is incredibly deep, so it is often difficult to really unravel easily by ourselves. I think that Scott Hahn has done a great job in this article. Check it out, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
 
ChrisB103 said:
I was discussing the Papacy with a Protestant friend, and the conversation went through the predictable stages. First, I explained Mt 16:18-19. Then, he used the argument that Petros and petra have different meanings, so it contrasts Peter (little rock) from Christ (the big rock). I explained to him that the meaning of the two words was the same in Koine Greek, which was the dialect around in Christ’s time. I added in that it would make no sense for Jesus to 1) call Peter blessed, and then 2) belittle him, and then finally 3)give him the keys to the kingdom of heaven. It took him a few days to get back to me, and I thought I was finally getting through to him. He talked to a friend of his who was a professor of ancient Greek, and he said the following:

“Petra is the femine noun, and this is what the debate stands around. It is the huge rock, and the foundation that Christ wanted to build his church on. According to Dr. Hall, feminine nouns in Greek refer to either a feminine object or person, or an abstract idea. Now because we know that Peter is not a feminine noun, and we also know that Jesus is not referring to a literal rock, this noun is abstract. It is referring to an abstract idea or thought of some sort. Dr. Hall said that the foundation of Christ church,and the rock in which he was going to build it on, was Peter’s confession of faith. A believers foundation is his confession of faith, the point of salvation; and this is exactly how Christ was going to build his church, with this foundation.”

He also said that in Mt 16:19 the Greek word for “you” is “soy”, which is the plural form of “you”. I don’t know Greek, so who can help me out with where these explanations fall short?

So far, the points I’m considering making are:
  1. Why would Jesus rename Simon “Rock” if he was not really the rock, but just his profession of faith?
  2. Jesus would have spoken this in Aramaic, and the original text of Matthew was likely Aramaic, and it would do away with the supposed gender issue of the nouns.
Let me know what you all think, especially if you’re familiar with Greek.

God bless,
Chris
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There was a rather lengthy discussion on this one on another thread and here are the links my summaries which I think answers your questions

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=7366405&postcount=162
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=7366430&postcount=163
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=7366443&postcount=164
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=7369763&postcount=202
 
mwok said:
You say that you believe in Apostalic tradition yet I keep seeing “Show me from the Bible”
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Where do you get Peter as Supreme and Infallible then? Don’t say tradition either, because something of this magnitude surely would have solid footing in the Scriptures especially from Paul but yet it doesn’t.
 
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