Question for Protestants

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Gilbert_Keith

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If the Catholic Church is a “false” religion, at what point did this “false” religion begin? In what century? What was the first false teaching of the the Catholic Church? Any Protestant who is “steeped” in the history of Christianity should be able to answer this question.

Thanks in advance for your answers.
 
Gilbert_Keith said:
If the Catholic Church is a “false” religion, at what point did this “false” religion begin? In what century? What was the first false teaching of the the Catholic Church? Any Protestant who is “steeped” in the history of Christianity should be able to answer this question.

Thanks in advance for your answers.
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If I may elaborate on your question, at what point was the entire Church, both east and west, overcome with heresy upon heresy (for such are many Catholic and Orthodox teachings in the eyes of many Protestants). How did these heresies spread to infect the entire Church without the tinest shred of historical evidence passing down to us? How is it that nobody in the early Church (believers who readily went to their deaths rather than deny the true faith!) wrote about these spreading heresies, or convened Councils to fight them, or schismed off from the heretics, or anything else that one might reasonably expect true believers to do when confronted by massive heresy spreading throughout the Church?

And yet, not a drop of historical evidence can be found for such an overwhelming infection of the Church…
 
This is true. Even the Arians of the 4th century should be identified by modern day Protestants as heretics. But the Catholics never taught that heresy, and fought it until it passed away.
 
Maybe this would do better in the non-Catholic forum?
Thanks for the suggestion. I have requested the same.
 
Is this an “unanswerable question” for Protestants who are steeped in history? If so, it doesn’t say much for Protestant scholarship on the history of Christianity … at least for the Protestant scholars visiting Catholic Answers.

It’s really important that Protestants know what they are talking about when they say the Catholic Church began in such-and-such a century and for certain reasons broke from the true line of Christianity. If they cannot mark that point of falling away, what case can they have at all that Catholicism is a false religion?
 
Gilbert_Keith said:
Is this an “unanswerable question” for Protestants who are steeped in history? If so, it doesn’t say much for Protestant scholarship on the history of Christianity … at least for the Protestant scholars visiting Catholic Answers.

It’s really important that Protestants know what they are talking about when they say the Catholic Church began in such-and-such a century and for certain reasons broke from the true line of Christianity. If they cannot mark that point of falling away, what case can they have at all that Catholicism is a false religion?
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Do you know the answer to this question yourself?

Rather than ask when the RCC went heretical, ask what Christians mean by stating that they began with ‘in the beginning God created’.
The link takes you to a list of catholic heresies and their ‘official’ beginning:
jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Roman%20Catholicism/catholic_heresies-a_list.htm
Cardinal Newman, in his book, “The Development of the Christian Religion,” admits that … “Temples, incense, oil lamps, votive offerings, holy water, holidays and season of devotions, processions, blessing of fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure (of priests and monks and nuns), images … are all of pagan origin…” (Page 359).
As for falling away? Eve was tempted and ate, Adam followed suit…Cain slew Abel…and so on and so on. This is proof extant. What you want cannot find a p(name removed by moderator)oint. Hope that helps.
 
Gilbert_Keith said:
If the Catholic Church is a “false” religion, at what point did this “false” religion begin? In what century? What was the first false teaching of the the Catholic Church? Any Protestant who is “steeped” in the history of Christianity should be able to answer this question.

Thanks in advance for your answers.
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Why don’t you ask the Orthodox this question? Catholics and Orthodox split from each other 500 years before the Reformation and, frankly, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches went schismatic on each other on grounds much less significant than those that divide Protestants from Catholics. So, which of those is “true” or “false”?
 
CherokeeBrave said:
Do you know the answer to this question yourself?

Rather than ask when the RCC went heretical, ask what Christians mean by stating that they began with ‘in the beginning God created’.
The link takes you to a list of catholic heresies and their ‘official’ beginning:
jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Roman%20Catholicism/catholic_heresies-a_list.htm

Cardinal Newman, in his book, “The Development of the Christian Religion,” admits that … “Temples, incense, oil lamps, votive offerings, holy water, holidays and season of devotions, processions, blessing of fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure (of priests and monks and nuns), images … are all of pagan origin…” (Page 359).​

As for falling away? Eve was tempted and ate, Adam followed suit…Cain slew Abel…and so on and so on. This is proof extant. What you want cannot find a p(name removed by moderator)oint. Hope that helps.
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I suggest that you type in Lorraine Boettner in the Search tabs to see what the Catholic rebuttal is to these “inventions.”

Furthermore, Cardinal John Newman wrote “Development of Christian Doctrine” not “Development of the Christian Religion.”

I don’t think the OP is asking about original sin, but when did this so called “false” religion begin? Providing dates for said practices does not answer this question.
 
CherokeeBrave

*The link takes you to a list of catholic heresies and their ‘official’ beginning:
*jesus-is-savior.com/False…ies-a_list.htm
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Unfortunatley for your case, the link provides no documentation that I can see. Moreover, it seems to be admitting that the Catholic Church began as early as 300 AD.

What denomination do you belong to? When did your Church begin to exist? 300 AD?
 
rr1213

Why don’t you ask the Orthodox this question?
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Because I’m more interested in the Protestants’ answer.

The Orthodox can have their turn on another thread.

What say you in answer to the question posed? And why are you ex-Episcopalian, if that ties in with the question?
 
If the best scholar your church can come up with is a guy ripping off Lorraine Boettner, you’re hurting…
 
**
Disclaimer:

I’ll provide one reason why the RCC has been viewed as the false religion thoughout its history for educational purposes only. I am not trying to proselytize any Catholics. Please, don’t start directing hate-post in my direction. :eek:

OK? . . .

Venus (Tree worship), along with her consort Baal (the sun), corrupted Israel, invoking the wrath of God for their idolatry. This goddess of the groves was imported from Babylon (Iraq) into Israel upon the marriage of Ahab, King of Northern Israel, to Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, a priest of the Ashtoreth of Babylon (I Kings 16:31). The “Seat of Satan” relocated at Pergamos (Rev. 2:13). The king of Pergamos (Attalus III) died and left his Chaldean system of magic and superstition to Rome by will and testament. Upon organizing the Romanist Church, Constantine not only implemented the Chaldean system of Sun and Moon worship into his church, he adapted their annual 7 day festival of drunken revelry and riotous immorality. The festival, called the Saturnalia, was given the name Christmass within the church. It was celebrated on December 25th. This date was known far and wide throughout the pagan world as the exact birthday of Adonis the tree god (Allah) of Babylon.**
 
tabcom

So are you saying the Catholic Church began with Constantine, and that it was corrupted by him (the gates of hell prevailed against it)?

If so, who carried on true Christianity after Constantine up until the modern Protestants? Was there no true Christianity from the 4th Century until the modern Protestants? If there was, please locate Christianity’s presence in the Western World and who its leaders were.
 
CherokeeBrave said:
Do you know the answer to this question yourself?

Rather than ask when the RCC went heretical, ask what Christians mean by stating that they began with ‘in the beginning God created’.
The link takes you to a list of catholic heresies and their ‘official’ beginning:
jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Roman%20Catholicism/catholic_heresies-a_list.htm
Click to expand...
Cardinal Newman, in his book, “The Development of the Christian Religion,” admits that … “Temples, incense, oil lamps, votive offerings, holy water, holidays and season of devotions, processions, blessing of fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure (of priests and monks and nuns), images … are all of pagan origin…” (Page 359).
As for falling away? Eve was tempted and ate, Adam followed suit…Cain slew Abel…and so on and so on. This is proof extant. What you want cannot find a p(name removed by moderator)oint. Hope that helps.That’s well known as The Boettner List and is totally refuted HERE.
Pax tecum,
 
Still need a scholarly Protestant to answer posts # 1 and #15.
 
Few people are historians of the Church so I can’t help you in discerning when the first false teachings crept into the Church, although Scripture makes reference to a number of false beliefs even in the days of the Apostles.

When a mechanic looks at a car, knowing the history of the car admittedly helps him to make his diagnosis. Nonethess, the most important method that the mechanic uses to diagnose problems is to compare the condition of the car to the applicable standard for the vehicle. In the old days, that would involve looking at a manufacturer’s repair manual to see what a certain part or function *should *look like and, thereby, determine if there is a current problem. Nowdays, this is often done by hooking the car up to a computer which makes the diagnosis, again based on applicable standards.

A Christian’s standard in evaluating spiritual teachings should be the Bible. In looking at the Scriptures, we can tell if current teachings or practices meet the Biblical standard or not…even if we can’t say when, exactly, those teaching strayed from the Biblically mandated path.
 
rr1213

A Christian’s standard in evaluating spiritual teachings should be the Bible. In looking at the Scriptures, we can tell if current teachings or practices meet the Biblical standard or not…even if we can’t say when, exactly, those teaching strayed from the Biblically mandated path.
Well, of course Catholics can’t agree to that. After all, it was the Church that made the Bible, not the Bible that made the Church. You would have to know that if you have a good grasp of early Christianity. Parts of the Bible were not even available to the early Christians since they were not collected as one whole book until long after the early Christians had died.

But you haven’t answered the question that it is vitally important for any Protestant to answer. If the Catholic Church ran into heresy and ceased to be the true Church in 300 AD, where was Christianity located between 300 AD and 1500 AD (Luther’s arrival, or if you are not a Lutheran, a much later date for whatever denomination you belong to)? That’s a 1,200 year gap where apparently you don’t have any true Christianity. Can you believe Christ would have let that happen, especially when he said to Peter that he would not let the gates of hell prevail against his (true) Church?

Matthew 16:18
 
Gilbert_Keith said:
rr1213

A Christian’s standard in evaluating spiritual teachings should be the Bible. In looking at the Scriptures, we can tell if current teachings or practices meet the Biblical standard or not…even if we can’t say when, exactly, those teaching strayed from the Biblically mandated path.
Well, of course Catholics can’t agree to that.

***That’s sad, because the Scriptures are the inspired Word of God. ***

After all, it was the Church that made the Bible, not the Bible that made the Church. You would have to know that if you have a good grasp of early Christianity. Parts of the Bible were not even available to the early Christians since they were not collected as one whole book until long after the early Christians had died.

The Books of the New Testament were not canonized until several centuries after Christ, but it is nonsensical to contend that they were not available to the early Christians for instruction. After all, they were written by those early Christians, namely the Apostles. They are as much Apostle-era sources as any tradition of the Church. And, unlike the oral traditions of the Church, the Scriptures are written, thereby allowing later generations to determine whether Church teachings have remained true to the Scriptures. Here’s a question for you…if the oral tradition of the Church is so important, why did God insure that the Scriptures were written down?

But you haven’t answered the question that it is vitally important for any Protestant to answer. If the Catholic Church ran into heresy and ceased to be the true Church in 300 AD, where was Christianity located between 300 AD and 1500 AD (Luther’s arrival, or if you are not a Lutheran, a much later date for whatever denomination you belong to)? That’s a 1,200 year gap where apparently you don’t have any true Christianity. Can you believe Christ would have let that happen, especially when he said to Peter that he would not let the gates of hell prevail against his (true) Church?

For some reason, the Catholic Church seems to believe that Christ’s promise that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church is a guarantee that the Catholic Church will never err on matters of faith and morals. That is a stretch to say the least. Just because something, or someone, is fated to prevail does not mean that there will not be misteps along the way. After Normany (some would say after Germany’s invasion of Russia), it was fated that the Allies would prevail. Yet, the struggle was difficult until the ultimate victory was perfected. If the Catholic Church taught heresy within the first couple centuries (I don’t know whether it did or not), where was the “true church”? It existed among those who did not believe the heresy, no doubt within a remnant of the Catholic Church itself. Also, you talk about a 1,200 year “gap”. What say you about the Orthodox? You know that they claim that the Catholic Church is the church in error and that it was the Catholic Church that separated itself from the true (Orthodox) church. As you note, we Protestants are late comers to the party, we had the 500 year old example of you and the Orthodox to follow when it came time to decide to choose heresy or to choose schism. We simply followed the example set before us by the Catholics and Orthodox and chose schism.
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