Proof Paul was a Protestant

[MrS]

Mystophilus:

I am not really sure, but, being also a dissenter, I have thought about it a little. The people here are generally either sufficiently well-insulated by their own belief structure to ignore any new problems, or sufficiently flexible to adapt to them.

I see your point, but it causes me to wonder about something. Do these Catholics, the ones who insist that you and yours follow their ways, come into your church? My reason for asking this is the fact that we are in a Catholic website here: surely, in their home, they should say whatever they feel comfortable saying. We, as guests, have the right to disagree with that up until the point at which they decided that we are no longer welcome, and remove us from the premises. Obviously, I am not saying that we should stay silent, but rather that our right to speak here is a privilege afforded to us by them (for which I would like to belatedly thank you all out there: I am learning a lot).

Please carry this one step further… certainly you are welcome in “our” home. But you are encouraged to treat it as an invite to a “pot luck dinner”… bring something to share. So thank you for doing so.

After all, all the great events in salvation history are accompanied with food… from the fruit in the garden, to the manna in the desert, to the lamb at Passover, to the feast where Jesus began his public life, to the Last Supper etc.

I would only hope that all Catholics would continue to hope that one day everyone would share what only the Catholic Church has… the Greatest Meal… Christ Himself in the Real Presence of the Eucharist. On that, Paul (rather St. Paul, the Catholic Apostle) is very clear.

 

[Mystophilus]

E.E.N.S.:

Excellent post!

Soli deo gloria.

Logic 1; ideological bias 0.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Angainor:

Catholics say the council in Jerusalem made a decree in the form of a letter to the Gentile Christians. Included in that decree was a dietary restriction:

You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols…

Acts 15:29

Paul disagreed:

Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”

1 Corinthians 10:25-26

I disagree that Paul disagreed. If so, then why didn’t he say so at the Council in Acts 15? He was present, wasn’t he?

I suggest you read the context and understand the verse above in that context.If you take Paul’s teaching as a whole instead of a piece of it, He taught that we should not create a scandal for our brethren. Observe,

1 Cor 10:

23 “Everything is permissible,” but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up. 24 No one should seek his own good, but the good of the other person. 25 Eat everything that is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience’ sake, for 26 the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it. 27 If one of the unbelievers invites you over and you want to go, eat everything that is set before you, without raising questions of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This is food offered to an idol,” do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who told you, and for conscience’ sake.

The purpose of the Acts 15 prohibition was exactly what Paul taught above. The Catholic Church at that time was predominately Jewish Christians. Thus, such disciplinary norms as in Acts 15 were decreed such that the Jewish Christians would not be scandalized by the eating practices of Gentile Christians. Once the teachings of the apostles were more widespread, and the Catholic Church become predominately Gentile Christian, the risk of scandal was lessened. Thus, later, such disciplinary norms were certainly less important and were likely loosened. We don’t exactly know when the norm of Acts 15 was loosened, but at least by St. Augustine’s day, we know that it was no longer a norm in force, because he writes about this very thing.

Paul goes on to explain why he does not consider himself bound by a decree from Jerusalem

No he doesn’t. He is saying, if your actions cause offense to another, don’t do it, not because such actions are inherently evil, but because abstaining from such actions is the considerate thing to do. He in no way rejected the decree of the Council he himself attended in Jerusalem. BTW, Peter’s decree had to do with circumcision. It was St. James, the Bishop of Jerusalem who wrote the disciplinary norm in Acts 15, for the very same reason Paul teaches against scandalizing your brethren.

 

[Angainor]

Lillith:

This is depressing to me. Christ prayed to God the father for unity, one flock, and on this rock I build My Church (not plural)…and you are saying that the Apostles couldn’t keep a church together for even one lifetime?

Lazerlike42:

Let’s assume for a moment that you are correct and Paul disagrees with Peter. Now we have two of Christ’s Apostles, commisioned by Him and guided by Holy Spirit to teach the truth, disagreeing.

If you are right, then Christianity itself falls apart completely…

I don’t understand this talk of division and disunity. Peter and Paul were brothers in Christ. It was and is one Church. It just so happens that some of the brothers in Christ thought eating food sacrificed to idols was sinful. So what?

You put waaaay to much importance on the opinions of men. Is the Truth of the Gospel obliterated because two people disagreed about a small part of it? That’s nuts. The Truth can never be broken.

 

[Lazerlike42]

I am sorry, but that conclusion does not logically follow from those premisses.

Well it does so long as you look at it in terms of Christian thought. If Christ was just a man, well then sure He could have taught these men whom all then went off to teach differening versions of what Christ said. If Christ didn’t exist, then these men could all have picked up this same idea but then went off to teach different versions of it.

But a key and crucial part of all Christian belief systems is that Christ, through the divine power of the Holy Spirit, taught the world through these men.

So I will rephrase and say that if what he says is true that Christ did not exist as Christianity claims but rather Christ existed as the “hippy Christ” that many atheists speak about.

 

[Angainor]

itsjustdave1988:

The purpose of the Acts 15 prohibition was exactly what Paul taught above. The Catholic Church at that time was predominately Jewish Christians. Thus, such disciplinary norms as in Acts 15 were decreed such that the Jewish Christians would not be scandalized by the eating practices of Gentile Christians…It was St. James, the Bishop of Jerusalem who wrote the disciplinary norm in Acts 15, for the very same reason Paul teaches against scandalizing your brethren.

You know, I’m reading Acts 15 again. I see how your idea may be right.

James said “For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.” – verse 21

It is starting to make sense. There is one thing I don’t quite get though. The letter from Jerusalem stated in no uncertain terms “You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols…” The letter nowhere says you can eat it on your own, just not around Jewish Christians. I suppose that would be difficult, since there was so many Jewish Christians attending this meeting. Any letter that said “you can eat it, just not around Jewish Christians” would cause major scandal in itself.

So, how did Paul get the message that this wasn’t a “real” requirement, with a wink and a nod? I guess we’ll never know.

Regardless as to how it happened, for a while Christianity was working under two sets of rules. One group of Christians thought it was a sin to eat food sacrificed to idols. It seems the leadership of the Church let them believe this even though they knew it wasn’t true. This does not seem to me to be responsible action of infallible defenders of Truth. Also, having two sets of rules doesn’t go very far to promote the type of unity Catholics today demand.

But they went beyond passively letting Jewish Christians believe this. They wrote a memo telling the Gentiles they are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols. This memo is a type of ruse, they really didn’t mean it. They threw it in there so as to not trouble the consciences of those who believe eating food sacrificed to idols is a sin. They told a “little white lie”.

These actions seem difficult to explain if the council of Jerusalem considered themselves as authoritatively ruling on issues of faith.

It makes more sense if they were men making the best of it, negotiating what is best for the Church between two groups of Christians that are on equal footing. In the Acts 15 letter they stated that they agreed Gentile men should not be required to be circumcised, but please don’t go around eating food sacrificed to idols around us because that really would cause division between our groups.

 

[Mystophilus]

Angainor:

I don’t understand this talk of division and disunity. Peter and Paul were brothers in Christ. It was and is one Church. It just so happens that some of the brothers in Christ thought eating food sacrificed to idols was sinful. So what?

You put waaaay to much importance on the opinions of men. Is the Truth of the Gospel obliterated because two people disagreed about a small part of it? That’s nuts. The Truth can never be broken.

It is not nuts to them, Angainor. It is merely that their logic contains a premiss which ours does not.

Unity holds an extremely high value within the Catholic Church, which is the reason that the Church is so large; dissent is quashed or surrendered in order to preserve that unity. The missing premiss is that unity is a necessary component of the identification of truth, hence the idea of Infallibility: all of the Church’s theology has agreed upon this and so this must be true. Using this premiss, they conclude that, if the apostles were not united, then the apostles were wrong.

It was only after reading Lazerlike’s post that I realised that this was what I was missing there.

For someone from a Protestant background, Truth exists as an absolute value, irrespective of doctrine, and so unity is unnecessary for the identification of Truth.

 

[Mystophilus]

Lazerlike42:

Well it does so long as you look at it in terms of Christian thought.

I thought that, being a Christian, I was looking at in terms of Christian thought.

If Christ was just a man, well then sure He could have taught these men who all then went off to teach differing versions of what Christ said.

If Christ is God, he still could have done that. After all, the Gospels have differing versions of what he said and did. Text is representation, not truth: the books show what the authors thought was right, in the way that they thought was right.

If Christ didn’t exist, then these men could all have picked up this same idea but then went off to teach different versions of it.

But a key and crucial part of all Christian belief systems is that Christ, through the divine power of the Holy Spirit, taught the world through these men.

While it is accepted that Christ taught the world, the exact role of the disciples is a source of considerable contention. There is, after all, a significant reason why Protestants generally say, “Peter”, and ,“Paul”, rather than, “Saint Peter”, and, “Saint Paul”. Many of us believe that these apostles were as merely human as the rest of us, and we drop the honorific to show that. As a result of this view, we do not necessarily believe that the teachings of Christ were perfectly transmitted by them, and even less so by their successors.

In many cases, this is mitigated by the sola scriptura doctrine, but even that is limited only to those texts which are included in the canon. For instance, were we ever to locate the letter which Paul wrote to the church in Corinth before the one which we know as ‘1 Corinthians’, we would not necessarily regard it as the Word of God.

If you have a look at my response to Angainor, you might see that the difference here has to do with Catholic and non-Catholic epistemology: you and I reach Truth by different methods.

 

[Lazerlike42]

Mystophilus:

For someone from a Protestant background, Truth exists as an absolute value, irrespective of doctrine, and so unity is unnecessary for the identification of Truth.

No, this is very true of Catholic background as well. We put the highest value of all on truth existing as an absolute value. Unity is not necessary for the identification of truth. We believe that there is one single objective and absolute truth. The only difference is that we believe that the Magesterium of the Catholic Church teaches that truth infallibly.

We don’t believe unity is necessary for the identification of truth. Rather, we believe that unity is absolutely desired since an act of disunity against the Church is an act of disunity against the absolute truth which we believe the Church teaches. In other words, we don’t look at unity as some proof as to what is true. That would be some sort of democracy. We look at unity as a highly desireable thing provided that that unity is unified around the objective and absolute truth.

 

[Lazerlike42]

Mystophilus:

I thought that, being a Christian, I was looking at in terms of Christian thought.

If Christ is God, he still could have done that. After all, the Gospels have differing versions of what he said and did. Text is representation, not truth: the books show what the authors thought was right, in the way that they thought was right.

While it is accepted that Christ taught the world, the exact role of the disciples is a source of considerable contention. There is, after all, a significant reason why Protestants generally say, “Peter”, and ,“Paul”, rather than, “Saint Peter”, and, “Saint Paul”. Many of us believe that these apostles were as merely human as the rest of us, and we drop the honorific to show that. As a result of this view, we do not necessarily believe that the teachings of Christ were perfectly transmitted by them, and even less so by their successors.

In many cases, this is mitigated by the sola scriptura doctrine, but even that is limited only to those texts which are included in the canon. For instance, were we ever to locate the letter which Paul wrote to the church in Corinth before the one which we know as ‘1 Corinthians’, we would not necessarily regard it as the Word of God.

If you have a look at my response to Angainor, you might see that the difference here has to do with Catholic and non-Catholic epistemology: you and I reach Truth by different methods.

I would say that as a Protestant you should have no problem with calling them Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The Bible clearly identifies any Christian as a saint, so a Protestant ought to be able to say Saint Paul meaning that Paul was a Christian. I don’t think anyone would have any problem saying that he was a particularly good Christian, either!

But more importantly, we have to distinguish between the desciples and the apostles. We can find more than one Bible verse where the apostles are specifically promised by Christ that the Holy Spirit will guide them into all truth so that they may teach it. When we read the passages in context and not in a fundamentalist way (I don’t think anyone here is doing that, by the way), we take into account who Christ was speaking to. He was speaking to the apostles when he said the Holy Spirit would guide them. For that reason, it’s pretty important to say that they taught truth and did not contradict one another, since as you correctly pointed out there is one absolute truth.

But you seem to be arguing that the Bible is not truth but merely people’s representations of truth. In other words, do you think the Bible can be erroneous? I’m not accusing just asking. If you don’t think it can be, then there is a problem with your idea of saying it is just different people’s ideas. If you think it can be, then you just happen to have a different idea about this whole topic.

 

[Mystophilus]

Lazerlike42:

No, this is very true of Catholic background as well. We put the highest value of all on truth existing as an absolute value. Unity is not necessary for the identification of truth. We believe that there is one single objective and absolute truth. The only difference is that we believe that the Magesterium of the Catholic Church teaches that truth infallibly.

What I meant was only that those who come from a Protestant background separate the Truth from the Church, whereas Catholics do not.

We don’t believe unity is necessary for the identification of truth. Rather, we believe that unity is absolutely desired since an act of disunity against the Church is an act of disunity against the absolute truth which we believe the Church teaches. In other words, we don’t look at unity as some proof as to what is true. That would be some sort of democracy. We look at unity as a highly desireable thing provided that that unity is unified around the objective and absolute truth.

“That the Church is infallible in her definitions on faith and morals is itself a Catholic dogma, which, although it was formulated ecumenically for the first time in the Vatican Council, had been explicitly taught long before and had been assumed from the very beginning without question…though the word infallibility as a technical term hardly occurs at all in the early councils or in the Fathers, the thing signified by it was understood and believed in and acted upon from the beginning.” Catholic Encyclopedia.

By unity, I mean not merely synchronic unity (i.e., unity at the time), but diachronic unity (i.e., unity over the course of the development of the Church). I looked for something on it in the Catechism, but I could not find any mention of the methodology of the process of deciding that something is infallibly true.

 

[Mystophilus]

Lazerlike42:

I would say that as a Protestant you should have no problem with calling them Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The Bible clearly identifies any Christian as a saint, so a Protestant ought to be able to say Saint Paul meaning that Paul was a Christian. I don’t think anyone would have any problem saying that he was a particularly good Christian, either!

It is not so much that (most) Protestants have a problem with calling them “Saint”, just that we do not distinguish them from other people by doing so. As for whether or not he was a good Christian, I will leave that entirely up to God.

When we read the passages in context and not in a fundamentalist way (I don’t think anyone here is doing that, by the way), we take into account who Christ was speaking to. He was speaking to the apostles when he said the Holy Spirit would guide them. For that reason, it’s pretty important to say that they taught truth and did not contradict one another, since as you correctly pointed out there is one absolute truth.

The problem with saying that a text ought to be read “in context” is always that the “right” context then needs to be established. Regarding absolute truth, however, the existence of the same does not necessitate its comprehensibility or communicability. We do not, after all, fully comprehend the truth of the nature of God, which is only natural when we are finite and God is not.

But you seem to be arguing that the Bible is not truth but merely people’s representations of truth. In other words, do you think the Bible can be erroneous? I’m not accusing just asking. If you don’t think it can be, then there is a problem with your idea of saying it is just different people’s ideas. If you think it can be, then you just happen to have a different idea about this whole topic.

I think precisely that. I believe that the Bible, when read as literally true, frequently is erroneous, and that it was not supposed (by any of the compilers or many of the authors) to be read as literally true. I think that the Bible is an accurate description of the truth as the authors understood it, as they wished to represent it, and as they were able to represent it given the limitations of mere language.

In other words, it is not mendacious, but it is incomplete, which is acknowledged by the text itself (see John 21:25, wherein John notes that Jesus said and did many other things which were not included within the text).

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Angainor:

Catholics say the council in Jerusalem made a decree in the form of a letter to the Gentile Christians. Included in that decree was a dietary restriction:

You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols…

Acts 15:29

Paul disagreed:

Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”

1 Corinthians 10:25-26

Paul goes on to explain why he does not consider himself bound by a decree from Jerusalem:

Why should my freedom be judged by another’s conscience?

1 Corinthians 10:29

Who is the “another” that Paul is talking about? Catholics say it was Peter that decreed the dietary restriction.

Paul does not consider himself bound by Peter’s conscience.

Therefore Paul is a Protestant.

If the Pope commands all Catholics to take a bath on Fridays, and some do not do so, does that make Protestants out of them ?​

No. It may (or may not) mean that they are unhygienic - but not that they are Protestant.

A Protestant who had a bath on Friday because the Pope commanded it, would not on that account cease to be a Protestant.

Because Protestantism is decided by one’s attitude to “the Protestant Thing” - not, formally at least, by one’s attitude to the Pope. Denying a dogma may be sufficient to de-Catholicise one - but it’s not enough to make one a Protestant; because denying Catholic dogma A is not synonymous with embracing Protestant doctrine B.

And not all Protestant doctrines are incompatible with Catholicism. Paul may have been a Protestant - but not in a formal, organisational, sense; only in the sense that he may have embodied certain values that tend to be regarded as peculiar to Protestantism, or at least as distinctive of it.

What’s needed in such discussions as these is much more subtlety, and far less of an over-simplified attitude that “Not- One-Hundred-Per-Cent-Catholic” equals “Protestant” ##

 

[Angainor]

## …Because Protestantism is decided by one’s attitude to “the Protestant Thing” - not, formally at least, by one’s attitude to the Pope. Denying a dogma may be sufficient to de-Catholicise one - but it’s not enough to make one a Protestant; because denying Catholic dogma A is not synonymous with embracing Protestant doctrine B…
What’s needed in such discussions as these is much more subtlety, and far less of an over-simplified attitude that “Not- One-Hundred-Per-Cent-Catholic” equals “Protestant” ##

You are right, I now regret oversimplifing by claiming “Paul was a Protestant”. Perhaps I should have claimed “Paul was not Catholic”.
Gottle of Geer:

And not all Protestant doctrines are incompatible with Catholicism. Paul may have been a Protestant - but not in a formal, organisational, sense; only in the sense that he may have embodied certain values that tend to be regarded as peculiar to Protestantism, or at least as distinctive of it.

I am interested in how you think this applies to Paul. Do you agree that Paul was not-one-hundred-per-cent-Catholic? It seems like that is what you are saying. Do you think any of his beliefs or actions would have gotten him excommunicated in A.D.1520?

 

[Mystophilus]

Gottle of Geer:

Denying a dogma may be sufficient to de-Catholicise one

I like this verb, and not just because it conforms with the One True Spelling.

Extending the neologism a little further, does that mean that someone who has not become Catholic because s/he denies certain dogmata is then unCatholicisable?

 

[jaydog77]

Is this one trick pony Angainor still talking about meat and idols?

You’re right man. No one found those passages in 2000 years until you did.

Thanks for all your effort. Step to the head of the line, you get to vote for the next Pope!

By the way, I disagree (and sometimes quite strongly and publicly) with the Pope too yet recognize and submit to his authority as defined by the church. Unlike your interpretation of Christianity/Catholicism, I recognize that Popes are not supposed to be either tyrants or dictators. Otherwise there would be 1 pope and no authority beneath him. Oh, and sinners and sometimes the not-so-intelligent have been popes. They can be wrong, as my father was wrong, and that in no way undercuts primacy, authority, or standing.

I’ll take the interpretation and faith of the first Christians who testified in Peter’s primacy rather than non-Christians of 2000 years later.

Peace

 

[Atreyu]

Is this one trick pony Angainor still talking about meat and idols?

You’re right man. No one found those passages in 2000 years until you did.

Was this really necessary? Come on dude…

 

[jaydog77]

Nope

 

[Angainor]

jaydog77:

I’ll take the interpretation and faith of the first Christians who testified in Peter’s primacy…

And who might they be? Certianly St. Paul is not among them.

 

[Eden]

**

Proof Paul was a Protestant

**

I’m just laughing at the title. No Catholic Church = No Protestant (i.e. protesting against) churches. Protestants were invented 1500 years later. That would be quite a feat for a contemporary of the apostles to have been “Protestant”.