The one absolutely irrefutable rhetorical question vs. evangelical protestants

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mschrank

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Catholics and protestants argue about scripture all the time. However, my Absolutely Irrefutable Rhetorical Question ™ isn’t about trying to figure out what any particular bit of scripture means.

Here it is:

The protestant claims that the Bible plainly confirms protestant belief, that protestantism is the faith of the Bible.

It does so in a simple, straightforward way which does not require any interpretative authority (aside from the Holy Spirit, which is said to help every individual believer to figure out right from wrong, which can be wholly determined from scripture).

If this claim is true, then why did it take 1700-1800 years or so for full fledged protestantism to develop?

The question is:

**Why did it take nearly two millenia to discover what is supposed to be the simplest, no-nonsense truth- especially if the Holy Spirit is supposed to guide believers to the truth? **

It’s a contradiction. If Christianity started out simple, and gradually got more and more pagan and more complicated, then protestantism would be historically plausable- but instead, if you look at history what you see in from the early Church to evangelicalism is a kind of push from more intricate forms to simpler forms, a kind of reverse-evolution. If you think people were doing altar calls and passing the grape juice in the 2nd century, you’re wrong.

I fully admit that many Catholic and Orthodox doctrines were not firmly established well into the 8th and 9th centuries. I am not trying to prove that everything in Catholicism can be proved by the Bible. However, nobody discovered any of these ‘truths’ that protestants claim that the Bible plainly tells us for almost 1800 years. If they were that obvious, then why did it take so long for people to figure that out?

Again, I am not addressing this towards proponents of doctines like consubstantion or other small-c catholics like High Anglicans. I’m addressing this question to evangelicals and non-denominationals.
 
The come backs i can think about are:
  1. people couldn’t read
  2. evil Catholics locked up the bible until it was freed in the 1600’s for all to read!
  3. Didn’t protestantism start mainly because of certain practices, such as the selling of indulgences? (most of which have been dealt with by Vatican 2 mind you…)
thoughts?

-revelations
 
mschrank said:
The question is:

**Why did it take nearly two millenia to discover what is supposed to be the simplest, no-nonsense truth- especially if the Holy Spirit is supposed to guide believers to the truth? **
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The question makes a good point, to me anyway, but then I’m Catholic. An Evangelical would probably say that Christ did not intend to start a Church anyway.

It seems to me that if the Holy Spirit allowed things to go wrong that badly and that quickly, then the whole endeavor was a failure. He just wanted to get the Gospel out but what He got was the Catholic Church? A CEO would get fired for that. With a golden parachute, of course.
 
revelations said:
The come backs i can think about are:
  1. people couldn’t read
  2. evil Catholics locked up the bible until it was freed in the 1600’s for all to read!
  3. Didn’t protestantism start mainly because of certain practices, such as the selling of indulgences? (most of which have been dealt with by Vatican 2 mind you…)
thoughts?

-revelations
Click to expand...
Until the Church defined the Canon there was nothing to read or lock up. Contrary to popular Protestant belief, Jesus did not hand out leather bound red-letter editions of the KJV to the disciples as He ascended to the Father.:rolleyes:
 
Marsha_Adams said:
Until the Church defined the Canon there was nothing to read or lock up. Contrary to popular Protestant belief, Jesus did not hand out leather bound red-letter editions of the KJV to the disciples as He ascended to the Father.:rolleyes:
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One does get the impression, though, that many Evangelicals think that Jesus was reading from Matthew 5-7 when He delivered the Sermon on the Mount. 🤷

(The funniest thing was when someone I know criticized Adam for not reading his Bible, to know what would happen when he disobeyed the Lord. :o )
 
JimG said:
It seems to me that if the Holy Spirit allowed things to go wrong that badly and that quickly, then the whole endeavor was a failure. He just wanted to get the Gospel out but what He got was the Catholic Church? A CEO would get fired for that.
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How about the history of Israel then? God’s chosen people were worshiping the golden calf within *weeks *of being delivered from Egypt, and the track record didn’t get much better throughout the OT. In the end most of them even rejected their own Messiah. Is this evidence of God’s ineptitude at running a religion?
 
dacoobob said:
How about the history of Israel then? God’s chosen people were worshiping the golden calf within *weeks *of being delivered from Egypt, and the track record didn’t get much better throughout the OT. In the end most of them even rejected their own Messiah. Is this evidence of God’s ineptitude at running a religion?
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Nope. Rather, this shows how people are in their fallen state.
 
dacoobob said:
How about the history of Israel then? God’s chosen people were worshiping the golden calf within *weeks *of being delivered from Egypt, and the track record didn’t get much better throughout the OT. In the end most of them even rejected their own Messiah. Is this evidence of God’s ineptitude at running a religion?
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No. The Jews survived as a people and as a chosen people for thousands of years, under God’s shepherding. This insignificant nation in worldly terms did preserve God’s word in the Old Covenant and prepared the way for the Messiah.

When the Messiah arrived, not all Jews rejected him. Jesus, of course, was a Jew. So were all the Apostles, and all the first Christians. The first big dispute in the Church was whether non-Jews could also become Christian.

I have even seen some historical articles suggesting that in fact within the first few centuries, many–perhaps most, Palestinian Jews did become Christian.

This tiny nation which wasn’t even a nation for long, ended up being the seedbed of Christianity and of Western Civilization.
 
But wasn’t Moses a prophet, and John supposed to be the last of the prophets, preparing the way for Jesus and the apostles as the final revelation of God’s word?

So, basically, Jesus and the Apostles and those who personally knew them weren’t good enough, and Christianity went into apostasy (golden calf) for 1800 years, until God sent more Prophets?

Lastly, I’m not sure if comparing it to Israel’s history is such a good comparison. Proper worship always existed side by side with paganism and idolatry and worse. The Prophets were supposed to tip the balance towards proper worship by relaying God’s message.

In contrast with the spiritual history of Israel, none of the basic ideas of evangelical protestantism existed in any shape or form during this “apostate” era (from the death of the last apostle to the great awakening). Even Luther believed in many Catholic doctrines in one way or another. These ‘revelations’ simply popped up almost ex nihlo. It sounds a lot more like the sudden appearance of Islam, Mormonism or the JWs.
 
  1. Didn’t protestantism start mainly because of certain practices, such as the selling of indulgences? (most of which have been dealt with by Vatican 2 mind you…)
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thoughts?
Click to expand...
-revelations
Click to expand...
I believe this was handled much earlier than Vatican II. I believe it was handled in the Council of Trent, during the Counter Reformation. This was accomplished by the end of the 1500’s. Not right away, mind you. It was several years after Martin Luther started the Reformation in the early 1500’s.

😉
 
Um, would you buy that between the Church and Civil Rulers most dissent was suppressed and forced underground until in the 16th Century the Church got so greedy that many of the civil rulers, the German Princes, determined they were better off with the money than being bled white by the Pope and his minions and so they supported Luther and brought protestantism out into the light of day and protected it. Follow the money trail, it leads to the facts every time. 😃
 
So you’re saying that an underground Church with beliefs homologous to protestantism existed, but it was pushed underground by the established Church.

Conspiratorial, but an interesting hypothesis, I mean one might be paranoid but it doesn’t mean that one isn’t being watched!

Kinda sounds like the Wicca arguement to me (oldest world religion, but it was suppressed), but I’ll keep an open mind.

So, do any documents or evidence exist for this “underground” protestant Christianity or what?
 
mschrank said:
So, do any documents or evidence exist for this “underground” protestant Christianity or what?
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No. Apparently we tracked down all their writings and burned them all. Without ever finding the people who wrote them. (But somehow we omitted to burn the writings of Nestorius, Arius, and other heretics, even after we put them to death for their heresies.) 🤷
 
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