Shidoran's Apostate Catholic Church Thread

[RyanL]

On another thread, our new friend Shidoran posted the following:

Shidoran:

Quick starter note, I am neither Catholic, nor Prodestant.

The council of nicea seemed to me to be a bunch of church leaders trying to keep together the doctrines of a church falling into apostasy. I think Constantine basically got everyone together, told them to agree on the doctrines so everyone could get on with it. (ie so he could have a politically dominating church again, without confusions.)

It seems that most of the doctrines were majority voted, and doctrinal choices were politically motivated. In my mind this discredits most of the doctrines that came from this council, which unfortunately seems to encompass some of the basic catholic beliefs.

Moving along, as the Church of Constantine crumbled, the Catholic church broke away and remained.

Question for catholics: If the prodestants are “apostate” because they broke away from you, are you “apostate” because you broke away from an apostisizing original church and based your belief of a bunch of politically motivated doctrinal choices? I’m not trying to start a heated bible bashing discussion, it is merely a question of a curious truth-seeker.

…to which NotWorthy responded:

NotWorthy:

Shidoran,

This is the part where you cut the generalities and say, “Some of those politically motivated choices were…”.
Then, maybe, we can answer your question.

Was it, “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God”? “Homo-ousios”, so to speak?

Was it “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic”? Oh right, that was Chalcedon.

Notworthy

P.S. For a hint, you might want to look into Arianism. That is what was threatening to tear the Church apart, and would continue to endanger her for the next 100 or so years.

Since it was off topic, I decided to devote a new thread to Shidoran.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[Rand_Al_Thor]

Peace be with you!

Shidoran doesn’t know his (or her?) history. Nicaea was not called by Constantine, and, contrary to popular anti-Catholic belief, he did not preside over the council, though he was present. The council was called mainly in a response to Arianism, as NotWorthy pointed out. Many Church councils have been called as a response to a heresy. The reason that doctrines are defined in these councils and had not been formally defined before (though they had been beliefs of the Church) is that those beliefs were being challenged. That’s why the Creed was written–to state officially what one must believe in to be a part of the Church, and if you believed something different you weren’t in line with the Church’s teaching.
Constantine’s faith, as far as I have been able to tell, seems to be genuine. If he were doing the politically popular thing, he would have followed his predecessors and remained pagan. The Church was most definitely not a way to get power in those days; the opposite was true and that’s why almost all of the first popes were martyrs.

In Christ,
Rand

 

[Milliardo]

The council of nicea seemed to me to be a bunch of church leaders trying to keep together the doctrines of a church falling into apostasy.

It was only part of the Church falling into apostasy, not the whole Church.

It seems that most of the doctrines were majority voted, and doctrinal choices were politically motivated.

If it was politically motivated, then Arianism would’ve won, since Constantine’s spiritual advisor was Arian.

Moving along, as the Church of Constantine crumbled, the Catholic church broke away and remained.

There was no Church of Constantine then, now, or ever.

are you “apostate” because you broke away from an apostisizing original church

Again, only part of the Church apostosized; it was not the whole Church that apostosized, nor did the Catholic Church ever broke away from an “original” church.