Scott Hahn and "fallible collection of infallible documents"

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BTW I feel a need to step back for a second and say, lanman, that I really admire the amount of effort that you’re putting into responding to everything being thrown at you here. I just hope you don’t feel like you have to.
 
I heartily second Peter’s admiration of you, Ianman87.

You’re a dogged fighter for what you believe and it’s an HONOR crossing apologetical swords with you.
 
lanman87 said:
The point is that neither Catholics or Evangelicals telling them that they are wrong makes any difference. They don’t care what we think.
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I understand that is the point you have turned this into but not it wasnt the point. Just reread the op and you may see this.

Peace!!!
 
mcq72 said:
First of all, “no man seeks after God”. Yet “seek and ye shall find” but one must be drawn by the Father to the Son.
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And one is drawn by the Father he begins to search out.

Peace!!!
 
adf417 said:
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lanman87:
The point is that neither Catholics or Evangelicals telling them that they are wrong makes any difference. They don’t care what we think.
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I understand that is the point you have turned this into but not it wasnt the point. Just reread the op and you may see this.

Peace!!!
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And I would like to apologize to the OP @Peter_Jericho for my part on taking this thread a bit off topic.

Very sorry!
 
lanman87 said:
The definition of church to mean a hierarchical organization came later and is a change from the meaning as it was used in the Scriptures.
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This kind of confuses me. If there was no hierarchy originally, then where did Paul get off writing to all those other Churches (said writings becoming a large part of NT Scripture BTW) to “correct” their “errors”? If he wasn’t in a position of authority over these communities (i.e. part of the hierarchy), why should they pay heed to his statements?
 
whatistrue said:
This kind of confuses me. If there was no hierarchy originally, then where did Paul get off writing to all those other Churches (said writings becoming a large part of NT Scripture BTW) to “correct” their “errors”?
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Because Paul was an apostle. Directly taught by Christ. There is a difference between the leadership setup by the Apostles and what developed later. The Apostles appointed leaders over local churches. Later, in churches that weren’t setup by the Apostles, due to missionary work or people moving to a new place, the local gathering chose their own leadership.

These leaders weren’t priest. There were overseers. They weren’t priest because they didn’t mediate between God and man. They didn’t offer sacrifices on behalf of the people. Their job was the organize and lead the congregation and teach the “rule of faith” as handed down by the apostles and oversee the worship meetings. Including the serving of the thanksgiving meal. What you would call the Eucharist.

Most large cities had many small house churches or if you were really a wealthy congregation you may have a church building. Each local church had it’s on elders/presbyters/bishop. In the larger cities, the elders in the local churches started electing a bishop to help all the churches work together and to be the ambassador of that city to other churches. This became the metropolitan bishop.

Overtime the term “church” changed from those whom accepted the Gospel message and met together to mean the organization that developed with metropolitan bishops, local bishops and so forth.

Also, who chose the elders/bishops changed over time. Instead of local churches choosing their own bishop the metropolitan bishops or a group of bishops either chose, or had to approve, who was the bishop of local churches.

I say all that to say that over time. The term church changed from the simple meaning in the Scriptures as “those called out”, “or the assembly”, or “the elect”. It became to mean a particular organization whose leadership may or may not be part of the “elect”.
 
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Maccabaeus2165 said:
Unity in doctrine and in love is his essential point.
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You must have skipped this paragraph.

First, Jesus’ prayer is being answered to some extent during the period from His resurrection to the second coming. True believers are united in Christ. They truly love one another and worship the same Savior, trusting in His atoning sacrifice for the forgiveness of their sins. We stand unified together at the foot of the cross. This unity is ours even if we belong to different denominations. We may have different opinions on eschatology, ecclesiology, baptism, Arminianism, Calvinism, and many other theological questions. Nevertheless, those of us who are relying on Christ alone for salvation are truly united in Christ. We do love our brothers and sisters in the Lord, even if we are convinced that they are mistaken on some doctrinal matters.
 
lanman87 said:
Because Paul was an apostle. Directly taught by Christ. There is a difference between the leadership setup by the Apostles and what developed later.
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Why is there a difference between the original apostles and their successors?

Not buying it. You are arguing for a bottom-up development when the beginnings of the Church were clearly top-down, and continued to be so.
 
whatistrue said:
Why is there a difference between the original apostles and their successors?
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Their successors aren’t apostles. The apostles delivered the gospel of Christ. The job of their successors (be it one directly appointed by an apostle or one chosen by their congregation out in the middle of nowhere) is to hold fast and spread the Gospel as delivered by Christ and the apostles. The successors don’t have the authority to develop a new gospel or change the Gospel message.
 
whatistrue said:
You are arguing for a bottom-up development when the beginnings of the Church were clearly top-down, and continued to be so.
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Jesus is the chief cornerstone. The apostles are our foundation, and we are living stones on top (per Revelation and epistle of Peter). Certainly sounds like bottom up.

Jesus the vine and we the branches is in similar vein.
 
lanman87 said:
The successors don’t have the authority to develop a new gospel or change the Gospel message.
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Do you claim the Apostles developed a new Gospel or changed the Gospel message? Or did they just pass on what they (or at least most of them) actually saw Jesus do and heard Him say? Neither did their successors develop a new Gospel or change the message; that is my understanding of the entire point of Apostolic Succession - preserve the Gospel message intact.
 
Different sense. The building was started and commanded by the highest authority, Jesus Christ. Top. He passed it on to the Apostles. Next layer. And so on.
 
whatistrue said:
Do you claim the Apostles developed a new Gospel or changed the Gospel message? Or did they just pass on what they (or at least most of them) actually saw Jesus do and heard Him say? Neither did their successors develop a new Gospel or change the message; that is my understanding of the entire point of Apostolic Succession - preserve the Gospel message intact.
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I understand and appreciate that. But the claim of the Reformation is that the church, in particular the church in the middle ages, didn’t faithfully preserve the Gospel message. I know you don’t believe that. But that is the teaching. It would be disingenuous for me to say otherwise.

That is what the debate has been about since the Reformation, and even earlier if you look at Wycliffe and Huss. In the 1300’s or so scholars got hold of Greek and Hebrew translations of the Bible and started to study those, instead of the Latin Vulgate. When they started reading in the Greek and Hebrew they saw mistranslated parts of the Vulgate. They started to believe that the church wasn’t teaching what was taught in the Scriptures and had created several teachings through the centuries that are foreign to the Scripture, and therefore not part of the Gospel as handed down by the Apostles.

In the reformers minds, it wasn’t about breaking about from the Catholic church as much as it was being true to the Gospel.
 
lanman87 said:
But the claim of the Reformation is that the church, in particular the church in the middle ages, didn’t faithfully preserve the Gospel message.
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And of course you are well aware that the counterargument to that is that such a thing happening would negate Christ’s promise that the “gates of Hell” would not prevail. If the message got corrupted (as opposed to individual churchmen getting corrupted) then Hell would have prevailed.
 
whatistrue said:
If the message got corrupted (as opposed to individual churchmen getting corrupted) then Hell would have prevailed.
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We believe this scripture means the church (the people of God) can’t be overcome, not that is it infallible (can’t make a mistake) . There will always be a called out people of God on the Earth proclaiming the Gospel message until Christ comes again. We believe that many people in the middle ages were truly part of the church (God’s People) and that it never has been overcome.

In other words, as long as there is a person on the earth who believes in Christ, who has been indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and is a new creation in Christ, then Satan hasn’t prevailed over the church.

never prevailed means never overcome or overwhelmed, not never mess up or get something wrong.
 
Rather than going around the same racetrack yet again, how about this: You have seen the Catholic arguments and find them lacking. I have seen many of the various Protestant arguments (you may or may not know that I was raised in a Protestant denomination in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition and went agnostic for several decades) and find them lacking at best. So how about we each do what we do and we can both see what happens in the end?
 
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