Protestants: Are You Okay With Division?

[Richard_White]

The article doesn’t explain how Athanasius knew what was scripture decades before a pope or council declared it to be so. Many early christian communities had scripture, and they knew what it was sans a pope or council.

As it says in the article, Athanasius and many Christian communities had some idea about what books were and were not Scripture, but t was officially defined until the Holy Catholic Church did t though the Magisterium of the Bishops at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage.

Therefore, my point is that the Holy Catholic Church is the one who Jesus gave the authority to determine which books are truly the Divine Word of God through the workings of the Holy Spirit. Thus, all the Truth that you claim to know has been preserved by the Catholic Church alone.

How can you therefore deny the Catholic Church, which is the Church of God, the Blessed Trinity, and separate yourself from it?

May God bless you abundantly and forever!

 

[SalusaSecondus]

As it says in the article, Athanasius and many Christian communities had some idea about what books were and were not Scripture, but t was officially defined until the Holy Catholic Church did t though the Magisterium of the Bishops at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage.

Therefore, my point is that the Holy Catholic Church is the one who Jesus gave the authority to determine which books are truly the Divine Word of God through the workings of the Holy Spirit. Thus, all the Truth that you claim to know has been preserved by the Catholic Church alone.

Oh. I don’t believe that at all. In fact I think it’s demonstrably false. If the church was united at the time of Hippo and Carthage, under the auspices of Rome, then all communions EO, and OO, and Church or the East would all have the same canon. They don’t, either the church wasn’t united, or they didn’t care as much about what Rome was declaring as Catholic Answers would have me believe.

How can you therefore deny the Catholic Church, which is the Church of God, the Blessed Trinity, and separate yourself from it?

Because that whole argument is based on a false premise that is historically flawed. Also, I have explained why I am not Catholic in another thread. Also, I believe Lutheranism IS the Catholic Church in a sense as it is a valid continuation of the Western Church.

May God bless you abundantly and forever!

Thanks. God bless you to.

 

[Cake_or_Death]

Hey, what are you going to do, force them to stop?

Seriously. I’m asking this sincerely. Do you think it’s okay to forcibly coerce people who are baptized Catholic as infants and later decide they don’t want to be Catholic anymore?

If you want my honest answer, here it is. The Catholic Church has a long history of opposing the coercion of converts from another faith into the Church. But it also has a long history of looking at these people who divide and separate (as you have) and then forcing them to stop. How exactly do you think this was prevented for as long as it was? (Setting aside the fact that the existence of Eastern, Coptic, and Oriental Orthodoxy effectively destroys your narrative of “none existed who were not united to the Church of Rome for 1500 years”…) Pretty much through the use of force, is the answer. That is how heresy was wiped out on numerous occasions. And I’d say the success of the Reformation is great news. The Catholic Church tried extra hard to coerce the Reformers out of existence and it did not work. If it had, the Catholic Church would have continued to be a lot more coercive than it is now.

The Catholic Church behaves in a less coercive manner because of how well the Protestant Reformers stood up to its use of force. We can all be glad of that. Some of us are choosing to ignore that fact, but it is something that we can all be glad of.

:clapping:

Exactly. With these divisions people we enjoy a gentler, more free religion and world very different from Medieval Catholic Europe. I can disagree and debate on this forum today, but one thousand years ago I’d be publicly executed for not agreeing the Pope is infallible.

Freedom of religion, freedom from it, democracy, the scientific method, the protestant work ethic, freedom to marry; the world owes many things to the reformers. That’s not to say the Catholic Church didn’t give the world good things too, but I daresay we wouldn’t have come so far or enjoy the freedom to speak had the Catholic Church’s temporal power not been checked by the reformers.

It wasn’t immediate, but I think they eventually made Catholicism a more peaceful and pacifistic religion. Ireland voted SSM recently, the Catholic Church disaproves. If they’d done that eight hundred years ago the Pope would have called a crusade and killed everyone, Catholic and non, as was done with the Cathars.

Undoubtedly the sheer level of fracture isn’t what Luther had in mind, but I think granting the ability to simply hold different opinions and the freedom to debate them has done wonders for the western world.

I’m more than okay with division, in fact I positively encourage diversity. God knows things turn ugly when any one denomination gets too much power, look what the Anglican Church got up to.

 

[adf417]

Oh. I don’t believe that at all. In fact I think it’s demonstrably false. If the church was united at the time of Hippo and Carthage, under the auspices of Rome, then all communions EO, and OO, and Church or the East would all have the same canon. They don’t, either the church wasn’t united, or they didn’t care as much about what Rome was declaring as Catholic Answers would have me believe.

Because that whole argument is based on a false premise that is historically flawed. Also, I have explained why I am not Catholic in another thread. Also, I believe Lutheranism IS the Catholic Church in a sense as it is a valid continuation of the Western Church.

Thanks. God bless you to.

Greetings SalusaSecondus,
Can you give your opinion on what the purposes of the early councils of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage were, in terms of the canon? Why did these councils exist?

Peace!!!

 

[SalusaSecondus]

Greetings SalusaSecondus,
Can you give your opinion on what the purposes of the early councils of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage were, in terms of the canon? Why did these councils exist?

Peace!!!

Local councils to affirm the canon that they were already using. They weren’t binding on the whole church, that’s why the canon they affirmed falls short of the EO canon and OO canon.

 

[QuestLove]

Not being a member of the RC does not automatically mean you reject Christ and his teachings. There are many who are still witnesses for Christ and believers of the gospel who for whatever reason cannot be members of the RC.
So, I do not necessarily view different denominations as rejecting the faith. There is still unity in mainstream christianity with regard to the core beliefs of what makes someone a follower of christ. It’s when you get down to the nitty-gritty, man-made rules that we start to differ. For example my friends and I can pray together and read the bible together without any issue but once we start discussing what to wear to church and what is acceptable music in church we begin to differ. Even within the same denominations, from country to country, the rules will differ. Does it mean then we are not united in our beliefs about Christ. I don’t think so.
Oneness (Unity) does not necessarily mean sameness.
So, no I am not okay with divisions but I AM ok with differences.

 

[captainrick]

I was Protestant for many years.
No, I’m not happy with the divisions. I won’t get into the fray here, but would like to add one thing:

In general, most people are Methodist because their parents were Methodist.
People are Catholic because their parents were Catholic. People are Jews because their parents were Jewish.

Most people do not post on religious forums, and do not care about denominational divisions. They just know what religion they are because it’s what they were born into.

So, in answer to CAF questions asking “what do Protestants think of…” the answer is usually “Most of them don’t think about these things at all.”

 

[adf417]

Local councils to affirm the canon that they were already using. They weren’t binding on the whole church, that’s why the canon they affirmed falls short of the EO canon and OO canon.

Yes they were, in a sense, already using them but not exclusively, right? Were they not also using hundreds of other books? Isn’t saying “to affirm the canon that they were already using” misrepresenting the fact that they were in fact using the 27 books in the NT but not only the 27 books?

Peace!!!

 

[SalusaSecondus]

Yes they were, in a sense, already using them but not exclusively, right? Were they not also using hundreds of other books? Isn’t saying “to affirm the canon that they were already using” misrepresenting the fact that they were in fact using the 27 books in the NT but not only the 27 books?

Peace!!!

Sure. But it’s not like they defined the canon for the whole church. Other canons circulated and continue to circulate.

 

[ltwin]

Protestants, do you really think it is okay that there is so much separation within the Christian faith?

I don’t celebrate division.

Do you really think that it is okay that there are thousands of Protestant denominations, some that are split off for the smallest things?

It doesn’t bother me really. Denominations are more or less bureaucratic agencies. I am much less concerned with the multiplicities of ecclesiastical bureaucracies than I am with the contradictory theological systems that often accompany them.

Do you really think that it is okay for Protestants to be split off from the Catholic Church, which was the ONLY Christian Church from the time of Jesus until the 1500s and the heresies of a few individuals, who changed doctrine and started their own denominations?

Frankly, I don’t think the Roman Catholic Church has ever been the only Christian Church. Even if, for the sake of argument, we said it was once the only church, this universal church (which in reality was just the state church of the Roman Empire) was already fragmenting into Eastern and Western churches long before 1500, a division that paralleled the Empire’s geo-political divisions.

And do you really think that it is okay that there is such division among Christians for a refusal to believe in the Truth, even when it is presented right to certain people and even with the Prayer of Jesus from the Gospel According to Saint John: “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me" (John 17: 20-21, emphasis mine).

Yes, all Christians should desire unity in the body of Christ. The question is what does this unity look like? Honestly, I have a hard time believing that it looks like the Vatican.

 

[adf417]

Sure. But it’s not like they defined the canon for the whole church. Other canons circulated and continue to circulate.

Not in regard of the NT. Lets go back to my original question about the purpose of the councils and refine the question to the NT and the hundreds of books being used at the time. What was it that pared down the NT canon from 400 books to only 27 books some 300 years after the Apostles?

Peace!!!

 

[SalusaSecondus]

Not in regard of the NT. Lets go back to my original question about the purpose of the councils and refine the question to the NT and the hundreds of books being used at the time. What was it that pared down the NT canon from 400 books to only 27 books some 300 years after the Apostles?

Peace!!!

The 27 book NT was recognized long before any pope or council declared them. That’s why Athanasius didn’t need a pope or council to tell him what it was.

 

[Richard_White]

The 27 book NT was recognized long before any pope or council declared them. That’s why Athanasius didn’t need a pope or council to tell him what it was.

Yes, it is true that Athanasius and the early Christians had a canon that they recognized, but it wasn’t until the Church councils that the canon (as they knew it then) was officially declared by the Magisterium of the Church. Until then, it was not official.

 

[spedteacherita]

The truth is Jesus Christ, he even says so. He is the way the truth and the life.

 

[spedteacherita]

The divisions are going to happen because God gave us Free Will…some of these divisions are hateful as in the Westboro Church but the majority of the different church divisions believe in the crucifixion, resurrection, assumption of Jesus to heaven and His soon return for us.

These verses are many times thought of in the negative but take a moment and see them in the positive light:

We’re not to have strife and jealously among us. 3for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? 4For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men?
** 5What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. 6I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. **7So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. 8Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

We’re all reaching out and working in God’s field, watering and feeding those to whom God has given the seed of faith.

Thanks and God bless

Rita

 

[spedteacherita]

The Roman canon is not the sole, “valid” canon of Christianity. Even within Catholicism, the various particular Churches have differing bibles. Early Christians wrote, edited, and compiled the various books. Different Churches have recognized different lists of books within their published sacred canons. It’s not exactly the “smoking gun” for the Roman Catholic organization as supreme head of Christianity.

I’m not sure how this kind of “gotcha” questioning angle furthers the cause of the RC church. Personally, I feel it weakens it, because it tries to take messy, muddy facts and sanitize them to fit a clean, simple narrative…usually at the expense of the Eastern churches, both Catholic and otherwise. Christians “are” where they are because of their faith. I don’t think anyone would say that division, of itself, is a “good”. However, the underlying reasons for division are complex…and the resulting church memberships are likewise complex, multifaceted, and personal decisions. The posters in other threads (eg, “Why Are You Not Catholic”, a very active thread at the moment) eloquently offer varied and personal responses to this matter.

 

[spedteacherita]

I was Protestant for many years.
No, I’m not happy with the divisions. I won’t get into the fray here, but would like to add one thing:

In general, most people are Methodist because their parents were Methodist.
People are Catholic because their parents were Catholic. People are Jews because their parents were Jewish.

Very true!

 

[adf417]

The 27 book NT was recognized long before any pope or council declared them. That’s why Athanasius didn’t need a pope or council to tell him what it was.

Yes a very long time before. So why is it that the community of believers continued for 300 years to use hundreds of books in the liturgy, many more than the 27 you and I use today? If they knew which of the hundreds of books were in fact theopneustos, why did they continue to use many more for so long? What event, entity, declaration… changed the course of using hundreds of books to 27 books in the NT and when did this happen? If anything, after 300 years and 400 or so books, the course would seem to be heading in the wrong direction to me, but I am open to hearing a logical alternative to this especially given the historical fact that there was at least 3 councils dealing with what looks like confusion at least as far as the NT is concerned.

Peace!!!

 

[SalusaSecondus]

Yes, it is true that Athanasius and the early Christians had a canon that they recognized, but it wasn’t until the Church councils that the canon (as they knew it then) was officially declared by the Magisterium of the Church. Until then, it was not official.

I don’t believe that at all. No declaration made them “official” until Trent. That’s why there were many canons floating around, and why the Easterners still have a different canon. We’re the Easterners not united with Rome in 400, or were they simply ignoring what Rome was teaching, or was Rome not as authoritative as Catholic Answers would have me believe?

 

[PDXSeeker_1975]

And the old lie that there was only one Christian church until 1500 has been refuted over and over. I wouldn’t use it anymore,

True, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Lutheran church (and virtually every other protestant/evangelical/non-denominational community) did NOT exist before the 16th century. Divisions have increased exponentially since that time. That simply cannot be denied.