Protestants Are Infallible!

[ahimsaman72]

Gilbert Keith:

Ahimsiman

catholic.net/the_pope_page/template_channel.phtml?channel_id=18

At this web site you will find Pope Benedict referring to the “Dictatorship of Relativism.” It’s an apt phrase since it means that even relativism, which routinely denies all absolutes, regards itself as absolute (infallibly true).

But if relativism is absolute, why can’t othere things also be absolute? For example, why can’t Christian doctrines also be absolute?

The question is: WHO DECIDES WHAT IS ABSOLUTE?

It makes no sense that everyone should decide, because everyone left to themselves will make a point of disagreeing, the human spirit being so contentious as it is. Therefore it only makes sense that Christ, desiring to protect the unity of his flock and prevent it from straying in a thousand different directions, would lodge the souce of infallibility in a single person at a single place.

The single person is Peter and his successor. The single place is wherever the rock (petros) is enthroned upon which Christ said he would build his Church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it.

Certainly good points. I read the article above and really agreed with it for the most part. I definitely see the need for religion and conservative morality and ethics, but find myself struggling with the implementation of those same said morality and ethics. I suppose I personally wonder at what point we have crossed the line in governing morally and ethically without implementing a state-run church and government.

 

[Mickey]

ahimsaman72:

Hey, thanks for the kind remark - you are absolutely too kind I believe and I’ve seen moving, articulate posts from you that I haven’t seen elsewhere. Your faith is incredible and I surely envy that about you. I always enjoy your comments and thoughts.

Are you trying to lead me into the sin of pride?
A strong and true faith is so important. We must always strive to strengthen our faith and our prayer life. I feel so sad for atheists. To believe that one ceases to exist after this life is a horrifying thought.

ahimsaman72:

Philosophy is difficult to me. It sometimes makes my head swim! I’ve got a couple of philosophy books, but became disinterested within a short amount of time.

Me too!
As a Byzantine Catholic, I tend to stress the mystical side of Christianity as opposed to the scholastic realm. I don’t find anything wrong with scholasticism, but it can tend to be confining because of the need to define everything (much of the time due to defending against protestant accusations).
For example, we don’t use the term “transubstantiation”. We say that it is the mystery of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Now I admit that one could say that we are describing the same thing–and we are! But Eastern Catholics and Orthodox don’t feel the necessity to give it a specific word.
Believe me, prayer of the heart can teach us truths in a very mystical way. Logic and philosophy can be dry, but sometimes we need a solid foundation of reason before we can descend into the heart. I will recommend to you that you look into reading a series called the “Philokalia”. It’s not an easy read–but infinitely rewarding.

**You shall seek me, and shall find me: when you shall seek me with all your heart. **
Jeremias 29:13

May God grant you many blessed years,
Mickey

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

ahim

I’ve always believe in absolute truth, just that it was either unrecognizable by all people and so veiled that it was useless to pursue.

Now you’re hot!

This is why so many people become relativists … they despair of finding the absolute truth because they have been tempted or distracted away from it in a thousand ways by the world and by the devil.

It is so much easier to just stop thinking and surrender to everyone else’s values as on a par with our own.

Who are we to judge? The relativist’s favorite question.

We are Christians, that’s who. And when we assert our Christianity into politics, as inevitably we must do (refusing, for example, to vote for a pro-choice candidate) we are judging that candidate to be unworthy of the power entrusted to him or her because we know that person will use that power to defend the killing of the unborn.

But where does the consciousness of that absolute value come from? Can anyone imagine it coming from anywhere more forcefully than it comes from the Catholic Church which has opposed abortion from the start and will never alter its position because it is absolute (infallibly so)?

 

[Tibbar]

Gilbert Keith:

Our Protestant friends ought not to complain about the Catholic notion of papal infallibility. They practice it themselves all the time. The difference is that every Protestant calls *himself *infallible. Now you will never hear him admit it, but if he did not believe it, he would have to say from time to time, “I might be wrong.”

Has anyone ever heard a Protestant make such an admission?

The only time I ever hear one admit it is when he shops around for a different Protestant church (where he will adopt another stance of infallibility for himself) or just before he chooses to enter the Catholic Church (where he will finally resign himself to the one and changeless infallibility of Rome).

Catholic or Protestant, one cannot escape being an infallibilist.

So then how can one choose to believe the claims of Catholicism rather than the claims of other groups without choosing? How does one know that there is a “true Church”, then identify the authority and obey it, without using things like knowledge, personal judgment, and choice? If one can “pick and choose” Catholicism over Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Mormonism, Islam, etc., then why can’t evangelicals “pick and choose” also? One can’t say, without being inconsistent, that the evidence leads one to distinguish between Catholicism and other belief systems, and then condemn any reliance on the personal judgment of evidence.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

TIBBAR

One can’t say, without being inconsistent, that the evidence leads one to distinguish between Catholicism and other belief systems, and then condemn any reliance on the personal judgment of evidence.

We have to rely on personal judgment being fallible among protestants as well as Catholics. My point is that protestants think their personal judgment is infallible. They think they are right based on what they read. They do not look to any higher authority than their own personal judgment … which is in agreement with others who think like them in their denomination. But they do not rely on a higher authority. If their community of protestants begins to think differently, they go and start a new church and gather around them people who think like they do.

Catholics cannot do this. They are bound by obligation to the infallibility of the Church. They can leave the Church and become protestants, or they can become cafeteria Catholics (protestants inside the Church). But they cannot be true Catholics if they differ with official Catholic teaching. This is why the teachings of the Church are so old and permanent. The Church holds fast to its absolute truths, while protestantism can barely wait to start another “infallible” branch that will be in conflict with all those thousands of other “infallible” branches.

But then you already knew this because you are a Catholic.

 

[Church_Militant]

ahimsaman72:

I submit to God only and the revelation given through various prophets and lastly by Christ Himself. Even if the Catholic Church assembled the Scriptures (they did of course)

we would still have the OT Scriptures.Not so! Since the Bible as we have it today did not exist until the 4th century and the New Testament church called itself Catholic long before then:

This was written by the bishop of the church in Antioch in about 107 AD, St Ignatius.
"Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude[of the people] also be; by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude[of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. " (Emphasis mine)
The whole letter
Pax vobiscum,

 

[ahimsaman72]

Mickey:

Are you trying to lead me into the sin of pride?
A strong and true faith is so important. We must always strive to strengthen our faith and our prayer life. I feel so sad for atheists. To believe that one ceases to exist after this life is a horrifying thought.

Me too!
As a Byzantine Catholic, I tend to stress the mystical side of Christianity as opposed to the scholastic realm. I don’t find anything wrong with scholasticism, but it can tend to be confining because of the need to define everything (much of the time due to defending against protestant accusations).
For example, we don’t use the term “transubstantiation”. We say that it is the mystery of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Now I admit that one could say that we are describing the same thing–and we are! But Eastern Catholics and Orthodox don’t feel the necessity to give it a specific word.
Believe me, prayer of the heart can teach us truths in a very mystical way. Logic and philosophy can be dry, but sometimes we need a solid foundation of reason before we can descend into the heart. I will recommend to you that you look into reading a series called the “Philokalia”. It’s not an easy read–but infinitely rewarding.

**You shall seek me, and shall find me: when you shall seek me with all your heart. **
Jeremias 29:13

May God grant you many blessed years,
Mickey

No, wouldn’t want to get you to be prideful, but it is apparent that such things are true.

I admit I know little of the Byzantine church - but it sounds very interesting.

Peace…

 

[ahimsaman72]

Gilbert Keith:

ahim

I’ve always believe in absolute truth, just that it was either unrecognizable by all people and so veiled that it was useless to pursue.

Now you’re hot!

This is why so many people become relativists … they despair of finding the absolute truth because they have been tempted or distracted away from it in a thousand ways by the world and by the devil.

It is so much easier to just stop thinking and surrender to everyone else’s values as on a par with our own.

Yes, that’s it exactly. I’ve studied (boy have I studied my little heart out) trying to find the elusive “absolute truth” only to become disenchanted with it. Once I find what I have believed to be true I have more often than not found it to be untrue at some point later. That’s the story of my life

 

[Mystophilus]

Mickey:

Your profile says that you are a heretic. What does this mean?

(Sorry for the delay; I’ve been buried under marking.)

I am a heretic because I hold heterodox views. I am not able to believe that any church is infallible, or that any text is infallible. Instead, upon the basis of historical and contemporary evidence, I believe that we are all wrong about God, because we are all imperfect, fallible mortals. We may not be wrong about everything, and we may not always be wrong, but we are not dependably right. God, having created us, is aware of this, and, being just, does not hold against us our innate imperfection of understanding.

However, I know that my own views are wrong in some way.