And that is contrary what Christ founded and taught. Christ did not teach his 12 apostles to ‘intellectually’ decide for themselves,if Christ was truly teaching them the truth or that He was in fact God. That is the problem today,everyone believes having the ‘smarts’ will cause one to discern the truth.
Yes, but Jesus Christ gave the keys to Peter to head One Church. The Orthodox Church has many beautiful qualities, but it is not lead by Peter’s successor.
No my friend, I have no need to tell you which is the TRUE church,because Jesus already took care of that issue. Either you accept it or not! Why do people today believe ‘intelligence’ should be the determining factor. Look at what so much ‘intelligence’ has caused? Christ is not concerned with how great or how meek our intelligence is,but moreover,Christ is concerned with us obeying His teachings and commands.
Free-will yes ought to bring you to God, but also OBEY what Jesus founded-His church. Problem is that the concept of ‘liberty’ has been used very loosely and is a huge cause of so much divisions.
Have you actually read the articles?
gurney - I highly recommend reading the studies of these Protestant Biblical scholars. It is certainly not Catholic but provides an in-depth look at Matthew 16:18.
Nope! I can also provide 50 other NT passages clearly showing as to which Apostle was the head. I have many sources from the ECF and I have read your position on Peter’s faith and that is a small %. But guess what? Not ONE orthodox ECF I have read ever denied or rejected the primacy of Peter and his successors. If the primacy is an innovation of late,then where are the ‘true’ writings condenming it as a heresy or ursupation of Christ? If one orthodox ECF did reject or deny his primacy, by all means show me.
Not my idea,but a direct action of Christ Himself…take it up with Him. You forget Jesus preached the Kingdom of Heaven,not the democracy of Heaven. Who is in charge in Heaven? God! Do angels have heirarchies? Yep! Does Lucifer ring a bell? Did he want to be in charge? Yep! Who is in charge of Hell? Satan! Did not Jesus say in Matthew how will Satan’s Kingdom stand if He is against himself? See there is that word again: Kingdom. Did Palenstine have kingships prior and during Jesus’ life time? Yep! In the OT? Yep! What did the Jews want after the patriarchs? A King and who was that guy? Saul. See the connections? Jesus picked 12 men to be in charged and ONE only (Peter) received the Keys,not other the 11 or other followers.
As of late,but go back to the first 1,000 years and their modern notions fall apart.Again,if Peter had no primacy and his successors,then we would not have the writings of eastern church fathers taking up their in-house matters for Rome to settle.
Right! Because the RCC has never taught Peter was infallible in all aspects of his life. Didn’t Peter deny Christ 3 times? Yet amazingly Christ still asks Peter three times if he loved Jesus and to feed and tend His flock? Didn’t Peter write two epistles? Are they fallible? Peter was infallible in matters of faith and morals,not impeccable 24/7. Jesus didn’t pick the best man for the office,moreover,He picked the best office for the man.
Precisely…opinions and God does not care about our opinions. And opinions are also seen prior to Jesus and during His lifetime,did it negate His 100% divinity and His Church? Did Jesus know? Yes sir! Did it stop Him? Nope!
So in other words, Christ never truly founded ONE,Catholic Holy,Apostolic Church,but a free-knit and loose-church where everyone discern for themselves what HE truly left? Geeee…I wonder why we have thousands of different sects,churches,denominations,non-denomations,etc,etc?
Yes and Heaven should be the first place to look as the example. The reason why I mention Satan,his free-will chose him to rebel and as a result,he was kicked out and no room for him and his rebellious angels. It is simple: It is God’s way or the highway,so why would Jesus’ Church be any diffrenent,if He is God in the Flesh?
Understood.
Wesley is very well informed.
There is nothing “automatic” about papal infallibility. The Church has never intimated that the pope can settle any question immediately. The charism of infallibility guarantees only that the pope will be preserved from error when and if he is led to make a definition.
Never? Should I present historical cases?
No it is called revisionism and denial of history. Words can be very hurtful to one’s pride.
Is the Catholic Church to be bound by personal opinions?
Wrong, Matthew 16:18 from a literal/grammatical perspective is refering to Peter as the rock, moreover, those fathers who you state claimed that Peter’s confession was/is the rock ALSO claimed that Peter was/is the rock (St. John of Chrysostom, St. Hilary of Potiers, St. Optatus of Milevis . . . . etc.). Recollect that this secondary interpretation to Matthew 16:18, i.e., the rock was Peter’s confession came about during the Arian controversy (when People were denying that Jesus was the Son of the Living God, the Christ), but again this does not mean that the fathers were denying Peter was the rock (even ecumenical councils such as Chalcedon deemed Peter the rock) only that Matthew 16:18 could be interpreted in different senses (with the literal interpretation taking precedence). The idea that one can separate the confession from the man who actually confessed it is like saying Jesus never named Simon, Peter at the exact moment that he said he would build his Church upon the rock. It is mostly Protestants and Orthodox who try to create a dichotomy between the man and his confession of faith, but as the fathers prove this is not an issue.
People will say anything or pervert the meaning in order to suit their novelties and agendas. Case in point, Jesus giving the keys to the other 11 Apostles?
We differ on the “no justification.” However, as I said, I tend to agree that it is a divinely constituted office.
No dispute about that.
I am sorry to annoy you, but I am calling it like I see it.
Because the Christian Emperors generally lived in the East, and because the Papacy was the main bulwark against Caesaropapism, there’s some truth to this. But the Westerners weren’t the only ones to resist undue state interference. You have Ambrose in the West, and Basil “perhaps you have never met a bishop before” in the East! Furthermore, since at this point it was all one Church, there’s a problem with carrying this early situation over into a criticism of Orthodoxy. Later on–in a period that had much more directly to do with the Schism–you have Caesaropapism in the West as well, with Charlemagne. Arguably the addition of the Filioque to the Creed was largely the work of Western Caesaropapism. The Filioque was used by the Carolingian Church (under the control of the “Emperor”) for a couple of centuries before it was used at Rome.
The Pope did not call Chalcedon, or any other pre-Schism Council as far as I’m aware. Certainly papal diplomacy played an important role in the calling of Chalcedon, but it was not formally convened by the Pope–no Council was. As far as I can tell, the Popes didn’t even formally approve 1 Constantinople until centuries later.
But it’s a perfectly accurate description of the way Trent and the two Vatican Councils have functioned (Vatican II less so than the others, but the binding assumption was still that the collegiality in operation was a gracious concession by the Papacy).
No one seems to have worried about this with regard to 1 Constantinople. And in the case of 2 Constantinople, the emperor coerced the Pope into agreeing. You were right earlier to point out that this shows that papal agreement was seen as important.
But it clearly functioned as such, giving us the form of the Creed which is used today in both East and West (with one unfortunate addition in the West!).
To call any disagreement “anti-Catholicism” is a tacit admission that you can’t handle disagreement in a rational and substantive manner.
I am not arguing for Anglicanism as superior in any respect to either your Communion or the Orthodox. We are a broken, sinful, error-prone fragment of the Church, wandering in the wilderness. I have never suggested otherwise.
I said they initiated the councils and the emperors in their turn called for councils, and yes I Constantinople was formally confirmed by Pope St. Gregory the Great (if you had read my posts directed to yours in another thread there would be no need to repeat this).
Wrong again, Edwin, no Pope can “graciously” concede what is divinely authorized by God, i.e., the episcopacy. The thing that you’re not getting is that papal supremacy does not imply/mean that other bishops are without authority (read Pope St. Gregory the Great on the matter so you can understand this). The Catholic Church is very much guided by the Holy Spirit through the magisterium headed by the pope.
Do you have a survey proving this?
Holy mackeral, I can’t believe you said, although I’m happy don’t get me wrong!
At the ecumenical council of Florence in 1445 all 5 patriarchs confirmed the dogma of the filioque to be true, are we now going to say that all 5 patriarchs were wrong during a binding ecumenical council (recollect that Florence was rejected by the Greeks in 1484)?
I am simply reiterating what is visible vis a vis Tradition, i.e., I think I quoted enough fathers to make this clear. Moreover, the reasons why I defend the papacy as I do is because of the divine authority with which it was established, i.e., the office of Peter is filled with the charisms necessary to head the Church so to maintain orthodoxy and unity throughout the Church because of Christ. I do not want to get “legalistic” about it but sometimes I feel we constantly have to reiterate what should be obvious vis a vis Tradition and Scripture.
Yes, I will read them a couple times over.
Josie,
I understand that the existence of the episcopacy is not subject to the Pope’s discretion. But can you point to anything else about the episcopate that is not under the Pope’s control? It seems to me that whenever the modern Popes talk about collegiality (and I give them credit for doing so frequently, though many people accuse JPII of cutting back seriously on collegiality in practice), they speak of it as something that is appropriate rather than necessary. In other words, they think that Popes should not intervene in the function of the local episcopate any more than they have to. But just when they “have to” seems to be wholly at the discretion of the Pope.
I would be very happy if your Communion held to the same ecclesiology as Pope St. Gregory the Great did. But it seems to me that it does not.
I’m not sure how one surveys people who are centuries dead! However, note my cautious language–no one “seems” to have done so. In other words, I am not aware of anyone saying, “Well, we use the Creed as laid down by 1 Constantinople, but of course we are doing so conditionally because Rome hasn’t approved of it yet.” I do not need a survey to say that I am not aware of evidence for this. I’m not claiming categorically that no such evidence exists.
I don’t think that my posts have given you good reason to be surprised. I have said this on a number of occasions over the years. The fact that I oppose what I consider to be triumphalist arguments made by Catholic apologists, and that I have huge problems with the way the papacy developed in the second millennium, does not mean that I don’t see the arguments for papal primacy.
I see no reason why they couldn’t be. No one, as far as I know, holds to the infallibility of the Pentarchy. Your Communion believes that Rome is infallible–the Orthodox believe that no particular bishop or group of bishops is infallible.
I need to deal with your patristic citations, since you were so kind as to arrange them by topic as I requested. But many of your citations are from works that are not accessible to me. You must have access to an excellent academic library–unless of course you were citing from an intermediate source which you have not acknowledged!
I understand and respect the reasons for your position. But you persistently assume that there must be some institutional framework that guarantees orthodoxy–hence your appeal to Florence above. I used to find these sorts of criticisms of Orthodoxy convincing as well, because I was in flight from the spiritualism of my Holiness heritage and also because many Orthodox do try to debate the question on those lines. But after reading Florovsky’s article about Councils as charismatic events, and now more recently rereading Clement’s You Are Peter which makes similar points, I am much less impressed by this line of argument. I think it’s partly a change in my attitude to the world as I get older (not that I’m claiming that this always comes with maturity, only that it seems to be happening in my case).
Out of curiosity, how would you go about “repairing” your Church? Would you favor a reunion with the Catholics and (hopefully one day) the Orthodox?