Protestants: When did the Church depart from Truth into Error?

[rr1213]

I’m happy to be appreciated–but then maybe you could answer me. . . . Why do we have to believe that Catholicism “went off the rails”? Why can’t it be, at the very worst, in the same boat we are?

The little byplay about Catholic vs. Anglican persecutions illustrates my point. I never intended to suggest that I thought Anglicans had clean hands persecution-wise. My point is precisely that even if the RCC is in some rarefied sense infallible, in the normal day-to-day sense it has made a lot of mistakes just as we have.

Edwin

I think as Protestants that we have to believe Catholicism erred because of the nature of the claims that the Catholic Church makes. The Church claims to always be right on doctrine and to be the One True Church. If the Church is right, then Protestants are wrong. Likewise, if Protestants are right, then we should be able to show how, over the years or at a certain point, the Church strayed from the truth. This is what makes it difficult for me to conceive of the Church as simply being in the same boat as we are.

For example, I’ve seen some of your posts where you say that Protestants tend to have either a narrow view of the Church (i.e., people who might say “only folks who believe EXACTLY the same as my little church does are Christians, everyone else is a heretic”) or a broad view of the Church (i.e., people who would say “the Church consists of all those churches that teach the ‘essentials’ of the faith”). I would agree with you that in American Protestantism most people would be described as “broad” church. As Protestants we can do that because a Presbyterian can believe that a Baptist is a Christian, and that both are members of the true or universal church, even though both probably hold contrary views on pretty important matters. They still believe in the “fundamentals”…everything else is something to be sorted out on the other side of paradise.

As Protestants, we are used to dealing with that sort of doctrinal “tension”. Catholics clearly are not. Yet, isn’t truth truth? Maybe I’m rambling now…

 

[Rocky]

Then I think we have to be clear about our terms.

First of all when I as a Catholic say that the Church does not/cannot err, I am talking about Church as the Body of Christ, one, holy, catholic (universal) and apostolic. Mystically that means that since Christ Himself cannot err the Church cannot err because of Christ’s promise. This promise is true because Christ cannot be unfaithful to Himself.

And when Catholics speak of doctrine or dogma or Tradition (this is where the ECF come in), I often find that Protestants keep coming back to discipline and little “t” tradition insisting that these things are our doctrine/dogma/Tradition.

So it seems as if we cannot even agree on what is considered doctrine, and the weight that carries over and above other things.

 

[Nancie_Lew]

What is your opinion of the Early Church Fathers?
How important is it to you how they viewed scripture?
Can you accept that the Church went astray within the first couple of centuries?
Do you have any thoughts on my first post? (the long one)

I appreciate your sincere question. I think it’s a valid and important topic to have a discussion on.

A few questions

1. How many ECFS were there
2. Are they the actual founders of the Catholic Church
3. Did they elect the first pope
4. Did they all live during the same time period
5. If they learned from the Apostles did the apostles write any of this Catholic doctrine in additional books besides the Bible. If not …why not
6. When there are differences in doctrine between ECFS how did they decide which teachings would be used by the church. For example there is a Father Ambrose who posts on this forum. In one of his posts he listed all of the ECFS that did not believe that Peter was the first pope or that they even supported the concept of a pope. If there were that many ECFS that did not support a pope in the church than who made the final decision on the issue.

Than there is the question of Catholic doctrine. It always seems to be evolving. I thought I read that confession to a priest wasn’t instituted by the Catholic church until the Council of Trent.

 

[GregoryPalamas]

This thread has chased itself down many a rabbit trail. To get back to the original question seems worthwhile.

“When did the Church depart from Truth into Error?” Is a rhetorical question with only one answer.

Answer: “It never has and never will.”

CDL

 

[Mannyfit75]

Here you go again with this, “We are right and the rest of creation is wrong” stuff again. This seems to be the norm with you sir. You have a huge beef with Protestants in general and will stop at nothing to continue to feed your own ego and keep reminding yourself that you are right on all counts. Maybe this is what you have to do to keep all of the Catholic propaganda from appearing to be the lies, deceit and manipulation that it genuinely is. It proves nothing to non-Catholics to use, “the church says that it is so” as proof on any and all issues. The Reformation took place becase it had to for Christianity to survive.

The Catholic Church is over 2,000 yrs old and it survive. The problem with Protestantism itself is that it has divide sects with very different interpretation of the Bible. Their teachings are not one or unified.

The Reformation took place because of the hardness of men’s heart on both sides. Jesus did not intended his body to be divided. He prayed for unity not division. The schism, and the Reformation is not the will of God. Satan influence’s men’s heart on all sides that caused this division.

Note I said, Satan influence.

 

[Mannyfit75]

A few questions

1. How many ECFS were there
2. Are they the actual founders of the Catholic Church
3. Did they elect the first pope
4. Did they all live during the same time period
5. If they learned from the Apostles did the apostles write any of this Catholic doctrine in additional books besides the Bible. If not …why not
6. When there are differences in doctrine between ECFS how did they decide which teachings would be used by the church. For example there is a Father Ambrose who posts on this forum. In one of his posts he listed all of the ECFS that did not believe that Peter was the first pope or that they even supported the concept of a pope. If there were that many ECFS that did not support a pope in the church than who made the final decision on the issue.

Than there is the question of Catholic doctrine. It always seems to be evolving. I thought I read that confession to a priest wasn’t instituted by the Catholic church until the Council of Trent.

The institution of the Confession was in the beginning started with public confession involve the laity and the bishop was the mediator. It became private in the middle ages around the reign of Pope Gregory the Great, I believe.

The ECF are not infallible but they are a witness to the Christian way of life in the Early Church. The Councils of the Church are however infallible when they discussion moral and faith issues. We see this in the many writings of the ECFs.

 

[angelusm]

The greatest heresy, as I’ve just replied to somebody else in this forum, is the lack of unity. It means that protestants don’t obey the pope - Peter. Jesus wants us to live in unity and to obey the pope. Other protestant heresies: they don’t believe that bread and wine become real Body and Bread of Jesus (while Jesus said so; see eucharistic miracles in google), don’t have the sacrament of confession (if you don’t confess your sins they are not forgiven), plus other weird ideas like blessing gay couples, stressing the importance of being rich to be saved or woman priesthood.
It’s the pope who has the keys to heaven given by Jesus, not protestants.

 

[Mannyfit75]

The institution of the Confession was in the beginning started with public confession involve the laity and the bishop was the mediator. It became private in the middle ages around the reign of Pope Gregory the Great, I believe.

The ECF are not infallible but they are a witness to the Christian way of life in the Early Church. The Councils of the Church are however infallible when they discussion moral and faith issues. We see this in the many writings of the ECFs.

I like to add, they are witnesses to the Early Christian way of life after the death of the last apostle.

 

[SyCarl]

First let me say that I would agree that the church cannot fall into error, but like most Protestants I believe that the church is not any particulair institution but is the body of all true believers, irrespective of denomination. I believe that there always has been and always will be a faithful remnant which fulfills the promise that the gates of hell will never over come the church. I also believe that every denomination including my own, and including the Roman Catholic Church contains some error. This comes to a large extent from the human desire to know and explain everything even though God has no obligation to tell us something simply because we want to know it.
So my comments as to when the institutional church started to fall into error are not limited to the Roman Catholic Church but institutional Christianity as a whole.

Error could be seen to be creeping into church bodies even in the time of the Apostles. This is shown by the many epistles sent to condemn false teachings. Any departure from truth though was gradual and never affected all believers. The most important point to me though, would be when Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire. Prior to that time people became Christians because they believed the Gospel preached to them and they faced persecution for their beliefs. At that time I have seen estimates that about 10% of the Empire’s population was Christian. After Christianity became the official religion and later the only permitted religion, the majority of nominal Christians were not that way from conviction but by requirement. The nature of Christianity is such that you cannot be coerced into accepting it, it must be freely embraced. Faith cannot be legislated. So the church now contained a majority of people who had formerly been pagans and did not fully understand Christian beliefs. This could only have an adverse effect on the instituional church as a whole. In addition, the influx of new Christians would place a strain on a leadership whose numbers were not sufficient to deal with the increased numbers. More priests would be needed and it would seem inevitable that there would a sudden influx of less qualified people who were less able to preserve sound doctrine since they did not necessarily have a sufficient basis in it themselves.

At the same time, the Roman Empire was in the process of disintegration, at least in the west. Church office became a means of Rome maintaining a form of secular power that was decreasingly available through imperial offices. Some men sought church leadership not necessarily because of their faith but because they wanted power. Combining a laity that now had a majority that could have pagan leanings with a leadership that some wished to use to build a power base, could lead to a tendency to depart from truth to please the masses and increase influence. Once started the trend gradually increased.

 

[mirandajb]

The Reformation took place becase it had to for Christianity to survive.

I truly believe that God himself allowed the Reformation to take place as the CC was playing God and politics and partly because of the Dark Ages where the Word of God was not ‘going public enough’.
Having said that I am shocked at the lies and heresy preached by some Protestant ‘so called Pastors’ (a dime a dozen) mostly because their activity is not regulated - look at the number of private churches.
In the Old Testament, God required His people to go to Jerusalem for the 7 festivals of the Messiah - so that worship could be regulated thus preventing altars in high places and asherims - and His people could not do they liked. God was very specific with what He wanted of his people. God wanted to control heresy as much as He could.
On the other hand, the first Priest that God ordained - Aaron - was very quick to bring out the Golden Calf, the minute Moses’ back was turned. Ever wondered what God was trying to tell us? We cannot trust man…we can only trust Him and His word.

 

[jmcrae]

As Protestants, we believe that the Catholic Church errs in matters of doctrine and that the Reformation was a necessary correction of those errors. So, assuming that the Catholic Church erred, at what time did this begin? In other words, when was the Church essentially doing things right and when, exactly, did it subsequently depart into heresy?

Bear in mind that once you select a date, you cannot hold anything as Christian doctrine that the Church ever taught after that date - it is your personal opinion that it’s true, but nothing more than that.

So, for example, if you say that the errors began with Constantine, then you cannot believe anything in the Bible, since the canon of the Bible was not established until nearly 80 years after Constantine’s death.

You can have a personal opinion that the Bible is true, but you cannot make it an article of your faith that the Bible is the Word of God, since the order of the books of the Bible was not yet known at the time of Constantine.

However, if you choose a date that is later than that, then you must believe everything that came before, including the perpetual virginity of Mary, that Mary is the Theotokos and the mother of God, the baptism of infants, the Mass, private confession to a priest (which is referred to in one document that was written in the 200s AD), the teachings around Original Sin, and so on.

The way out, which many Protestants have chosen, is to say that (despite the clear evidence to the contrary in the New Testament) Jesus never intended to establish a visible Church, and that His Church is an invisible assembly of “true believers” who cannot be known in this world, but who will be made visible in Heaven.

Otherwise, they have to say that the Church apostasized some time before Christ established the Sacraments and set the Apostles up in authority over the Church - which means that it happened during His lifetime, probably some time during the first year of His ministry here on earth.

 

[Grateful4mercy]

Well folks, being charitable, we have about six serious responses to this question, only four of which are actually on point with respect to the inquiry… and Edwin is responsible for three of those. Thanks Edwin!

I understand that Catholics do not believe that the Church, as opposed to individuals in the Church, can err on matters of faith and morals. I truly do understand that concept, although I don’t accept it.

Protestants, on the other hand, do believe that the Church has erred. What I am really and quite seriously interested in discussing is when and how this happened. If we, as Protestants ,believe this to be true, then we should be able to p(name removed by moderator)oint some point (or points) in history at which we can reasonably assert that the train went off the rails. Was this right at the beginning in the first century? Or was it only after the Church became the established religion of the Empire? Or was it the medieval Church? The Church immediately prior to Trent? I don’t know, but you get the picture.

If we as Protestants are right, we should be able to answer this question. If we cannot, then perhaps we are wrong or maybe we are not conversant enough with our own ecclesiastical history. I’m not baiting anyone here and I’m not sure what the answer is, but I would like to hear rational, reasonable and thoughtful responses.

Finally, everyone should know that I also posted this question over at CARM. Certainly, I shouldn’t expect to get more serious answers over there than here, now, should I?

You do understand that this sort of argument represents a flawed and backward logic, right? You just KNOW we HAVE to be wrong, but you just don’t know WHY yet. So we must set out on an adventure to PROVE your flawed accusation.

You should instead be looking at the facts first then coming to a conclusion. In my opinion this is where Protestants err. Where else in the world can you come to a conclusion FIRST then go fact finding? Would you continue to see a doctor that just KNEW your leg had to come off, and if you just give him enough time he can PROVE it. But let’s lose the leg anyway while we look.

I am also impressed with jmcrae’s response. I would LOVE to see you work your way out of that riddle. Honestly, since you think there has been err, and you can’t figure out when or where, you should probably play it safe and leave the faith altogether until you can work it out. You wouldn’t want to die and not be sure if you were on the right side of the err, would you?

 

[Rightlydivide]

So where did one go to find the infallible teachings of the Catholic Church prior to the first council?

 

[Grateful4mercy]

So where did one go to find the infallible teachings of the Catholic Church prior to the first council?

Interesting question, who are you asking it to?

 

[rr1213]

You do understand that this sort of argument represents a flawed and backward logic, right? You just KNOW we HAVE to be wrong, but you just don’t know WHY yet. So we must set out on an adventure to PROVE your flawed accusation.

You should instead be looking at the facts first then coming to a conclusion. In my opinion this is where Protestants err. Where else in the world can you come to a conclusion FIRST then go fact finding? Would you continue to see a doctor that just KNEW your leg had to come off, and if you just give him enough time he can PROVE it. But let’s lose the leg anyway while we look.

I’m not asking you, or any other Catholic, to prove anything to me in this thread. I’m afraid that you don’t understand the premise or the question. Please look at the OP and, especially, my post 30 above.

 

[rr1213]

You can have a personal opinion that the Bible is true, but you cannot make it an article of your faith that the Bible is the Word of God, since the order of the books of the Bible was not yet known at the time of Constantine.

What does Constantine and the canon have to do with it? It is a fallacy to say that Christians did not have the Scriptures prior to their canonization. Indeed, the majority of the New Testament was written in the life times of the apostles. And, as apostolic writings, they were generally considered authoritative at the time of their genesis. It was not necessary for them to be canonized in order for them to be read and followed.

 

[Grateful4mercy]

I’m not asking you, or any other Catholic, to prove anything to me in this thread. I’m afraid that you don’t understand the premise or the question. Please look at the OP and, especially, my post 30 above.

Post 30 is the one quoted in MY post. That’s the one I am most referring to. I’m not trying to give you an answer, I’m questioning the logic of your inquiry. You have the automatic assumption that your premise is correct and then ask for help in proving it. Even the title of the thread would make any chance of learning impossible. You have closed the door on all debate and excluded the people who have the actual FACTS from joining your little circus.

When did the church depart from the truth? The instant a single man thought himself higher in authority than God. I’ll leave it to you Protestants to figure out WHO that man might be.

 

[jmcrae]

So where did one go to find the infallible teachings of the Catholic Church prior to the first council?

What do you consider to be the first Council? Prior to the Council of Jerusalem (which is recorded in Acts 15), they went to the Apostles.

Between the death of St. Peter and the First Council of Nicea in 325 AD, they went to the same place we still go to, today - the Bishop of Rome.

Just one example of people going to the Bishop of Rome for answers - here is a small section of the response given by the Pope to the Corinthian Church in 90 AD:

“Indeed, you will give joy and gladness to us [the Bishop of Rome], if having become obedient to what we have written through the Holy Spirit, you will cut out the unlawful application of your zeal according to the exhortation which we have made in this epistle concerning peace and union.” (Letter of Pope Clement I to the Corinthians, c. 90 AD - indicates that the Bishop of Rome was the final authority in matters of doctrine and discipline.)

From Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, page 19.

 

[rr1213]

Post 30 is the one quoted in MY post. That’s the one I am most referring to. I’m not trying to give you an answer, I’m questioning the logic of your inquiry. You have the automatic assumption that your premise is correct and then ask for help in proving it. Even the title of the thread would make any chance of learning impossible. You have closed the door on all debate and excluded the people who have the actual FACTS from joining your little circus.

When did the church depart from the truth? The instant a single man thought himself higher in authority than God. I’ll leave it to you Protestants to figure out WHO that man might be.

Sorry, you *were *quoting from my post number 30. That being the case, please focus on the following:

*“If we as Protestants are right, we should be able to answer this question. If we cannot, then perhaps we are wrong…” *

I already know that Catholics believe that the Church does not err and has not gone off the track. I am not learning anything by having numerous well meaning (mostly) Catholics tell me the same thing over and over again. I get it. Really.

Commonly held Protestant assumptions, however, hold that the Church erred. So, what I am interested in hearing are Protestant explanations as to when and how the Catholic Church went off the track. I want to hear the best of these so that I can evaluate their accuracy, credibility, and persuasiveness.

 

[jmcrae]

What does Constantine and the canon have to do with it? It is a fallacy to say that Christians did not have the Scriptures prior to their canonization. Indeed, the majority of the New Testament was written in the life times of the apostles. And, as apostolic writings, they were generally considered authoritative at the time of their genesis. It was not necessary for them to be canonized in order for them to be read and followed.

The books existed, yes. They were read from at Mass, yes.

But we didn’t yet have a set-aside group of books called “The Bible” until after the canon of Scripture was infallibly declared and officially promulgated in the early 400s AD. Before that, we had about 100 separate books, written in all different languages, that we liked to read from at Mass.

The list was winnowed down to 73 by means of the Councils of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage, and that list of 73 books, after it was infallibly declared and officially promulgated by the Pope, became “The Bible.” St. Jerome then gathered all the books together and translated them into Latin. This became (and still is) the official Bible of the Church.