Sola Scriptura is True

[Lapey]

No, but you’re doing a very good job of ignoring it.

Again: please pay attention to the Fathers of the Church. You know, the *Catholic *Church Fathers? I don’t care what you think of me. I only care that you give your own tradition a more serious look instead of trusting uncritically the liberal Protestant interpretations that your seminary professors have foisted on you.

Edwin

Please site to me the Early Church Father that stated the use of the term anti-Christ referred to the Holy Father or the office. Now there were heretics who made this statement many times at the time of the reformation and also in earlier times, hardly considered Catholic Church Fathers.

I don’t intend to study those.

Please define liberal and conservative. I know our society has changed the meaning of these terms, but there is an actual historical meaning to words and terms.

Liberal would be one that allows and promotes change that would be your stance. Conservative is of the view that we fight to keep things as they originated, that would be mine and the Churches view.

A perfect example of your liberal views is ordaining women to the priesthood. The conservative view would be to stick with tradition that would be my view.

 

[caoimhin]

No, that’s a false dichotomy. The Church is guided by the Holy Spirit in receiving and interpreting divine revelation. Protestants simply don’t think that this reception and interpretation is itself on the same level as the original revelation. Think about it: your position would condemn all the writings of the Fathers, the scholastics, etc., insofar as what they are saying is not *itself *divine revelation. Clearly that is not a tenable position for either Catholics or Protestants. When the NT speaks of “human tradition” it is clearly speaking of human tradition that *contradicts *divine revelation, not of the divinely guided human activity of receiving and interpreting divine revelation.

My position doesn’t condemn the Fathers at all. It just recognizes that this or that individual Father is not inspired or infallible. They might be right on this or that issue. It doesn’t carry the same certainty as, say, the Creeds, in which the whole Church makes a definitive statement. At least if you accept the authority of Christ and His giving His authority to the Apostles and their successors. But if Protestants insist on this or that doctrine, you need IMO something more compelling than this or that person’s/group’s/denomination’s uninspired, fallible attempts to interpret divine relevation. Or else, as I said, you end up with relativism.

Some of us would say that what we practice is “epistemic humility.” Which looks like relativism to those coming from a more dogmatic position.

In between a fundamentalist’s dogmatic insistence on everything and the relativist’s despair of any doctrinal certainty, there surely exists a middle ground that you and I find ourselves on, right? But how to flesh that out? Do we rely on our fallible attempts to know which doctrines we can be certain about and which we can’t? And wouldn’t that fly in the face of the interdependence and interconnectedness of the whole Body of Christ? Catholicism answers that. Which is not to say Catholics never disagree of course but only that the spistemology is more coherent.

 

[placido]

According to the argument, it became true when all of Scripture was written down.

Please identify the first person to come up with that man-made argument.

One doesn’t “know using sola scriptura.” Sola scriptura is a claim about where the Word of God is to be found.

I knew sola scriptura was indefensible, but I did not know it is that weak that one has to defend it with man-made claims. Or is that claim itself found in Scripture?

There is no reason why one’s view about where the Word of God is to be found needs to be the Word of God. The Church recognizes the Word of God and proclaims it.

There we go! Sola scriptura is no more. One needs the Church to tell him what God’s Word is.

What is wrong with that, if the tradition is in keeping with the Word of God?

Now you are dangerously moving into Catholic territory.

No, you don’t even understand *my *point. Your argument is indeed fatal to some versions of “sola scriptura.” I don’t even like the term “sola scriptura.”

You are charitable you even defend something you don’t like.

I have no attachment to it. I am undecided on the question of whether we can speak of the Word of God when speaking of something that is in no sense found in Scripture. Given how many different ways we can understand the concept of “finding” something in Scripture, I’m not sure that that’s really the most important argument to have in the first place.

Outside of the Church Jesus founded one is never sure, all around you is fallible men and fallible opinions.

But if “sola scriptura” is defined modestly as a negative claim about the limits of what we have reason to recognize as divine revelation, then it is certainly not self-refuting. One doesn’t need divine revelation to make a statement about where divine revelation is to be found. That leads to infinite regress. It is our task, guided by the Holy Spirit, to recognize divine revelation. A tenable “sola scriptura” position is simply a statement that the Church recognizes divine revelation in Scripture and that anything else needs to prove itself by comparison with what we know to be divine revelation.

According to the same Scripture, Divine Revelation is more than Scripture.

You cannot show a logical contradiction in this position, because it does not claim to be itself divine revelation.

The only contradiction is that if sola scriptura needs extra-biblical support, then it ceases to be sola scriptura. Come up with another name.

placido

 

[Contarini]

I most certainly value tradition and the Early Fathers of the Church, but not to disprove what the Church teaches, but to defend it.

The patristic view of exegesis and the patristic view of Antichrist (at least in its later, amillenial form) do not contradict anything the Catholic Church teaches today, although they may contradict what your seminary professors tell you.

Don’t you see the irony in your statements? You are outside of the Church schooling me on the Church. What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong with this picture is that you are disregarding what the Church Fathers and your entire tradition say, and you’re trying to tell me that this is OK because you trust the Magisterium. I wish you would trust the Magisterium when it points you to the Church Fathers.

To make the statement you make about trusting the magisterium, even though they cause me to “so flippantly” disregard Christian tradition, shows your lack of knowledge of the teachings of the Church

No, it doesn’t show anything of the kind. I’m describing what you are doing. You say that you don’t have to pay attention to the Church Fathers. I didn’t make this up. I couldn’t have made it up. It’s too crazy.

So to be Catholic in my understanding of scripture, you want me to believe that the author of the Johanine letters was referring to the Pope as the anti-Christ

OK, we have some serious miscommunication going on here. I was not saying anything of the sort. I can see why in the context of your disagreement with DD2007 you came to that conclusion.

If you go back to our original disagreement, the point I was making was that DD2007 is best refuted by showing that the Pope’s teachings do not deny the Gospel, rather than by taking offense at his use of the word “antichrist.” Then you proceeded to deny that 1 John is talking about the same thing as 2 Thessalonians and Revelation, by way of cutting the ground out from under DD2007. That was a separate issue from my perspective. I disagreed with you because in fact the early Christians all used the word “antichrist” to describe the eschatological “man of sin” or “beast” who would persecute the Church in the End Times. The common thread in the two issues is that I was trying to challenge you to take the historical context for DD2007’s views seriously rather than simply dismissing them. That doesn’t mean that I agreed with him–I was trying to help you refute him by pointing you away from what I thought were not productive approaches. In the course of disagreeing with DD2007, you were inadvertently condemning your own Church Fathers. You then began defining exegesis in a way that is alien to the Church Fathers and to much of the Catholic tradition.

In none of this was I defending the view that the papacy is Antichrist.

I to take offence when someone who does not know as much as he tells everyone he knows, tries to tell me that I am wrong when it is as easy to back up my statements as googleing the word exegesis like I did. That to me is offensive.

Well, if I took offense as easily as you, I’d be offended at the idea of someone doing a google search to determine the meaning of the word “exegesis” and presenting the result to me as a serious argument. Why not study your own Tradition instead of doing a random Internet search and coming up with something some liberal Protestant professor said? I mistakenly assumed that your professors had given you Fackre as a model. I never dreamed that you just pulled it randomly from the Internet.

Get off your high horse of Protestantism

My “high horse” has nothing to do with Protestantism.

and join a robust debate, not a teaching session with you as the master teacher.

You think I teach like this? Good heavens. This *is *a robust debate. In the classroom I try to be respectful of students even if they say downright silly things. But you aren’t my student. We are here on a forum as two equals, neither of us in a position of authority over the other. I admit that I get too vehement on these forums and express my frustration when I think people are making bad arguments. But I wish you could look past this and deal with the substantive point I’m making–that your definition of “exegesis” has no roots in Catholic tradition and is contrary to the way the Church Fathers and the medieval theologians proceeded. You keep ignoring that point. You’re the one who doesn’t want to have a robust debate.

You are offended because you can’t handle the fact that a Protestant is telling you to go read the Church Fathers. But what would it hurt? Wouldn’t it be a good thing to know the Church Fathers better so you could tell arrogant, stupid heretics like me where we are wrong?

In all this debate you have not *once *referred to a Catholic source. Not *once. *Don’t you see something wrong with this picture? How can I respect your arguments when you claim that you must be right just because you are Catholic and I’m not, even though the only authorities you cite are Protestant ones?

You even know better than all the leaders of Catholic Seminaries how to teach men in formation to be ordained Catholic Priests and deacons! Can’t you see why this would come across as being extremely arrogant on your part? Please take of your protestant glasses if you want to instruct me on the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Ignore me. Just go read the Fathers. Study Catholic writers who have talked about patristic and medieval exegesis. Henri de Lubac (Medieval exegesis) is the best, but Mark Shea has a popular summary of traditional Catholic exegetical method (Making Senses out of Scripture). I disagree with it in places, but no doubt that’s just because I’m arrogant. Robert Louis Wilken wrote a good recent book called The Spirit of Early Christian Thought. But hey–if it offends you to take Catholic book recommendations from a Protestant, go find yourself a learned priest who will give you better ones.

But don’t come onto an open discussion forum and try to beat me down with the mere fact that you’re Catholic without actually bothering to study what your own tradition has to say.

I even more respectfully ask you to pray for me in my pursuit of truth and I shall pray for you. No matter what our differences may be, you are my Christian brother and I need you.

If you need me, you need me to challenge you to immerse yourself more fully in your own tradition. That’s all I’m asking. Are you too proud to do it just because the one asking it is a filthy Protestant heretic?

I will certainly pray for you and thank you for your prayers.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Please site to me the Early Church Father that stated the use of the term anti-Christ referred to the Holy Father or the office

I’m sorry for the confusion. That was not what I was talking about. We started with the antichrist issue, and moved to the question of how we define exegesis. That’s what I’m really interested in. I wage war on the view you’re defending within Protestantism (my job talk at the Protestant school where I now work was a defense of medieval Biblical interpretation), and I tend to see red when I find Catholics defending it. I think of Catholicism as a “home base” for those of us who defend a more traditional approach to Scripture within Protestantism. Hearing you give this truncated modern view of exegesis is like hearing that the enemy has landed behind my lines. (Not that I didn’t know that many Catholic seminaries teach this approach, but this forum tends to be full of conservative Catholics and so I don’t encounter that approach very often.)

I don’t intend to study those.

Again, I apologize for the misunderstanding. The Church Fathers certainly did not think that the See of Rome would become the seat of Antichrist. As far as I know that was first suggested in the later Middle Ages. (And I was not defending that view, only pointing out that it isn’t something invented by Protestants and is best refuted by addressing the question of the Gospel, which is key for folks like DD2007.) It was when you moved on to claiming that good exegesis doesn’t use one part of Scripture to interpret another that I went off the deep end and started throwing the Church Fathers at you!

Please define liberal and conservative.

Note that I used it as a compound: “liberal Protestant.” In a discussion of the history of “exegesis,” what I mean by “liberal Protestant” is the view best explicated by Benjamin Jowett in his essay “On the Interpretation of Scripture,” written in 1860. This was one of several essays in a volume written by Anglican theologians influenced by continental (especially German) Protestant theology. The term “liberal Protestant” in this context indicates a deep respect for modern science and the Enlightenment understanding of reason, a dedication to the idea of progress, and along with it a tendency to disregard the past as “unenlightened.” In the case of Biblical exegesis, this took the form of dismissing much of the Christian exegetical tradition as nothing but fanciful speculation.

This tradition deeply shaped mainstream Biblical scholarship throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries. Thus, when Catholics became more open to Protestant perspectives after Vatican II and recognized their deficiencies in terms of the study of Scripture, the result was a somewhat uncritical reliance on a mainstream scholarly tradition that was shaped by liberal Protestant assumptions. I am sorry for giving the impression that I “know better” than the leaders of Catholic seminaries. But my criticisms are not unique to me. I hear conservative Catholics making them all the time.

Liberal would be one that allows and promotes change that would be your stance. Conservative is of the view that we fight to keep things as they originated, that would be mine and the Churches view.

A perfect example of your liberal views is ordaining women to the priesthood. The conservative view would be to stick with tradition that would be my view.

Clearly my reference to that issue backfired! The point I was trying to make (other than being honest and not presenting myself as more conservative than I am) is that even if there are places where I’m willing to question the traditional view, I don’t think we should do so quickly or easily or without careful consideration. In the case of the meaning of the word “antichrist,” it seems to me that you are doing so without looking carefully at how the word came to be used broadly and without due respect for the Church Fathers who began, very early on, to use it this way. (Again, I am *not *talking about the identification of Antichrist with the Papacy but simply about the idea that Antichrist is the “man of sin” or “beast” who will launch the last great persecution of the Church at some point shortly before Christ’s return.) And more significantly, your entire definition of “exegesis” is much more limited, and much more sharply distinguished from theology, than that of the Fathers. And again, I don’t think we should break so sharply with tradition without very good reasons.

We can agree to disagree as to whether such reasons exist in the case of women’s ordination. But I beg you to consider whether such reasons exist with regard to the definition of “exegesis.” Does this limited definition really spring from the deep roots of Catholic tradition? Or is it, as I’m claiming, an importation from the liberal Protestant tradition which has dominated the world of Biblical scholarship since the mid-19th century? Again, please don’t take my word for it. Consider the question thoughtfully and prayerfully.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

My position doesn’t condemn the Fathers at all. It just recognizes that this or that individual Father is not inspired or infallible. They might be right on this or that issue. It doesn’t carry the same certainty as, say, the Creeds, in which the whole Church makes a definitive statement. At least if you accept the authority of Christ and His giving His authority to the Apostles and their successors. But if Protestants insist on this or that doctrine, you need IMO something more compelling than this or that person’s/group’s/denomination’s uninspired, fallible attempts to interpret divine relevation. Or else, as I said, you end up with relativism.

And that is why I condemn any attempt to “insist” on sola scriptura. At most, it is a negative claim about the limits of what we can assert dogmatically, not a dogmatic claim itself. That’s primarily how it functions in Anglicanism. If something cannot be supported from Scripture, it cannot be insisted on as necessary for salvation. That doesn’t mean that we reject everything else, only that we hold to it more loosely.

In between a fundamentalist’s dogmatic insistence on everything and the relativist’s despair of any doctrinal certainty, there surely exists a middle ground that you and I find ourselves on, right? But how to flesh that out? Do we rely on our fallible attempts to know which doctrines we can be certain about and which we can’t? And wouldn’t that fly in the face of the interdependence and interconnectedness of the whole Body of Christ? Catholicism answers that. Which is not to say Catholics never disagree of course but only that the spistemology is more coherent.

The version of Catholicism that seems common on this forum disregards the interdependence of the Body of Christ in favor of a reliance on the pronouncements of the Magisterium.

I’m all in favor of the interconnectedness of the Body of Christ. But I believe that that includes all baptized believers throughout time and space.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Convert66]

Contarini,

Are you too proud to do it just because the one asking it is a filthy Protestant heretic?

Now this is just uncalled for, don’t you think? I don’t think anyone here thinks you are filthy. . . :yukonjoe:.

All my best . . .

 

[Contarini]

Please identify the first person to come up with that man-made argument.

As with most doctrinal developments, that’s not possible. One certainly finds in the fourth century an appeal to Scripture that is predicated on the idea that Scripture has final authority and/or contains all things necessary to salvation (both Athanasius and Augustine speak this way, just to give two examples). However, one also finds (in Augustine, Basil, John Chrysostom) an appeal to oral tradition. The general approach seems to have been that you give Scripture the highest level of deference and appeal to it when possible, but when it is silent you fall back on a claim of oral tradition. Only with the growing skepticism about the authority structures of the Church in the late Middle Ages and the Reformation do you find the idea being given its strictly negative form, in my opinion. The best articulation of it I know of (not the same as the first instance) is in Martin Chemnitz’s Examination of the Council of Trent.

Now you are dangerously moving into Catholic territory.

I’ve been there for a very long time, brother!

Outside of the Church Jesus founded one is never sure, all around you is fallible men and fallible opinions.

And this is the main point where I differ with both conservative Catholics and conservative Protestants. I don’t think that being “sure” is either possible or desirable. Mostly it seems to be a delusion and a trap.

According to the same Scripture, Divine Revelation is more than Scripture.

What passage in Scripture do you have in mind, exactly?

The only contradiction is that if sola scriptura needs extra-biblical support, then it ceases to be sola scriptura. Come up with another name.

I didn’t come up with the name, and I don’t like the name. But it has come to be a shorthand for “the classical Protestant doctrine of the authority of Scripture.” And while I have some qualms about that doctrine, I don’t think it is simply self-contradictory if rightly understood.

Edwin

 

[Lapey]

Edwin

Can we just get to what the word exegesis means???

I would be insulted too if my point could be refuted as easily as a google search. That was my point exactly by using this method, it wasn’t my definition. I had already given you that but you said it was flawed.

This is truly getting painful, I don’t normally give up but I am about to.

Please define exegesis, not as in the Middle Ages or the Patristic period or even worse modern times, what does the word mean?

To my knowledge, it hasn’t changed. Now the way people interpret scripture does, that would be theology.

Now please, if you would, stick to that subject only?

 

[Contarini]

Contarini,

Now this is just uncalled for, don’t you think? I don’t think anyone here thinks you are filthy. . . :yukonjoe:.

If I’m not filthy, why is Lapey reluctant to go read the Church Fathers on my recommendation? Apparently I’m so filthy that even your own Fathers are contaminated by my daring to mention them.

Of course I’m using over-the-top rhetoric. But I’ve been called arrogant and told to get off my high horse. So I got on a very low horse instead. Apparently that doesn’t work either.

Yes, I know that the problem is that I use rhetoric to vent instead of to communicate. A common problem on these forums, but I should still know better!

Edwin

 

[Lapey]

Contarini,

Now this is just uncalled for, don’t you think? I don’t think anyone here thinks you are filthy. . . :yukonjoe:.

All my best . . .

I never called him filthy!!!

 

[Convert66]

C,

If I’m not filthy, why is Lapey reluctant to go read the Church Fathers on my recommendation? Apparently I’m so filthy that even your own Fathers are contaminated by my daring to mention them.

Of course I’m using over-the-top rhetoric. But I’ve been called arrogant and told to get off my high horse. So I got on a very low horse instead. Apparently that doesn’t work either.

Yes, I know that the problem is that I use rhetoric to vent instead of to communicate. A common problem on these forums, but I should still know better!

Edwin

Well, Christianity is, after all, a universal religion. :harp:

 

[Lapey]

If I’m not filthy, why is Lapey reluctant to go read the Church Fathers on my recommendation? Apparently I’m so filthy that even your own Fathers are contaminated by my daring to mention them.

Of course I’m using over-the-top rhetoric. But I’ve been called arrogant and told to get off my high horse. So I got on a very low horse instead. Apparently that doesn’t work either.

Yes, I know that the problem is that I use rhetoric to vent instead of to communicate. A common problem on these forums, but I should still know better!

Edwin

Wow, looks like I struck a nerve, sorry!

PS. Our view of the writtings of the Early Church Fathers is different, otherwise you would be a crazy ignorant Cat-Lick like me!!!

 

[Contarini]

Can we just get to what the word exegesis means???

I would be insulted too if my point could be refuted as easily as a google search. That was my point exactly by using this method, it wasn’t my definition. I had already given you that but you said it was flawed.

Yes, I said that liberal Protestantism redefined what “exegesis” meant. Your google search simply reinforced this by giving you a definition by a liberal Protestant professor at a liberal Protestant seminary.

Please define exegesis, not as in the Middle Ages or the Patristic period or even worse modern times, what does the word mean?

To my knowledge, it hasn’t changed.

Yes, of course it has. It would be a very weird word if it hadn’t. Words change all the time.

Now the way people interpret scripture does, that would be theology.

Now please, if you would, stick to that subject only?

That’s exactly the subject I’m sticking to.

Until modern times, exegesis of Christian Scripture was a form of theology. The idea that there is something called “exegesis” that is clearly distinct from theology is a relatively recent development. Admittedly, it has some roots in patristic and medieval debates with Jews (and hence the need to make arguments about Scripture that Jews would find convincing and to interpret Scripture in a way informed by Hebrew scholarship), and far more in the Reformation appeal to the authority of Scripture over against tradition (which meant that again, both sides needed to develop a method of interpreting Scripture that didn’t just presuppose one set of theological assumptions or the other). But it wasn’t fully developed until the 19th century.

I have pointed you to Benjamin Jowett’s essay. You can see how scornful he is of Catholic exegetical tradition precisely because it doesn’t fit his vision of what exegesis is supposed to be.

The definition of the word you have been taught is an ideological one. Don’t believe me. Look at the evidence. See Jowett railing at the way exegesis was done by the Church for centuries. These are the words of a man who is engaged in redefining what exegesis is (not that he invented this approach, but the essay introduced the more critical German method to the relatively more traditional theological world of Anglicanism). Do you really think this should be *the *way (not just *a *way) Catholics define exegesis?

Edwin

 

[caoimhin]

And that is why I condemn any attempt to “insist” on sola scriptura. At most, it is a negative claim about the limits of what we can assert dogmatically, not a dogmatic claim itself. That’s primarily how it functions in Anglicanism. If something cannot be supported from Scripture, it cannot be insisted on as necessary for salvation. That doesn’t mean that we reject everything else, only that we hold to it more loosely.

But it seems to me that the same logic would force one to condemn the attempt to insist on anything at all. Or am I missing something?

The version of Catholicism that seems common on this forum disregards the interdependence of the Body of Christ in favor of a reliance on the pronouncements of the Magisterium.

I’m all in favor of the interconnectedness of the Body of Christ. But I believe that that includes all baptized believers throughout time and space.

Me too. Which is why I cannot defend factionalism, whether ecclesial or doctrinal. It seems to me that if Luther’s and Calvin’s characterization of the Catholic Church as apostate was wrong, then their rationale for separating from it disappears. The Reformers and those who followed their thinking tried to defend their factions, but this is a work of the flesh (Gal. 5:20). I see a great irony in your being one of the more eloquent defenders of Catholic (or at least catholic) thinking here, yet you share denominational ties with Bishop Spong and actively gay bishops.

 

[MrS]

The version of Catholicism that seems common on this forum disregards the interdependence of the Body of Christ in favor of a reliance on the pronouncements of the Magisterium.

I’m all in favor of the interconnectedness of the Body of Christ. But I believe that that includes all baptized believers throughout time and space.

In Christ,

Edwin

Do you mean that this “inter-dependence” implies that

those in the Catholic Church rely on those we deem separated brethren for dialogue and/or insight… or for authoritative teaching?
and
those we deem separated brethren rely on those Catholic Church members for dialogue and/or insight… or for authoritative teaching?

I guess that it again comes down to who has insight and who has authority?

Only the Catholic Church can rightly claim both. After all, no other Magisterium, or teaching body, has received its authority from Christ. And the authority first given to Peter (the office of), and then to Peter and the other Apostles (the offices of) has not been rescinded.

.

 

[MrS]

I see a great irony in your being one of the more eloquent defenders of Catholic (or at least catholic) thinking here, yet you share denominational ties …

Yeah, I kinda like to “tease” Edwin and tell him to stop resisting the final swim across the Tiber.

.

 

[Contarini]

Wow, looks like I struck a nerve, sorry!

You are annoying me intensely because you keep focusing on my “arrogance” and your “offense” instead of dealing with the arguments I’m presenting.

PS. Our view of the writtings of the Early Church Fathers is different

You haven’t presented me with your view of the Church Fathers.

As far as I can tell, the argument I’m making is pretty much exactly what your own Pope would say. But I could be wrong. I’m happy to be shown wrong. But you can’t be bothered to try. I therefore have to conclude that your scorn, disdain, and hatred for Protestants is so deep that you can’t even bother to address any argument presented by a Protestant.

Which raises the question: why are you on this thread?

You can stop “striking a nerve” when you bother to inform yourself about how the Fathers approached exegesis. Contrary to what you assume, the word really *has *changed quite dramatically. Why are you so concerned with me? Ignore me. But don’t ignore the Fathers.

Edwin

 

[dj_dave]

If Peter was given the Authority why then did they continue to argue who is greatest?(Luke 22:24-26) (Mark 9:33-35)

Whom did the apostles Peter and Paul understand to be the rock, the cornerstone? Acts 4:8-11, 1 Pet. 2:4-8, Eph.

Further, if Christ established the Roman Catholic Church, why is it that we look in vain in the Holy Bible for such expressions most current among her, such as trinity, purgatory, mass, immortal soul, lent, novenas, indulgences, penances, holy water, veneration of Mary, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption of Mary, etc.?

also,

If Christ Jesus and his apostles did indeed establish the Roman Catholic Church, then why is it that we look in vain, from Matthew through the Apocalypse or Revelation, for any mention whatsoever of the Holy Father, or a pope, a college of cardinals, archbishops, metropolitans, patriarchs, monsignors, right reverends, priests, abbots, monks and nuns?

Recall a truth that Jesus Christ expressed: “*Go in through the narrow gate; because broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are the ones going in through it; whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are the ones finding it.” .—Matthew 7:13,14.

Historian Will Durant explains: “The Church took over some religious customs and forms common in pre-Christian [pagan] Rome—the stole and other vestments of pagan priests SEE ,religionstinks.xanga.com/669573192/item/ …the use of incense and holy water in purifications, the burning of candles and an everlasting light before the altar, the worship of the saints, the architecture of the basilica, the law of Rome as a basis for canon law, the title of Pontifex Maximus for the Supreme Pontiff, and, in the fourth century, the Latin language ... Soon the bishops, rather than the Roman prefects, would be the source of order and the seat of power in the cities; the metropolitans, or archbishops, would support, if not supplant, the provincial governors; and the synod of bishops would succeed the provincial assembly. The Roman Church followed in the footsteps of the Roman state.”—The Story of Civilization: Part III—Caesar and Christ.

VERY IMPORTANT POINT

Nor do the Scriptures and the facts of history prove that Peter went to Rome, served there as bishop and died there. Paul wrote several of his letters from Rome during the time that Peter was supposed to have been there. Yet in not one of these does he make any reference to Peter’s being in Rome. At 2 Timothy 4:11 Paul complains that only Luke continued with him. And in the letter Paul wrote to the Christian congregation at Rome he sends greetings to twenty-six, and, in all, makes mention of thirty-five Christians, but does not mention Peter. (Rom 15:3-16 Could Paul have thus ignored Peter if Peter had been in Rome, and pope at that? Unthinkable! Indicative of the weakness of the case of Peter’s having been in Rome is the applying of Babylon to Rome at 1*Peter 5:13.

True, many religious historians hold that Peter did go to Rome, but what is their proof? Merely tradition. Thus The Catholic Encyclopedia admits that there is a period of one hundred years after Peter’s time during which the legends about Peter’s having been in Rome could have been formed. It endeavors to fill this gap by quoting certain expressions; into which, however, one could only read that Peter was in Rome if there were other evidence that he had actually been there. That is why the noted sixteenth-century chronologist, Scaliger, regarding whom The Encyclopædia Britannica states ‘he was the greatest scholar of his day and he hated above all else dishonesty of argument and quotation,’ says that Peter’s being in Rome must be classed with the ridiculous legends.

Finally, the last living apostle was John, not Peter. The Catholic Encyclopedia lists four popes as succeeding Peter, St. Linus, St. Anacletus I, St. Clement I and St. Evaristus, the last of whom reigned about A.D. 99. John lived until about A.D. 100 Yet John never once mentioned the name of any of these popes or even the fact that any pope existed. Stranger yet Yet, if there was to be a successor, John, one of the twelve foundation stones, would be the most logical choice.

I realize that we could argue all day long about this…I will let the reading audience decide
Whether or not is has the ‘ring of truth’*

 

[Contarini]

Do you mean that this “inter-dependence” implies that

those in the Catholic Church rely on those we deem separated brethren for dialogue and/or insight… or for authoritative teaching?

Definitely the former.

and
those we deem separated brethren rely on those Catholic Church members for dialogue and/or insight… or for authoritative teaching?

Definitely the former, and in my opinion also to some extent the latter.

I guess that it again comes down to who has insight and who has authority?

I don’t believe that you can separate the two entirely. Truth has its own authority. One of the basic problems with a certain kind of conservative Catholic polemic is that you assume that “authority” is a matter of some ruler handing down pronouncements. This leads some Catholics to go so far as to deny that Scripture or any other text can have authority–which makes a complete mockery of what the word “auctoritas” meant for centuries (where do you think the word “author” came from?). Insight *is *authoritative. However, offices also have authority, and the See of Rome certainly has a certain authority apart from the degree of insight possessed by its incumbent at any one moment (though it’s easy to confuse this, given how insightful the last couple incumbents have been).

Only the Catholic Church can rightly claim both. After all, no other Magisterium, or teaching body, has received its authority from Christ

I don’t think I need to inform you that there is a substantial body of patristic interpretation claiming that Christ’s promise to Peter was given to the Church *as a whole. *

Edwin